THE BIGGEST news story over last few days has been that it was very hot. As if anyone in Kyproulla had not felt the scorching heat and had to be informed about it by continuous reports and updates from the media.
OK, it was the highest ever temperature recorded in early June, but what more is there to be said? National broadcaster, CyBC, found plenty, making the heatwave its main news story. The most exciting stories it could come up with were that children in primary schools felt dizzy and some had suffered nose bleeds.
It gave no numbers for nose bleeds, as mentioning the two cases its reporter had heard of from his barber would have belittled the significance of this fascinating report. As for the kids claiming they were dizzy, they were probably using it as an excuse for not having done their homework.
We also heard every day that the government issued yellow or orange warnings, something it does every other day in July and August. If it had issued a red warning, it would be news, but orange?
On Friday morning the heatwave drama had its first victim – a 60-year-old man had suffered heatstroke and was recovering in hospital. The heat, in the end, was not the big natural disaster the media claimed it was.
THE HEATWAVE gave an excuse to give some exposure to the head of the primary teachers’ union Poed, Myria Vassiliou. Only she could talk about the testing conditions in classrooms with no ACs, because the secondary schools had closed and the Oelmek boss could not talk about the suffering of his members.
Many of Vassiliou’s colleagues had called the union, she said, to tell her that they could not suffer the conditions – “they were feeling dizzy.” And she also reported nose bleeds (not among teachers), that many children were feeling unwell and parents were called to collect them. No numbers were given.
It also gave the union boss the opportunity to bring up the biggest problem facing public education – the lack of ACs in classrooms. The government’s plans to have ACs installed everywhere in the next three years was not good enough she said. Vassiliou wants ACs in all classrooms and she wants them now, because her members were feeling dizzy without them.
SOME media were issuing advice on how to cope with the very high temperatures. If this was Sweden, it would have been understandable, but in Kyproulla, where temperatures above 40 degrees are part of summer living and coping with heat is in people’s DNA, the advice seemed unnecessary.
Dear old Phil, on Saturday, carried a story under the headline, “What do we do when symptoms of heatstroke appear – who are most at risk.” I won’t bore you with the content, but I am happy to report that despite my resoundingly stupid decision to play tennis on Friday morning for an hour, I displayed none of the symptoms mentioned.
I have my Cypriot DNA to thank for that.
THE TEMPERATURE will fall below 40 today, which is just as well because we do not want people to use heat as an excuse for not voting in the most complicated elections in our history. They are the sort of elections for which the government should issue an orange warning.
We are going to be handed five and even up to eight ballot papers – depending on where you’re voting – a manual on how to vote and a coffee before going into the voting booth, where we could spend as long as 10 minutes, longer if you haven’t finished your coffee.
This will be first vote after the screwball reform of local government, which has created 93 ‘deputy mayor’ posts for 20 municipalities. Polis Chrysochous will have 14 and Lefkara, which should not even have a mayor, will have seven. All the mayoral and mukhtar posts scrapped have been replaced by those of ‘deputy mayor’ who are the ‘do nothing candidates’ as they have no duties or responsibilities.
They will be paid by the taxpayer for doing nothing, some as much as three grand a month. When you think that most people would happily do nothing for no pay (unless they are public parasites), why are the deputy mayor posts not given to volunteers? It would save the taxpayer €2.3 million a year.
DEPUTY mayors are paid peanuts compared to what an MEP gets, but sadly Kyproulla can elect only six. And we cannot arrange to have some deputy MEPs elected to get a piece of the €120,000 a year plus expenses action.
Of course, none of our candidates are standing for the money. They are standing because they want to represent Kyproulla in a parliament of 720 members, in which they are never heard or taken any notice of.
If you read the reports they send back to Kyproulla about their activities in Brussels or Strasbourg, especially from Diko’s Costas Mavrides, you’d think they have put Turkey in the dock. Then there is Disy’s empty vessel, Loukas Fourlas who repeats the Cyprob cliches of the 80s.
And who would have thought that warrior princess, Dr Eleni Theocharous would be standing yet again, this time with Diko? Having served in Brussels, she knows an MEP from Cyprus has no clout, so why is she standing? She cannot be doing it for the money as she is earning shitloads in pensions? Is it because she is a poet?
POOR old Odysseas must have been bitterly disappointed with the decision of the supreme constitutional court, which gave the green light to the AG’s dismissal proceedings against him for inappropriate conduct.
We will have to wait for the outcome of the case, but I would like to ask whether the four senior members of the audit office that accompanied him to the court last Wednesday were on leave? If they were not, they should have been in the audit office instead of accompanying their boss to the court.
I am sure the auditor-general will investigate and write a report about public employees who skive off work for non-work-related reasons.
ETHNARCH Junior came to the defence of his Prez a few days ago, explaining why he was receiving a bad press. “Most of the mass media are controlled by forces who hate the president,” he said. Which forces, he did not elaborate. Are they forces of evil, forces of nature or air forces?
It did not occur to him that the mass media might be controlled by forces that love the president but think he is doing a lousy job, like Phil which did everything it could to get him elected.
PREZNIKTWO, to his credit, was much more decisive in revoking the passport of the international fraudster Jho Low, wanted for the theft of $4.5bn, than his predecessor, who was finding lame excuses not to do so.
Nikone knew since 2015 that Low was wanted for massive fraud, but cited all sort of legal technicalities to avoid revoking his passport. He left office ensuring Low kept his Cyprus passport. At least the successor took a decision to revoke it two-and-half months after coming to power.
The lawyers of Low appealed against the decision to the Republic’s independent committee which hears the appeals by criminals holding Cyprus passports. The appeal was rejected and the passport finally revoked earlier this week, nine years after Low’s fraud was revealed.
ON FRIDAY I came across a quote by great Groucho Marx that I had never seen before and felt duty-bound to share it. “These are my principles. If you do not like them, I have some more.”
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