Tempting Turkey
If the secret to a man’s happiness is what is placed before him and shovelled into his mouth, the guarantee of a man’s ill-temper is what comes out the other end, if troublesome. I have little doubt that the brain, heart and arse share a common bond. If the last of these is troubled, the first two are in serious jeopardy. I was feeling very sorry for myself a few weeks ago after a night of dining a little too richly on kuzu shish kebabs and kemikli biftek washed down by Turkish red wine in a London Turkish restaurant called Haz. My gut had reacted rather more violently to some of the spices – which, I am sure, were delivered on a donkey to London all the way from Diyarbakir – than I had anticipated and I was laid low. Then the phone call came.
“Gitau, you old rascal, how the devil are you?” The caller was an old university chum of mine who delights in the splendid Caledonian name of Struan McGillivray. He had “found” me a few days earlier on facebook after at least twenty years’ disappearance.
“McGillivray, you pestilence, do please crawl back into the hole you crawled out of and leave me to die in peace,” I grunted.
“I see you’ve lost none of your radiant charm over the years. What ails you?” McGillivray is nothing if not persistent.
“Shish kebabs are a menace,” I moaned.
“Oh, I see,” he said, “the old exploding belly. Nothing to worry about. Hear that?”
“What?”
“That, my friend, is the invigorating sound of shish kebabs and British bangers sizzling on my barbeque!”
“McGillivray, you are a vile insect!”
McGillivray refused to go away but instead insisted on telling me that he had discovered this blog, read about my encounters with Ozlem in Paris (see Turkish Delights from 22 August 2007) and been prompted to look for me. After leaving university and becoming a tea taster with Twinings, McGillivray had got bored and decided to seek a little action by joining the British army. By the time of his last posting to the British army base in Dhekelia, Cyprus, he had seen sufficient action in Afghanistan to last him three lifetimes and longed for a return to a more sedate existence. As soon as he was able to, then, McGillivray resigned his commission and “went native”. He found himself a lass called Cennet on the Turkish side of the disputed Cypriot border and relocated the pair of them to run an eatery in a leafy suburb of Istanbul. Five years and five additional stone in weight later, McGillivray was the father of two Turko-Scot children, a boy called Alasdair and a girl called Leyla, and filled to the brim with bonhomie.
As I said, bad tummies do not make for good brains. If I had been myself at the time of the call from McGillivray, I would have sought to inveigle him into securing me a ticket and paddock pass for this weekend’s Turkish Grand Prix through his contacts in the hospitality industry in his adopted home city. As things stand, I will be spending the weekend trying to restrain Arabella from leaping off my knee and screaming into my ear as I attempt to make sense of television pictures of glamorous people at the Istanbul Park, while the rain pounds the grey streets of London outside. For, sure as mini skirts in Milan’s Piazza del Duomo on a summer’s day, the Turkish Grand Prix is always guaranteed to excite and invigorate.
I always have to pinch myself when I find myself saying this but the Istanbul Park has turned out to be one of my favourite circuits. After being repeatedly stung for producing shitty, boring, predictable racing circuits time after maddening time, Hermann Tilke (the German architect who somehow manages to get all the new F1 circuit design commissions) got it right when he put pencil to drawing board to design Turkey’s one and only F1 circuit. Having made sure his cheque was safely cleared, Tilke stuck his lower lip out and imagined he was Paul Gauguin in Tahiti. The result was a work of sheer genius, if a little mad. In particular, I have in mind an interlocking series of four corners – nicknamed “Turn 8” – which have managed to confound many an experienced driver since the Istanbul Park Circuit was first revealed to the world in 2005. The Istanbul Park, therefore, is a circuit which is deservedly worthy of much respect. By extension, one driver’s mastery of this circuit made me change my mind about him and abandon my earlier pooh-poohing of his claims of excellence. That driver is Felipe Massa.
When the young Brazilian achieved pole position and then went on to win the Turkish Grand Prix in 2006, I thought it was a lucky fluke – especially as it was his first ever Formula One victory. But when Massa went on to repeat the feat in 2007 and then 2008, I doffed my cap to him. At the end of last year’s race, I knew that Massa was going to be Lewis Hamilton’s main opponent in his quest for his first drivers’ F1 world championship. And so it came to pass.
Will Massa do it again in 2009? I am sure he would love to but I don’t think it will be easy. Admittedly, Ferrari’s 2009 car has come forward in leaps and bounds since the team’s disastrous start to this season – witness Kimi Raikkonen’s impressive bounce-back in Monaco - but there is an Englishman who is demonstrating serene unflappability this year and he is almost guaranteed to madden excitable Latin types like Massa.
Jenson Button seems to have got this year’s season by the scruff of the neck. With Ross Brawn – another unflappable Englishman – guiding operations and a thus far bullet-proof car beneath him, Button’s star appears inexorably to be on the rise. After a miraculous win in Australia at the start of the season, five wins out of six races later and it is now not foolhardy to speak of Jenson Button as the next world champion. This must be irritating for the ego of young Lewis Hamilton but I think it is good for him. If Hamilton had found 2009 to be an easy stroll to another world championship, he might have lost the motivation to be competitive. As it happens, some argue that this is precisely what happened to Kimi Raikkonen after becoming world champion in his first season at Ferrari.
Time will tell what will happen when things eventually shake out a little later. Best, I think, to wait until Silverstone in a fortnight’s time before we can begin to make measured predictions. For now, let us carry on drinking in the best of a delightful racing season. So, do have a great weekend and,
Enjoy Turkey!
Gitau
5 June 2009
“Gitau, you old rascal, how the devil are you?” The caller was an old university chum of mine who delights in the splendid Caledonian name of Struan McGillivray. He had “found” me a few days earlier on facebook after at least twenty years’ disappearance.
“McGillivray, you pestilence, do please crawl back into the hole you crawled out of and leave me to die in peace,” I grunted.
“I see you’ve lost none of your radiant charm over the years. What ails you?” McGillivray is nothing if not persistent.
“Shish kebabs are a menace,” I moaned.
“Oh, I see,” he said, “the old exploding belly. Nothing to worry about. Hear that?”
“What?”
“That, my friend, is the invigorating sound of shish kebabs and British bangers sizzling on my barbeque!”
“McGillivray, you are a vile insect!”
McGillivray refused to go away but instead insisted on telling me that he had discovered this blog, read about my encounters with Ozlem in Paris (see Turkish Delights from 22 August 2007) and been prompted to look for me. After leaving university and becoming a tea taster with Twinings, McGillivray had got bored and decided to seek a little action by joining the British army. By the time of his last posting to the British army base in Dhekelia, Cyprus, he had seen sufficient action in Afghanistan to last him three lifetimes and longed for a return to a more sedate existence. As soon as he was able to, then, McGillivray resigned his commission and “went native”. He found himself a lass called Cennet on the Turkish side of the disputed Cypriot border and relocated the pair of them to run an eatery in a leafy suburb of Istanbul. Five years and five additional stone in weight later, McGillivray was the father of two Turko-Scot children, a boy called Alasdair and a girl called Leyla, and filled to the brim with bonhomie.
As I said, bad tummies do not make for good brains. If I had been myself at the time of the call from McGillivray, I would have sought to inveigle him into securing me a ticket and paddock pass for this weekend’s Turkish Grand Prix through his contacts in the hospitality industry in his adopted home city. As things stand, I will be spending the weekend trying to restrain Arabella from leaping off my knee and screaming into my ear as I attempt to make sense of television pictures of glamorous people at the Istanbul Park, while the rain pounds the grey streets of London outside. For, sure as mini skirts in Milan’s Piazza del Duomo on a summer’s day, the Turkish Grand Prix is always guaranteed to excite and invigorate.
I always have to pinch myself when I find myself saying this but the Istanbul Park has turned out to be one of my favourite circuits. After being repeatedly stung for producing shitty, boring, predictable racing circuits time after maddening time, Hermann Tilke (the German architect who somehow manages to get all the new F1 circuit design commissions) got it right when he put pencil to drawing board to design Turkey’s one and only F1 circuit. Having made sure his cheque was safely cleared, Tilke stuck his lower lip out and imagined he was Paul Gauguin in Tahiti. The result was a work of sheer genius, if a little mad. In particular, I have in mind an interlocking series of four corners – nicknamed “Turn 8” – which have managed to confound many an experienced driver since the Istanbul Park Circuit was first revealed to the world in 2005. The Istanbul Park, therefore, is a circuit which is deservedly worthy of much respect. By extension, one driver’s mastery of this circuit made me change my mind about him and abandon my earlier pooh-poohing of his claims of excellence. That driver is Felipe Massa.
When the young Brazilian achieved pole position and then went on to win the Turkish Grand Prix in 2006, I thought it was a lucky fluke – especially as it was his first ever Formula One victory. But when Massa went on to repeat the feat in 2007 and then 2008, I doffed my cap to him. At the end of last year’s race, I knew that Massa was going to be Lewis Hamilton’s main opponent in his quest for his first drivers’ F1 world championship. And so it came to pass.
Will Massa do it again in 2009? I am sure he would love to but I don’t think it will be easy. Admittedly, Ferrari’s 2009 car has come forward in leaps and bounds since the team’s disastrous start to this season – witness Kimi Raikkonen’s impressive bounce-back in Monaco - but there is an Englishman who is demonstrating serene unflappability this year and he is almost guaranteed to madden excitable Latin types like Massa.
Jenson Button seems to have got this year’s season by the scruff of the neck. With Ross Brawn – another unflappable Englishman – guiding operations and a thus far bullet-proof car beneath him, Button’s star appears inexorably to be on the rise. After a miraculous win in Australia at the start of the season, five wins out of six races later and it is now not foolhardy to speak of Jenson Button as the next world champion. This must be irritating for the ego of young Lewis Hamilton but I think it is good for him. If Hamilton had found 2009 to be an easy stroll to another world championship, he might have lost the motivation to be competitive. As it happens, some argue that this is precisely what happened to Kimi Raikkonen after becoming world champion in his first season at Ferrari.
Time will tell what will happen when things eventually shake out a little later. Best, I think, to wait until Silverstone in a fortnight’s time before we can begin to make measured predictions. For now, let us carry on drinking in the best of a delightful racing season. So, do have a great weekend and,
Enjoy Turkey!
Gitau
5 June 2009
posted by Gitau at 3:38 pm
1 Comments:
the more i read your blog the more i enjoy the tale accompanying the formula one punditry(if i can say that) both in equal measure....i want to take a cautious approach to making a prediction but after passing the halfway mark...its buttons to lose...though i must say the new line up of cars is nothing short of exciting...
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