First Impressions

Do you know the plural of Elvis is Elvi ? Did you even know that Elvis can be pluralized ? I found out because I got a text from my sister to say that in England she was watching a Turkish contestant in an international Elvis impersonator contest. It’s sad isn’t it, that intelligent people should spend their evenings watching even sadder people wanting to be like a long-dead pop idol. I suppose that it is good when people from all nations can join together in something, instead of fighting each other, just I cant help feeling there must be worthier ways of doing it.
I suppose ELVI could stand for Extremely Laboured Vacuous Idiots . I was a systems analyst once, and that was when I discovered acronyms. ERNIE was a famous one, the premium bond number machine. It stood for ‘Electronic Random Number Indicator equipment’. My most notable effort was a new accounting system, I called it ‘Computer Reconciled Accounting Premium System’. The finance director got cross, he didn’t want a CRAP system, he said. Actually it was, it never worked properly, and we finished with BOTTOMS – ‘Back On To The Old Manual System’ !
A friend was talking recently about CHAV’s , they are strange creatures wearing hoods and permanently plugged into a thing called an IPOD. I have no idea what that stands for, but CHAV is apparently ‘Council House And Van’, and we got to thinking about a good acronym for the disparate group ( that is disparate not desperate) who make up the expat community here. I rejected ‘Sold House, In Turkey’ for obvious reasons and ended up with BERT – ‘ British Emigrant, Resident Turkey’. To be totally PC (Politically Correct) and with due reference to the EU – ‘European ….. (OK, OK you know that one), directive on equal rights, we also have BERTHAS ‘British Emigrant, Resident Turkey, Helps Animals’ , or in my case ‘British Emigrant, Resident Turkey, Happily Alcoholic
So my fellow BERTS and BERTHAS, I would like to invite you to join me and become members of a new club, totally informal of course, no committee or structure or rules, no membership fees or annual meeting, just a feeling of belonging, of being Bertish. It will be called the BBC - the ‘British Bert Club’, , and all you have to do is to pour a drink at sundown, every day, shout out, “we love the BBC”, and repeat the daily moan, which we can take it in turns to nominate. Things like – “when I first came here you could see the mountains, now its all new villas”; “why don’t they make the day trippers wear shirts”; “tattoos should be outlawed”, “one time you could buy a pide, and a beer and still have change out of 5 million lire”, etc etc.
My son and his girl friend just left, so I am writing to fill the empty space they have left. It was the first time they had been for two years, and it was interesting to hear their views on how Dalyan has changed. They actually didn’t think it had that much ! They liked the paved boulevards, were appalled at the idea of moving the market, and reawakened a liking for Pide. They didn’t think prices had changed much, and loved the fantastic view of the delta they had from the microlite trip they took. I don’t think they noticed the villas that have sprung up !
Perhaps when you live somewhere its too easy to notice and criticize change, when in reality there is still so much that is lovely and appreciated by visitors getting their first impressions.
Pennysail@gmail.com