Tuesday 24 July 2007

We have internet

My internet connection has been up and down like a whore's drawers. After three weeks of telephone calls to Superonline (my ISP), Turkish Telecom and US Robotics (the modem people) (I wont bore you with the bureaucracy, just read the posts below and you'll get the picture), I finally had to find the source of the problem myself.

"It's definitely not the cable" said Turkish Telecom.

My discovery? It definitely was the cable. So I called them and asked them to come over. After a fight saying that it wasn't their business to fix problems with telephone cables (go figure), they realised that it was almost solely their business to fix problems with telephone cables and they sent 3 blokes over with some gaffer tape.

Well they fixed my problem with that precise Turkish finish.


The results are in...

...and, once again, Ak Parti wins the general elections.

The result was a landslide. This is a little worrying for most people living around the coastal regions of Turkey who are more 'open' in their thinking. The Turkish AK Parti, from what I understand, is a step towards Islam. The Prime Minister's wife covers her head and any government run restaurants do not serve alcohol.

The voting was confused. With so many political parties to choose from (over 30, I hear) most people were trying to vote tactically. To try and second guess the results, voters were trying to get as many non-AK parti ministers into parliament as possible.

The problem is that by splitting the vote across a number of parties, AK Parti became a clear winner.

What does this mean for Turkey? Well, I think it's a step in the wrong direction. Everyone around is fearing a move towards becoming another Iran. Time will tell.

(I should be a political correspondent for the BBC, don't you think?)

Random Turkish Fact #1

Almost without exception, Turkish women are fans of the Hollywood style.

If you don't know what the Hollywood style is, ask a friend. If you do know then you're probably too busy high-fiving the person next to you to read the end of this paragraph.