Friday, March 6/2026

 Half way between our place and our little supermarket is the mukhtar’s office. The mukhtar is an elected official for neighbourhoods or villages, serving as a kind of lesser mayor. So many documents or applications require a mukhtar’s letter confirming status or address. It’s not a full time job but the idea is that he’ll know his neighbourhood.

The one near us works at - and for all we know possibly owns - a garage that seems to be always busy. In it he used to have a bit of an office where he could approve documents and such. However about a year ago the municipality built a nice new office building for him, landscaped it, and put in a little park and children’s playground. 

Then this week we noticed people sitting at tables at the far end of the building and discovered there seems to be a bit of a café, though that may be overstating it. Seems you can order toasted sandwiches and jacket potatoes, and presumably tea. (Interestingly, Türkiye leads the world in tea consumption per capita, citizens averaging 1500 cups annually - followed by Ireland and then the UK). The menu is written on a whiteboard, oddly enough only in English.

Blue Song afternoon. Daphne back from visiting her daughter who is doing an exchange year at a university in Texas. Seems to have seen a great deal of the state and been impressed. Pat’s son is a pilot who normally flies out of Dubai but no flights there now of course so he’s been sent to Muscat in Oman. His family are back in Scotland.

Thursday, March 5/2026

 These are the classic Cyprus days. Cobalt blue Mediterranean. Cloudless blue sky. Marble and limestone mountain peak above. Fragrant scent of the buddleia bush filling the air. 

No blood orange gin at our shop so we live dangerously and try a quince gin instead. Made in Belgium and called Strange Love. Fresh quince with classic juniper and citrus notes. On ice cubes. 

Warm terrace tiles underfoot. Palm fronds feathering in the breeze. In two weeks it will be spring. 

Wednesday,March 4/2026

 

Courtesy Private Eye

Well, it’s an ill war brings no humour, and Cyprus, in a peripheral role, some distance from the genuine tragedy, seems prepared to play its part.

So the government of the Republic (South) has risen to the occasion to send out a “test emergency SMS” to residents at 7pm today. Have no idea what the contents would be because a) We have TRNC (North Cyprus) and UK mobile numbers, and b) the Republic goes to what must be extraordinary lengths to make sure free mobile calls stop at the border. However, seems that there was major confusion, with people reporting receiving the text early, late, or not at all. And our UK/TRNC numbers might have made no difference as one person reported receiving the text on his Dubai but not his Cyprus number. In theory the text went out in both English and Greek, but one man who received it in Greek only said he habitually ignores Greek messages as they are usually scams or irrelevant.

In the event of a genuine and not a test alert, the theory is that those who can are to go to shelters. In fact there are shelters for less than half the population of the Republic, though the Interior Minister said, fairly if testily, that only two countries have shelters that could accommodate the entire population - Israel and Switzerland. Those unable to access shelters are to follow the usual guidelines of staying away from windows, heading to basements and such. Those outdoors are to “enter the nearest building immediately”. Can foresee some level of confusion, not to say conflict, involving home invasions by passing groups of youths.

Though the nearest building bit might be one of the happier alternatives. A separate piece of advice was that “those who find themselves outdoors with no time to seek shelter are urged to lie on the ground, preferably in a pit or a ditch”. (My predictive text has given up - simply unable to imagine what would be suggested). The ditch bit could be for some time as well. The previous paragraph had mentioned heading for the shelter with water, food, radio and torch. Wonder if “pit” was an awkward translation. Don’t frequently pass them on our walks.

There is an app, though, to assist you in finding a bomb shelter. Not perfect, as it seems on examination to include at least one building under construction and some places that were small or filthy - though possibly better than a ditch.

And the North? Apparently there are shelter spots for 200,000. Who knew? 

Tuesday, March 3/2026

 

We’re living in what was once the Persian Empire. And you could say that this empire was late in the history of the region. The Persian Empire lasted from 550 to 330 BCE but there are signs of human habitation in what is now the mountainous area of Iran going back for a hundred thousand years with settlements occurring ten thousand years ago. The fertile basin of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, located in present day Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Türkiye, was the cradle of the ancient Mesopotamian civilisation where grain was harvested and preserved 12,500 years ago. Mesopotamia meaning literally middle of rivers, just as Mediterranean means literally middle of the land. Somehow the translations lose all the romance.

Just beginning to read Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones’s book Persians, “a definitive history of the Persian Empire, the world’s first superpower”.  (Only the Welsh can fit three double L’s into one name). 

And terrace warming up nicely in response to spring. Tiles warm on my bare feet this morning. 

Monday, March 2/2026

 Buddleia on the terrace coming into flower. It’s a pretty colour and does attract butterflies. But have to confess to no great love for it. Related to the lilac but with a scent less powerful and less beautiful. But mainly annoying because the flowers at one end of each spike are visibly dying as those at the other end struggle out. Never anything you’d want to bring inside to enjoy.

But it is a sign of spring. March came in like a lamb yesterday in terms of weather - a warm sunny day for enjoying a read on the terrace with a drink. 

More like a lion in political terms as a projectile, apparently not armed, hit a hanger on the UK Akrotiri base on the southern tip of Cyprus at midnight Sunday and two others headed that direction were intercepted. The UK maintained two sovereign base areas in the country when Cyprus was granted independence by Britain in 1960. As recently as Friday the British government had confirmed that it had withheld permission for the US to use RAF Akrotiri to launch strikes against Iran. But a weekend is a long time in politics. By Sunday Prime Minister Starmer had announced that he had approved a US request to use British bases for the defensive purpose of destroying Iranian missiles “at source in their storage depots or the launches which are used to fire the missiles”. He has, of course, pleased no one. There was already some popular unhappiness among Cypriots about Britain’s allowing US presence on the sovereign bases at all, let alone making them a target, while Trump, never one to waste emotions on gratitude, said British permission had come “too late”.

But today warm and sunny. Vodka tonics overlooking the Mediterranean.

Sunday, March 1/2026

 Hadn’t thought of this poem by Canadian poet AJM Smith in years. Decades more probably. It’s called News of the Phoenix and was published in 1943 - and no, that’s not when I last saw it. But what brought it to mind, of course, was the nature of the reporting of the Iran war. The attacks and deaths that are reported and revised and denied as we evaluate the sources. And no doubt as the sources re-evaluate their own positions. Clearly Prime Minister Starmer would desperately like to be on the same side as Israel and the US, but also on the same side as history. As Lord Peter Ricketts, former head of the UK Foreign Office, warned: “If you’re going to attack a country you have to show it is in self-defence and that there is some kind of imminent threat. You can’t make that case here”.

So the British bases in the Republic of Cyprus have seen increased activity but it is referred to by both the UK and Cyprus as precautionary. On the other hand the UK Defence Secretary’s claim that two missiles fired “in the direction” of Cyprus were intercepted has been flatly denied by President Christodoulides, a politician not normally known for understating threats. 

Meanwhile reasonably consistent rumours have it that Netanyahu’s plane was not given permission to land in Cyprus and settled for Germany instead (presumably en route to New York). Noting that he was required to avoid French and Spanish airspace.

And the title of Patrick Cockburn’s biography of his father, guérilla journalist Claud Cockburn, which we read a year ago, comes to mind. “Believe Nothing Until it is Officially Denied.”

Saturday, February 28/2026

The neighbourhood. Cyprus is the island top left. Haziness presumably meant to portray cloud and not confused identity, though that could apply too. It’s part of Europe by adoption but Middle East by birth.

Not necessarily any more dangerous than any other country. People joke about Iran being foolish enough to put their country in the midst of so many US bases. But truly there are American bases all over the world, well over eight hundred. Quite enough to allow them to forget that declarations of war are supposed to be approved by Congress and the UN and self defence is supposed to be in response to an attack and not the cause of one.