Tonight I was going to leave the office early, get a haircut, go for a walk and do a load of washing. However, I have an mp3 CD containing almost 400 megabytes of music playing on the computer.

Orhan very kindly prepared the CD of my self-selected 80s music list.

The memories… I’m only part of the way through the CD and I hope I’m I can drag my self away from the office before the five or six hours of music finishes.

Musically, I didn’t actually develop my tastes until the 1990s and I’m much more of a 90s person. However, for most of 00s I’ve been away from “civilisation” (for civilisation, read: English-language music variety), only exposed to current pop schlock and the odd hit and memory.

This lack of exposure to non-mainstream English-language music has lead, funnily enough, to a greater appreciation of 80s music. Getting old could also be a factor in this musical change 🙂

On another musical note, Peter, the other Australian in Mersin, has ordered a Creative Zen Micro 5 GB MP3 Player. Once he gets it, I will have a look and see how it goes. For a person whose CD player fell of the fridge and who has a limited selection of CDs in Mersin, an mp3 player with a decent hard disk (5 gb is enough for more than 1,000 songs) looks very attractive.

(An adaptation of the song name currently playing on the computer: Video Killed The Radio Star.)

UPDATE (02:00, 2005/05/12): I haven’t been able to Bust A Move and I’m still here listening to the final moment of the CD. Some of the songs I have’t heard for years.

It has now just finished and I’m off home to bed!

On Sunday work’s employees from both Adana and Mersin convoyed (no hitchhiking) to Findikpinari northwest of Mersin for a picnic.

The barbecued marinated chicken, sucuk (Turkish sausage), onion and green peppers were delicious.

We ate under the shade of a carob tree with spring daisy and poppy flowers, orange orchards, tomato houses, beehives and the odd tortoise providing company.

The ladies posing: (from the left) Ummuhan, Buket, Sebiha and Hatice.

Chef Serkan. Note the three barbecues used.

A lone poppy surrounded by daisies. Under the vegetation in the top right of the photo was a small tortoise.

I have modified the blog template in order to improve the blog. The sidebar is thinner and there are added lines to both the sidebar and in between posts.

I have also added a Bloglet subscription. On the right hand side, under the photo you can add your email address to the box and press the subscribe button. Every day I post you will automatically receive an email with the first line or two of the story and a link. Thank you to Turkish Torque for the idea.

PS: Joe’s Ramblings is best viewed with a Mozilla browser and a 1024×768 or larger screen. Some of the formatting in Internet Explorer browsers and smaller screens is less than optimal.

A few minutes ago I heard a sound similar to a baby hip and shouldering the office glass. I walked over to see the following squashed against the front door:

Some like it kinky…

Whilst in London I had to buy the following:

Thorntons is my late English Great, Great Aunt’s favourite brand of chocolate. The “Turkish Delight” in Australia and the UK is very different to the real stuff and is normally coated in chocolate.

I first met Jeff when he was a trainee teaching English at the Turkish American Association in Adana during the summer of 20012. He is a prolific commentator on Joe’s Ramblings and has now started his own blog at http://jjcary.blogspot.com/ in preparation for his time in the Syria and Jordan this summer. I look forward to reading about his adventures in the upcoming months.

This summer Turkey is hosting possibly its two largest ever “sports” events for the first time ever: soccer’s European Champions League final featuring Liverpool and AC Milan on 25 May and a round of the Formula 1 Grand Prix on 21 August. Both will be held in Istanbul.

I write “sports” in quotation marks because it is very difficult to classify Formula 1 as a sport. Money, politics, cigarette advertising and business seem far more important than competing on a level track. The same could be said for the Champions League, particularly since a club does not need to be a champion to enter (see: Liverpool :-)) and it can favour the losers of the larger leagues more than the champions of the smaller leagues, but that is another story.

I used to take an interest in the grand prix, particularly when a round was formerly held in my old city of Adelaide, Australia. My first year of university, 1995, was also the final year of the Adelaide Grand Prix. The roar of the cars could be heard from the exam room. Rumour has it, “Free As A Bird” the Beatles song was played in public for the first time ever when George Harrison asked a nightclub DJ to play it whilst George was in town for the 1995 grand prix.

The Adelaide Grand Prix was voted the best grand prix of the year several times. Generally, when a venue is the absolute best at an event, it normally keeps that event. However, politics and money got in the way and from 1996 onwards, the grand prix has been held in Melbourne. Not that I give a damn anymore.

As an interesting aside to the Champions League final, the venue, Ataturk Olympic Stadium’s website has links to the following information leaflets:

Pick the odd one out

–

–

–

If you guessed the leaflet to the right, you are correct!

AC Milan (from Milan, Italy) is playing in the final and “Informazioni per il pubblico” is in Italian, so why is the third leaflet “Spanish”?

Despite the politics I hope the grand prix round and Champions League final are both successful and bring great happiness to many Turkish and other people. My tip for the soccer final?

May the best, most entertaining team who dives in the penalty box the least win 🙂

Last Sunday, 1 May, I caught the train to Adana to visit my work’s other office and say hi to Buket along with Liviu, Victor, Thomas and Rifeh at the trainee house.

In the space opposite the train station, a rally was taking place. I recognised DEHAP (the main Kurdish party) banners. A portable police fence surrounded the area. At the back (towards the east) were two groups of riot police, a trailer full of police dogs and several police tanks (yes, just like in the army). I would like to have photographed the different police vehicles and officers to put on the blog, but I did not want to face the risk of interrogation or other fun.

Thankfully, full use of the resources were not required that day.