It's Troo-dos anyone believe it?

Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain. Who’s next? Cyprus.

These are the European Union countries whose banking systems are in such a mess that some belevolent uncle agrees to pay off their overdrafts, provided that they promise to be more financially astute in the future. Of course, the benevolent uncle doesn’t have any money either, so what he’ll do is offer negligible returns to his investors until he gets his money back, or get taxpayers to refund him.

We all trust the banks with our savings, those same banks play fast and loose with our money plus a whole load of additional imaginary money, and then when it all goes wrong, we the savers – the ones who trusted the banks because they told us we could – have to pay for those rather expensive mistakes.

What genius thought up the latest idea for Cyprus? Basically, all bank depositors have between 6.75% and 9.9% of their deposits stolen in a one-off burglary perpetrated by the same organisations who have been trusted to look after everyone’s money. Never mind the alleged money laundering by Russian oligarchs; hundreds of thousands of Cypriots and expatriates stand to have up to a tenth of their life savings stolen, replaced by shares in clearly worthless banks that could collapse given an unexpected gust of wind.

This is so wrong. Investors are supposed to receive interest and borrowers are supposed to pay interest.

Naturally, the good citizens of Cyprus are concerned, and they queued over last weekend to withdraw what cash they could until the ATMs emptied or were shut down. It can hardly be a coincidence that Cyprus banks chose to stage this stick-up over a holiday weekend. And they’re planning to stay closed until Thursday. I think arguments will rage behind closed doors and the outcome will be that depositors will not be robbed.

However, the damage has already been done. No amount of promising not to do it again can restore savers’ faith that their money’s safe in the bank’s safe. The EU and the banking industry, by demonstrating a willingness to consider such measures, may have signed their own death warrant.

If banks cannot be trusted, and recent events illustrate that this is indeed the case, an awful lot of people will withdraw their savings the instant the banks re-open, and there will be a run on every bank in Cyprus, as savers all switch their investments to Sokunda-Matres Bank: no interest, no overdraft, no charges.

And how will the depositors in other bailed-out countries react? I fear panic withdrawals from every bank in southern Europe and the consequent catastrophic collapse of the Euro.

In the short term, I’m just glad that I didn’t open a bank account last time I was in Cyprus.

 ]}:-{>

Blossoms and bathtubs

Hanami is an important Japanese custom and is held all over Japan in spring. Hanami literally means ‘viewing flowers,’ but it generally indicates looking at and enjoying the cherry blossom.

Beloved Wife dictated the time for the recent trip to Japan around the requirements of academia, and was hugely delighted to learn that the hanami festival would probably occur when she and the Goat were present. As it turned out the first brave blossoms were blown away by some foul weather, but later in the week more appeared and it was possible to enjoy the very Japanese pastime of walking in the park, eating and drinking outdoors under the trees, and taking far too many photographs of small, pink flowers. The picnicking and photographs continued all week, and all over that little bit of Japan that Goat and his Beloved Wife had time to visit.

Picnics under the blossoms

Drums

Yoyogi Park was extremely well attended on the first Sunday. All the Tokyo locals plus many visitors seemed to have descended en masse and pitched their picnic spots beneath the largely blossomless trees. Eating and drinking aside, there were tightrope walkers, drummers, and even a Japanese bagpiper. He’d not worn appropriate unbifurcated garb, however, unlike the Goat.

Pipes

Port and Starboard

And speaking of garb, some cosplayers came out to dance under the trees in their outlandish outfits, and the rockabilly rebels entertained themselves and the onlookers to loud 1950s style music.

Cosplay and choreography

 D'ya wanna be in my gang?

Whilst denim, leather, and winkle-pickers might have been OK, the tattoos would almost certainly keep the rockers out of the public baths. There seems to be a blanket ‘no tats’ rule.



The rocker with the rather splendid dragon tattoo



Beloved Wife had arranged a couple of days in Kinosaki Onsen, a spa town on the north coast, but had found an entry in the Lonely Planet guide indicating a mixed-bathing facility in Tokyo, and within reasonable range of the metro. Figuring that her Goat had never done the hot public bath thing before, at least not in Japan, she opined that this would perhaps offer an opportunity to show him the ropes.

The place turned out to be up a long, steep hill. As the directions in the guide book weren’t very helpful, a series of “Sumimasen…Gomen nasai…erm…Onsen? Sento?” followed. By the time BW and Goat had found the place it was almost chucking-out time and they decided to return the following evening.

Having deposited shoes in lockers and been issued with towels and minuscule pyjamas to wear whilst not actually bathing, they headed upstairs to separate changing rooms. Japanese custom and practice is that the communal bathing is done naked. Also, the bather soaps up and rinses off in a sitting position before entering the bath. Dirt and soap are not allowed in a Japanese bath, which is maintained at around 42C or 108F. This is monkey temperature: you lower yourself into the hot water and fail to suppress shouts of “Oooh! Oooh! Aaah! Aaah! Aaah!” The whole environment is hot, steamy, and echoey.

The Goat headed to the outdoor male-only bath, and noted the sign that said to put on some Speedos before heading down the steps to the outdoor mixed bath. There he met Beloved Wife, and they spent an hour getting dishpan hands and looking up at the celestial canopy. Unfortunately the poolside bar was closed, but there was one of the ubiquitous vending machines available for anyone who’d brought some cash and not left it in his locker.

After turning into lobsters, BW and Goat headed back to their respective changing rooms, became dry as well as very clean, and were delighted to discover the complimentary minibus back to the metro station.

Kinosaki Onsen is a town several hours’ train ride away from Tokyo. As onsen refers to natural hot springs, as opposed to sento, which are simply public baths, it may be inferred that Kinosaki is devoted to bathing in volcanically-heated spring water. In a fit of good taste, Beloved Wife had booked a night in a traditional hotel: tatami mats; paper screen doors; sleeping on futons. 

The sitting room. And bedroom.

The hotel provided ID cards to prove that BW and Goat were bona fide customers, and these would allow free access to any of the onsen in town. It’s encouraged to walk the streets in yukata (dressing gown) and geta (wooden flipflops) on an onsen crawl. In addition to the bath houses, hot foot spas are dotted all around, wherein the water is sulphurous and unbelievably hot. A small café was selling eggs cooked in one of them. The Goat managed to scald himself to above his hocks. Owch, owch, owch!

Kinosaki by day

Several baths and lots of photographs of trees and lanterns later, it was time for food and booze. 

For goodness sake

Sitting inside a little bar with sake (rice wine, served hot) and edemame (peas, served salty), the sound outside was reminiscent perhaps of Victorian London. The constant clip-clopping of hooves on asphalt was of course geta, the wearers of which were heading between baths.

Between baths

As a private hour had been booked at the hotel’s own onsen for later that evening, Beloved Wife and Goat didn’t have to bathe separately all the time. But the combination of travel, hot baths, food and drink ensured a very deep night’s sleep.

Kinosaki by night

The Goat is convinced: a Japanese bath in the Cyprus dream home is now on the ‘must have’ list.

]}:-{>

Pearls of wisdom

I generally listen to what passes for Talk Radio on my 90-minute daily commute. Dubai Eye (103.8MHz) does that Business Breakfast thing from 6am until I drop out of range at about 6:45 and have to switch to Radio 2 (106MHz) as I approach the capital. The journey home is marginally better because the BBC World Service (87.9MHz) is in English until 6pm.

On Wednesday I was tuned to Dubai Eye after 6pm, having put in ten of my contracted eight hours (less half an hour for lunch) and I was commuting home. Fortunately, the amount of foopball news was minimal; instead, there was an interesting half hour feature on ‘green buildings’.

Sorry, but as I was driving I wasn’t in any position to take notes, so no names, no firms, no phone numbers.

The presenter had a whine that, following years and years of living apartments, he’d moved into a villa. The air conditioning upstairs was apparently poor, and Mr Maintenance advised him that this was because of the sun. Apparently, sunlight heats the roof which, in turn, radiates heat into the building. Imagine that, eh? Strong sunlight in the Gulf. Who’d have thought it? The solution offered was to run the air conditioning at full throttle for three days until the ceiling and wall slabs had been cooled.

Here we have the problem. Buildings constructed “six months ago” are to the same standards that were considered appropriate for the region in about 1975. A typical build comprises a reinforced concrete frame on a concrete pad foundation, a single skin of hollow concrete blocks make the outside walls, and reinforced concrete slabs compose the upper floors and the roof. If it isn’t flat, the roof slab gets tiles nailed to the concrete. The walls, at least those bits that aren’t windows or doors, are rendered outside with cementicious stucco, and inside it’s plaster.

Where is the insulation? An air gap of about four inches really doesn’t have much insulating effect, particularly when it’s bridged by the block construction, the mortar and whatever the brickies dropped down the gap during construction.

But it’s cheap. And this is why energy inefficient buildings continue to be constructed. This is despite, as the radio article pointed out, “around Dh3000 spent on insulation” yielding a “Dh15000 saving” in terms of smaller air conditioning units running for fewer hours, to say nothing of not having to leave them on for three days. And at four kilowatts per unit, that’s a shedload of electricity.

Most real estate in the Gulf is owned by citizens: nationals. Those who pay little or nothing for their electricity have no real incentive not to run the air conditioning on maximum at all times. Heat pours into the building, and gets pumped out again essentially for nuppence. There’s a perceived financial advantage in throwing up a bespoke villa as cheaply as possible, and someone buying a developer’s house doesn't really have to worry about electricity bills either. You won’t realise your Dh12000 saving if your running cost is zero.

What about the other 85% of the population? Those who don’t get free electricity? These residents either rent or buy cheaply-built concrete boxes. Either way, the incentive is to build at minimum cost because the consequences of no insulation are borne by the tenant or in the latter case, the ‘freeholder’.

There's little incentive for a tenant to undertake substantial environmental building improvements. Even if the landlord allowed it and it were practically feasible, in a year or two you might have to walk away from expensive solar panels - or even compact fluorescent light bulbs, so the long-term benefits wouldn’t happen to the environmentalist or his wallet. And why, incidentally, do the so-called ‘long-life’ CF lightbulbs purchased at additional expense invariably fail within a few months? So much for the alleged ten-year life...

But there is good environmental news on the horizon. In Abu Dhabi there are moves towards more environmentally sustainable buildings. Estidama, which is Arabic for ‘sustainability’, promotes a so-called “Pearl Rating” that includes insulation requirements and a whole lot more besides. Proximity to public transport, non-toxic building materials, grey water recycling, bicycle parking, painting the exterior white, solar panels for free domestic hot water, and even advice on planting native plants outside that don’t drink vast quantities of water. One suggestion is even to use ceiling fans (anyone remember those?) instead of air conditioning in the spring and autumn.

I have downloaded the PDF blurb about villas. Whilst it’s not worth trying to retro-fit insulation in the Crumbling Villa, there may be some useful pearls (ba-doom, tsch!) of wisdom applicable for the Cyprus retirement palace.

]}:-{>

Herbology expert

Beloved Wife and I spent Eid in Cyprus. We had commissioned a government-approved surveyor to mark out our plot boundaries in accordance with the official Land Registry records. Having met the surveyor on site, noted the lengths of rebar that he had banged into the ground at the corners, and paid the money, we are now in possession of an accurate survey. We have precise co-ordinates of the corners, a contour plan and the whole thing in AutoCAD as well as on paper. This ought to be enough to get an architect started on the planning permission for the Dream Home. But that won’t start in earnest until Beloved Wife and I agree the basic size, shape and orientation of the building.

Unlike defining a plot in town, where measuring off existing buildings and walls easily defines a plot, up in the boonies the surveyor had to measure half of Cyprus in order to ensure that our particular corner or a foreign field was precisely defined. And that, we were told, is why he wanted such a thick wad of banknotes. I was of course shrewd enough to get in writing beforehand that the price quoted was fully inclusive of all taxes, disbursements and those niggling extras that have an unfortunate habit of bunking up the bottom line so that it resembles the GNP of a small country.

The good news is that the plot is unexpectedly larger than we originally anticipated. The original advert said it was around 3300 sq.m; I’d measured the area using existing hedges as seen on Google Earth and discovered a disappointing 2740 sq.m. The survey reveals the actual plot fully includes one of the hedges and extends further south than expected, yielding 3578 sq.m, or 0.884 acres in old money.

I took hundreds of photographs of the land, the views, the existing herbaceous borders and the survey markers.

And this, dear reader, is where you come in: identifying the plants. Essentially, we’d like to retain as much of the mature planting as possible, but if it’s diseased or toxic to goats, it’ll have to go. Hopefully the greenery that remains will be pretty to look at, provide useful windbreaks, and might even produce edible fruit or something that gives a glossy coat.


No.1 and No.2
The first one is easy. It’s probably a carob tree Ceratonia siliqua and might even bear usable fruit. I could get hold of some wild honey and do a John the Baptist impersonation. The second plant appears to be some sort of parasite hanging off the carob. Its fruit is small black berries. No hints in any of our Mediterranean Plants and Gardens books or, so far, from the Interwebs.



No.3
That this is an oak of some sort is obvious from the acorns. But which one? There are holly oaks Quercus ilex around, but this one dares to be different. The leaves aren’t wobbly-edged as per the ‘traditional’ oak leaf, so which species is it?


No.4
The fruit smells of apple, so I suspect a crab-apple of some sort. But is that indeed the case, and is the fruit edible?


No.5
It seems that this one finished flowering a little while back and has perhaps gone to seed. Is it some kind of wild rose? There aren’t a load of thorns on the stems.


No.6
I think this may be Cistus ladanifer. But I'd appreciate the opinion of someone who knows more about plants than I. Most of the population, then.


No.7
I suspect this one is pistachio Pistacia lentiscus. The small berries are red and green. I guess they’re turning from red to black as they mature. Are these what eventually produce pistachio nuts?


No.8
Absolutely no clue at all with this plant.


No.9
Nor this one.


I found this page of the University of Reading's website of some use. Again, those who know and understand plants might get better use out of the page.

]}:-{>

Eighth Commandment

Poor Keefie and MamaDuck have been victims again. It makes me realise how fortunate I’ve been so far. I was only ever robbed once in Spain. Having been directed by the Law to park in the Back of Beyond in Puerto Banus, my mates and I locked and left the rental car and went sighteeing. The car was of course ripped off in our absence. Plod was completely uninterested, so we carried out our own investigation.

A nearby cinema-cum-disco was surrounded by a kind of dry moat, in which we discovered dozens of opened suitcases, clothing, holiday snaps and empty wallets. Clearly this was where the local sticky-fingered brigade brought tourists’ bags and rifled them for cash, passports and other valuables. And in my case, driving documents, camera, lenses and travellers’ cheques. Policing this obvious den of criminality was clearly beyond the wit of the local Constabulary, who were too busy directing traffic around the car park.

I think there’s a fundamental problem with making rental cars so obvious. The occasional ‘Hertz’ sticker might imply long-term lease rather than tourists, but a system whereby the rental status of the vehicle is advertised to everyone might tempt the weak-willed and easily-tempted. Four obviously sunburned blokes piling out of a Seat Panda (with crappy door locks, as we’d just learned) shouts “Tourists!” almost as much as knotted handkies and Union Flag shorts.

That was Spain. Rental cars in Cyprus have black-on-red number plates. OK, this tells everyone else on the road that the car is full of tourists who probably don’t know where they’re going and will probably stop unexpectedly or drive on the wrong side of the road, but the red plate is also a potential thief magnet. An unattended rental car is probably full of cameras, passports and money.

Similar problem in Bonaire in the Netherlands Antilles. In that ‘diving paradise’, the rental vehicle of choice is a crew-cab pickup with a lockable load bed for the dive kit. Unfortunately the local villains have realised that a parked pickup on the roadside near a dive site is likely to be unattended for up to an hour, and is therefore a very easy target. You can’t take your wallet and passport with you when you go diving. Robbery is such an issue that we were warned of it by the rental company. My friends and I resolved the problem when we were there by diving in two buddy pairs, with the dry pair minding the car and the children.

Bear in mind the above, and then appreciate the relatively low levels of theft here in the UAE. Perhaps low crime is encouraged by a penal system that, for example, earns some thief three months in Al Slammah (plus deportation, plus loss of end-of-service benefits, etc) for nicking a - presumably used - tube of toothpaste. Oh, and a camera handle (whatever that is), a phone and a couple of SIM cards. However, given that I’d want to string up thieves by their gonads perhaps the official legal system is effective enough.

That’s not to say crime doesn’t occur. My car, a rented Lancer at the time, was once broken into at Dibba harbour while I was diving on a Mussandam day trip. The evidence was all over the windows: juvenile paw-prints showed that they’d pried one of the windows down a quarter of an inch, opened a door with a long stick and helped themselves to my car-park change. In a busy fishing harbour, no-one had seen a thing, and reporting the incident to the Royal Oman Police at 7pm on a Friday? Forget it. Put it down to Gringo/Gaijin/Gora tax. As Keefie noted, “…you are rich, so it doesn’t matter to you.” I rather think not!

To end on a happier note, here's a story about a burglar who climbs over a wall with intent to rob a house.

A voice says, “Jesus is watching you.”

The burglar looks around, and notices only a goat in the garden. He sneaks up to the house and starts to jimmy a window.

“Jesus is watching you,” says the goat.

The astonished burglar asks, “Who are you?”

“Clarence,” replies the goat.

“What kind of a moron calls his pet goat Clarence?”

“The same kind who calls his pet rottweiler Jesus.”

]}:-{>

Organic hand-knitted tofu

“Actually,” I said to the freelance journalist, “I rather like being able to afford to drive a gas-guzzling, ozone-depleting, polar-bear-drowning four-wheel drive.”

“Would you like me to quote you on that?” he asked.

Yet to my own embarrassment I find myself drifting inexorably towards a ecology-minded existence. Not deliberately, you understand.

Agreed, the Goatmobile is a gas-guzzler. It actually burns rather less than the ol’ Disco by about 50%. Seventeen miles per gallon is a lot less unimpressive than twelve. Since buying the motorbike, my personal monthly petrol consumption has dropped from some 90 gallons to around 60 gallons. I make that a monthly saving of about 200kg CO₂ not pumped into the troposphere. Of course, I could have gone to work by bicycle, but that would have required several tins of ozone-depleting deodorant, there being nowhere to shower and change into the mild-mannered Clark Kent upon arrival at the office.

Just for the interest of any chemist who might accidentally have stumbled upon this blog, and to prove to myself that all that O-level Chemistry hasn’t been entirely forgotten…

Petrol is typically a mixture of C₅H₁₂ to C₁₂H₂₆

Atomic weights: H=1, O=8, C=12

Lightest fraction: C₅H₁₂ + 8O₂ = 5CO₂ + 6H₂O

5x12 + 12x1 + 8x16 = 5x(12+16) + 6x(2+8) = 200
72 + 128 = 140 + 60

72g petrol produces 140g CO₂

Heaviest fraction: 2C₁₂H₂₆ + 37O₂ = 24CO₂+ 26H₂O
2x(12x12+26x1) + 37x16 = 24x(12+16) + 26x(2+8) = 932
340 + 592 = 672 + 260

340g petrol produces 672g CO₂

On average, 1kg petrol yields a maximum of around 1.97kg CO₂. This is a maximum, assuming complete combustion. If any petrol is unburned, the amount of CO₂ is going to be less, and there will be increased quantities of other crap such as carbon monoxide and various nitrogen oxides. All of this other crap reduces the amount of oxygen available to make carbon dioxide.

Incidentally, the figures provide a simple way of converting fuel consumption to grammes of CO₂/km:

15 x l/100km = g/km CO₂
Or, in old money 4150/mpg = g/km CO₂

The Goat is bemused to learn that according to UK government figures, the Goatmobile produces 305g/km CO₂, which equates to 13.6mpg. Yet those same government figures state typical fuel consumption as 16mpg in the (worst case) urban cycle. The ‘extra-urban’ and ‘combined’ cycles produce 27.7mpg and 22.2mpg respectively. Yeah, yeah ‘your mileage may vary’. But why does the CO₂ figure exceed the worst fuel consumption by around 18%? If the 16mpg urban were adopted, CO₂ emissions = 260g/km. Perhaps this inflation of the CO₂ figure is a vain attempt to get a prospective purchaser on to a guilt trip so that he’ll buy an electric moped instead. Incidentally, practical long-term testing by Muggins since 2004 shows an overall average of 237g/km CO₂; a total of nearly 30 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Take that, Ursus maritimus!

Then there’s the house in Cyprus. Accusations that the Goat is turning into a tofu-knitting, lentil-wearing bunny hugger, whilst not exactly unfounded, are circumstantial at best. The interest in solar energy is borne out of solar water heaters being more-or-less mandatory and the nearest existing power pole being about $30,000 away. Whilst photovoltaic cells are unlikely to pay for themselves if ‘proper’ electricity is available on the premises, being self-sufficient in power makes us immune to dodgy supplies, brownouts and inflated bills. You can buy a lot of PV panels with $30,000. Similarly with water. The nearest well is a good $10,000 away and the plot is lower than the well’s ground level elevation, so a borehole may be the answer. Cyprus’ water supply problems make it realistic for the government to subsidise private boreholes because this reduces demand on the piped network. There may even be a grant to get mains electricity to the plot in order to power the water pump. I wonder if there are EU grants available for installing a grey-water recycling system?

I’m advised that decent thick walls with plenty of insulation will keep the heat indoors during the winter and outside all summer, thereby making air conditioning unnecessary. The house will nevertheless be ducted for aircon in case this advice isn’t entirely accurate. Furthermore, someone is going to have to do the sums to see how many PV cells, batteries and inverters we’ll need.

Having contrived to produce a carbon footprint about the size of a pogo stick’s, the Goat has all the justification necessary for owning a big 4x4 pickup. Huzzah! The Goat also idly wonders how much land and effort would be required to grow his own bio-diesel to power said 4x4 pickup and the backup electricity generator…?

]}:-{>

Corner of a foreign field

Our lawyer finally confirmed that the land became ours on 23rd April. St George’s Day, which has echoes of serendipity for a ‘corner of a foreign field that is forever England’. (Rupert Brooke 1887-1915).

We shall however not be sticking a red and white flag in one bit for 23rd April and a Stars and Stripes in another bit for 4th July. That would be silly. Would the Gnomad care to remove his nails now?

Once the legal dust has settled, there are still a few odds and ends to finalise. Establishing once and for all the boundaries is extremely important. Do we, for example, own the hedges and the enormous carob tree situated in one corner? We’ll get the local Land Department to peg out the boundaries, then we can set about arranging a perimeter fence or wall. Beloved Wife wishes to plant small trees that will in due course grow and provide vegetation, privacy and windbreaks.

We’re also thinking about house plans. Obviously a qualified architect will eventually have to be appointed to design and supervise (on account of Muggins being abroad and unable to police the contractors at suitably small intervals), but I think it’ll be very useful already to have a pretty good handle on what Beloved Wife and her Goat actually want built. Having a domestic in the architect’s office is definitely to be avoided. To this end, I’ve started messing with Google SketchUp. This is a free, allegedly easy-to-use piece of 3D modelling software that is capable of easy rendering to give quick impressions of what the building might look like. Drawing to scale, it’s also possible to download doors, windows, furniture, stairs, Burj Dubai, or whatever else the army of SketchUp experts have put on the internet for nuppence. I was particularly chuffed to discover that it’s possible to insert the model into Google Earth to give an idea how the house might appear. The final version would have doors and windows, of course.

Moving furniture, fixtures and fittings around is a lot easier with a couple of murine clicks and drags than actually hauling the real stuff at 12-inches to a foot scale. Whizzing a tape measure around the Crumbling Villa helped to establish whether any particular area would need to be bigger or could be smaller in the Dream Home. This also explains what we were doing in Home Centre the other day with no intention to buy anything. We ended up with a new mattress purely on impulse.

The image above is only one of perhaps dozens of potential buildings. The shortlist can be worked up using more sophisticated software, and eventually an appropriately qualified professional can deal with making it all stand up and have functional electricity, water, sewerage and air conditioning. Of course, the timescale for this last bit is heavily influenced by how long it’s going to take the bank account to recover from ravages of land purchase.

]}:-{>

It's make-your-mind-up time

Remember this?

The vendor came back to us with a much improved attitude. This time, we and our lawyer have copies of a document signed by the said vendor.

So, maybe this time... Champagne is in the fridge, but isn't going to be opened until I have a copy of the title deeds in the names of Goat and Beloved.

]}:-{>

Curses! Foiled again

Beloved Wife and her Goat have been looking quite seriously for land in Cyprus for several months now. Yet each time, defeat is snatched away from the very jaws of victory.

On our most recent visit, one of the many places we looked at ticked most of the boxes. A level plot, easy access to a public road, definitely arable, not far from civilisation but private, not on recently levelled clay. There were issues, notably the nearest power being a mile away and water probably a similar distance.

Although initially advertised at way above our original budget, the agent said that there was room for negotiation, so we negotiated. The currency was actually Euro, but seeing as Cypriots seem to prefer to obfuscate financial matters by persisting with the obsolete Cyprus Pound, I’ve chosen to obfuscate further by adopting the entirely fictitious Ankh Morpork Dollar.

The first price, AM$ 80, was clearly ridiculous, and we said so.

Pointing out that it’d probably cost the thick end of AM$ 12 to get electricity to the site and a further AM$ 3 for potable water, we started to negotiate. There was also the matter that the owner was apparently desirous of disposing of the land as soon as possible, and we were standing there virtually with cash. That had to be worth more discount. And the first price had already dropped to AM$ 73.

We offered AM$ 59. This represents a 20% discount on the new asking price, but as land and property in Cyprus has plummeted by 41% over the first ten months of 2008,according to Aristo, in this article, we thought that our offer would not be unreasonable. For cash.

The agent called the owner on the phone, and eventually we closed on AM$ 60. That would give the vendor her target AM$ 58 clear, after paying taxes and agent commission. A little above our budget, but manageable. The agent already knew that our stated maximum budget was AM$ 58, so presumably the vendor would come down to a figure close to this otherwise what would the point have been in showing us the plot? We contacted our lawyer and handed over the letter from the vendor’s agent confirming AM$ 60 for a quick sale. Forty-eight hours later the money was with the lawyer. Not bad, considering that this was over a weekend.

And then the trouble started. The owner turned out to be the husband of the person named on the title deeds as part of some tax dodge, and he wanted AM$ 70. This was quite clearly prohibitive from our point of view, so we left the agent with the deadline of 20 February to accept our offer of AM$ 60 or to come up with a realistic counteroffer for our consideration. On 18 February, we were told that the vendor (the real one, not his wife) wanted AM$ 64, so we split the difference and said we could find AM$ 62.

The agent called us that evening. The vendor absolutely would not accept one gnat’s todger below AM$ 70 and there had never been an offer of AM$ 64. I suspect he spat his dummy out when we failed to come grovelling that would he please accept our AM$ 70. Well, I can also spit my dummy out, and take my ball home too, so I explained fully and frankly to the agent what the owner could do.

Remember, this is in a falling market. No-one is buying anything in Cyprus at the moment, mortgages are like hen’s teeth, so it’s not as if there’s another buyer lined up. I suspect that the landowner has been party to tall taverna tales, where various gentlemen lie to each other about how much they allegedly got for their fields.

I also suspect that the agent is a crook, who may be party to the conspiracy: “If these rich mugs from Dubai can magic AM$ 60 out of nowhere, they’ll be able to find another AM$ 10.”

What evidence for this alleged crookedness?

• A previous plot advertised at 820sq.m remained at 820sq.m despite my calculations that it was 550sq.m. And now it’s advertised at 550sq.m. And not sold, by the way. Something about a 33% reduction in area and a zero reduction in price.
  
  
• The current plot, advertised at 3300sq.m actually scales at around 2740sq.m on Google Earth.
  
  
• Another plot we looked at was advertised at 2800sq.m, but turned out to be 1900sq.m. When queried, the agent acquiesced; we’d been shown the correct plot but it was the wrong advert.
  
  
• While negotiating, the agent suggested that we bung EUR20,000 under the table as a tax dodge.
  
  
• Several other agents described this one as a ‘crook’. Honour amongst thieves, eh?

One of these other crooks agents was responsible for the previous
deal that fell through as a direct result of EUR turning into CYP as we went to the airport. On reflection, this was a probably a face-saving mechanism to get us to pull out of a deal that would have left the developer over a legal barrel if we behaved in the same underhand manner as he’d planned to do.

What are we going to do now? I’m tempted to wait until about June and then contact the agent again. I asked the readers to vote on the appropriate response.

42% picked: “Has that field been sold yet? No? Our offer of AM$ 60 is now AM$ 55.” This one looks favourite, then.

8% picked: “Is that field still for sale? Will he accept AM$ 60? Well that’s tough, ’cos we bought something else.”

25% picked: “We’re fed up of your failure to play by your own rules, so bought land in a completely different country. Goodbye for ever.”

25% picked: “I curse thee and thine offspring, yea even unto the seventh generation.”

]}:-{>

The Goat is landed

The Goat’s silence on the blogosphere of late has been caused by a week’s vacation in Cyprus. What, Cyprus again? Well yes, actually. Beloved Wife and I visited in August and then again in October. This time was to experience winter and, with any luck, to select an appropriate plot of land for our dream home.

Following the dubious delights of the fleapit hotels that I picked last time and the time before, I suggested that Beloved Wife might like to try her hand at on-line hotels. We have therefore ended up in a ‘four-star’ establishment on the west coast. Breakfast is both vast and excellent, apart from the fried zucchini that look exactly like mushrooms until they’re no longer under monochrome heating lamps. It’s a huge improvement over two bread rolls and a limp piece of Spam. Actually, the hotel would still have been prohibitively expensive, were it not for a 40% discount for booking seven low-season nights. The indoor pool, sauna and steam room are also marvellous. I haven’t dared to try the torture chamber fitness machines. Winter is very much low season. The “Tomb of the Kings” Road has turned into the “Tomb” of the King’s Road.

I took Beloved Wife for a Teppenyaki meal for her birthday. Apart from the food being filling, fresh and fabulous, we had the full cutlery-juggling show from our chef. We also nearly lost eyebrows to the flames. Apart from that evening, we’ve mostly eaten at the local chippy. I like steak and kidney pie, and Beloved Wife likes pork chops by the square foot.

We’ve also been shopping for stuff that’s either Not Coming In Dubai or else is ridiculously overpriced. Lace tablecloths and motorcycle gear, since you ask. More on the latter in a later post.

Several land agents have given us guided tours around the island to view miscellaneous pieces of real estate for sale. A curious thing is that almost all of those parcels of land that we were shown were around 25% to 30% higher in price than our stated budget. I wonder which particular part of: “This is the maximum that we can afford” is so difficult to understand? Ah, the allure of 25% to 30% extra commission. Of course. There seems to be a general failure to realise that 25% to 30% of buggerall isn’t very much.

We managed to whittle down three visits’ worth of sites from over twenty to merely two. All of the others were rejected on the grounds of horrible or non-existent access tracks, the plot being flat but on a 45-degree slope, the ground being ghastly clay, the asking price being prohibitively above our budget, the plot being 30 miles up a bendy road into the sticks, and in some cases all of the above. Mind you, the roads to and from Salamiou are a scratcher’s paradise...

Of the remaining two sites, one turned out to be half the advertised size. The agent’s subterfuge was easily exposed by a Goat wielding a scale rule. We put in a low bid of around 70% of the asking price for the other one. With a global recession in progress and the Pound Sterling competing with Zimbabwe for worthlessness, our offer was accepted.

Having secured the land - inshallah - and instructed a lawyer, it’s time to save furiously in order to stick a highly insulated, solar powered, recycled grey-water, organic-tofu-knitting house on it.

]}:-{>

Hogmanay

Christmas was a modest, quiet affair at the Crumbling Villa. Just the two of us, with Yours Truly handling the dinner while Beloved Wife discharged her contractual obligations by working until mid afternoon. We opened presents and then ate, before settling down to the traditional post-Christmas bloat in front of the telly. One of the gifts I received was the extremely practical flag - hand embroidered appliqué, no less - for attaching to the Goatmobile when desert driving. Other stuff included a book on how to deal with an architect and a “Teach Yourself Greek” computer program suite. As we’re heading down the self-build route for a house in Cyprus, these will be most welcome. You can tell if the software is effective if blogs start appearing by possibly some variant of Ο Τράγος Γκρινιάρης.

The Goat and his Beloved Wife decided weeks ago that seeing in the New Year would certainly not involve expensive tickets to a noisy bar or nightclub. Notwithstanding the dubious allure of ‘free selected beverages all night’ or a ‘glass of bubbly at midnight’, there are many more satisfactory ways to celebrate the annual December to January rollover.

We decided to go camping. The Yellow Box of Doom and his co-pilot would be joining us, as would various diving buddies, work associates and friends of friends. The guest list, including the ‘probably’ and ‘maybe’ brigades started to become long. At the actual event, it’d dwindled down to four cars: the Goatmobile, the YBOD, Louise with toddler offspring and two friends and, joining us after dark because he had to work until late, Louise’s hubby.

As it turned out, all of Dubai’s New Year celebrations were reported cancelled in the 31st December newspapers. To show solidarity, we’re told. I imagine a lot of very upset people. Not just the punters with their now worthless admission tickets, but the events organisers whose venues would spend all night impersonating an English seaside resort on a wet winter Wednesday. Quite how cancelling all New Year revelling in Dubai serves to benefit Palestine’s stand against the Zionist menace seems unclear...

I’d previously located a spot that would be easy 4x4 access for inexperienced drivers to negotiate in the dark. It was off the E77 near The Tiger Woods sandpit golf course and far enough out of town to avoid light pollution and traffic roar. Co-pilot brought along a couple of packs of Cyalume glow sticks. The idea was that the route to the camp site would be signposted with these to augment the sketch map and directions. In the event, only one vehicle would be arriving late, so I simply drove back to the road and escorted Colin to the camp site.

The Box o’Doom is now proudly adorned with a roof tent. [SMUGMODE] No sand in the bed for that couple, we were repeatedly assured. [/SMUGMODE] I’ve only recently come away from the Desert Challenge, so can unpack and erect my dome tent, pneumatic mattress et al in not very much time at all. This leaves more time for the serious business of Hogmanay: the beverages. Meanwhile Louise’s team struggled with an enormous double dome Pleasure Palace with entry hall, separate majlis and snooker room, which would have blotted out the sun had this not already retreated below the western horizon.

With fire pit dug, tiki torches lit and barbecue poised for sacrifice of meat products, I realised that we were actually closer to the road than I’d previously imagined. We could just see the street lights and could hear the constant low rumble of heavy trucks. Nevertheless, suggestions that we relocate further into the desert were met with howls of derision and anguish.

As the crescent moon and Venus both set, we’d have an excellent view of the canopy of stars. But alas, this was not to be. The stars vanished, as did the street lights. Fog had rolled in making visibility probably twenty metres or less. I’ve had dives with better viz. And it didn't arrive on little cat feet either. This sort of fog stomped in wearing wellies: the damp, cloying, soggy, wet stuff of Charles Dickens or Sherlock Holmes, leaving the cars, tents and camping gear all dripping with water. We huddled closer to the campfire, ate our barbecued food, drank, and chatted until midnight. Alcohol-induced wit, jokes and confessions whiled away the damp couple of hours until midnight.

Immediately after the Witching Hour, despite the crescent moon having set some hours previously, a display of full moons inexplicably occurred. There are positively no photos of that rather debauched spectacle.

My al cheabo tent was more or less waterproof. I suspect the little dampness within may have been condensation. Bearing in mind it was bought yonks ago at an Ace Hardware sale, I still think it represents excellent value. I would not attempt to use the same tent in a UK environment; not even in August. That said, with mattress and feather quilt and pillows, Beloved Wife and I had a comfortable and warm night, only occasionally punctuated by my phone bleating every time a new text message arrived.

What a splendid start to 2009! Bright, sunny and warm. No trace remained of last night’s fog apart from dew on all surfaces. All the happy and/or hungover campers assembled and fired up their gas stoves for a monstrous fry-up predominantly comprising haraaminal washed down with steaming mugs of tea, coffee or chocolate. During breakfast we were visited by an enormous herd of camels, which fascinated the toddler. When you’re two, camels must appear enormous; not that this dissuaded him from chasing them. By the time breakfast was complete the sun had pretty much dried the tents, so these could be struck and packed. We swept the campsite for trash to bag and remove, before making biodegradable tracks back to the highway and splitting up to go home.

To our annoyance it turns out that our broadband internet connection has failed. Surfing, blogging and Amazon will be on Ye Olde Dialle-Uppe until we carry out our New Year Resolution and get Itisalot to restore a decent connection. Hope springs eternal.

]}:-{>

Bait and switch

We spent Eid Al Fitr in Cyprus. Having decided that it’d be a marvellous place to have our dream home, Beloved Wife made several appointments with various estate agents and land owners, I used a local contact to find a Cyprus contact, and off we flew. Business Class there and back (ouch my wallet) because those were the only available seats. Once I’d booked and paid for the tickets, Beloved Wife’s employer in his mercy then decreed that her office would be shut all week. I had to reschedule the outbound flight. Gulf Air wanted an additional fee to change the booking, “but you can pay this at the airport.” What no-one told us was that paying at the airport required an additional fee of Dh100 per person to be paid to DNATA as a service charge for doing precisely nothing.

Another thing that no-one had told us was that 1st October is Cyprus National Day, and everything would be shut. So our appointments to see all the land we’d arranged to view became rushed. Some holiday! We left the allegedly two- or three-star hotel immediately after our mediocre breakfasts and didn’t get back until well after dark.

Five days in Cyprus were extremely instructive:-

“Hotel has Wi-Fi internet access.”
“There is Ye Olde Dial-Uppe computer in the foyer.”

“Hotel has all air-conditioned rooms.”
“If you want us to turn it on there’s an additional charge.”

“Hotel has a swimming pool.”
“Blue-tiled rectangular hole with some temporary fencing around it.”

“The plot is gently sloping.”
“I’m trying to sell you a near-vertical cliff face.”

“Power and water are nearby.”
“There’s an electricity pole about half a mile from the bottom of the aforementioned cliff face.”

“It’s this piece of flat ground as per the plan.”
“The plan is wrong. It’s actually this cliff face overlooking the motorway.”

“The plot is 820 sq.m”
“By the time the access road is built this 650 sq.m plot will reduce to 535 sq.m”

Cutting a long story short, we eventually found a perfect plot in a lovely location near Pafos. The land is fertile, a vineyard, reasonably flat, there’s decent road access and nearby power and water. It’s also big enough for our fantasy home with land enough for grapevines, fruit trees and livestock. It's close to a village but not on a housing estate. Beloved Wife and I discussed the finer details with the owner, developer and agent, after which I told them that we had a deal and would approach a solicitor to deal with purchase and transfer of land title.

And then on Saturday morning as we were on our way to the airport the agent rang to say that there had been a ghastly mistake. Despite all financial discussions being in Euro, the published adverts being in Euro and the agent showing us a plot guided by our budget in Euro, we were told that the figures quoted had all been in Cypriot Pounds. A 71% increase. The C£ currency has been obsolete since January 2008. It took me about an hour to adjust to Euro; apparently it takes certain oleaginous and serpentine individuals more than nine months to make the adjustment.

Apparently the adverts are all wrong and the land owner has tried to get the figures changed. But he never said so to our faces.

Relating this sorry tale of the retail snake oil trade to the proprietor of a Larnaca taverna, his reaction was that the C£ is dead and, I quote, to “Tell him to piss off.”

Quite. We’re still looking for appropriate land. Dependent on what the agent comes up with, I reserve the option to revise this blog with ‘name and shame’ hyperlinks. Their uppance will come.

]}:-{>

All Greek to me

Beloved Wife and I are now back from a week in the birthplace of Aphrodite. After a pleasant and uneventful Gulf Air trip to Cyprus via Bahrain, we picked up the rental car and headed off down the motorway from Larnaca towards Limassol. We both tried to get used to bilingual road signs in Greek capitals. A very popular destination is ΕΞΟΔΟΣ. By a staggering series of fortunate guesses, plus having checked the location on Google Earth and selected the correct εξοδος, I drove pretty much straight to the hotel, We checked in before showering and heading into town in search of pork and beer.

The two-star hotel was fully booked, so it was futile to complain about the air conditioning in our room. Unfortunately all the A/C's efforts were going into making itself sound like a small, unsilenced motorcycle instead of having any meaningful cooling effect. We also had to ask that the mattress be changed, as the original had all the support and texture of a marshmallow. Still, the hotel did have a reasonable swimming pool. It was not permitted to cut through the dining room to the pool, so everyone had to parade out of the hotel front door and down the street in their Speedos and thongs if they wanted to go swimming.

Aphrodite's birthplace, at least according to local legend

It rapidly became apparent that, apart from us and a Bangladeshi waiter, the entire staff and guests of the hotel were Russian. Yet I'd booked the hotel on line, using a UK-based website. No matter; there was somewhere to sleep, somewhere to have our disappointingly Spartan breakfasts, and even somewhere in the shade to park the car.

Ah yes, the car. Ian The Dog had tipped me off that especially up in the mountains we might encounter unmade tracks. I upgraded the rental car to a small 4x4 in an attempt to get more ground clearance and to minimise the likelihood of chassis damage. The Daihatsu Terios was apparently powered by a sewing machine engine. Perusing the manual, I was forced to conclude that it must have been the 1300cc version. The relative powerhouse of ponies, the 1500cc 100BHP version, was clearly not in evidence. It was of course relatively easy to wind the vehicle up to the maximum legal 100kph speed limit on the motorway, but the poor thing had enormous trouble with anything resembling a hill. Commonplace gradients of 8% to 12% and an asthmatic Shetland pony under the bonnet do not match well with an automatic gearbox either. This minuscule car was however easy to park, and its equally minuscule engine returned around thirty miles per Imperial gallon. This was just as well, given the rather frightening €1.12 per litre (Dh29 per gallon).

It appears that Cypriot petrol stations have a 24-hour system for automated dispensing of fuel. You select the pump, insert cash or credit card, and then pump gas. After filling up, you go back to the money machine and re-insert your credit card. The computer recognises the card as the one that just paid for petrol to, say, Pump No.2 and spits out a paper receipt. All instructions, including the ones to get the machine to display instructions in English, are in Greek. Rather alarmingly there is at no point any requirement to enter a PIN. This is probably just as well as I couldn't remember my VISA card PIN, but it does mean that nefarious types could potentially gas up with anyone's card.

We both rather like Cyprus. After many consecutive months in the Land of the Sand, it was refreshing to see that, despite no rain for 14 months, there was still some greenery around. We were repeatedly told that it was usually a lot greener than this, and also sorry about the appalling heat and humidity. Frankly, after August in Dubai, 30°C was surprisingly refreshing. Up in the hills, above about 500m the temperature was a couple of degrees cooler. On the coast it was even possible to sit outside (in the shade) without impersonating the Wicked Witch of the West. So of course Beloved Wife and I both accidentally overdid it at the hotel pool one day. Whoops.

English is widely spoken in Cyprus, although bilingual signs become scarcer the further one ventures into the boondocks. There is definitely a need to read Greek, and some ability to speak it would also be good. At this point it's worth quite emphatically pointing out that the indigenous Greek Cypriots are not Greek, even if that's the language they speak.

The village of Laneia

On our travels around the said boondocks we looked at various plots of land and even some houses for sale. There are developments all over the island, but Beloved Wife is allergic to living on a postage stamp in a housing estate. We found some massive plots of cheap agricultural land on which it would be possible to put a single house on typically 6% of the total plot area. But these were invariably miles and miles up mountain switchbacks and several kilometres from the nearest power and water supplies and civilisation. Certainly not the same as living on a housing estate.

The tower of Omodhos monastery

Given that we ultimately want an ecologically sensitive house, the concrete-and-blockwork-with-not-a-scrap-of-insulation buildings generally on offer in Cyprus, and indeed Dubai, do not interest us. The Crumbling Villa costs a fortune to keep cool during the summer. The A/Cs pump the heat out and more radiates in through the walls. It's like pumping the bilges of a sieve.

Most Cyprus homes seem to have solar panels for water heating, but it's becoming possible to get electrical power from the sun. We're advised that it's even possible to flog unused electricity back to the power authority. And grey-water recycling - using shower waste to flush the loo - is also becoming such a popular water saver that the Cyprus government offers grants to build it into houses. These systems are difficult to retro-fit into existing buildings, meaning that we're starting to look at a self-build house with lots of insulation too. By the way, this is sooo much not yoghurt-knitting bunny-hugging, and sooo much keeping the household bills to an absolute minimum without having to live in a shoe box in t'middle o't'road.

Some of the older property that we visited dates back many centuries. I've never seen proper, authentic ancient classical ruins before. Beloved Wife used to live in Naples so has seen Pompeii and Rome, and has also visited Athens. So she was mildly surprised at my enthusiasm for a very small archaeological site near Limassol.

The remains of a Byzantine church at Kourion

Amphitheatre at Kourion. Bring your own cushion

The House of Theseus. He of the Minotaur, the labyrinth and the ball of wool

I must admit that the ruins and mosaics on display at Pafos and at Kourion were much better. The mosaics even gave me an opportunity to demonstrate my somewhat haphazard ability to transliterate ancient Greek text. For all the sites, we left our visits to the late afternoon in order to avoid the seething mass of οι πολλοι. And with the sun lower in the sky, shadows make photographs more interesting, and the temperature's a bit lower too.

The journey back was mostly without incident. Mostly? Well, on the Bahrain to Dubai sector the aircraft got clearance to take off, the pilot went balls to the wall and there was an immediate horrendous series of mechanical clangs from somewhere beneath the wings. We stopped, turned off the main runway and sat in the dark while presumably someone got out and looked at the undercarriage or leaned out of the door with a mirror on a stick. Our Captain declared that all was well and the Airbus still possessed the requisite number of wings, wheels and engines, so we trundled around to the end of the runway and had another go. Same mechanical clanging, but this time we got into the air. Obviously, we also landed safely in Dubai. Perhaps the noise was someone's luggage rolling around in the hold.

It snows up here on Mount Olympus, although not in August

As for return visits, we've been advised that February is the coldest month, so a visit then will reveal Cyprus' other temperature extreme. I spotted a ski resort 1900 metres up in the Troodos mountains, so it presumably gets seriously chilly. I wonder if I can get the leave?

]}:-{>