History repeats itself…

…they say and it’s true for individuals, families as much as it is true for nations and the world. But why is it that it’s always the bad, stupid stuff that gets repeated and the good stuff has to be built anew over and over again?!

Why is it that everyone knows this and no one does anything?

Why is it that we don’t learn from our and others’ mistakes?

Why is it that even though we fail over and over again, we still think we know the best?

In fact, how is it that, some of us all the time, and all of us some of the time, have the total conviction that we know what’s best for everyone even if we have absolutely no proof of it?

How is it that we learn everything but we never learn to let others speak and to truly listen to them when they do?

Why is it that most mistakes are made and repeated because we can’t talk to each other?

Why is it that despite learning that we don’t really have to be afraid for ourselves or for others (of whatever), we still are and that fear is what locks our lips and closes our ears?

Why is it that we sometimes make the life most difficult for those we love the most and that our life is made difficult by those who love us the most?

Why is it that we assume our title entitles us to automatic respect, when we should full well know the respect needs to be earned?

Why is it that we continue to try to speak to deaf ears?

Why is it that instead of writing this, I can’t just pick up the phone and talk the person who needs to ask these questions to himself before making yet more mistakes of the same kind – the kind that made me / us sad so long and continues to make others sad, too?!

What’s the answer to all this?

It’s all too fast…

It’s only been a little over 2 weeks since the last entry…but so much happnened that it felt like an age…My new year resolution was to slow down / diminish....oh, yea...

I haven’t got anything good / interesting to write right now, but wanted to write something anyway…So, what’s happened since?

I was creative (two improv shows, three more articles in the Turkish woman’s magazine);

I met all but one work deadlines (this is the first time I missed a deadline by this much - at least 6 weeks!….but the Client was fine about it which is great…learnt (once again) that missing a deadline is not the end of the world and that I should trust myself a little more);

I did what I preached (see the review of Big Stone Gap, from May 16th) – I was honest even if that meant I made myself vulnerable and, yes, surprise, surprise, I am still standing… I am much more confident in myself than I’ve ever been before…someone’s hesitation is never going to be rejection of me ever again! (especially not when I told them I wasn’t sure I wanted their heart in the first place….who is rejecting who, I ask you!)

Oh, yes, and I helped organise a friend’s 40th birthday…music, comedy, cabaret, DJs, slide shows, the lot….he worked a lot too of course and it was great fun…it was last Friday, we went to bed about 7 am…am still recovering…

The only bad thing is that I’ve put even more weight on…but have been ‘salad’ing since Monday and will hit the gym again (after a year of paying but not going) so I’ll get thinner again I am sure…

Oh dear, it's all me, me, me....but, hey, it's MY blog so it's OK for me to be self-indulgent every now and again!

OK, bye till I can find something more interesting to say….I’ve been reading the next two books after Big Stone Gap – will review them shortly…

By the way, 23rd June is my birthday… If I can't write before then, any goodwill wishes would be much appreciated :)

A commercial break…

I have no intention of advertising any product on this website but SAQI books sent me an announcement about a book ages ago which has been sitting on my desk for ages and it’s bugging me. So, here it goes.

Turkish Cookery by Sally Mustoe (ed) – see www.saqibooks.com. It features favourite recipes from Nigella Lawson, Gary Rhodes, Ainsley Harriott, Antony Worrall-Thompson, Anton Mosimann, Caludia Roden, Nevin Halici and other renowned chefs.

Recipes include that for hummous, meat pies, lamb tagine, yoghurt soup, Turkish delight, aubergine pate and dolma. Turkish chefs offer recipies for sweets, wedding banquets, street food, market food, coffee, olive oil, wines, breakfast, mese and raki and many others.

So, a great book for cooks with international taste – or for those like me who don’t really cook, a good present idea. Most importantly, the proceeds from sales will go toards providing further education for children orphaned by recent earthquakes in Turkey.

Istanbul vapurlari (ferries)…

If you are from Istanbul or if you’ve ever been there, you know the beauty and the crucial role of the ferries in the city life. I mean the commuter ferries that cross the Bosphorus – that is from Asia to Europe, from Europe to Asia, from the main land to the Princes Islands, back and forth, back and forth for years and years. Ferries unite residents who define themselves as being “from the other side” much more than the two bridges that physically unite the city.

They don’t just carry people from one side to the other, they also have an altogether other world living on them. On the open decks you can feed the seagulls with simits (Turkish pretzels), drink ruby coloured Turkish tea in small glasses with narrow waist lines and read your paper fighting the wind which messes your hair but also clears the cobwebs away. On the closed decks you can buy tat that won’t last to the other continent from salesmen who entertain you better than last night’s comedy – or annoy you more than last night’s news….

Why am I writing all this? Because I’ve learnt (with some delay admittedly) that they are planning to replace the old fashioned ferries with ‘modern’ ones that are entirely closed, boring to be in and ugly to look at. There doesn’t seem to be an environmental or efficiency reason for the change (as was argued for replacing double-decker busses in London with new ones). It seems to be a change for change’s sake; for modernity; for conformity; for uniformity…Besides the new ones are much smaller (300 passengers) than older ones (1000-1500) – about 4 new trips for each 1 of old in an already congested waterway. If they change the ferries, they’ll regret it…the way they pulled the tram lines up in the 1960s-70s because buses were more modern only to build them again in the late 1980s. And who will pay? The residents of Istanbul of course – with loss of amenity and their taxes which will finance the new deal.

OK, I am also nostalgic…despite living in London for 15 years, the wallpaper on my mobile phone is still the silhouette of a ferry from Bostanci to the Islands in a pink January sunset. But to keep the old ferries running is not just a nostalgic wish of a ‘European Turk’ (as the likes of me are called these days) but very real wish of the locals too. So much so that they’ve started an online campaign: http://www.vapurumuvermiyorum.org/ I’ve signed it, try it for yourself…

The website is on the right – it’s in Turkish but you can at least see the pictures. And as for my Turkish friends – they can all read English.

Am off to Brussels tomorrow for a week or so – to fight the EU bureaucracy and for some mussels, fries and beer…

Pushing 36 and still a romantic….

I’ve never denied being a romantic. I like to be given flowers. I cry at films. Other than a few bitter and hormone-deficient days when I feel like slapping them, I smile at young couples canoodling in public. And all the rest…I just hadn’t realised how much of a romantic I still am…I actually had tears in my eyes reading a book today.

The book? Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani (http://www.adrianatrigiani.com/). Not many sentences you want to read and re-read again because the way the words are put together has an unexpected and thrilling beauty. Things start rather slow and move on rather too quickly towards the end. And, to be honest, even though the book was recommended by a friend whose literary taste I respect, I wasn’t impressed with it at the beginning.

But there is a level of truthfulness that is hard to come by and that makes it more worthwhile a read than many books which have those sentences of rare beauty and plots of impeccable tightness. This book has warmth that makes the reader feel not alone in the world.

The heroine, Ave Maria, a 35 year old ‘spinster’, is more real than another single heroine, Bridget Jones (two recent references to this feeble excuse of a woman in this site – promise you won’t see many more!) . At the height of the ‘BJ’ hype, I remember thinking I didn’t know anyone that scatter brain. But I know many (including myself) at times ‘deceptively’ strong women like Ave Maria. Here is what I mean in the author’s own words:

“What has happened to me? I get so afraid now. I never used to. Why am I more vulnerable now than I was when I was alone, in charge of everything? I lived by myself in the middle of town, for God’s sake. I checked my own oil, lit my own furnace, caught mice. I had a routine: running a home, a business, the Rescue Squad, the Drama. I was never scared then. So much for strength in numbers, I think as I look at my husband, now that we are a family.”
(What she is afraid of is something bad happening to her husband, her happiness.)

I say ‘deceptively’ not because women can’t be strong but because sometimes we confuse being strong with being able to deal with everything on our own. Strength is not in being able to do everything single handed but being able to let go once in a while; to let one's self be vulnerable.

Well, I cried toward the end of the book – not only because Ave Maria realises the above definition of strength but because that means that she finally lets go and says ‘yes’ to the proposition of the man who loves her. Aaaaaahhhhhhh….

Actually I take back what I said about Adriana Trigiani. She does have a way with words…a very subtle way. By the time the quiet hero of the book makes his last declaration of love (which I would have loved to write here just to show its simple beauty had I wanted to spoil it for would-be readers) you will be there with them, with your heart in your mouth (is that the expression?).

And let’s face it, at this day and age, there are not many occasions that get your heart that far up!

A very non-Bridget Jones morning (?)…

A recent “success” at acting like that Goddess of stupidity that is Bridget Jones, I woke up a couple days ago realising that I’ve had enough of all these little games. I stay in situations longer than I should…it’s my character, probably even my star sign. But once I have enough of something that’s it. And I’ve had enough of this stupidity and wanted to share it for the benefit of all those non-Bridget Jones girls out there who sometimes lose their ways …

I am slightly annoyed with him and with myself...why should I blame myself about what I may have said or done (or not)? Or rather why should I blame myself alone...who the f*** is he?! Not only: 'who does he think he is?!' but also 'who do I think he is?!'

Not asking whatever I expect him to ask / not calling / not returning emails, texts or whatever...my life is just too precious and too good for someone else of potentially no consequence whatsoever to inadvertently muddy. Or more importantly for the supposedly accurate perceptions of my over-active but wrongly channelled brain to knowingly do so!

And so on and so forth...

Replace I/he with any private name you wish, it comes to the same thing. This slightly (rather?) defensive stance made me rather happy....aunty says not to give up on people so quickly but at the same time not to get too involved too quickly or not to value them too much….the last one is where I fail but am determined to correct.

And so on and so forth...

I’ve read recently somewhere “the princes you kissed turned to frogs; the frogs you kissed remained frogs”

And so on and so forth…

The promised account of the Morocco trip…finally!

All immigrants have one conflict in common: where to go on holiday. Do you go home and quench your longing for your home country, family and friends? Or do you explore this vast world as much as your time and budget allow? A solution to this eternal conflict is to meet your family members in a third country.....and Morocco may just be the ideal destination for Turks.

Why? It’s almost half way between Turkey and the UK, almost always sunny, does not impose visa to Turkish citizens and it’s cheap (£1 = about 15 dirhems). I spent the last week of March in Morocco with my aunt so can vouch for it.

I met her in Casablanca. She came on a package tour from Istanbul and I joined the same tour from London. I normally prefer the freedom of independent travel. But this time a package holiday was the best option for two reasons. First, the fact that all logistics were taken care of meant that I could spend more quality time with my aunt. Second, the presence of other Turks on the tour lessened my longing for the mother country – at least a little (more on that later…).

Morocco is a kingdom. Majority of the 29 million population is Muslim and consists of Arabs, Berbers and mix of the two. Very beautiful people I tell you. It’s almost as large as Turkey but because about half the country is desert, most live in the northern half. The French which ruled here between 1912 and 1956 left behind large avenues and beautiful, tall (though now mostly run down) apartment blocks.

Our tour was called ‘Royal Cities’ and covered Rabat, Meknes, Fes and Marrakech. The tour started in Casablanca because of its transport connections as the biggest city. It has all those beautiful French apartments but little of the romance the film of the same name created on screen…it turns out the film was made in Hollywood anyway!

Rabat Medina (the old town - Medina means town in Arabic) is beautiful but the rest you can skip. Meknes – you can totally skip…Moulla Idris is a small town between Rabat and Fes – interesting in that it’s not a beautiful town to be in but a great one to look at, the way it’s positioned on a couple of hills cradled by two larger ones. The nearby Roman town is also worth a visit. Fes and Marrakech, on the other hand, are unmissable.

The old town of Fes is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Some of the streets are so narrow that two people can’t walk past. Not only the architecture but almost even the life style of the city seems to have been preserved since 9th – 12th century when it was founded…that is except for the multiple TV antennas that don every roof.

The oldest and largest square of Marrakech, Cemaa el Fna, is another World Heritage Site. The square, which was once where public executions took place, is today full of life. During the day, it’s full of dried fruit and nut and orange juice sellers, and Moroccans of all sorts running after their errands. At night, it is a festival of Moroccan cuisine, fortune tellers, sooth sayers, alchemists, snake charmers, musicians, dancers and many other treasures.

The liveliest parts of any old city during the day are the souks. It’s impossible not to get lost in them. Colours, smells and noises emanating from the shops are simply thrilling. “To look is free – no need to buy” they say but once you are so much as hesitate for a second in front a shop, it’s near impossible to leave without bargaining and then, of course, buying something….usually very good value but possibly for something that you don’t really need.

The similarities between Morocco and Turkey don’t end with souks and bargaining. There are also men’s cafes almost on every corner: the difference is that theirs are less depressing. Women are also dressed rather conservatively (with or without head scarves) even if it’s hard to see what Moroccans (men or women) wear since they mostly wear a jellaba over everything that covers them from head-to-toe and depending on the material keeps them cool in summer and warm in winter.

Mind you, my fellow tour goers from Turkey changed my understanding of how ‘conservative’ Turkish women can be. They were two couples (brothers and their wives). All four were hajjis and women covered their heads – even though due to her colour coordinated outfits, at least one of them looked more feminine than my aunt and I who were just slopping it! The other woman wasn’t as happy with having to cover her head I think…. She would sneak around and have a cigarette every now and then (her husband knew but not the older brother-in-law who clearly was the Alpha male of the family). She also had a great sense of humour. One morning when asked how we spent the night, my aunt said the people in the neighbouring room in the hotel woke us up by having showers at 3 in the morning. Her response was “perhaps they were living their fantasies” (fantezi yapiyorlardir)…the fact that they may have been living their fantasies would have never occurred to me - less so to suggest it to strangers in a package tour….and I call myself liberal!

If you don’t want to go on a package holiday of royal cities and shop till you drop, Morocco also offers Berber villages, wild Rif and Atlas mountains, lakes, beaches, desert, and plains covered in wild flowers. In our tour, we covered over 1000km (feeling guilty about the CO2 emissions). The scenery during the whole trip was made up of thousands of wild flowers of all colours imaginable…the best cure after the grey winter of the UK.

A holiday that’s close by, sunny, green (at the right time of the year), historical, cheap and requires no visa…. A holiday that’s a welcome alternative to making endless visits to friends and family during which the same new stories are told and the same old stories are rehashed….what are you waiting for?!

Hey, I've just remembered today is Children's Day in Turkey...I still remember one such day when I was about 7 or 8 dressed in a white princess dress and joining the parade...it used to always rain on the 23rd of April, so it's not surprising it's rained today, too...Never mind. Happy children's day for the child in all of us :)

I think I am a placebo…

It’s been a, in all meanings of the word, cloudy day in London town. I really wanted to be in a big cinema, dark and warm, watching a light big screen movie, with popcorn and coca cola in hand. So, instead of walking around the Victoria Park and feeling depressed and afterwards doing some work and feeling even more depressed, I walked down the canal to the cinema in Canary Wharf.

American Dreamz was the only non-horror movie that started around the time I arrived at the cinema. I have to admit to being pleasantly surprised. It has a good script – even though it doesn’t say anything new, it says it well. It could in fact be blamed for trying to target too many things. Its characters are too obvious…but then again the obvious is usually funnier than the ‘clever’.

Perhaps the most obvious character is President Stanton who is so clearly Dubya that it hurts to watch Dennis Quaid at times…he is simply too good. The title of this blog is in fact one of his lines. When Mrs President tells him that the happy pills are placebo, he comes to the realisation that he is a placebo for a president… Such life changing realisations can only happen in films! Or are we all placebos of ourselves..ha ha ha

Finally, Hugh Grant is excellent in this film; I’d hazard, even better than in Four Weddings and A Funeral. He does the nasty, sarcastic but deep down sorry character much better than sweet and the sleazy look of his eyes is better than the puppy dog one.

I wouldn’t recommend this film for a Friday date but it’s excellent for a cloudy Sunday afternoon…and let’s face it, despite almost the end of April, we are set for more cloudy Sundays.

Oh, so many things happen….so little time to write them…

It’s been almost a month since my last entry. I can’t believe it’s been that long and….apologies to my readers who are very small in numbers but very big in support.

Trip to Morocco which was responsible for one of these four weeks was great. I’ll write about it separately (and long) in the next few days. In the meantime, here is Easter and the Babazula concert I promised to write about.

Easter – what do eggs have to do with rabbits?

It’s Easter Bank Holiday Monday, I still have the heating on…. I am pleasantly and healthily tired having spent the three of last four days walking. We hiked along part of the South Down Way.

On the first day we must have underestimated the length of the route and overestimated our fitness as after walking for about nine miles we were still just about half-way to our destination…practical people that we are, we took a taxi to Lewes! I don’t know if any of you knows but Lewes has the most fairy-tale like castle I’ve ever seen…the towers on the top are soft wave shapes instead of being angular as they normally area.

The second day, there was another taxi, this time in the morning to cut a couple of miles off at the beginning. So 6.5 miles and some rain saw us arrive at Alfriston about 2pm. I spent the afternoon reading, watching the rain and sleeping. I wont’ bore you with hotels but Dean’s Place (Best Western) in Alfriston was wonderful (http://www.alfriston-village.co.uk) – especially the single room facing the front garden I stayed in. The hotel as with the most of the rest of the village is from 15th century. Apparently the hotel is known to have a friendly ghost ‘a woman in a blue dress’….If I tell you I am reading a detective story called Devil in a Blue Dress at the moment…you can imagine how many times I woke up through the night…luckily, no lady in blue dress showed herself to me.

The third day was the hardest hike: 13 miles the last 10 of which was the Seven Sisters…Seven main and some smaller cliffs on the way to Eastborne…and at least 1.5 miles on the clean but depressing promenade of Eastborne. The day ended in Brigthon – a train ride away – and despite my previous fond memories of it, a hen / stag night nightmare of a town…or am I getting older?!

Older I surely am getting, but also fitter. The hardest hike on the third day felt much easier than the first day. I am very happy about that – despite a body aching all over. We are planning another hike for the first May Bank Holiday.

Babazula is the Daddy

The Saturday before last I was at the Babazula concert at the Carling Islington Academy. It was kind of weird…good weird – accompanied with a mad looking belly dancer who came on every now and then and a fantastic VJ who, non-stop, drew abstract figures that matched the music and lyrics on a pad that showed up on a huge screen behind the band.

The concert started with Mad Professor (professor of dub). After 2-3 songs by him, his DJ team and his West African (or so I think) dancers, members of Babazula came on stage and they all started playing together – first the percussionist (darbuka only), then the keyboards and finally Murat on saz and vocals. They were not introduced – not even lights came up as they came on stage. I really liked that “fusion”. It was meaningful about the possibilities of cooperation between seemingly very different people and purposes and it made bloody good music too.

Once all three members were on stage, they were joined by the VJ who was so impressive that friends and I just stood there listening to the music and being mesmerised by her drawings, incapable of dancing which, without the VJ, we were more likely to do.

I’d love to write more about the experience…another thoughtful choice and good organisation by Kazum (www.kazum.co.uk) but I am very tired…so I’ll finish with a sentimental note…one of their songs is ‘Babasiz Kizlar Balosu’ – ‘The Ball for Girls without Fathers’ - after which I called my Dad whose birthday it was that day. I was going to call him after the concert anyway but that very moment felt more appropriate. Music is a great thing and capable of saying things words alone fail to.

Note: ‘Baba’ in Turkish means ‘Daddy’ though am not sure what ‘Babazula’ means…

Under the (cloudy) Anatolian Skies

Erkan Ogur (http://www.erkanogur.net/) a Turkish musician who is one of the best names of ‘Anatolian jazz’ was in concert (‘under the Anatolian skies’) at the Royal Festival Hall on Wednesday, 15th March.

Except for some of his film music I didn’t know his work but it’s a duty to turn up at concerts of Turkish musicians in London! In the event, it was worth going to on its own right. ‘Anatolian jazz’ that was played on the night can in fact hardly be called ‘Anatolian’ since, while some of the tunes were inspired by Turkish folk music, it’s basically jazz…with lots of jamming...as it should be - universal and a little mad.

I liked it except for one thing, which is not a dislike as such but an observation: all the songs were intense…intensely searching, intensely yearning, intensely sad, intesenly rebellious…On the positive side, this intensity was an antidote to repetitive shallow rythms intended more for hips than senses (shikidam shikidam). On the other hand, one happy tune, one single happy tune, a glimpse of sunshine through the clouds would have been much appreciated.

Another Turkish concert is coming up in London. This time by a young group, Babazula (http://www.babazula.com/) , with at least some happy songs. The featured in the recent documentary of music in Istanbul (Crossing the Bridge). Check out the concert details at http://www.kazum.co.uk/

This is it for a couple of weeks. Busy week coming up and then on Saturday I am off for a short holiday to Morocco. Hopefully there will be many stories from there.

A new agony uncle: “Brother Trust”

There is a new Turkish language monthly women’s magazine in London: the first of its kind in fact. It’s only four months old. I got in touch with the Editor through a friend and it looks like I may be writing for them every now and then.

To start with, they asked me to write about their agony uncle. This agony uncle lives in Turkey and is called ‘Brother Trust’ (or Guven Abi in Turkish). Given that the main preoccupation of women is men (just as the main preoccupation of men is women), it’s much more logical for a women’s magazine to have an agony uncle than an agony aunt!

In his first article, he recounts his conversation with the Editor and how she persuaded him to take up the position. In his hesitation, he asks her ‘I don’t know anything about the concerns of Turkish speaking women over there…what am I supposed to write?’ That got me thinking.

I guess, in general, every woman has similar concerns (like every man does). But there are perhaps two main differences for a Turkish speaking woman (or man) in the UK (for that matter any immigrant in any country).

The first one is about format: having to write Turkish using an English keyboard. Well, OK, this one is only valid for speakers of languages that use hybrid alphabets. Those who are not as lazy as I am download Turkish software or buy Turkish keyboards. But I am lazy. So sometimes, letters i, o, u, g, s, c, appear in the most inconvenient places (that is, instead of ı, ö, ü, ğ, ş, ç). This leads to a particularly funny mistake every now and then when i gets mistaken for ı which turns the Turkish word ‘bored’ to ‘f****d’….it’s not impossible to be both at the same time but that usually is not what the writer wishes to convey….apologies for lowering the tone.

The second is about content. It’s the very fact of living abroad. To borrow the phrase I used in a recent post: that is the problem of being ‘twice a stranger’. I’ve adapted well to British society (or shall I say London?) but even so there is always something missing. Although I’ve been only very rarely made to feel a stranger, there is something missing. But we are strangers to Turkey, too. On holiday in southern Turkey a few years ago, someone asked me: ‘you speak very good Turkish, where did you learn?’ I laughed at it at the time but can you imagine how (unintentionally) hurtful a question this could be? Never mind.

I guess other than these two, the concerns and problems are the same. There are Turkish speaking women here who, despite living half an hour’s bus ride away, have never been to central London; just as there are women in Istanbul who have never seen the sea. Then, there are those like me who live more closely with the rest of the British society, and, whose foreignness and gender have not been obstacles for them, but nevertheless long to hear a dear one say ‘canim, bir tanem, hayatim’ (my soul, my one and only, my life…wonderful terms of endearment). I am not saying these words come easily to Turkish speaking men or when said are actually meant whatever the language.

What’s clear is that Turkey we miss and Turkey we’ve missed out on are two different but equally worthy places to long for. But perhaps having such longings is what makes one more appreciative of what’s there as well as what’s missing.

Changing your life and other updates

I said I was going to go to the One Life exhibition to get some inspiration for changing / improving my life and report back.

Well, I am reporting back to say that I didn’t go…I was planning to go yesterday but thought ‘If I am going to change my life I am going to do it myself’. I don’t know if this is a sign of me taking charge or just an excuse to hide my lethargy…

Instead I went to my local library to get a trashy novel and then to the Broadway Market for some shopping. I can report that the campaign for Spirit is continuing in full swing (see the January entry about it).

Another local campaign, this time at the Roman Road Market, is against the construction plans for Cross Rail. They are planning to dig the tunnel from the middle, i.e. a shaft near Spitalfields, then carry the soil along two-lane-wide inner city roads in trucks, dump it in Mile End Park to be taken away by train….That is the Park for which they spent £12.5 million only 6-7 years ago! And trucks are planned to run 24 hours a day for years and years during the construction period……And on streets that have buildings on either side, streets that you can cross in less than 10 steps. It’s a stupid idea if there ever was any and I am glad there is a campaign against it. I signed the petition and will keep a close eye on the developments.

Where does wisdom lie?

Is it in knowing everything in the world enough to see the general patterns? Like all types of human character, how each will act under different circumstances, how one should treat a particular type of person etc. Until very recently I used to think this is where wisdom lied. We live, experience, read, listen, share: all so that we collect information which we then classify and categorise and then call up when we need to know how to analyse what we see and hear and how to behave in different circumstances.

I am beginning to think this is not the case…and that perhaps wisdom lies in not resorting to generalisation? After all generalisations are nothing but the product of our own analysis so they can only be as good as what we are exposed to and our ability to analyse them.

Yes, perhaps, wisdom lies in having the openness to take every event and every person as they come and in having the strength to deal with the outcome if it doesn’t fit with the generalisations.

Or, perhaps, wisdom lies in not pontificating without knowing what one is talking about! Well, at least it’s off my chest…

Rants and Roundabouts

It’s been only a week since I’ve last written but it feels longer…I’ve been travelling through life at high speed and slightly drunken and I don’t even have a car…

The weekend was particularly peculiar. The Guardian Travel section featured Istanbul on the ‘been there’ pages. Readers are encouraged to send tips about a city each week. Usually the feature takes up the two middle pages. This time though there was an ad on almost the entirety of one of the pages…not even an ad about Turkey but BA flights to Bahamas. Pah!

I’d got up early (on a Saturday I let you know) to get the paper to see if they published any of my tips. They did – three of them in fact. But there was no mention of any of the ‘must sees’, nothing on any of the palaces, Aya Sofya, none of the mosques…nothing, nada, zilch. It’s an insult to such a city.

I don’t usually subscribe to the school that thinks everyone is against the Turks. But if there was ever a last drop, this is it…I’ve given up. I put the paper down and thought to myself ‘I am leaving’…I used to feel part of London, used to sit in the tube and feel at home (you know what I mean, the feeling of belonging to a place not because the tube is comfortable). But now, I sit in the tube, the bus, bars, anywhere and feel a stranger. ‘Twice a Stranger’ in fact to quote the title of an interesting book by The Economist journalist Bruce Clark: a stranger here and (probably) a stranger in Turkey. I always knew there was an element of truth in this but looked at it positively – when you are a stranger to places, in a strange way, every place can be yours…anyway, difficult to explain. But now, I just feel twice a stranger.

I’ve also learnt that while I may not have mastered the art of getting people to help me to make life easier, I am capable of using them. Someone said to me at the weekend that I only talk to him when I am lonely and in need of company. He was right. I am not saying he deserves more but at least he had the guts to tell it to me as it is. I had to agree.

Anyway, I went to a stand up gig tonight to cheer myself up. The MsC sung a few songs. One them goes: you are just another roundabout on the ring road of my life. Roundabout indeed….ring road: even more apt. And I don’t even have a car.

A miserable old git and a sentimental old fool

My little brother called me in the office yesterday. I sounded as miserable as ever – I just can’t chit chat when I am working.

All he wanted to say was that he’d thought of me today, and when he thinks of me, he calls me because he loves me…I had also thought of him the same morning and what a bad older sister I’ve been neglecting him and our other brother. Why didn’t I call?…There is always something to be done first…and before I know it the most important thing, time, passes me by.

Afterwards he emailed me a song. As I type this and listen to it again, there is a lump in my throat and tears are welling in my eyes but there are also flutterbies in my heart as I truly love my brother. The song he sent says it all: what's important is not what's said openly but what's meant; not what's in the surface but what’s underneath, not what we see but what we truly understand.

My poor English translation of this song by Carlos Varela (http://www.carlosvarela.com) follows:

A word says nothing
At the same time it hides it all
Like wind hides the water
Like flowers hide the mud

A look says nothing
At the same time it says it all
Like the rain upon your face
Or an old map of some treasure

A truth says nothing
At the same time it hides all
Like a bonfire that does not extinguish
Like a stone born out of dust

If one day you lose me, I’ll be nothing
At the same time I’ll be everything
Because in your eyes are my wings
And the shore where I drown

Next time…

…it’s warm enough here or am in somewhere warmer, I will stand in the pouring rain and let the drops fall down from my eyelashes.

Some people know how to…

…make life easier for themselves. I am not one of those. Don’t get me wrong I am not unhappy. It’s just that I sometimes make life harder than it should be.

Last night, for example, having forgotten to have dinner but remembered to have two pints, I came home about midnight. Work has been so busy of late that I didn’t even have bread and cheese at home. So, I stopped at the petrol station - the only shop open that late - for a loaf – white slices of cardboard basically. Had a couple of slices with peanut butter and honey.

As I had this Michelin star worthy dinner, I exchanged some emails with one of the people I’d just been out with. She was up checking her emails and eating the dinner her husband had saved for her. When I told her I needed to go food shopping, her response was ‘you do not need shopping, just get a husband and three kids. It is working fine for me’….

You see, I can say ‘bitch!’. I don’t have a husband or three kids – though now I have food. And being 35.5, I am aware it’s becoming a bit late for husband and kids – for three of them anyway.

But I see it differently. She is one of those people who make life easy for themselves. I, on the other hand, have this obsession of doing everything myself. My only teenage dream was to have my own flat, live alone and be free. That I have – possibly at a cost of periodic loneliness. I don’t have a cleaner not because I can’t afford one but it’s a small flat and I think it should be my duty to clean it. Examples are endless but perhaps too personal and hence boring.

Anyway, I succeed at most things I attempt but I work hard and am tired. Until recently I used to think that’s what you do: you work hard to succeed. You ‘buy the flowers yourself’ as Mrs Dalloway says…But now I am thinking there must be an easier way. There must be a way of getting more people to do more things for me; a way to be a bit more selfish without a guilty conscious. But how?

I’ve read about the ‘One Life’ exhibition in London Olympia (www.onelifelive.co.uk) 3-5 March. I am going to visit it and report back. I am not after a tangible life change like a new house, city, job etc. but a more subtle one. All I want is to have enough good food at home at all times, even if there are no husband and kids….come to think of it maybe I should just try online shopping…

An urban moment

It's just before midnight. Woman No 1 must have got on the tube at Oxford Circus. She gets out a little black note book and starts sketching the men oppposite her. Woman No 2 (me) gets on at Tottenham Court Road (the next stop), sits next to Woman No 1, gets her notebook out and starts writing. Woman No 3 gets on at Holborn (the next stop), sits next to Woman No 2, gets her notebook out and starts writing. Sitting in the middle, Woman No 2 realises the oddity of the situation: three women looking very different but all in their 30s, sitting next to each other and furiously writing on their notebooks on a late night tube train.

Opposite two punk girls barely 20 and two Indian men in their 30s also realise the oddity of the situation and try not to smile....we are in London after all, human contact in the tube must be kept to a minimum.

At Bank (two stops after No 3 got on), No 3 nudges No2 and shows her what she's been writing. No 2 was thinking she was writing about No 1 but in fact it's about her. Having written about No 2 writing about the woman who's just sat next to her writing about her, she realised No 2 is writing about something else...about a man with a yearning look on his face. No 2 was writing about a scene she's just acted in her improvisation class. No2 is excited because she thinks she's just acted out the straight woman's Brokeback Mountain in the scene she was writing about.

It turns out No 3 was coming back from another improvisation class that night. They get talking. No 3 had watched, only weeks before, the theatre company No 2 is training with and loved them. They talk about theatre and writing for another three stops when No 3 gets off at Bethnal Green. No 1 has fallen asleep about Bank. No 2 keeps smiling all the way to Mile End (OK, only the next stop) and then home and can't sleep for ages with the excitement of that scene and the urban moment with No 3.

No 2 is happy. And who says London is a place for free but lonely people? It's hard to find people to connect with anywhere in the world - even if momentarily, even if with people you are unlikely to see ever again. At least in London you have lonely (or shall I say free?) enough people, even only few, to share those moments with.

Some men are like...

...luke warm coffee....When I first came to England, you couldn't get a decent cup of coffee anywhere. The best you would have was warm filter coffee unless you were at a traditional cafe run by 2nd or 3rd generation Italians. Since the late 1990s you can get cafe latte, cafe au lait, espresso, the lot. And now you see loads of people in Central London walking to their offices in the morning with a coffee cup glued to their hands. There are even loyalty cards...if you pay an astronomical amount of money for 9 cups of coffee, you can get the 10th one free.

Unfortunately, men don't change as fast as the coffee tradition does. Some men are truly like luke warm coffee.

Imagine it. It's one of those cold mornings. Regardless of how much you had to drink the night before, you really want a strong and hot cup of coffee when you get to work. So you stop by at your local coffee shop. In my case, a traditional Italian cafe, not one of the new chains. Smiley man or woman says good morning, has a little chat with you and makes you a cup of latte (my favourite). You only realise when you get to your office that the milk s/he put in was frothed10 minutes before you walked in the shop. So it has all the cafeine you need but none of the warmth. Imagine the dissapointment. It'll stay with you all day.

That's how some men are...
That's all really :)