Sisters are Doing it for Themselves

I’ve never really got futbol. In my experience, few gay people do. Having said that, there is a Gay Football Supporters Network and London has its very own gay-friendly team, the London Titans, who play serious soccer in local leagues. So what do I know? Perhaps times are changing and the sport is finally shedding its well-trodden racist, sexist and homophobic image. I suspect the jury's still out on that one. In any case, it's too late for me. I'm set in my gay ways. The only football game I’ve ever attended was when I popped along with my sister to watch my young nephew captain his little league team in a local park. My usually calm and matriarchal sibling was transformed into a screaming harridan. Such is the intoxicating power of the beautiful game.

England gave football to the world then ruined it by exporting hooliganism. The tribal thuggery that afflicted the English game in the 80s and 90s has largely died out but is still alive and kicking in many other corners of the world. Fenerbahçe, one of Turkey’s top soccer teams, had a bit of bother with their own fans of late. Rather than play their matches behind locked gates, they decided to punish their unruly supporters by filling their stadium with women and children only. Men were persona non grata. It was a rip-roaring success that hit the headlines. The ladies electrified the good humoured ambience as they partied in the stands, sang, chanted, waved and danced. They knew all the words and all the moves. Was this a just a cynical gimmick to attract positive PR or a genuine attempt to keep the bad boys at bay and let the ladies shine? Who knows? Still, women are invading the pitch all over the world these days with their own local and national teams. Are Turkish women finally coming out of the kitchen and doing it for themselves? I do hope so. Go girls!



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We're All Mongrels Really

I was relaxing in Kahve Dünyası (Coffee World) enjoying a sütlü Americano under the welcome shade of an enormous parasol. It can be difficult to attract the attention of the waiters there. When you do, it’s better to speak in English than poorly pronounced Turkish as the lofty boys usually feign selective deafness. However, this minor irritant is worth it for the superior brew and the only place in town where a decent croissant is to be had (in fact a croissant of any sort, come to that). The complementary chocolate spoon on the side is a nice touch as well. It was Ramazan though you would hardly have known it from the chattering classes around me, sipping coffee and gorging on gossip. The café is a prime location to people watch. The marina side of town is almost exclusively populated by visiting Turks. This is where the well-heeled come to get well-oiled and the young come to party. I studied the steady stream of strollers; all ages and all types gently ambled by.

As I watched, I wondered if there was such a thing as a typical Turkish type, akin to an English rose, Celtic redhead or blond Swede. What hit me was the rich diversity of Turks, a veritable United Nations of a people, from ginger to dusky, European to oriental. It was silly of me to be surprised. Anatolia has been the crossroad of civilisations for millennia - settled, abandoned, won and lost countless times. Each phase of Anatolian history has left its DNA on the population, from the recently discovered 12,000 year old settlement at Göbekli Tepe in the East to the British yabancı marrying into the fold, and everything else in between.

No nation is racially pure. History teaches us that the invasions and migrations of the past rarely replaced the existing populations entirely. Ethnic cleansing is a modern invention. When the Germanic Angles, Saxons and Jutes settled in what was to become England, they replaced the Celtic elite, displaced some and bred with the rest. The same phenomenon occurred during the Scandinavian invasions right across the British Isles. Dublin was founded by the Vikings. Yes, there was a bit of raping and pillaging but much less than comic books suggest. The process has been going on ever since. The truth is, we’re all mongrels really. I was left with the impression that to be Turkish is a state of mind, not a state of body.

As I pondered this question I completely forgot about the chocolate spoon that had melted all over my saucer and around the base of my coffee cup. A concerned waiter rushed over with extra serviettes and helped me clean up the gooey brown mess. Perhaps the waiters at Kahve Dünyası aren’t so bad after all.

More on Perking the Pansies a comical narrative of expat life.

Painting the Town Pink

Gümbet is something else – Blackpool with a Turkish tan. I vowed after our last visit that I’d rather watch paint dry than spend another night there, but it does have one small enticement – a gay bar – a bone fide watering hole for happy homosexuals. It took us a while to find Murphy’s Gay Clup (sic). Presumably it was an Oirish theme pub in a previous existence. It was hidden along a sad little side street off the main drag, and we entered the place with apprehension, anticipating the heady aroma of tinsel and testosterone. We found a half decent, half-filled bar, populated mostly with young fey after work Turks huddled in camp conclave, a few off-duty taxi drivers twiddling with their tashes and the odd bemused bi-curious tourist in search of furtive titillation. Liam couldn’t stop giggling at some of the punters. It reminded me of  London in the seventies.  At least we didn’t have to knock on the door to gain entry. We stayed awhile and yes, it was kinda fun in a retro kinda way.

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All Work and No Play...

…makes Jack a dull boy. What kind of mad masochist tries to write a book in 40 plus heat? What kind of fool loses a glorious summer to the written word unless it’s Driving Over Lemons around a cool pool with a G&T, ice and a slice? That fool is me. My work is done. Well, at least the latest re-draft is. You may be surprised how different it is from the blog. It’s our full story, warts and all. Now, it’s over to my in-house editor Liam to use his big red pen to correct my flabby grammar, revise my pitiful punctuation and enrich my penniless plot. Tearing my minor masterpiece to shreads may be done with the best of intentions but I fear a few creative skirmishes along the way.

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Remembering 9/11

You’d have to be in a coma or living in the rainforest of Papua New Guinea not to know it’s the 10^th anniversary of 9/11. There are a number of momentous events that have characterised modern history and changed our world forever - Waterloo, the Great War, the Great Depression, Pearl Harbor, the Holocaust, Stalingrad, Hiroshima and then the Twin Towers. These events define the age. Almost all involved brutality and slaughter – man’s inhumanity to man. Few will forget that fateful day. Most can remember where they were and what they were doing. I know I can. I watched in silent horror. This changes everything, I thought with typically restrained British understatement. The Cold War may be over but a new ideological conflict was about to start in deadly earnest.

Not since January 1815 when 1,500 British troops attacked a thinly defended American battery on Georgia's coast* has any foreigner attacked the American mainland. To be sure there had been terrorist atrocities before but the scale of the aerial strikes on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon were of an entirely different order using two of the most potent symbols of western technological supremacy - the passenger jet and the skyscraper. It’s made America jittery and defensive. Moslems across the West are vilified as the new reds under the bed and the loose talk of jihad and crusades makes our fragile and fractious world an infinitely more dangerous place. Be afraid.

*The British then proceeded to sack the nearby town of St. Mary's and burn its fort before departing just weeks later. The hostilities marked the last invasion and occupation of the U.S. mainland by foreign troops. The fighting was all the more remarkable because the War of 1812 (when the British tried to burn down the White House) had ended a month earlier with the Treaty of Ghent. By the time the invaders pulled out, even Andrew Jackson's victory over the British at New Orleans - often considered the final battle of the war - was history. It had taken a month for word of peace to make its way across the Atlantic to both British and American forces.

Source: The Archaeological Institute of America

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No Arab Spring for Syria

No Arab Spring for Syria

I came across the blog of a young gay Syrian called Sami. He writes with great courage and eloquence about his plight as gay man in an Arab state and his profound worry about his family as the Assad regime continues its march of murderous oppression. At first I was a little suspicious after the hoax blog by a Syrian lesbian that turned out to be an American writer living in Scotland. Now I’m convinced it’s genuine. As with the entire Arab world, being gay in Syria is illegal and punishment is severe. Of course man on man action is virtually obligatory as access to the fairer sex is restricted before marriage, and sheep are hard to find in Damascus. Boys will be boys after all. Just don’t say gay. Well, at least they don’t string them up like they do in Saudi Arabia and non-Arab Iran so that’s alright then. Gay rights are human rights and humans rights are thin on the ground for anyone in Syria right now.

Sami writes:

The regime is still killing in Hama – yesterday they started assassinating doctors to increase fatalities. They are slowly killing my nephew, and killing me in the process. The only image that is in my mind now is of his smile when he calls my name and says, ‘You draw a cat, I draw a dog’. Syrian Gay Guy

I posted a few words of support on Sami’s blog. It was the least I could do. It’s a small, small thing I did as we watch the body count grow.

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