Monthly Archives: May 2012

It’s only Eurovision but…

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… I like it.

I’ve been based in Azerbaijan for the last 18 months and I write to you from the capital, a city with fever: Baku has Eurovisionitis. The bug is highly infectious, millions of people are affected and only large doses of international media attention will alleviate the symptoms across the country. As a Brit, I developed immunity long ago but am watching it spread swiftly, like a plague of Biblical proportions. Eurovisionitis zaps brain cells, causes palpitations of the heart and soul, and an irresistible urge to vote by SMS. You have been warned. If your toe is tapping as you read this, please contact a DJ and ask for a check up.

The crisis appears to have started with an outbreak of national delirium following Azerbaijan’s well-deserved win in last year’s Eurovision Song Contest, with the song ‘Running Scared’, probably one of the catchiest tunes since barefoot diva Sandie Shaw won with ‘Puppet On A String’, in 1967. Sandie was British and her success triggered chronic Eurovisionitis back home. Our illness was cured by the decline in the quality of British entrants, by a sudden increase in the contest’s kitsch factor and by the rather creepy politicization of the voting process. Nevertheless, Eurovision seems more popular than ever and now the stethoscope is on Azerbaijan.  Sorry, I mean the spotlight. Question is, what might be revealed?

If and when you watch Eurovision this month, you will no doubt enjoy impressive footage of a country in transition. Azerbaijan is changing and Baku is one of the world’s richest and fastest developing capital cities, its growth funded by lucrative revenues from massive reserves of oil and gas. An American geologist recently told me that one of Azerbaijan’s new gas fields “measures 6 miles deep, top to bottom”. That’s a lot of mamaliga, certainly enough to win friends around the world during a time of global austerity and high oil prices.

Closer to home, the social effects above ground are, of course, more visible – Baku has lots of flashy cars, designer shops and exclusive places to have fun.

Numerous reconstruction projects are underway, including a special arena purpose-built for Eurovision. Some of the buildings make your eyes pop, and at night Baku looks like the futuristic city in Blade Runner. My favourite one is based on the handwritten signature of Heydar Aliyev, the former KGB officer who became president after Azerbaijan split from the Soviet Union. Imagine a building based on your own signature, curling and poking into the sky like some giant meringue baked by Dali? Crazy but I love it.  Maximum points.

The existence of that building perhaps contradicts a recent news item on the BBC, which suggested that the authorities in Azerbaijan ‘lack a sense of humour’, although that reporter was referring to the controversial case of the ‘donkey bloggers’, two young men who posted on the Internet a video of a donkey giving a mock press conference in Azerbaijan. They went to jail for their cheek but were released after an international outcry.

The ‘donkey’ controversy highlighted one of the difficulties faced by a country in transition from Communism to democracy: when is free speech OK and when is it too provocative? More recently, some locals claim to have been evicted to make way for new construction projects, although the local authorities insist they were compensated. When animal rights activists claimed that local police were shooting street dogs in Baku as part of a clean-up campaign, their claims too were refuted.

Whatever the truth in such cases, the organizers of Eurovision hope to avoid politics before and during the song contest. Of course, they cannot hope to resolve the bitter animosity between Azerbaijan and Armenia, but they were probably encouraged to hear one of the ‘donkey bloggers’ recently urging foreigners not to boycott the contest, but rather to come and see it, and the country, for themselves.

However, my friend Kolea won’t be watching. Kolea was a homeless man who used to live in the alley near my block and survived on a few pennies from odd jobs. He visited Romania many years ago, as part of the Azerbaijan karate team, or so he told me in one our sign-language chats.  During the recent severe winter he slept in the snow, huddled in his polyester blankets. One day, I asked Kolea if there was a shelter for homeless people in Baku. He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. I bought him some clothes and gave him some hot food in my flat, where he grabbed my guitar but seemed puzzled that could not play it. Maybe he had forgotten how? A few days after his visit to my flat, Kolea took ill and died, but not because of Eurovisionitis.  I’ll watch the song contest on TV but I’m not sure who will get my vote. The best tune, I suppose. Because that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

***

First published in Playboy, May 2012, by S.C. MediaFax SA, Romania.

To see the original page from the magazine, please click this link: playboy mai 2012

Atenţie! Urgentă medicală

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 E numai Eurovision, dar îmi place…

(Please click the link below… mulţumesc for reading : )

playboy mai 2012 eurovision

First published in PLAYBOY, May 2012, by S.C. MediaFax SA, Romania.

United We Fall

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Things that bring us together can drive us apart.

I’m getting interested in fashion, these days. I like my Flemings jeans and my Gola training shoes. Most of all, I like my new Ben Sherman shirt with the button-down collar. I have waited months to get one and it’s a beauty – white with blue stripes.

Tom Allen has a Ben Sherman too, of course. We are best friends, although he lives in a better part of town. We met in infants’ school, became altar boys together and enrolled in the same secondary school, not long ago. At weekends we play football and tennis or go to watch Liverpool play at Anfield, wearing our Flemings jeans and Gola trainers.

Tom’s mum works in a bank, she’s quite posh, likes talking more than listening and can be a bit prickly if you cross her. She comes to our house to drink tea with my mum every Sunday after Mass and they agree we look smart in our Bennies. Tom’s is yellow and white check.

So far so good, but we need a special occasion to wear our new shirts and impress the girls in our class, show them there is more to us than they might think.  We are 12 years old when our chance comes: a school day trip to Stratford upon Avon, to see the house of William Shakespeare. He’s a dead guy who wrote comedies that you never see on TV but it will be a good day out.

I’m not sure who suggests we wear Bennies on the trip, probably one of the bad lads that live near me? Anyway, Tom agrees it’s a good idea. The only problem is, school uniform is compulsory for day trips: maroon blazers, grey pants and grey sweaters. The solution, we decide, is not to tell our parents that we are supposed to wear grey shirts too.

The morning of the trip, we line up alongside the school bus, clutching our packed lunches and wearing our Bennies with school ties (full Windsor knot, of course).

We’re feeling good until we spot our strict headmaster standing on the bus. We had no idea he was coming. He’s frowning down at the bad lads ahead of us. “Where are your school shirts?” he says.

“Mine got ripped,” says the first lad.

“Mine is in the wash,” says the second.

The headmaster scowls and lets him on the bus but his eyes pop when he sees Tom and me. He folds him arms and says: “Ormsby and Allen, why the hideous shirts? You know you’re breaking school rules, of course?”

We know it will sound stupid to repeat the lies of the bad lads but we don’t know what else to say because we’re not schmecher. We are altar boys with big ideas and wobbly legs so we remain silent and our headmaster says: “Silence is an admission of guilt. You are not coming to Stratford.” The doors hiss and the bus drives away and the girls from our class stare from the back window. “Now what?” Tom says and it’s a good question.

We could muck about in a park all day and go home in the evening and tell our folks Stratford was brilliant. Instead, we wander home in shock and tell our parents the truth, when they ask. Honesty seems a good idea but it changes everything.

Tom’s mother is very angry that we were punished while the other boys were not. A week later day she sends him to a different school, five miles away. We’ll never sit in class together again and soon he’s got new friends that I do not know. She also changes his church routine so we no longer serve Mass together. Does she blame me, somehow? She stops visiting my mother for tea and chat … have our parents had a row?

I never find out, because Tom and I drift apart and it hurts like hell, as if I lost an arm. We meet only twice a term when our school football teams play and he seems to delight in speeding past me as a striker and I delight in bringing him down to earth as a defender. We are not enemies but we’re not friends anymore.

Tom is 16 when his mother dies of a heart attack. I go to the funeral but he drifts past me like a ghost.

We meet by chance one warm summer evening aged 18, queuing at the bar in a pub. We chat briefly about our plans for college. Tom is wearing a Ben Sherman, I can tell by the stitching and the little loop on the back. They are cool shirts, always will be.

When I take my drinks back to my girlfriend, she says: “Who was that?”

I gaze into my beer and say: “Some lad I used to know.”

***

First published in Playboy, April 2012, by S.C. MediaFax SA. To see the original page from the magazine, please click this link: playboy aprilie 2012

Dezbinaţi suntem sortiţi eşecului

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Lucrurile care ne apropie ne pot şi despărţi

Zilele astea sunt interesat de modă. Îmi plac blugii mei Flemings şi pantofii sport Gola. Dar mai mult decât orice, îmi place camasa mea noua Ben Sherman, cu gulerul incheiat in nasturi.  Am aşteptat luni de zile sa-mi iau una şi este pur şi simplu o minunăţie – în dungi, alb cu albastru.

Tom Allen are şi el o camasa Ben Sherman, desigur. Suntem foarte buni prieteni, deşi el locuieşte într-o zonă mai de fiţe a oraşului. Ne-am cunoscut la scoala primara, am cântat amândoi în corul bisericii şi nu mult după aceea, am frecventat acelaşi liceu. La sfarsit de saptamana jucam fotbal şi tenis sau mergem să vedem meciurile echipei Liverpool, la Anfield, purtând blugii noştri Flemings şi adidaşii Gola.

Mama lui Tom lucrează la o bancă, este o femeie stilată dar plina de nervi,  îi place să vorbească mai mult decât să asculte. Ea vine la noi în fiecare zi de duminică, după slujba de la biserică, bea ceai împreună cu mama mea şi amândouă sunt de părere că arătăm “cool” în camasile noastre cele noi. Al lui Tom e pepită, galben si alb.

Arătăm bine, dar avem nevoie de o ocazie specială pentru a le purta, sa încercam  să le impresionăm pe fetele din clasă, sa le arătam  că suntem mai mult decât părem. Şansa ne surâde la 12 ani, sub forma unei excursii de o zi cu şcoala, la Stratford upon Avon, pentru a vedea casa lui William Shakespeare. Pentru cine nu ştie cine e Shakespeare, e un tip care a murit şi care a scris niste comedii care nu se dau nici macar la televizor. Dar, ziua se anunţă perfectă.

Nu sunt sigur cine ne-a sugerat să purtăm camasile Ben Sherman în excursie, poate unul dintre baietii rai, care locuieşte lângă mine? Oricum, Tom spune că e o idee bună. Singura problemă este că în excursii cu scoala este obligatoriu sa purtam uniforma: jachete maro, pantaloni şi pulovere gri. Soluţia ar fi să nu le spunem părinţilor că trebuie să purtăm şi camasile de scoală, gri. În dimineaţa excursiei, ne aliniem lângă autocarul şcolii, ţinându-ne strâns pachetele cu mâncare, îmbrăcaţi în camasile noastre, Ben Sherman cu cravata şcolara (cu nod Windsor, desigur).

Ne simţim bine până în clipa în care îl remarcăm pe severul nostru director de şcoală, stând lângă autobuz. Habar n-am avut că va veni şi el. El se încruntă la baietii răi din faţa noastră. «Unde vă sunt camasile de la uniformă?” întreabă el.

“A mea s-a rupt,” spune primul.

“A mea e la spălat,” spune al doilea.

Privirea directorului e mânioasă, dar îi lasă să se urce în autobuz, asta până când dă cu ochii de mine şi de Tom. Îşi încrucişează mâinile şi spune: «Ormsby şi Allen, de ce camasile astea oribile? Ştiţi că încălcaţi regulamentul şcolar, nu?»

Ar suna stupid să repetăm minciunile celorlalţi, dar nu ştim ce să spunemaltceva, pentru că noi nu suntem şmecheri. Noi suntem băieţi din corul bisericii, cu idei măreţe şi picioarele şubrede, aşa că tăcem din gură, iar directorul spune: “Tăcerea este o recunoaştere a vinovatiei. Nu aveţi ce căuta la Stratford.”

Uşile se închid, iar autobuzul pleacă, în timp ce fetele din clasa noastră se holbează pe geamul din spate. “Acum ce facem?” întreabă Tom şi mi se pare a fi o întrebare pertinentă.

Am putea pierde timpul într-un parc, ne ducem acasă seara şi le spunem tuturor că excursia la Stratford a fost fantastică. În loc să facem asta, ne ducem direct acasă, inca şocaţi şi le spunem părinţilor noştri adevărul, atunci când ne întreabă ce s-a întâmplat.

Sinceritatea pare o idee bună, dar asta schimbă totul. Mama lui Tom este foarte furioasă că noi am fost pedepsiţi, în timp ce ceilalţi băieţi nu.

O săptămână mai târziu, ea îl trimite pe Tom la altă şcoală, la 8 kilometri distanţă. Nu vom mai fi în aceeaşi clasă, iar în curând el îşi va face prieteni noi, pe care eu nu îi cunosc. Începe să meargă şi la altă biserică, aşa că nu ne mai întâlnim nici la slujbă. Oare mă consideră pe mine vinovat pentru tot ce s-a întâmplat? Mama lui Tom nu mai vine nici măcar în vizită la mama mea…oare părinţii noştri s-au certat?

Nu voi afla asta niciodată, pentru că Tom şi eu suntem departe unul de celălalt şi chestia asta doare ca naiba, de parcă mi-aş fi pierdut o mână. Ne întâlnim numai de două ori pe trimestru, atunci când echipele de fotbal ale şcolilor noastre au meciuri împreună; el pare încântat să mă întreacă în viteză, ca atacant, iar mie îmi place să-l trântesc la pamânt, în calitate de apărător. Nu suntem duşmani, dar nu mai suntem nici prieteni.

Tom avea 16 ani atunci când mama lui a murit de atac de inimă. Am fost şi eu la înmormântare, dar Tom a trecut pe lângă mine ca o fantomă. Ne întâlnim apoi întâmplător într-o seară caldă de vară, la vârsta de 18 ani, la coadă la bar, într-un pub. Vorbim puţin despre planurile noastre legate de facultate. Tom poartă o camasa Ben Sherman, îmi dau seama de asta după cusături şi după butoniera mica de pe spate. Sunt camasi mişto şi întotdeauna vor fi aşa.

Când mă întorc cu băuturile înapoi la prietena mea, mă întreabă: “Cine era?” Mă holbez la bere şi răspund: “O cunoştinţă mai veche.”

***

[First published in Playboy, April 2012, by S.C MediaFax SA]. To see the original page from the magazine, please click: playboy aprilie 2012