In Australia this joke went around during the time of the 1998 World Cup in the USA when Greece didn’t score a goal:

Q: Why didn’t Greece score any goals?

A: Because every time they got a corner they set up a fish and chips shop!

In Australia Greeks run many ‘fish and chips’ shops.

With the Euro2004 results, the joke is certainly redundant. The following joke is much more relevant:

Saddam’s Trial

The good news is Saddam Hussein is facing the death penalty ……

The bad news is David Beckham is taking it !!

The past week was very busy at work. Many students, including the summer school group to Britain, are leaving for their education and the office is chaotic. From Monday onwards things should calm down and I will finally send the emails I’ve been meaning to send.

Fireworks

Most nights, it seems, I can hear and see short bursts of fireworks from my apartment balcony. The fireworks blast away from the coast in different places – the Hilton, the Tennis Club, the Sporting Club, the military base or others. They are formal fireworks displays, not private, random fireworks. Sometimes the noise produced is enough to set off car alarms.

On both Thursday and Friday nights the fireworks reared their beautiful heads again. Thursday’s display was the best I recall seeing in Mersin and one of my best ever witnessed, both in amount and variety. Not quite up with Tunarama, Port Lincoln, 1994(?) or Prague, New Year’s Eve 2001-2, but still very good. I do not know for whom the fireworks display was for but they came from the vicinity of the military base.

A few of the fireworks exploded as particular shapes, something I had not witnessed previously in Mersin. Some were flowers whilst others looked like miss-shaped hearts. The combined sky-lighting and noise-creation entertainment eventually stopped and I walked back downstairs from the roof to watch the remainder of the Greece-Netherlands Euro2004 semi-final.

Update [2004/07/06]: On Sunday I spoke with the Australian manager of the Mersin Hilton. She told me the firework displays are largely for weddings and graduations and Thursday’s display was for the Economics Department at Mersin University.

Addendum [2004/08/22]: I can now confirm that the firework’s display mentioned above was in fact for the Mersin Chamber of Shipping (Mersin Deniz Ticareti) and not the Mersin University Economics Department. The July Chamber magazine attests to this.

Euro2004

Some weeks ago Matthias suggested I write a post on the reaction to Euro2004 soccer championships in Turkey, particularly since Turkey did not qualify. Since then I’ve been planning to write about it, but haven’t managed to do so as other, timelier, events have occurred.

As almost all people in Europe and many people in the rest of the world know, Greece will play Portugal on Sunday for the right to be called European champions. A lesser-known fact is that the Olympic diving championships were moved forward from Athens and will now also take place at the same venue and time. Yes, I don’t like how almost all teams bordering the Mediterranean (including Turkey) dive whenever they think it will give them an advantage.

All the Euro2004 games are shown live on the government television channel TRT1 (and TRT2, when 2 games were played at one time). There is a high level of interest in the tournament and I wouldn’t be surprised if the games win the TV ratings. Of course the level of interest would be far higher if Turkey was playing. The World Cup in 2002 was just unreal.

From my observations, there were not any particular teams Turkish people favoured or disliked. Perhaps Latvia was the team least favoured because they knocked Turkey out of the qualifying. In contrast to what foreigners may think, almost all Turkish people do not hate Greeks or Greece and I’m sure many will be supporting Greece (as neighbours) against Portugal. Personally, I also favour the Greeks, as I believe the Portuguese have had 12 men playing for them so far in the tournament (if you know what I mean). (((Shhh! Don’t tell Maria C I’m not supporting Portugal!)))

Update [2004/07/06]: I’m sure all who have a vague interest know Greece won Euro2004 1-0. As I was very tired I only watched the first half and I missed out on the pitch invader and Ronaldo crying.

Recently I have received a few spams with a new trick to get passed the spam detectors: including jokes after the selling point.

Some of the jokes are quite funny, too!

——– Original Message ——–

Subject: Yit Now Open…..

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:49:10 +0300

From: waldo krumbholz

To: luther caballero

collonium comphi corewidth

0n|ine Pharm

You can now order V.i`c`odin, V_a|ium, X.a.nax securely and discreetly.

We make it easier and faster than ever to get the prescriptions you need

.. (Pls go we^bsite to qu-it if you don’t want this)

L U http://ugnf.info.splashboy.com/abc/big/

One day little Johnny went to his father, and asked him if he could buy him

a $200 bicycle for his birthday.Johnny’s father said, “Johnny, we have a

$80,000 mortgage on the house, and you want me to buy you a bicycle? Wait

until Christmas.”Christmas came around, and Johnny asked again. The father

said, “Well, the mortgage is still extremely high, sorry about that. Ask me

again some other time.”Well, about two days later, the boy was seen walking

out of the house with all his belongings in a suitcase. The father felt

sorry for him, and asked him why he was leaving.The boy said, “Yesterday I

was walking past your room, and I heard you say that you were pulling out,

and mommy said that you should wait because she was coming too.”And I’ll be

DAMNED if I get stuck with an $80,000 mortgage!”

A guy walks into a post office one day to see a very well-dressed,

middle-aged, balding man standing at the counter methodically placing “Love”

stamps on a huge stack of bright pink envelopes. Each envelope has hearts

all over it. The man then takes out a perfume bottle and starts spraying

scent all over them. His curiosity getting the better of him, he goes up to

the balding man and asks him what he is doing. The man says “I’m sending out

1,000 Valentines cards signed, ‘Guess who?'” “But why?” asks the man. “I’m a

divorce lawyer,” the man replies.

uchuurek2sinrifu08pop,bunsanga boryu-mu.

—————————————————

Related post: here

Yesterday my ‘tercuman’ (translator, also my boss) and I visited the Mersin courthouse 3 times for ‘electricity‘ issue.

We were told to arrive at 8:30 in the morning. After waiting around for a while we were told to come back at 11 am. At 11 it was the same story and we were told to return after 1 pm.

Finally, we entered the courtroom. The court was probably a small administrative claims type court, if such a thing exists.

The courtroom was cluttered with many stacks of files in various, seemingly random, locations.

Besides my translator and I there were up to 5 other people in the room. The judge sat elevated behind a table at the front of the room. To his right (‘stage left’) was an assistant. In front of the judge was a typist recording the spoken case details onto a computer.

To the left (‘stage right’) of the judge was a lawyer (I guess) who did not seem to have an active role and rocked up halfway through. I (‘the accused’) stood in the middle of a 3-sided ‘fence’ rising about 130 cm from the ground. Only the back was open.

My translator stood to my left, slightly towards the rear and a lawyer sat to his left. I believe this last lawyer was there in case each case’s defence wanted a lawyer but did not have one. We declined to request a lawyer. Both of the lawyers and the judge were wearing a gown of some sort.

Things dragged on for a while. This court sitting seemed to only be a preliminary hearing. The TEDAS expert was not there so the case was adjourned to October and we were free to leave the courthouse complex for the 3rd and final time that day.

In summary, from what I understand, the electricity meter for my apartment was allegedly tampered to reduce the recorded electricity use. I knew nothing about this and was shocked when this was discovered. My electricity bills were already high when compared to other apartments and their number of occupants. The supplier turned off the electricity supply to my apartment until the estimated amount owed was paid.

Since the court case is in progress, I don’t want to go into much further detail. However, I am very confident that no further action will be taken against me.

Electricity theft is a huge racket in Turkey and the current government has rightfully cracked down on this.

Some basic information about Turkey’s electricity industry.

For the last 3 or 4 songs of Tarkan’s concert on Sunday night I walked around the vicinity of the venue. The concert was held on a dirt soccer pitch next to the main Mersin stadium and across the river from work.

The stage was huge with the speaker stacks to the left and right lifted up by cranes. A giant screen or two allowed the ladies to examine Tarkan’s hairstyle and clothing up close.

From my count, there were 9 semi trailers and 3 tour buses patiently waiting behind the stage to take the stage and crew to the next concert destination.

The petrol company and Koc subsidiary Opet are sponsoring Tarkan’s “Full Force” concert tour with Full Force being an Opet brand name. The Full Force banners were, dare I say it, in full force around the concert perimeter. When people bought 60 million TL of petrol at Opet service stations they received a free ticket. Commercialisation of Turkish music is quite common and it seems there is no such thing as ‘selling out’.

With the petrol/ticket offer and the low price of 15 million TL for tickets bought separately it was no surprise Tarkan fans completely filled the pitch. The fans were largely female of course. I don’t know if his female ‘worshippers’ realise Tarkan ‘plays for the other side’, so to speak.

Fans were also watching from the top of the stadium stand, the upper-level apartment balconies, across the river and on the bridge behind the stage. Across the river near the military base there were hundreds of people. One of the soldiers standing at guard was even jiving his hips.

More police than a NATO summit (well, not quite) surrounded the concert. The riverbank closest to the concert was blocked off to all but police and a selected few children. I guess those children were their sons and daughters!

The concert covered the usual hits and I could recognise (but not name) most of the songs. Tarkan’s latest single ‘Gunduz Gece’ is a cover of a Turkish classic. I guess his svengalis found it difficult to produce another original hit.

At various times pyrotechnics, glitter and fancy lighting decorated the stage.

The second encore completed the concert. Shortly afterwards two vans sped from the backstage area and a few minutes later a white sedan cruised away. I guess Tarkan was in one of these vehicles. I’m sure his management have the after concert escape sequence well and truly proficient by now after several years of practice.

The shops near the stadium sold record amounts of drinks and associated products. Huseyin abi’s shop sold out of small bottles of water and certain brands of cigarettes and nearly finished off the cans of coke.

That was the Tarkan experience. I have now seen Turkey’s most famous living human in person. I will let you guess Turkey’s most famous dead person… I don’t plan on seeing him, well, at least for several decades!

A week or so back I added the ‘Meme Tracker’ to the bottom of the sidebar. The Meme Tracker tracks the Google search terms used by people to find my website.

One of the recent search terms used was ‘marijuana’ ‘in’ ‘turkey’. It turns out this website is currently ranked 1st out of almost 65,000 matches for this set of search terms.

For those who want to know, I’m sorry but I can’t help you look for marijuana in Turkey proper, only in cyberspace.

On an unrelated matter, tomorrow I will write my observations from outside the Tarkan concert Sunday night.

I am writing about the kebabs as promised previously, whilst the the music from Tarkan’s support act (some cover group) is in the background.

On Thursday I received a telephone call from Hakan. He informed me the AIESEC Adana summer tour was starting tomorrow and asked if I wanted to join. The tour was to visit Adana on the first day followed by Sanliurfa and Mt Nemrut.

Because of the very short notice I could only go the first day. Besides, I had already visited Urfa and Nemrut previously. I was mainly interested in meeting and having fun with the trainees AIESECers.

After taking the train, I first chatted with Buket at work’s Adana office.

The Adana part of the tour involved Ataturk House, the Omer Sabanci Cultural Centre, the Sabanci Mosque, Adana kebab for dinner and the evening at ‘Flame’ nightclub.

As an old trainee and one who had lived in Turkey for a few years, Murat asked me to give a few speeches to the entourage that mainly consisted of foreign trainees. At Ataturk House I spoke about Ataturk and at the restaurant the subject was Adana kebab. My last words were “Kebab is Adana and Adana is kebab”. One AIESECer in the nightclub actually asked if I was a guide- very flattering!

At the nightclub a full boat race (drinking game) actually occurred. This is the only time I recall a boat race competition reaching a conclusion. It was nowhere near as professional as at Australian AIESEC events but it was fun anyway. My team was knocked out in the first round.

That night or, more accurately, that morning, we stayed in dormitories, men and women in separate complexes in different neighbourhoods. At 6:30 am I woke up and left for Mersin.

The highlights of Adana were meeting the trainees and AIESECers. It is great to mix with a group of young people from many different parts of the world. I met and chatted with many people including Aaron from Sweden. Just last week he was at a meeting with Loz. It’s a small world!

On Saturday my boss was generous enough to shout me lunch. He took me to ‘Devekusu Doner’ restaurant, literally, ‘Ostrich Doner’.

There we both ate Devekusu Iskender. This consisted of sliced ostrich doner meat on pide bread with yoghurt and fresh tomato on the side.

The ostrich was delicious and tasted slightly different to anything I have eaten before. I will go back again in the future. That is if the restaurant is still around. Restaurants with different or exotic food don’t often last very long in Mersin as the locals are usually fussy when it comes to non-Turkish tastes.

To top my Saturday off, after lunch I shook hands with the Mayor of Mersin. He was visiting the office to discuss his son’s foreign education.

See related entry.

The most famous/infamous person in the world arrived in Istanbul, Turkey’s most famous entertainer (most famous living person?), Tarkan, is about to start a concert 200 metres away and the oil-wrestling in Edirne was on TV today.