Deadheads Riot

The insane antics of the current government of Cyprus have recently been at fever pitch.

One example was when they decided that Britain's Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, had no business going around town calling on people in the alleged North who flew pseudoflags. Mind bending, ain't it?

Yes, a huge stink was made of foreign dignitairies visiting the Turkish Cypriot leader at his office recently. But the problem was not the office but the flag of the the pseudostate propped up therein. And, by its mere presence, the flag in question elevated the building in which it was housed to nothing less than presidential stature.

Status...pseudopresidential...alleged flag...Hard Drive Crash imminent. Aarrrggghhh...help...

This, the government and its rabble of supporters claimed, would be tantamount to recognizing the breakaway statelet. The fact that everyone and his political dog had visited the very same office (referred to by the folks of El Norte as their "presidential palace") was deemed immaterial.

Anyway, effigies were gathered and burned and Straw's cavalcade was pelted by pariotic eggs. On the upside; Cyprus made the news. It was a slow day.

The whole affair was pretty sad. It did get me ranting however and I did post my thoughts on the matter. It was all quite convoluted, however so I deleted the offending blog entry.

But I could not bring myself round to deleteng the comment and accompanying translation that went with it. The comment was posted in Gringlish.

Comment from "Anonymous":

"Koumpare Noulli, egiw ev tzie pollo katalava inta mpou laleis, amma touton ton Stro egiw enna to kamw na men ikseri potten irten HA!!... Akou mou na paennee potzei va dei to Ttalat mesto pseftoproedrikon tous, pale kala pou en proedros o Kyrios Tassos o ethnarxhs mas tze shiettanefkete toutes tes ponirkes tous ppoushtoenglezous diaforetika ishe na mas tin katsoun koumpare Noulli..."

Liberal translation:

"Dear my best man, Noullis. I did not quite get the drift of your musings. However I am quite miffed with this Straw character. It's alarming that Straw plans to visit a place that does not, strictly speaking, exist. My only consolation is that our leader [and ethnarch] Mr Tassos was smart enough to figure out the shenanigans and scheming ways of our otherwise beloved [albeit misunderstood] brits.
Had he not, we would all have been asked to take a seat"

Seven Ten[ths]

Whenever I'm working late and need to take a break I like to choose something that'll get me going again. You know, nothing placid or lulling. No, I need something that'll simply prove that I can put an end to the suffering by getting back to work.

My saviour? CyBC SAT over Real player. Decent bit rate, streaming at 220 Kbps. Tuned in crisp and clear to watch "Epta Deka" Which is the morning show; Seven Ten. Yeah, transmission time.

The latest gems were a bit of yadda yadda, club scene in Athens, yadda yadda and some Eurovision song contest banter. All very tangential, to be followed by the best ever quotes of the show on Friday morning:

He person:

"...and it seems the Americans want to emulate Eurovision"

[he meant the song contest]

"...and they're going to have a contest with entries from all 50 states, yeah like we have all those counbtries compete in Eurovision, and the contestants will be big names, and the winners will get to release a record, yeah, yadda yadda"

I could feel I needed less of a break at this point in time.

I know Cyprus is the centre of the universe. The freaking arfali, re gamoto. Yeah, and we're European and the goddamn eurovision dittyfest is the cultural highlight of the year. But what's all this tripe about the US ripping off the Eurovision contest konzept (many countries represented by tedious bleating) by organizing "one of their own" as the young buck told us?

"Yeah" the she presenter retorted, "they just have to emulate us, don't they".

Isn't it apt that all this is streaming over the Internet via Real player.

It then suddenly dawned on me. that the programme's title was simply a double entendre. Water makes up Seven 10ths of our planet. Hence 7 TEN. Yeah, 7/10ths on the brain, that is.

Thank you CyBC