27 replies to this topic

[dande]

Our life in Turkey has been greatly enriched by the friendship and hospitality of local Turkish people. For a number of years we enjoyed the Cherry Festival at Kemalpaşa, a lovely old market town about 25 kilometres from İzmir. Our Turkish friends (Cemal and family who once farmed close to our home in Çeşme) now live there and always asked us to join them for this special day. The festivities, comprising of traditional and modern music, dancing, and displays in the style of ancient and Ottoman military bands, are held in a lovely wooded area, ideal for shady picnics. And the judging of local cherries, of course.

Cemal speaks only ten words of English – “Ladies and Gentlemen”, “Dangerous”, “I love You”, “My name is . . .”, so conversation involved our extremely limited Turkish especially about six years ago (it’s now only very limited!). I was always concerned that should he ever manage to utilise his entire English vocabulary, the sentence could emerge as, “Ladies, I love you and my name is dangerous gentlemen.”

Even back in 2002 I was confident enough to mention that this particular weekend was our Queen Elizabeth's Golden Jubilee celebrations. Some fifteen minutes later, the conversation, obviously in Turkish, developed like this:

Cemal: “Did you know Elizabeth Taylor’s daughter is dead?”

Me: (Quickly trying to recall who is - or was - Elizabeth Taylor’s daughter)
“Er, no. Recently?”

Cemal: “Oh no. A few years ago.”

Me: “Oh really?”

Cemal: “Yes, in a car accident. In a road tunnel. In Paris.”

[sunny]

Just too many Elizabeths!

[Ken]

What a coincidence! It's like when Magellan discovered the straits of Magellan, and was completely blown away by the fact that they had the same name as him!

[KangalKid]

love it.

[tedinturkey]

your a crack a minute Ben

[Ken]

I was checking our site statistics, and just found that we're getting a LOT of traffic from Google searches, from people searching for "Elizabeth Taylor's Daughter."

I suppose that's the reason why some people don't like automated search engines like Google.

[Fil]

Is Elizabeth Taylor's daughter in this forum?

[sunny]

Not as far as we know. Read the first post Fil.

[Fil]

Ah now I understand. So Elizabeth Taylor's grandson is to marry that Kate girl soon. That should confuse google.

[samanthaozkara]

Hahaha. Poor turks! xxx

[Fil]

Poor me. Mrs Fil is planning on having the children in her class watch and dress up for the wedding. I shall be outside picketing with a republic now banner.

[Lucid]

oh god! brings back memories or wearing a huge itcy lace collar & ridiculous pudding bowl hair like a boy & cropped pantalon for a street do for Diana ...& charles..going back even further sis & i camped out in a tent for some other royal affair..ahem i mean event.. when i was only about 2ish...what would that have been gawd knows?!
well I know the date just give me the time Fil & im on your side of the picket fence!

[sunny]

So you think the UK should have a president? Take a good look at the world's presidents before you answer!

[samanthaozkara]

I think the world needs to get rid of all presidents and priministers then we would have a much happier world!!

[sunny]

Well Belgium seem to have managed without a government for nearly a year.

[Fil]

But what I am to do about Mrs Fil's attempts to join in with the royal wedding by getting the children to make hats to wear?

[Cukurbagli]

I think the world needs to get rid of all presidents and priministers then we would have a much happier world!!

Who would we moan about then?

Well Belgium seem to have managed without a government for nearly a year.

Have you seen how 'happy' they look?

[sunny]

But what I am to do about Mrs Fil's attempts to join in with the royal wedding by getting the children to make hats to wear?

Make yourself a hat and join in with the fun.

[saffron]

So finally people discovered where the daughter of Ms. Taylor was. I hope they cant find whose daughter I am.

[Cukurbagli]

Have you got a skeleton in the cupboard Saffron