HAPPY new year and I sincerely wish your hangover is manageable. I do not remember the last time the Coffeeshop was open on New Year’s Day, which caused a dilemma regarding what content would be served.
It seemed too late for a review of the year, while a lookahead to 2022 was practically unfeasible as we have not replaced our coffee-cup reader who was relieved of her fortune-telling duties, after predicting the Covid lunacy would have ended in 2021 and rational thinking restored.
Fortune-tellers are not what they used to be and, to be fair, they are judged much more strictly than scientists making forecasts about Covid-19. Scientists and epidemiologists can get things wrong as often as they like without any consequences, whereas a hapless fortune teller is just one mistaken prediction away from a shattered reputation and joblessness.
Imagine if the same tough rules applied to the scientists, who were assuring us at the beginning of last year that we would see the end of the pandemic once 60 per cent of the population was fully vaccinated, which was revised to 70, and subsequently 80 per cent of the adult population, before they advised children over 5 years of age should also get the jab.
And did this end the spread of the virus? Sure, there have been record numbers of cases in the last few days, which the scientists hope to bring under control by stopping vaccinated people with a negative rapid tests dancing in clubs.
APART from the dancing ban, clubgoers, according to the latest decree, have to remain seated at all times. This would indicate neither the scientists nor the members of the cabinet have ever been in a nightclub, where there is seating for about 10 per cent of the clientele.
And why would anyone go to a nightclub, or bar for that matter to be sat in a chair for the entire evening? This was a smart way of preventing the young from going to clubs on New Year’s Eve, without decreeing their closure and having to compensate the owners.
Making dancing illegal is the sort of measure totalitarian regimes impose. I bet officers of our police state paid visits to all the clubs last night to make sure the customers were in their seats and not standing around with intent to pass on the virus.
TWO years after we were forced to wear a surgical mask, in order to protect ourselves and others, the scientists discovered that this was not adequate protection. The cabinet decreed on Wednesday that we have to use two surgical masks or the super turbo protection masks such as KN95, FFP2, SLC and XJ6,
Why were we wearing less, safe masks for two years and being told that these protected us? And if the super-turbo masks are indeed safer why can’t a double-vaccinated clubber, with a negative rapid test, wearing a KN95 dance at a nightclub or at least stand and move to the music? According to the science, the clubber is more likely to pass on the virus than an unvaccinated, untested, mask-wearing churchgoer, standing in a church full of worshippers.
IN THE ABSENCE of any developments in the Cyprob and meetings in the legislature the only story offering a break from the dull monotony of Covid-19, in the slow week between Christmas and the new year was the increase of bank charges in 2022.
Only in Kyproulla could such a mundane story have become an issue of great national importance, generating public statements by the central bank and the finance ministry, which were being urged by unions, parties and interest groups to intervene and stop ‘the banking greed.’
The Soviet, Akelite mindset of these people was evident, as they sought state intervention to stop banks deciding what prices to charge their customers. They have still not come to terms with living in a market economy and want the state to set prices.
Leading the charge was the allegedly right-wing union (a contradiction in terms, I know) Sek, which issued a fiery statement, saying the bankers’ eyes “are on the money that citizens have in their wallets.” Sek called on the state to “intervene dynamically and stop banking greed, lacking in humanity and logic.”
Sek forgot what happened to the co-ops which practised banking brimming with humanity and logic.
THE SOCIALISTS of Edek also cited patriotic reasons for the banks not increasing their charges. High charges, the party said, “strengthen the black economy, while simultaneously, constitute an indirect incentive for the increase of deposits in the occupied areas, which, unfortunately, many of our compatriots engage in.”
The fuss about the bank charges was started, not surprisingly, by Syprodat, which stands for Association for the Protection of Borrowers. No prizes for guessing that the borrowers this organisation is protecting are those who refuse to repay their loans. The shamelessness of self-righteously protesting about higher bank charges when you are not repaying your loans, is awe-inspiring.
YOU WOULD have thought the central bank governor would have had the guts to explain that the banks had the right to increase charges instead of issuing a wishy-washy statement talking about the so-called ‘payment account with special features’ for which there are set charges.
This account offers no credit facilities and is limited to 100 transactions a year, so cannot be of use to 90 per cent of bank customers. The central bank statement omitted to mention this minor detail, less the governor got a bad press from the champions of low charges.
It was left to the finance ministry to explain the harsh capitalist truth, the central bank was afraid to mention, to the moaning Akelites of the Left and Right – with the exception of the above-mentioned account, “all other charges are at the discretion of the banks,” and the state had no say over how these were decided.
Even the bleeding obvious has to be spelt out.
INTRIGUED to read that human rights campaigner and President of the Bar Association Christos Clerides, sent a letter of complaint to Kathimerini newspaper, on behalf of his client, Mrs Philippa Karsera, wife of the foreign minister and acting head of the General Secretariat of European Affairs.
It was similar in tone and content to the letter he had sent our establishment in November 2020, on behalf of the same client, but much longer as he gave a detailed rundown of Mrs Karsera’s glowing CV from university until the present day, informing us that her 22-year career “was and remained discrete and independent from any other capacity, including that of wife….”
All that Kathimerini wrote was that in the diplomatic corridors it was said that she should have had a “more discreet role so that she would not be accused of turning the secretariat into pre-election department for 2023.” This was a pretty mild comment, that did not even raise the irregularity of Mrs Karsera being the only serving diplomat not posted abroad for eight years.
Clerides made the same point he made to us, in his letter of a year ago. “Mrs Karsera is not a public figure, is not a politician, nor an official of the government which is why there is no justification for criticism in the framework of a democratic, pluralist society.”
The articles of “defamatory content deal a blow to Mrs Karsera’s professional career” so “please refrain, from now on to reference to her person and comply with the code of ethics….”
NOW WE know it is unethical to make any reference to Mrs Karsera’s person, and that she is above criticism, because she is just a humble and dedicated civil servant doing her job as best she can, promoting Mr Karsera’s presidential aspirations only in her free time, our establishment will be much more careful about what it writes.
This is not because we subscribe to the code of ethics mentioned by Clerides or agree with his view that criticism of a senior civil servant is a violation of her human rights. We will keep quiet because we fear that if Mrs Karsera ever becomes the first lady, she might use more forceful ways to silence her critics than a lawyer’s letter.
SPEAKING of the presidential elections, I read a report claiming that the self-proclaimed father of Gesy and tough-talking Twitterati Giorgos Pamborides, is no longer considered a possibility as a candidate by the comrades of Akel. There had been reports circulating that Akel would consider him as a candidate, but these have been laid to rest.
Last Tuesday Akel chief Stefanos Stefanou met Achilleas Demetriades, who plans to announce his presidential candidacy by March. Nothing was decided. We hope comrade Stef will also grant a meeting to Dr Andreas Theophanous, whom many hundreds of citizens have been urging to stand and he is currently in search of a party to back him.
AKEL deputy Christos Christofias is his father’s son. A few days ago, Comrade Tof Junior, was lamenting the 30th anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the dissolution of which he described as a “crime”. While “the red flag with the hammer and sickle was removed from the Kremlin,” the distraught but defiant Tof Junior said, “we still hold it high,” and added: “Millions of communists on the planet hold it high. Tomorrow it will be raised by even more. Comrades, hold the flag high.”
I could criticise this guy without fear of getting a letter from Christos Clerides, but I can’t help feeling sorry for him. I am always in compassionate, sympathetic mood on the first day of a new year, so I can get it out of the way.
Happy New Year to all the imprisoned dancers for freedom.
