Wednesday, May 16, 2007

How we threw our heads back and laughed

I know what you're thinking, but it IS the man himself.

You know, there are days when you think that life just couldn't get any better, one of those rare moments when both the forces of creation and elements of nature coalesce in a swan song of rapture and joy.

Well, today was not one of those days. However, something rather special did happen.

As a child I longed for K.I.T.T. Aged 11, I knew it wouldn't be long before my father substituted his lemon Ford Falcon sedan for a vehicle that actually contained some hint of street-cred and a touch less of suburban hell. Talking cars were but a moment away in time I thought, and naively assumed that my own first car would be black, sporty, and capable of speech.

It wasn't to be. I lived disappointment on a daily basis through my early teens, until I thought the best way to capture that certain je ne sais quoi of Knightrider would be to emulate, if not the personality, then a least the hairstyle of The Hoff. I can proudly that without any hint of irony that no teenager carried longer or more assiduously, with greater care or more hair-care products, the Hasselhoff-inspired bouffant that made me the envy of every... where am I going with this?

The Hoff has arrived. On my doorstep.

God, what a reunion it's been. It's been a non-stop love-in since he fell out of my early birthday present bubble wrapping.

A reunion of gargantuan proportions, we threw caution and good taste to the wind and dived deep into nostalgia. The man himself launched into a Hoffologue that has sent me into an emotional time machine as I've relived every episode of perhaps the best public television program ever to have graced the television screen in my lifetime.

I was treated to stunts after posing for my Hello magazine.

We've laughed and cried. Tears of joy, shrieks of hysteria and moments of pure tristesse have accompanied his constantly entertaining plethora of tales, on-screen, and perhaps more interestingly, off-screen. Pamela's woes, the difficulty of shooting boogie boards from certain angles and those annoying crevasses full of sand are only the tip of the iceberg. I was treated to a no-holds-barred, access-all-areas, intimate and at times undeniably personal insight into the lives of the greatest multi-talented artiste of our times.

There are so many things I'd like to share with all of you out there. However the betrayal of friendship for the glib satisfaction of fleeting fame on the blogosphere is a poor trade indeed. The Hoff knows my word is my word. There is just so much that will forever stay between us both, unknown to those of you looking in from the outside.

Blokey talk: The Hoff gets intimate

But I will say this: the Hoff has lost none of his edge, none of that esprit that kept him and continues to elevate him beyond the peak of his field. As with Sylvester Stallone, plastic surgery has been kind in the medium-term and further small surgical procedures will ensure he maintains the mystique and charisma of stars such as Melanie Griffith and Mickey Rourke, well into the middle of this century.

Action pose and face shots. A physique like this at 54. Never!

And even though I know not an iota of German, The Hoff entertained me for several hours with a new soon-to-be rereleased version of 99 Luftballoons, all the while allowing me to rub peppermint massage oil into his tired but famous feet. I am left with no shadow of doubt that he is indeed Germanophonia's answer to Edith Piaf. What that wizened old crone did for French chanson the Hoff has done for Teutonic rock. So it's no wonder that today almost every German speaker on the planet goes about his daily Arbeit humming some ditty or another a la Hoff.


I was enraptured. Perhaps in love? Certainly in awe.

The Hoff's busy schedule didn't allow greater intimacy, but since he comes with a neat gold-plated fastener I attached him to me. We're inseparable.

I love my Hoff. And I'm fairly sure the feeling is reciprocated.

More than just affection... the magnetic attraction is undeniable.

Footnote: This article is based upon the rather brilliant creative mind displayed at http://kezzaroo.blogspot.com/. See her Etsy link for more fabulous present ideas for me.


Friday, May 11, 2007

Like sands through the hourglass...

As a child, I rarely fell ill. My mother belonged to that group of parents who bemoaned lax discipline, slovenly manners and sparing the rod. As such, I never bothered to fall sick because it just wasn't at all like the comforting couch-potato ice cream-eating and pyjama-wearing stories that school friends regaled me with. All I got was re-runs of The Restless Years and Days of Our Lives with dry toast, hardly the stuff of which to boast during school breaks. Back then we only had a black and white TV so you can imagine all these years later how I've come to equate personal illness with 1980s West coast soap operas. But not CHiPs. Never CHiPs.

Kratos, my new best friend.

Last Sunday, while forcing Kratos's hand against Zeus in an early stage of God of War II, I suffered acute dizziness. Realising I wasn't drunk, I tried to stand up and briefly afterwards crashed with full force into my Playstation console, which inadvertently shut down. Nauseous and wincing at the thought of having to rematch Colossus again before I could save my progress, I made it to the bathroom with minimal energy loss. However, I suffered many attacks, mainly from butting into walls that constantly appeared out of nowhere, that I could neither evade nor appreciate, as the landlady had painted them beige.

Shaky on my legs, I fell into bed and spent the next twelve hours sleeping and hoping that I would awake fresh and rejuvenated. It wasn't to be. A good friend whisked me off to the closest hospital where I underwent two MRs, an audiogram, and an ECG. Some woman removed my sweat-soaked shirt and randomly shaved parts of my chest. My initial thoughts that she was creating a simple join-the-dots puzzle for her workmates were banished when she proceeded to attached coloured electrodes to my body, exciting me immensely because I've always liked things that are colour-coded. Feeling akin to a lab monkey, the nurse completed my look by dressing me in a white string vest, apparently designed to keep the wires in place. Really, I looked great.

Nurse introducing IV drip with minimum of fuss.

So Mehmet zealously organised all the details while I sat in the same emergency room for the second time since coming to Istanbul. I looked at my leg angrily but it didn't seem to understand the significance of my menacing glance. Next some orderly brusquely whisked me past a lot of
-ology departments and I was unceremoniously dumped into private room 1108 which was home for the next 24 hours. Majella, long suffering flat mate that she is, brought me things I needed and read the latest hot gossip from The Economist until I sank into a heavy slumber.

Doctors weren't able to shed further light on my condition, but we were all pleased that a brain showed up in the MR. It put a lot of questions to rest, forever. The medics couldn't fathom what was causing my problem when brain, ears, and heart were functioning adequately. During my time in hospital I drank as much as the flavourless, colourless IV drip would allow and caught up Turkish daytime soap operas, the bulk of which consist in a nubile woman pouting astride a beast of a man, the latter cowering to no-one and looking all the more ridiculous since he's always overburdened with make-up. Some one ought tell Turkish television make-up artists that you can't cover up a five o'clock shadow in this part of the world. An exercise in futility.

Eventually the doctors discharged me. No idea what was wrong but hey, I didn't want to stay any longer either. Medication being exceptional value-for-money in this metropolis, I spent up big and commenced on my course for the next ten days. Frustratingly, nothing seems to be working and almost a week later I feel only a little less nauseous... I'm stumbling about like a northern Englander at 5pm on a Friday evening. Albeit with a lot less aggression.

My mate, not yours, taking an interactive tour of the local sights during sick time.

For an entire week I've been able only to sit or lay down, which excludes many activities such as washing dishes, ironing, and most other house-centred tasks. But I can eat. I can't focus well for extended periods of time and my thoughts are erratic disjointed, now more than usual. So I've to dedicated this spare time to
God of War II as Kratos isn't looking for friendship based on intellectual compatibility, he just wants dedication and loyalty.

I'll attempt to catch up with world news later in the week. I have a feeling that a number of important events have occurred that are likely to shape the course of Turkish politics over the next few months. Still, now it's back to the Steeds of Time. I'm trying to meet up with the Gorgons but can't seem to get an easy ride over to the islands... So are the days of our lives.


Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Oh ha! Language Learning 1

I had a moan on a previous post about how difficult and time consuming it has been for me to learn Turkish. Well... I haven't finished.

Enrolling in Modern Languages at university has been without a doubt the single most influential choice in my life. In some way languages other than English and the multifaceted cultures using them as a medium have affected my daily existence for years. First and foremost my professors were excellent educators, technically flawless, patient, sympathetic, organised and they loved their jobs. Secondly, university being the social environment that it is, I studied with good people, namely Duncan (Sporto) and Angela (Princess), who taught me many of the principles of life.

Tomes of wisdom to get me through my day in Istanbul

Enjoyable and productive hours spent in lecture rooms, libraries and language laboratories ensured I came away with my first degree feeling proud of my achievements and rather pleased that I could read, write, listen to and speak French, Spanish, and to a lesser degree, Italian and Rumanian after four years. Following which a long stint in France helped me achieve near-native fluency, and if I've somewhat lost proficiency over the years, my passion for language learning has never waned.

I state all this now to make you understand that no matter what is written hereunder, there remains no question in my mind that learning the language of the culture in which you live is the single most important factor for happiness and fulfilment in that country.

I came to Turkey. Thus my need to learn Turkish. And reasons to learn the language are manifold.

Stupid, unpronounceable vowel sounds.

I started enthusiastically, stole a flatmate's copy of Colloquial Turkish and within weeks was making some headway. By night I worked my way devotedly through several pages of grammar... until the realisation several months later that I was retaining newly acquired vocabulary and grammar on the shortest of short term bases.

Some days would deliver a linguistic high, I could understand and make chit-chat with taxi drivers, dürüm and kebap vendors and wax lyrically with new found friends on topics ranging from yesterday's weather to today's forecast. I was empowering myself and getting out of the Turkish language rut into which many of expatriates naturally fall for some time when they can't quite master the art of thinking in reverse order, which is what some commentators would have you believe is the trick to speaking Turkish. I think that last sentence was too long.

With my 2007 to-do list neatly displayed on my recently acquired whiteboard, I began gleefully to scrawl verb conjugations and personal suffixes, slowly but surely increasing my understanding of the importance of order in the Turkish tongue. While in Paris I purchased the fabulously and exotically titled Grammaire du Turc and randomly opened to page 148. 'Simply, to form the suppositive verb tense you need only apply the following rule: add to the verb root -(y)E2cE2k + -sE2 + -SPV2, where E stands for either e or a depending on the preceding vowel and SPV2 is a set of personal suffixes dealt with earlier in the book. Y is inserted only where it would otherwise bring two vowels into contact'. Simple.

Simple, my arse.

The ability of the Cartesian French spirit to reduce a entire linguistic system to a set of neatly defined rules means that I no longer have to trawl my way through endless grammar books written in English. The French, even if they have elected Sarkozy, are concise, systematic and very special people indeed. Having reduced the entire Turkish tongue to a smattering of formulaic expressions means all I need do now is memorise, then apply, forty or so formulae to express myself in every conceivable tense, aspect and mood. And my mood fluctuates often.

It's OK... it's OK. It's not you, it's the book.

What I cannot abide is Turkish vocabulary. People have criticised modern Turkish, which, purified of numerous Arabic and Persian borrowings, seems to suffer from a paucity of choice. There is no doubt that modern Turkish has fewer words in daily use than English, but even these I cannot seem to remember. I often confuse one word for another or simply rearrange consonants at any given moment. The appearance of the letter h in various positions of a word causes endless grief. I am awash with rage at my inability, after almost 18 months here, to splutter a stream of words that can count as a grammatically correct and meaningful phrase. If you pick up any guide book on Turkish you will no doubt come across some article about Turkish. The author will supply an lengthy multisyllabic word to astound the English speaker and which confirms Turks, like their language, as incomprehensible and barbarian.

Turkish people are patient, hospitable and kind. Their language is tortuous and sadistic. My private language tutor is neither patient nor sadistic, but I'm sure she'd happily whip me if it were still considered standard practise for wayward pupils. The ability to acquire a second language diminishes with age. I disagree. The acquisition of new grammar and words is easy enough. Retaining all that newly acquired information demands an environment in which to use it.

I think I am swearing at this point in time.

I am an English teacher. My students can or want to speak my mother tongue. My relationships with my Turkish friends began in English and it is hard to make the crossover into their native language as it feels like a step backwards. And I have one criticism. Whether it is the natural eagerness and effusive nature of the Turks or their Mediterranean ardour, they rarely, if ever, speak slowly. We've all heard before how the Italians, Spanish and French join all words together in a single utterance. With the Turks, I tend to believe it is true, but think it is more likely that they come from a culture where they are less likely to hear people speaking Turkish as a second language, and are thrilled to hear someone doing so. Ineffectual requests to my interlocutor to speak more slowly reduce me within a few sentences to short grunts or nods of the head. You see, Turkish verbs can be extremely long to the untrained ear and since they contain many add ons (or plug-ins, if you will), I can work out the verb but never know whether I am hearing past, present or future. I try to explain this to my private tutor but she unenthusiastically rolls her eyes.

And like you're gonna answer my prayers. I bet you can't even speak Turkish.








I shall persevere.

At least I've learnt a lot of obscene words. Thank you, Taxi Drivers of Istanbul.