Thursday, January 28/2010

Our flat faces a little back street. Opposite us a large building housing offices and the little charity shop that supports animal rescue on the ground floor. Above, there is a mixture of flats and offices. This morning a man in business suit comes out onto the balcony across from us and lines up on the railing a small cup of Cypriot coffee, the requisite glass of water to accompany same, and an ashtray.

There are many people smoking outside these days. A smoking ban for restaurants and bars came in January 1st amidst the usual grumbling - though the climate makes outdoor coffee pleasant most of the time. Thus a commentator tells of the man who always sat on the bar stool nearest the window, where he could see the television screen and blow his smoke out the window. As of January 1 he has moved his bar stool just outside the window, from which place he can still see the tv - and blow his smoke in through the window.

The Swedish chanel rebroadcasts Obama's state of the nation address, complete with subtitles. It's a good speech of course - from a speaker who's always excellent - but what fascinates me is the stagecraft, almost choreography. The applause and even standing ovations at the end of every second phrase. It's obviously the convention, and of course the Republicans aren't cheering, but the co-ordinated bursts of enthusiasm are so utterly foreign to either Canadian or British mentality that they'd be impossible to organise. Maybe in the Middle East.

Wednesday, January 27/2010

Maggi over in the evening for a drink and a game of Scrabble. Just like old times.

Tuesday, January 26/2010

Recovery of bodies continues from the Ethiopian plane that crashed shortly after take off from Beirut. Dismissing terrorism, spokespeople all point to the fact that the plane - which went down in a ball of fire, breaking up before it hit the sea - took off in a bad storm. A probable lightning hit is mentioned. This is disturbing with regard to other flights - are lightning hits frequent and should all planes be grounded during electrical storms? And if it isn't highly hazardous to fly through thunder storms, why is everyone so certain it was ligntning and not an explosion?

A young drunk comes into the student internet, first identifiable by scent. There's a free computer next to mine and he pulls up a chair, talking first to the man on the other side and then to himself. Briefly he puts his head down on his arms and appears to sleep - then stumbles out.

Monday, January 25/2010

The Finns have created a new human right - to the internet. They have guaranteed to bring high speed broadband to every household in a country with fairly low population density. Canada please note.

Sunday, January 24/2010

Rainyish day - well, January is when the little rain that cyprus gets does fall. So reading and telly. We're now reading Julian Rathbone's A Very English Agent. Spy fiction set in the early 19th century. Well researched and as interesting for the social background as the narrative.

The Doha Debates are on BBC World tv in the afternoon. Today's resolution: the present government in Afghanistan is not worth fighting for. (Resolution passes 51:49). The Doha debates are mainly impressive for the caliber of the debaaters they are able to attract - high level UN representatives, ambassadors, MPs, etc.

In the evening we watch a french film on Dubai television - a good film and, interestingly, subtitled in both Arabic and English. Film punctuated by loud singing outside as groups (of sports fans?) return home. It occurs to us that public singing is virtualy never heard in Canada any more - we pay people or electronic devices to do our singing for us.

Saturday, January 23/2010

Gloriously sunny at our market coffee spot, though the night rain still spots the table and chairs til they're wiped. Quite bus this morning as everyone seems to emerge from the past showers into the sunlight.

In the evening M&M come over for supper - fish chowder.

Friday, January 22/2010

The news of the day is that a woman has been arrested and accused of the recent killing of the head of the Sigma television station and various other media enterprises. The theory is that she hired the hitmen who actually did the deed as an act of revenge. It seems she had been a tv presenter at Sigma and had been sacked by the boss - the murder victim. It's hard to know which is the more astonishing - that an ordinary person should wish to hire contract killers (and for such a trivial reason as having been fired) or that she should have the money and the contacts to do so.

Thursday, January 21/2010

The censorship program on the student internet computers functions like an old nanny who is well-meaning but hopelessly out of touch. Thus keeping track of world currencies - or things that affect them, like the price of crude oil - is made more difficult as I am protected from (shudder) "investment" and many of the world's most reputable newspapers are banned because they contain sports news.

This morning I have a few extra minutes and decide to look up one of my ancestors - Hannah Odell, born 1798 - to see if I can spot any new information. One site looks possible but turns out to be forbidden. Grounds cited: match making.

The English news is not on the cypriot government television station when I check. The television station has a nightly English language news broadcast lasting less than ten minutes. Tonight it is displaced by a tennis match from Australia featuring cyprus's beloved Marcos Baghdatis - obviously a replay as it's the middle of the night in Australia. Baghdatis is pretty likeable, and a good player, heavily supported by fans who, J points out, are carrying far more Greek flags than cypriot. Eventually replay ends and news follows. cypriots with video recorders suffer much more than we do from the frequent unannounced program changes - shows occasionally starting earlier than scheduled as well as later.

Wednesday, January 20/2010

Malcolm's eagerly awaited 12th birthday - eight time zones away.

Buying toothpaste at Elomas, we check out the various teas - including a herbal one called cinnamon and gloves. Outside Elomas there is a small free English language magazine - mostly advertising - called Larnaca News. Not much content, but a small news item mentions the fact there was, on the morning of December 22, an earthquake measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale. And we remember waking early in the morning and being aware that the building was trembling - slightly but unmistakeable, and more than momentarily.

Tuesday, January 19/2010

There's nearly 3 inches of water in the red bucket when we get up in the morning. The ceiling in our top floor flat leaks in the same spot as last year and began doing so last night in the downpour. Far from being distressed, we had positively welcomed the leak, remembering that last year we acquired a shiny new red plastic bucket to catch the drips - and that it made an excellent washtub later for handwashes, bigger and more convenient than the kitchen sink. This bucket, though, is a grubby mop pail, fit for catching drips but not for clean clothes. But the rain has stopped so it should soon be gone. Maggi quips "life's tough at the top."

Finish reading Good and Faithful Servant - unauthorised biography of Maggi Thatcher's press secretary. Quite an interesting study of how a neutral civil service job became an instrument for pushing Thatcher's personal views - and sometimes even the press secretary's own views , even when they were not shared by cabinet. Also an early but notable step in the vesting of authority in unelected advisors rather than cabinet - now of course standard practice whether in tory Canada or New Labour UK.

Maggi's text re the sheep's head she ate at lunch in Nicosia: the eyeball was surprisingly tasty. J shudders and says he's glad he heard after he had finished eating.

Monday, January 18/2010

Umbrella day. The worst of rain in Cyprus - or Larnaca at least - is that there is nowhere for the rain to go except in sheets down the pavements and deep puddles at the corners. The country is chronically short of water but a shocking amount of the rainfall is simply taken down to the sea in the storm sewers. The problem is coompounded by Cypriot drivers, many of whom are pedestrian blind and feel compelled to race up to the intersection spraying widely before waiting for a light to change. So a ten block walk is a minor obstacle course, dodging gutter hoses jetting onto the sidewalks, jumping metre wide puddles and aiming for the least flooded paving stone in a passage. A fair workout.

Sunday, January 17/2010

Warm, but windy and sunless. With the weather report the explanation emerges - the sky is full of dust blown north from the Sahara Desert, so the sun is mostly invisible - occasionaly seen in faint outline - and those with breathing difficulties are told to stay inside.

Saturday, January 16/2010

Meet M&M at the market for coffee. It rained a little in the night, so the chairs need a wipe down, but it's sun and warmth now. And all the colour of market stalls. We only need eggs - seldom bought more than 6 at a time here, as they should be fresh. We wait our turn for the eggs, watching as the green olives in a bucket are mixed with slivers of garlic, oil and lemon juice. J manages to get one to taste before the lot are scooped into a plastic bag for the enthusiastic purchaser. It's hard to walk past the fresh fruit and vegetables and herbs without discovering things that we need - so broccoli spears and carrots by the time we leave - though we're passing everything from shiny blue-black aubergines to an enormous round of halvah.

Meet Berndt and Britta on the way back. They're now happily ensconced in the remodelled - and repriced - Eleonora. Britta speaks no English, but her fingers quickly simulate bugs crawling as Berndt remembers that he last saw us as we were looking for an alternative after our disastrous introduction to the Frangiorgio. We say we like the Kition, but then everyone sighs as we think of it's being torn down.

Friday, January 15/2010

Stop at MTN, the mobile phone place to buy a €10 top up card. Referred by person A to person B and then back again. Much shuffling about, rifling through desk drawers, etc. Small red metal box containing cards opened with key, then abandoned for search of back room. return to re-examine contents of red box. Finally I receive a card - which turns out to be a €20 top up. I point out the error. Don't worry about it, he says.

Maggi texts at noon to say they're driving up to Pyla, the mixed Greek and Turkish village just south of the border to have an Efes (Turkish beer) - would we like to come? So out along the dhekelia Road and north, then inland, to Pyla. On a whim, Maggi suggests we leave the car at the border and walk over to the Turkish village on the other side. There we stop on the main street and share two Efes, as men help us find chairs at the little plastic outdoor table. The sun makes a weak appearance, so it's just warm enough. Maggi buys six Efes to take back and J has a brief chat with a man selling sacks of potatoes by a huge fragrant rose bush. Does he think things will be better now with the Greeks? He does, but doesn't have the vocabulary to elaborate. At the border M compliments the young Turkish officer on his aftershave, to his embarrassment, and we tease her about having discovered a technique for bringing things through customs.

Thursday, January 14/2010

The day starts with rain and before my eyes are open I can hear that the cars on the streets are driving through puddles. It continues intermittently through the day, though it's not cold. M&M stop fo tea on their way out for groceries.

Wednesday, January 13/2010

Wake to news of Haiti's earthquake - and like the tsunami of five years ago, the news only gets more horrific as the day goes on.

Pick up the price sheet on mobile phone charges. The cost of sending a text is 2 cents EU (or 3 cents Canadian) - more or less nothing, on the basic pay as you go card. And nothing at all, of course, to receive texts. Canadians overpay so badly.

Notice on the dubai chanel advising watchers that it is time for Dhur Prayer - one of the five prayers of the Moslem day, regulated by the sun. There is, however, no prayerful break in regular programming, which continues as usual, diverting the faithful. J says this is a shift from their earlier practice of providing Moslem prayer interludes.

Tuesday, January 12/2010

Walk down to Smart, Elomas and Carrefour, starting off past the huge Nicolaides City building that was under construction all last winter. It's finished now, but not very full. J peeks in and says that the ground floor offices don't seem very populated. Certainly there is no sign at all of occupation on most of the higher storeys - 12 plus a penthouse above the ground floor. Is it a symbol of a breaking construction bubble?

Elomas has had less and less of interest as it has moved increasingly to frozen food, but we see a new acquisition - bottles of Spanish wine at €1.19 ($1.80 CAD, £1.10 GBP). Later proves to be young and undistinguished, but perfectly drinkable.

Monday, January 11/2010

J observes the body language as the traffic police pull overlocal motorists in presumably random road checks - smiles, handshakes, pats on the arm, chit chat. It's no wonder that tickets go disproportionately to the tourists.



The weather forecast for tomorrow shows some clouding over with possible showers in parts of the island, which could probably use the rainfall as water reserves are a perennial problem here. BBC's international weather map shows the same predicted high for Winnipeg and Atlanta tomorrow - three degrees.



Pride and Prejudice finished. Our copy made rather difficult reading as it had been previously owned by a student of diligent habits but no especial insight. Thus each page features much underlining as well as extensive highlighting in a variety of garish colours, some of them remarkably difficult to read through. All this accoompanied by the most obvious of commentary in a childishly rounded hand. Not, unfortunately, a book in good enough shape to donate to the charity shop.

Sunday, January 10/2010

Katy's birthday. The only downside to winter travel is how far away we are from family - but the grandchildren live in three different directions and the nearest of them 600 miles away, so visits would never be winter anyway.

Sunday treats of brunch with the Cypriot smoked tenderloin best done by J's favourite butcher - no doubt all the health hazards of any cured meat, but a little of this carries a lot of flavour. And the Sunday Cyprus Mail, complete with radio and telly guide and puzzles - though J grumbles that the actual content is pretty thin.

Saturday, January 9/2010

Market day and unseasonably warm - but we meet a bit early for beer. there is a treat in store though, as Maggi invites us back for lunch - beautiful oven-cooked lamb which she collects from her favourite take-away spot. Leisurely lunch and then walk along the beach as far as the barrier where the airport land begins. The beach is much sandier here than the main beach in town - a proper holiday beach, but nearly deserted as it's off-season. In the distance we can see the little dragon-shaped fishing boats. Above, planes take offf from the airport and we try to identify the airlines. Then walk home along the seafront.