I found this and smiled! Divorce goes through this week…
Friday night reflection – thankyou Frank
But now the days are short, I’m in the autumn of my years
And I think of my life as vintage wine
From fine old kegs
From the brim to the dregs
It poured sweet and clear
It was a very good year
Cappadocia I
For my next visit to Turkey
Well, it would just be a crime not to visit Cappadocia after spending more than five months in Turkey right?
Let me tell you the answer for that – yes it would.
If for some crazy reason you have yet to see one of the five billion of pictures of Cappadocia online, don’t worry I will show you a few. After all for sure the World Wide Web needs some more.
This place is quite insane – from more than one underground city where people actually lived in – and are still used for storage of food after the eighth level, (that is what I call going green) to absolutely incredible rock formations, filled with amazing shades of pinks, reds and ochre’s.
While the city of Goreme was not so amazing, it was definitely a good place to visit all the locations – the ones possible to visit on a…
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Istanbul 5. Istanbul Modern.
That sounds like a trick they might play in the Time Travellers show.
Istanbul – City of History. Istanbul Modern.
Actually it is the name of a Gallery housed in a massive container-like warehouse, showing off recent, sometimes controversial, works of Art.
Whatever Art means!
Last Christmas I was fortunate enough to be in Doha during a Damian Hirst retrospective – loved it.
Forget the cows, the sharks, the skulls; feel his grasp of life and death.
Why would a pharmaceutical company make medicines to cure me? After all, the longer I remain ill, the longer I am a consumer of pills wonderful. And as I consume they make money.
Make me sick Glaxo!
Will that injection in my arse really rid me of the pox your honour?
Take these tablets three times a day for the rest of your life, and never rest your tackle in a dirty box again.
Ah the joys of life!
So in the spotty cuboid housing the works of Master Hirst, I dwelt on ‘Lullaby, the seasons’.
Not that Nigel Kennedy nonsense by Vivaldi.
Four large glass cases, square containers derived from sand; ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The height and width far out sized their depth. Each was filled with glass shelves of pills, handmade, coloured to represent the seasons.
Green pills for Spring, yellow for Summer, browns for Autumn; then white pills for the Winter of our days, the lack of sunshine in our lives easing us into the shallow ground, memories soon forgotten.
Ah the joys of life!
Istanbul Modern – I loved the false ceiling made from suspended books, the bullet holed glass staircase surround, the enormous wooden pieces that appeared to have sprouted from the insanity of Vic Reeves.
The view of Industrialisation by Yuksel Arslan hit home for me…
19 Suitcases took me round the world, to friends old and new.
“And thus spoke the place:
Bring me the thrills of the first time you saw me
Each of which became a path for you in a different work.
Bring your self to me.
The remains of each single piece, mixed up in the earth.
Bring me a piece of my old guests,
The piece you used to love dearly,
Bearing the faces of 19 people lined up side by side, looking at us.
Sculpted in wood by Kurimba villagers,
The story of each suspended in faraway places, like empty suitcases.
Bring me 19 suitcases,
Each concealing the memory of a different person.
Bring me all the moments you were lost in.
The moments you will look at through lenses to see the traces of
Bring me back my old chairs,
Each will reunite me with a different memory.
Bring me the poem of Rumi.
That begins with the lines, How good to migrate anew everyday.
And how beautiful to settle anew everyday.
And ends saying, “So many words that belong to yesterday.
Now we need to say new things.”
Bring me people,
May each be the storyteller of their home towns.
Bring me your dreams,
Those dreams that turned me into you, head to foot, as I lived.
Bring me my own memory
That memory I yearn to meet.
Bring me everything,
Each thing the everything of something else.”
Handan Bőrűteçene, Paris, 2008.
I’VE BEEN THINKING
I thought i’d call to you and talk awhile,
I’m sitting here alone, I’ve been thinking.
What can i do to make this world a better place,
Let go of anger and sometimes terrible thoughts.
Do not waste this time that I’ve been given,
Smile and say hello to a passerby.
Lend a hand to a less fortunate soul,
Put a little trust in man, this I’ve been told.
Do not take a life, be there for a friend,
Teach a child right from wrong.
Love as much as you can, hate is not a gift in hand,
Do not steal or act in violence,
I’ve been thinking god, I just needed you to listen.
Keith Garrett
Istanbul 4. Being the Tourist -Dolmabahçe Palace.
There comes a point in every city visit when you get the confidence to jump in a taxi and know where you’re going.
Once I have my bearings I can tell if the driver of the said automotive hack will attempt to go from A to B via X, Y and Z; creating an ‘alternative route’ to aid in the emptying of my wallet.
If normal taxis don’t exist?
Welcome to Almaty, a city in which every car is a taxi – I kid you not. Amongst the ex-pat community we generally refer to them as ‘gypsy cabs’; I’m not sure why. Anyway it is just a matter of standing at a point on the road with your arm out. Eventually someone stops, you state a destination, negotiate the fare and away you go. Or not! Not everyone wants to go where you want, so sometimes renegotiate for somewhere nearby…
Anyway it works.
Last day in Istanbul so, from a recommendation (thankyou Dorsaf), I headed for the Dolmabahçe Palace.
Yes I could turn this into a travelogue, quoting dates, Sultans, amount of gold etc.
Sod that.
The flagrant wealth of the Sultans horrifies me in the context of the poverty afforded to the peasantry at the time. There are bathrooms whose area would make up 3 or 4 apartments for the ordinary citizens of the Ottoman Empire. Yet here in the vainglorious Palace in the City of History, the one lesson from History hit me; we never learn from History.
Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi, Buckingham Palace; John Travolta’s new home; Bill Gates majestic pile…
Still – who really wants majestic piles?
Then there is the Playboy Mansion; I’ll accept the opulence as it is home to many young ladies, unfortunate enough to have been born with outlandish mammaries…
The four tonne Chandelier reminded me of Del Boy and Rodney.
Where was I drawn?
The Clock Museum.
What is a clock? Art, Science, Engineering, Jewellery; man’s attempt to put numerical order on the passing of his life.
Twelve hours on the clock face; Twelve signs of the Zodiac; Twelve tribes of Israel; Twelve disciples of Jesus; I’m sure I could come up with dozens of other ideas…
The collection embodies Cosmology, Craftsmanship, Aesthetics, Meteorology, Chronology, Mathematics, Culture.
I was the tourist for a while; souvenirs include a pocket watch emblazoned with the face of Kemal Ataturk, a man who must be turning in his grave as his great secular Republic dissolves backwards in time.
Crusader anyone?
Tasha – now is the Autumn of our days.
“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.”
John Keats
Thankyou for the realization, the inspiration, the motivation. The farmhouse in France will soon be ours; yours to paint, mine to write.
A sunny day in Almaty
Monday afternoon walking through the City. First thing – the girls are so pretty!
Mixed feelings at Panfilov Park. The Cathedral shone down on me – look at this.
Great to have caught the reflection from the Cross just at the right moment.
The Park also contains the War Memorial to Kazak men and women who died during the Second World war. I thought of the famous poem by Laurence Binyon ‘For the Fallen’, immortal lines said every Remembrance parade. Yet here in Kazakhstan a different verse came to me;
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
But it is a Park for joy, for memory, for lovers, for inspiration.
As I walked through the beautiful sunshine the words of Robert Frost came to me. Here am I in Kazakhstan, a traveller, a writer, a poet. I could have stayed in England…
Istanbul 3. Notes from a bar at Sultanahmet.
The old dog wandered wondering. What was he hoping for as he dodged across the road, avoiding cars, crazy motorcyclists and trams? Perhaps a tasty snack from the waiters at the Barron Ottoman?
They stroked him.
The kebab man cut, folded, served; ignored the old dog.
He came my way though fish was not on his agenda this evening.
So many old dogs; men clinging to the last vestiges of reality. Retirement, see the world; die.
Just then a woman passed carrying a spare arse; buttock enhancement surgery or too many pies?
The delicious gypsy girls also meandered by, beauty with stealth, ready at any moment to rid me of my wealth.
Rumi came by too, telling tales of life in the Tavern. Whoever brought me here must also take me home. Beer flows but nobody wants to eat. Who is this God?
Where is the Old Dog now?
Drinking in this Tavern, searching for his soul. Julie tells me we should all save our souls; I tell her it is a quote for Fairy Hanny in the next adventure on Uranus.
Nobody laughs.
Somebody’s strict daughter ambles by, completely covered, yet I catch a glimpse of Converse on her feet; appropriate reality, the antithesis of western hatred. Headscarf and Hard Rock Café T-shirt.
Who is this God?
Is it Satan?
The Djinn?
She is caught between a hard rock and a place.
Next to mosey on by, Natalia, wearing a head scarf to avoid tempting men with her beautiful blond locks. Tight jeans displaying succulent rump, Desmond Morris explaining courtship rituals; brassiere manufacturers please note.
Too many converse, contrary, opposition party’s.
East meets West.
Cliché meets cliché.
Back comes the woman with the spare arse, rear projecting shelf of gluteal fat. Perhaps the overflowing buggy explains the growth.
Where now Madam?
Acceptance; men like a bit of flesh to hold onto, they don’t really like the skinny birds.
Or the angry birds.
Condescending Englishman, patronising tourists and locals. I am not a tourist, I am visiting friends.
Denial?
It’s a river in Egypt.
I love Kazakhstan
Well I have been living here in Almaty since January and it is a beautiful place.
It has the second best prettiest women in the world – Liverpool Judy’s always win.
But I have to laugh at some of the names I have come across recently.
There are ladies called Karlygash, Nazgul and Nurgul. Plus a young man called Jamshit…
So I have played a little with some of the family names; some of these are real but I invented most of them – great source of names for a comedy writer.
Smugulitova
Rustibeava
Kunysheva
Slopitova
Tchukitbakova
Takalukova
Slopysheva
Shezadeva
Gerimov
They will find themselves in various short stories or novels soon. Alongside the German onanist Helmutt Schmacher…
Fairy Hanny 