26/06/08
I Predict A Cypriot -
Categories: As a comedian, if you have a free weekend, you do wonder if you should fill it with things, go away somewhere perhaps, or wait by the phone in case you get a gig offer. Well last week the latter happened, which meant that oh yes I could go away - the gig was in Cyprus.
Never been before, but a lovely place - we arrived in a mini-heatwave, so it was a sweltering (for redheads) 33 degrees. We (myself, Yianni, Brian Higgins and John Mann) were there from Saturday lunchtime till Monday evening, so a lovely few days to relax. The gig was Saturday night, and was hard work but achievable, and it should be hard work to be honest - you need to earn a few days' jolly in the Med. The crowd were lovely but the hurdle was that it was outdoors, just a few metres from the sea. So there are no acoustics, and the laughs go straight upwards. So (a) you can't hear them, to know if you're doing ok, and (b) the audience can't hear each other laughing, so they become less likely to laugh out loud (laughter at gigs seems to be a communal thing - it's often all or nothing).
But we all had lovely gigs, proved by the drinks we were bought after. We were really well looked after over there, and the next day and a half was basically us swimming, having some light bites, and generally chewing the fat. It also proved the perfect background for reading my new book - Stephen King's The Gunslinger (first of his nine-part fantasy epic which is his attempt to write a book longer than Lord of the Rings).
Worth saying that this was the Turkish part of Cyprus, although we landed in the Greek part. I never realised just how big an elephant it is in the room that is Cyprus. They really don't get on. There's a massive Turkish flag on the mountains on the Turkish side, painted onto rocks, which I hear were turned over in the middle of the night a few years ago on the eve of the Greek side's national day. Now that's rubbing it in.
It does make things very confusing. On the Greek side, prices are in Euros, but also written in Cypriot pounds, while locals get used to the newly-introduced Euro. Over the border, it's Turkish Lira (aka YTL), but you can usually also pay in British Pound Sterling too. But they'll still ask for it in YTL, even if they know you're paying pounds. eg:
HIM: That's 7.50 please.
ME: Here's five pounds.
HIM: Which means you get 50 YTL cents change.
...while up the road, the same thing would cost 6 euros, but have a sign next to it saying that's about £4.50 CYP. One thing - four different prices. I'm so glad Yorkshire hasn't declared independence and introduced the Yorkshire Lira, with a Lancastrian Dollar down the round being worth half of the previous number you thought of, equivalent in Mancunian Euros to double the Brummie Ruble.
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