Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Istanbul


Istanbul, in the rain. It's really only possible to get fleeting impressions of a city this big in the time we had, but I think I want to go back. It's a very male city, full of history and heavily politicised with a demonstration of some kind every day we were there, although that activity was mainly a protest against the Israeli action against a Turkish ship in the Gaza aid convoy. The 24 hour news channels, and I counted five on my little hotel telly alone, were inevitably full of this story. Infact they weren't covering anything else.

The more I experience Turkey the more I like it. The food is great for one thing, and the people almost invariably welcoming. And Istanbul is way more sophisticated than I'd been expecting. If you're there have a drink in the ultra chic bar in the city's Museum of Modern Art, overlooking the Bospherous with all the ferries and container ships passing as you sip your Efe's Pilsner.
Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Out

Back in 2008 I wrote this about a brilliant blogger who called himself Bete De Jour:

"For a few weeks now I've been reading Bete De Jour's blog. Bete is supposed to be a very overweight and (he says) ugly chap whose lovelife is a non starter and who very much wants to lose some weight and get his life back.To say the blog is masterfully written is an understatement; ....But my problem (ianasmuch as I care, which I don't really) is that it's now getting too good and I'm thinking, he's just got to be a pro.He reads a lot like Irvine Welsh or maybe William Leith when he was writing some of his profoundly uncomfortable self revelatory stuff in the Independent way back in the day. There's also a companion blog, which seems to be by a friend of his who has MS. But which I rather suspect is also a creation of Bete's, who lives a very incident filled life......"

Anyway turns out he really wasn't what he said he was. He wasn't extraordinarily ugly, he was instead rather normal looking and wasn't single, he had a girlfriend. Some of his readers may feel cheated but I don't. He did seem to me to be almost TOO good at writing and some sort of mental klaxon I've developed as a hack went clanging away during some of the posts. He's outed himself here; I wish him all the best. Anyone who'll go on GMTV with a bag on his head deserves to sell a lot of books.