Moving...
Funny how, when you move to another part of your country, or another country altogether, some things you get used to straight away, and others take a while. In each place, be it village, town, city or whatever, the local population have their own ways and idiosyncrasies which may, or may not, match with yours.
One of the very first things about Cyprus that I noticed, on moving here, bearing in mind that I'd never been here before, was the laid back attitude, so laid back, in fact, it's practically horizontal!
In the UK, if you order a delivery, or call a plumber or builder or electrician, you almost expect them to be knocking on the door before you have put the 'phone down. In Cyprus you get "Maybe I come tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow." ..... Truly! How great is that? It's like the Spanish "Manyana" but with passion!
Politicians...
There is an old joke, which still circulates now and again, which goes thus:
"How do you tell when a politician is lying?.....Their lips are moving!"
It still raises a chuckle, and to my mind, still holds true. No matter your country, language or political allegiance, they're generally all the same, of course there are exceptions, and I know I shouldn't generalize, but think about it, when they are chasing votes, they're nice people, but once elected, seem not to care a jot for supporters, only to line their own pockets.
Kim Dotcom and Piracy
The German/New Zealander Kim Dotcom seems to be in a lot of trouble because he dared challenge the greed of the film and music
industries by setting up MegaUpload a few years ago.
The 'aggrieved' seem to have worked out, and it probably cost them millions of dollars to find, that he's cost them more than $500 million.
Now my simple question is, if they are that perplexed about so-called 'piracy' why are thy not persuing a legal case against the makers of DVD and CD re-writers and dvd-r and cd-r disks?
Probably because those manufacturers have their own billions of dollars to fight with!
I can buy a spindle of 50 dvd-rw's for 8euro, so how come a single mass-produced DVD film costs upwards of 15 euro? My opinion, which I think may be shared by a good portion of the free world, is that we don't have 'piracy', we have highway robbery, and not by the likes of Mr Dotcom.
Newspaper story comments
I like, each morning, to scan through a couple of UK daily papers. My two of choice are diverse, one a traditionally thought of middle class, middle of the road daily, The Guardian, and the other thought of as a working class 'sensationalist' daily, The Mail.
I read the articles, the reporting styles differ greatly, but most of all I enjoy reading the comments by 'readers' at the bottom of them.
It is quite clear from those comments, that a large percentage of the 'readers' of The Mail are actually 'lookers' not 'readers'. I'll explain. In the online version, the pictures tell most of the story, but not all, so when you read the comments it becomes obvious which are by 'lookers' and which are 'readers'.
The Guardian, on the other hand, has few pictures, and the comments reflect this, where they are actually about the copy and the news rather than the pictures.
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