ONE THING I discovered watching the debate of the presidential candidates on Sigma TV on Monday night was that self-regarding, presenter Yiannis Kareklas has changed his hair colour. This may have happened some time ago, but I had not tuned in to his show for some years, hence my surprise.
He has abandoned the jet-black colour that looked completely unreal, for a marginally more natural-looking brown with ginger undertones. He must have given up on the boot polish and got a hairdresser to do the colouring since the last time I saw him on telly. The giveaway that professional services had been used was that his eyebrows were a matching colour.
Predictably, of his three guests, only the candidate that focuses on packaging and appearance was well-groomed. Christodoulides showed off his jet-black coiffure – a dye job most probably – with every hair greased into place and the ridiculously pointy sideburns that you normally see on men less than half his age.
No such vanity was evident in the other two guests – Averof and Achilleas – who seemed happy with a head of sparse, greying hair. When it comes to hair, Christodoulides is the undisputed heir of Prez Nik, the only candidate that can be trusted to maintain his no ‘grey hair legacy’.
THE DEBATE was quite entertaining, especially when both Kareklas and Achilleas, asked Christodoulides to say if he had ordered the setting up of fake accounts and whether he had written the text messages that had been made public.
Two of the texts were particularly offensive to Achilleas and he demanded from Christodoulides to say whether he had written them – ‘just a yes or a no’. Instead, he got the same answer given to Kareklas, who asked the same question earlier, and it was neither affirmative nor negative, although it went on for two minutes.
Mercifully, he had not used the nauseatingly, self-righteous response he had used on the Rik TV debate a few days earlier. He did not say, “I will not engage in a discussion that downgrades political debate,” as he had done on Rik.
Someone probably told him that abusive comments against rivals through fake accounts, even if not confirmed, also downgraded political debate a little bit, so it would have been grossly hypocritical, even by his standards, to take the moral high ground.
Instead, he went all legal, repeating like a tape recorder that “I will not become involved in any discussion about the private communication of any citizen of this country.”
THE CANDIDATE was smart enough not to report the publication of his private communication to the police, in stark contrast to the holier than thou Odysseas, who did exactly that after a spat he had with the wife of the Phil publisher, Myrna Pattichi, last week.
The Facebook page, known as the “Support Group of the Auditor-General” had run some offensive comments about Pattichi and another woman, as they were both members of the English School board that sacked three teachers, for disciplinary offences in the summer. The page also heaped abuse on the school’s headmaster.
One of the sacked teachers was the daughter of Andreas Hasapopoulos, a manager at the audit office and Odysseas’ poodle, until his recent retirement, he has been running this ludicrous page. An upset Pattichi texted Odysseas, feeling that he could ask for the offensive remarks to be removed. She attached the comments, asking him “aren’t you ashamed?”
Odyssseas texted back immediately, exhibiting his delusions of human perfection. “I have not done something in my life for which I am ashamed. This is why I am just returning your unacceptable message. Shame on you.”
Pattichi’s exchange of texts, was included in a report on the Phil website, forcing this law-abiding specimen of human perfection, to issue an insufferably self-righteous response announcing he would report the paper to the police.
INCIDENTALLY, Odysseass also took offence, and mentioned it in his long-winded response, because in the article he was described as being “compulsively arrogant,” which I found to be a gross understatement. Such blatant lack of self-awareness showed that he is not totally free of human weakness.
Apart from the unbridled arrogance, he also displayed real ingratitude to Phil, which for years has been writing glowing reports about him and lavishly praising his work. It helped build the God-like status he now enjoys.
My question is what kind of person can claim they have never done something in their life to be ashamed of? If I started writing here the things I have done in my life that I am ashamed of – admittedly I am a bit older than Odysseas – I would not finish by next week’s deadline, but it would make good copy.
MY FAVOURITE member of the Kyproulla Twitterati, Gourounakis (piglet), highlighted the tweets of Odysseas’ sister, Anastasia Kamenou, who was hired at the interior ministry in 2018 in a top position, on a top pay-grade (A14), from outside the civil service. Such posts invariably go to members of the civil service.
It was an appointment that had rusfeti written all over it, but neither her incorruptible brother nor Pasydy said anything about it. Ingratitude must be in the family DNA, as Kamenou has now turned against her benefactors, because she applied for the post of district officer and they did not arrange for her to be appointed.
This may explain her tweet. “When the ship is sinking the rats abandon it. The phenomenon will take the form of an avalanche. This happens when those surrounding you are yes people. The same will happen with the civil service in which you gave promotions while they were useless and placed them in order to carry out favours.”
Lack of self-awareness might also be in the Michaelides family DNA. Kamenou, from what I hear, has abandoned Disy’s sinking ship and jumped on the Christodoulides bandwagon.
GOUROUNAKIS’ response to her tweet was this: “Yes, the only meritocratic appointments that were made was your brother (auditor-general, without even being an auditor; the accountants’ body condemned it at the time and for sure without Averof it would not have happened) and you, probably the only case of an outsider taking an A14 post (thanks to your brother). Shame on you.”
My friend Gourounakis should be informed that like her bro, she has done nothing in her life to be ashamed of.
THE MADAME Figaro awards, run by the Zeus group, were announced this week, with many bad tongues questioning the committee’s decision to share the Opap Award for Social Contribution, given for charity work. Two candidates apparently received the same number of votes, a claim that did not wash with some people.
According to the organisers this had never happened before in the history of the awards. The women sharing the award were Myria Stavraki and Elena Megalemou Triantafyllidou, both with surnames of old Nicosia families. I will not mention who their respective husbands are because I do not want to be accused of sexism and becoming a target of feminists.
Stavraki has been the vice president of the Cyprus Anti-Cancer Society since 2009, while Megalemou Triantafyllidou has been the president of the Mora Thavmata charity that offers care to newborn infants, since 2019, when the post was vacated by her husband’s sister, Stella Kyriakides, the EU health commissioner, who set up the charity.
Apart from Kyriakides, she also had interior minister Nicos Nouris, to whom she is related through marriage, in her support team, so it was quite an achievement for Stavraki, to get the same number of votes as her.
(DISCLOSURE – I know Myria and her other half but I have not allowed this to influence my unbiased reporting)
THE POLITICAL council of Depa, the party of Diko rejects, on Saturday accepted the proposal of its political bureau to back the Christodoulides candidacy but caused him some embarrassment before this.
Members of the Depa bureau proudly told radio shows, after the proposal was agreed, that one of the conditions for the party’s support was the setting up of a “Conflict resolution mechanism” to deal with the differences of the parties backing the independent candidate.
The Christodoulides camp realised how ridiculous this made the candidate look, and all day Friday Depa officials were denying they had ever said such a thing. It was a ‘slip of the tongue’ said one of them.
Without a conflict resolution mechanism, would Junior, Sizo, Garoyian have the right of unilateral intervention, when there is disagreement over the beneficiary of a government rusfeti?
MY FAITH in humanity was restored the other day when I was sent a clip of someone appearing on The Weakest Link, who introduced himself thus: “I am Vangelis from Larnaca, 35 years of age, and I have realised all my dreams.”
Asked by the presenter to say which dreams he realised he said: “When I was young I had a dream not to become a model, not to become a footballer, not to become an astronaut, and with great effort I achieved all of them and became none of these.” And when the presenter tried to put him down for his looks, saying “especially the first,” he responded, “I tried really hard.” Respect to Vangelis, one of the very few Cypriots that does not take himself too seriously.
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