That Sinking feeling !

It caught my eye - a report in a Fethiye paper about a group of British expats arrested in Didim for illegal gambling.
Imagine the scene. Dissolute characters sitting in a smoke filled den, pension books clutched in gnarled, clammy hands. In the corner a group of grannies perform an erotic (no erratic. Ed.) line dance. The tension mounts as a man from Izmir calls out the numbers. “On Uc, give us a smooch”, “ Doksan dokuz, big pair o………” suddenly the door bursts open. It’s a raid! Zimmer frames go flying, G & T’s hurriedly gulped down, as the sordid group tries to make a run for it. All to no avail. Off to the pen, 6 hours form filling and 117ytl fine. Crime doesn’t pay in Didim!
It does, it seems, in England, I am there for 10 days at the moment. The TV is reporting a British proposal to give shorter sentences to foreign law breakers, and then ship them back to their homeland! Sounds like a good way to encourage crooks to come here in the first place. Nip over, rob a bank, bed and board for a couple of years, then fare home to enjoy the proceeds!
There seems to be a lot of concern about immigration. People tell me you can’t move for Poles, Serbians, and Uzbekistanis. Sounds great - places develop with influxes of new attitudes, merging of cultures and nationalities. There is a forecast that the population will grow to 77m in the next 10 years. Apparently the US state of Wyoming is about the same size as Britain. That has about a 600,000 population, that’s right just 5 zeros. Not a Serb in sight I imagine.
Of course the British media love to stir this up, and dwell on the negative side. But I had to sort out some things here - bank, utilities, travel arrangements. In every case the telephone was answered promptly, my problem resolved quickly and Irhan, Vlad and Carmella were all very helpful and courteous. And in Britain there will be lots of new babies! As most of the old miseries are moving out to warmer, less crowded places, (to play bingo); I think it all sounds pretty positive.
There is also of course great media hysteria about global warming - experts are behind every doorway to tell you that you are doomed. Everyone is jumping on the environmental band wagon. M&S are going green (they’ve changed their packaging colour to that - not sure if it helps much, but good for sales!)and at my house here we have four, Yes FOUR, rubbish bins, one for kitchen waste that has to be separated from any packaging or containers, yeuk, one for recyclable, one for plastic and one for bottles.
Hang on, as the bins are large and plastic, and they have to come round 4 times to collect them - doesn’t that add to the problem?
There are even more cars now though, and they are now going to let people drive on the hard shoulder, that’s to ease congestion - and make room for yet more cars I guess. But child road deaths have diminished, mostly cos children don’t walk anywhere. They are glued to their x-boxes, ipods, MP3 s, PSP s. etc. In two generations people will have weedy little legs, large eyes and very large thumbs. I reckon with global warming raising sea levels, and with the weight of more and more people, Britain is going to sink in approx 6.7 years, Britannia won’t rule the waves, she will be under them! I still love visiting England, its history, its diversity and its culture, but I never liked bingo so I can’t wait to get back to Turkey!