THE TWO big banks gave Prezniktwo the Christmas presents he was asking for to improve his public image, after the battering it received from the comrades and other social justice warriors for opposing the special tax on the banks’ windfall profits.
On Friday both Hellenic and BoC announced some interest rate cuts for specific groups, particularly young couples who had taken loans through government housing schemes. Additional amounts for housing loans, on three-year fixed interest rates were also allocated by the banks. There were also loans for small businesses on fixed interest rates.
There were a host of other benefits offered by the generous banks, which are too boring to list here, but would nevertheless have put a smile on our Nik’s face. Nobody can now accuse him of being on the side of the banks which turned into financial Father Christmases to make him happy as a child this festive season.
More importantly, he will take personal credit for persuading the bank CEOs to stop acting like Scrooge and embrace the Christmas spirit for the benefit of young couples and the elderly.

NONE of this would have happened if he had not invited the CEOs of Hellenic and BoC to the presidential palace and begged them to announce some targeted measures.
He persuaded the CEOs to engage in social policy, turning the banks into social welfare offices, offering interest rate discounts to customers based on income and age criteria, something unheard of in the world of banking. Now the banks can boast they have emulated the Co-ops, offering banking with a human face.
It was weird that at the first meeting with the bankers at the palace, Finance Minister Makis Keravnos was not invited. He was present at the second meeting on Wednesday, at which the CEOs informed the Prez about the measures they were planning to take.
Makis stole some of the glow from his boss, taking it upon himself to reveal the type of discounts the banks would introduce the night before the banks announced them. It was as if he had taken the role of spokesman of the banks to earn a little credit for himself.
He could not accept that the presents of the Santa banks were for Prezniktwo – and their deserving customers of course.

YOU HAD to laugh hearing about the working paper on Syria that our government prepared for the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council.
Mini Me, who issues a statement whenever his boss has a telephone conversation with someone important, said the working paper, which included “specific proposals and ideas about the role the EU could play in Syria”, was discussed in a telephone conversation with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.
Our prez is telling the EU what it should be doing in Syria when the whole world, including the United States and Russia do not have a clue what to do. But after a couple of telephone calls to regional leaders, he has become quite the expert on Syria.
It is a bit rich that a guy who cannot find a way to open a couple of crossing points in Kyproulla believes he can sort out the problems of a country that is in total chaos, ravaged by years of civil war and at the mercy of rival armies.

AND NOW he also has the angry farmers in Frenaros and Vryssoules to deal with, after they attacked Unficyp soldiers because they were not allowed to sow their fields in the buffer zone.
The farmer and his helpers attacked two Unficyp men who tried to stop them entering the fields and damaged three UN cars. A complaint was made by the UN officers to the police. The farmer claimed that Unficyp had given him permission to go to his fields which were close to a Turkish guardpost.
An Unficyp statement about the incident, said “no farmer is ever granted permission to work near the ceasefire lines, such actions jeopardise the safety and security of both civilians and UN peacekeepers.” So, who is telling the truth, the farmer or Unficyp?
For Edek it was clear who was to blame for the unacceptable behaviour of Unficyp – UN Special Representative Colin Stewart “whose role once again proves suspicious”. This was why “Edek for the nth time calls on the government to demand Stewart’s removal.” We need a more farmer-friendly and less suspicious person in charge of Unficyp.

IN KYPROULLA the Prez’s wife has not only claimed ownership of the term ‘first lady’, she has turned it into an official title.
The BoC Oncology Centre sent an invitation about “Visit by the First Lady to the Oncology Centre of Bank of Cyprus on Monday, 23 December, 12.30.” In the text of the invitation, again she was referred to as “First Lady, Mrs Philippa Karsera Christodoulidi.”
What I want to know is who is the Second Lady of Kyproulla. If there is a first there must be second. And if our president was a woman would we refer to her husband as the ‘First Gentleman’?

IF YOU wanted another reason to hate Christmas, just get in the car and try driving. It could take an hour to complete what is normally a 10-minute drive, so take a coffee with you and make sure your phone is charged because you will have a lot of time with nothing to do apart from shouting abuse at the smartass trying to manoeuvre his car in front of yours at the lights.
I am just talking about Nicosia, even though I have a hunch that things are much worse in Limassol which has Christmas style traffic jams most of the year. If you feel you do not hate Christmas enough, and would like another reason to do so, go for a drive to the Mall of Cyprus, which is guaranteed to put you off Christmas for the rest of your life.
After waiting for an hour or two to get in the car park, you might spend as long driving around looking for a parking space. And once you find one you will have the joy of joining mobs of shoppers with screaming kids, wandering about in packs, blocking shop entrances or pushing you out of the way, because they saw a free chair at a coffee place.
Once you have braved the crowds and managed to buy a Christmas card, after waiting at the cash desk for half an hour, you will have the thrill of trying to remember where you parked your car. The relief of eventually finding it will be tempered by the knowledge that you might need a couple of hours to get out of the car park to join the traffic jam on the road.
As the Wizzard song says, “I wish it could be Christmas every day.”

IF YOU are not like the English, who do their shopping two months before Christmas, I have a tried and tested method for avoiding the crowds and traffic jams. I stumbled on this formula because I belong to the last-minute-dot-com faith.
Early afternoon on Christmas Eve, most people are at home, the shops are still open and the majority of shoppers, not surprisingly, are men who realise they have to do some shopping in order to keep the peace at home. Men are much faster and decisive shoppers, and do not keep shop assistants occupied for longer than a few minutes, in stark contrast to the opposite sex, who like to explore all possible gift choices.
So if you want to avoid the stress and anxiety related to the Christmas period, stay at home and leave the shopping to the last minute. It has always worked for me.

THIS YEAR, however, I have encountered a new problem. The store I buy my turkey from only had small ones. The biggest was a meagre 4kg, too small to feed two families. Funnily enough, last year, the same store did not have a turkey weighing less than 8.5kg, which only just fit into the oven.
Had the turkey farmers run out of hormones? Or was there a shortage of turkey feed on the market? The butcher informed me that his 4kg turkeys were imported, but when I asked why the store did not import bigger sizes he did not know.
I managed to find some weighing in at 5.5kg at a big supermarket – just half a kilogram less than the optimum size – and will probably buy that one. I just hope there will still be some in stock on Christmas Eve, otherwise we will have rely on the services of Foody.

CAN YOU believe that our Prez had yet another telephone conversation with Ursula von der Leyen on Saturday? Again Mini Me issued an announcement to tell us what was said.
This time it was not about Syria, but about the “developments in the Cyprob, in view of the expected calling of multi-party conference”. What I found rather impolite was that he did not even wish her Merry Christmas during the conversation. Unless he had done so but Mini Me forgot to mention it in his statement.