Tales from the Coffeeshop: Barbie branding and poor sartorial choices

A COUPLE of weeks ago the “internationally-acclaimed, award-winning Cypriot artist Alexia” performed her “conceptual live-arts culturalwork (sic) Kypris” in the street between the Cyprus museum and what was once called the Garden Café.

I did not attend, put off by the pretentious previews of the event, which was inspired by “the antiquities exhibited in the Cyprus museum and historic space that houses them; Alexia’s artistic approach enhances the visibility of cultural heritage and contemporary cultural expressions through her series of live-arts performances for Cyprus.”

This was beyond my contemporary intellectual capabilities, but a friend who attended informed me that apart from “creating an aural landscape, a fusion of jazz, classical, improvisation, and electronic music with a contemporary approach to traditional Cypriot song….” Alexia had a surprise for the audience.

She had a guest performer, presented as Ekaterini, who played guitar and sang a composition she had written. When the young woman finished her performance, Alexia turned to Mrs PKC (Philippa Karsera Christodoulidou), who was sat in the first row and told her “Philippa mou, all the best (na mas zisi) she was wonderful.”

THE SONG performed by the presidential daughter was about occupied Ammochostos and how she would never forget it, indicating that she received a commendable patriotic upbringing.

It raised a few questions, however, among the more literally minded among us. How can you not forget a place that you have never visited because it has been occupied by Turkey long before you were born? I somehow doubt the Christodoulides family showed ID cards to the occupation authorities for an outing in Ammochostos when it was opened.

Anyway, after the identity of the singer who sang about never forgetting Ammochostos was revealed, my friend overheard a foreign member of the audience quipping, “but her father has already forgotten it.”

THE FIRST big interview of PKC, referred to by Alexia as the ‘first lady of Cyprus’ as if this were a formal title, was published by Phil rag Omikron, which is out today, but excerpts were featured in two posts on the Philenews website. Did she feel proud of herself today, asked the interviewer and she replied:

“I feel proud for my refugee parents, for the principles and values they gave me. For my grandfathers and grandmothers, and also for my daughters that show understanding and resilience, who have learned to fight and respect.”

She also was proud of her husband “who started from Yeroskipou with the only resources being his upbringing, hard work, scholarships and studying, ethos and conscientiousness, and today constitutes the positive model for the children of Cyprus.”

She said she was certain that as leader, the positive model “will do everything for the good of Cyprus, without caring about wealth, material goods and glory.” Not even about re-election I suspect.

ONE THING she did not say she was proud of, and with ample justification, was her dress sense. The outfits she wore to pose for the Omikron photo-shoot at the presidential palace and the summer residence in Troodos (she drove all the way to the mountains for a photo session) and on other occasions make her look like a village girl who married a wealthy accountant.

Perhaps Prez Nik should ask Odysseas for permission to hire a style advisor at the palace to help Mrs PKC choose her clothes as we can’t have a First Lady of Cyprus so lacking in sartorial elegance.

She was also asked why the family had moved to the presidential palace and made it their home. “It was done clearly for functional reasons, relating to Nikos’ duties, but also practical reasons, regarding the security and coherence of our family.”

Saving two or three grand on monthly rent had nothing to do with the decision. If it had, I am sure Mrs PKC would have said so.

BARBIE fever has arrived on our shores it would appear. The younger daughter of Nik I had a Barbie themed birthday party for her friends, which was a case of mutton dressed as lamb, with the 40something revelers all dressed in pink minis.

Mum, Mrs Andri, who also attended, was the only exception from what we saw on Twitter, her pink dress reaching well below the knees.

Former minister Emily Yioliti also had a Barbie-themed birthday party, but for her 14-year-old daughter – maybe it is a Limassol thing – which seemed a bit more appropriate. Speaking of Yioliti, being one of the best-dressed women in Kyproulla, perhaps she could be hired as the style advisor of Mrs PKC, so long as she promises not to dress her as Barbie.

FORMER foreign minister and Disy grandee Ioannis Kasoulides felt obliged to stand up for his party’s very own Barbie, leader Annita Demetriou, although she never wears pink, who is systematically undermined by the male members of the leadership clique.

“They should stop patronising her, each one in the direction he considers the best,” said Kasoulides in an interview with Kathimerini last Sunday. It was not only Averof and Nik I who were guilty of this behaviour, he said. He also lamented the fact that in the party elections, members voted for people with a high rusfeti-granting rating.

“Disy was never Diko,” he said before describing Diko as “the party of rusfeti.” This was a bit unfair, considering Disy is not exactly pure and virginal on the rusfeti front, but Kasoulides was merely acknowledging the market leaders.

HIS QUIP caused great offence in Diko ranks, deputy leader Christiana Erotokritou Twittering “sadness for insulting references to Diko, its historical leaders and current leadership.”

Nobody told her that the party’s founder and historical leader Spy Kyp was the universally accepted and recognised father of rusfeti, having perfected it and made it the most potent political tool in Kyproulla used by everyone to this day.

We still honour Spy Kyp for filling the public service and SGOs with semi-literate incompetents all of whom were proud members of Diko. Many have now retired but we hope, with Diko in the government, Spy’s proud legacy will be revived.

FACEBOOK has dealt a big blow to the deity-general’s noble efforts to clean up the country by disabling the page used by his loyal henchmen to publicly intimidate and bully non-believers and those He declares as corrupt.

It had received many complaints for the Support Group of the Auditor-General page for posts against state officials and politicians who had not embraced the Odysseas faith. In one of the last posts, it had the PM of Thailand saying that journalists not telling the truth would be executed.

The Odysseas mujahedeen were livid, and used other social media platforms to warn that the worship group “would come back with a vengeance, because some fear the truth.” And as we all know, only the Odysseas mujahedeen speak the truth.

HARDLINE commie Nicos Katsourides may have been kicked out by Akel but he has refused to leave the public domain, penning newspaper articles and expressing his anti-West opinions on Twitter.

On Friday, the man with a PhD in economics (from a Bulgarian university during the heyday of the Soviet Union) tweeted his explanation for the latest increase in interest rates by the ECB.

“New increase in interest rates by #ECB, without, until now, previous increases having had any positive result. We should not look for the reasons in the details. The main cause, the billions being thrown into the bottomless pit of the war in #Ukraine.”

This is based on Soviet economic theory which ignores the details, given that the West is to blame for all the world’s problems, a lesson Katsourides learnt well in the Bulgaria of Zhivkov.

THE INFLATION that has pushed up interest rates was caused by governments printing money to pay people to stay at home during the two years of the pandemic. It was made worse by the war in Ukraine and rising energy prices.

But because Putin supporters, like Katsourides, are embarrassed to openly voice their support for the tyrant in his war against the Ukraine, they attack the West and Nato instead, accusing them of prolonging the war by pouring billions into the bottomless pit that allegedly causes high interest rates.

ON THE 49^th anniversary of the invasion 49 citizens from the free and occupied territories signed a declaration rejecting any “so-called settlement” that includes partition, two states or any other arrangement with geographical division, based on ethnic origin, such as confederation, bizonal, bicommunal federation, which “with its separatist provisions leads to two states.”

They support “a fully independent, truly democratic and unitary Cyprus Republic.” Don’t we all, but it would be quite useful if the 49 told us how they planned to achieve this so we can all sign the declaration. Until then, the 49 uncompromising patriots should listen to the Rolling Stones’ song, ‘You can’t always get what you want.’

HATS OFF to the person who wrote the front-page headline in Thursday’s Politis, referring to Monday’s visit to Kyproulla by Greece’s PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis. “(He is) Coming determined to understand what we seek,” with regard to the Cyprob. If he understands, he should let us know, as we are also in the dark. All we know is that Prez Nik II is not “interested in the communications management of the Cyprob.”