Trouble in Paradise

How best to describe my holiday in Turkey?

"It was a bit like Midnight Express, but with more diarrhea."

Yes, I think that's a fair description.


I had just finished a big advertising shoot and was completely exhausted; not a physical tiredness like a coalminer after a twelve-hour shift working down pit, but more a creative exhaustion from too little sleep, an uptight client, and a brain spinning like a gyro on a taut cotton thread.
My friend and flat-mate Terry had been the Art Director on the shoot, and I could tell he was feeling much the same way.
What we needed was ten days lying on a beach in Mykenos drinking Ouzo and ogling topless girls on the beach. And, when it came to ogling, we were professionals.
According to my travel agent, Greece was completely booked up, at least all of the nice bits, so he suggested that we go to Turkey. It’s right next-door, the land and climate are similar, but it’s quieter and cheaper. To put it in Travel Agency vernacular; discover the beauty of this ancient land, soaked in sunshine and history.

Nobody ever mentioned food poisoning, the Turkish mafia, gay sailors, or being beaten to a bloody pulp.
I definitely would have remembered.

I should have known better I guess, especially when I arrived at the airport and discovered that my ticket was in the name of Oaks and not Daks, I should have just gone home, pulled the covers over my head and slept quietly for the next ten days. But no, I had to go up to the British Airways desk and point out my travel agent’s mistake. They informed me that to change the name on the ticket would cost me twenty pounds. I argued to blank stares that it was really not my fault. I insisted, but to no avail. I flung up my hands in a pointless gesture. I became Italian.

A one-letter typo was going to cost me twenty pounds, and I had just changed all my cash into Turkish Lire except for a last twenty that I had kept for cab fare upon my return.
(Yes, it was THAT long ago.)

I didn’t really want to give that away, as this was before airport ATM’s and I would have to change some of my Turkish money back into Sterling, and pay the fee once again. A light bulb went off, dazzling me momentarily. I took out my checkbook and wrote a check for twenty pounds and handed it to the clerk, along with my bank guarantee card. The clerk sat and watched me as I wrote the check, and peered at it very closely after I handed it to him.
He then handed it back to me.

“I’m sorry, sir. We don’t take checks.” He mumbled.

“But, you just sat there and watched me write it!” I blurted out.

He smirked and said nothing, but his insolence spoke volumes. I wanted to reach over and smack him upside the head. Instead I handed him my twenty-pound note, and after a few minutes (he held the note up to the light to see if it was a forgery-just to fuck with me) he then slid my new ticket onto the desktop.

Terry had just been working with Lord King, the then chairman of British Airways, on the re-design of the interiors of the first class cabins for BA, and also for the Concorde.

“Do you enjoy your job, Alan?” I asked him whilst perusing his nametag.

A nine-month pause lingered in the ether.

“Well, enjoy it for the next ten days, because when I get back, the first thing I’m going to do is call Lord King and have you fired.”

I wrote his name on the back of my checkbook so I wouldn’t forget, and so he would see that I wouldn’t forget. I then tore my useless check into confetti-sized pieces and launched them into the air over his desk so that they descended slowly upon his head and shoulders like snowdrops.
I thought they blended very nicely with the dandruff that was already there.

Oh course, I wasn’t really going to have him fired. But, he didn’t know that, did he?

We ran for the check-in desk as there were now only forty-five minutes left before our flight. Sweaty and unkempt we stood before the counter. The girl was probably fairly attractive, but the green fluorescent lights certainly weren’t helping, nor was her tightly buttoned, blue polyester shirt.
After she had informed us of the seven-hour delay, she quickly began to resemble the bride of Frankenstein.
Seven hours! What were we going to do for seven hours I asked rhetorically?
Eight pints of Guinness later. . . we staggered onto the plane.

So, instead of arriving in Turkey at Midnight, we arrived at seven o’clock in the morning with deadly hangovers and even worse complexions.
A coach arrived to take us to the Hotel that we now discovered was still over two hours away, something else that the Travel Agent had failed to mention. We were handed bottles of water that perhaps the night before were cold, but after an evening spent in the hold, on a hot bus, now tasted like tepid bath water wrapped in molten plastic. I can’t even begin to describe what the heat had done to the Turkish Delight that we were then being offered. Suffice it to say that it now had the consistency of Cow gum, which was made even more evident by the number of flies that were still attached to it. We graciously declined.
The coach eventually trundled up to our destination, and as we disembarked, I casually asked the driver if he knew of a good bar in the town.

“Ah! The Paradise Bar, it’s the best one. My cousin owns it.”

Of course he does.

I took down directions.

It was just after nine o’clock in the morning and I was already thinking about getting drunk again, and I was still hung over.

We were now in Bodrum on the Ismir coast and this was only the second year that western tourists had been coming here, or so we were told. The locals were not really prepared for the British invasion, so it was a culture shock on both sides. On the beach that first morning we saw Turkish women in Islamic dress, head to toe in black, who then sat and buried themselves in the sand so that only their heads were visible.
In contrast, the English girls wore tiny bikinis, rubbed oil into their bodies, drank beer and smoked cigarettes. The local men thought they obviously must be prostitutes.
A twenty-something girl was sat just down the beach from us with her boyfriend. As she lay on the beach, facedown, with her Bikini top untied to avoid strap marks, her boyfriend went for a swim. When he returned, he discovered his poor girlfriend surrounded by eight Turkish men who just wouldn’t quit. Every time he went for a swim this would happen until it finally came to blows and the couple left the beach. I didn’t see them again.
Terry and I were not faring much better. We were being constantly bothered by the local traders trying to sell us some old crap carved out of wood, or cheap-assed jewelry, not to mention the really annoying kids walking up and down the beach screaming

“Fanta! Cola! Birra! Sprite!” at the top of their lungs.

It made reading the autobiography of Elia Kazan very problematic.

I finally had enough and called over the young guy who was renting us the deckchairs and sun umbrella. I told him that we would come to his section of the beach everyday and rent his deckchairs, if he agreed to see to it that we were never disturbed. If we wanted a beverage we would simply let him know.
He seemed to think that this was a brilliant idea and put the word out. No one ever bothered us on the beach again, and after three days everyone seemed to know who we were. The locals even knew our names and would yell greetings to us.
I think that they were fascinated by my olive green, straw, Pork pie hat with the crazy, colorful band - so sixties, so Tony Rome; and of course Terry was a very pretty boy and this was, after all, Turkey.

That first evening, after a relatively relaxing day on the beach, and a pretty disgusting Pizza, we decided it was time to visit the Paradise bar. The place itself was was spacious and mainly open air. It had a thatched roof over the central square of the actual bar area, which had high wooden bar stools around it. It also had a small sunken Disco area in one corner with flashing colored floor tiles like Saturday Night Fever, and this was encompassed on three sides by dark leather booths.
The rest of the bar was open plan, naked to the sky, with small wicker coffee tables and simple wooden chairs. The drinks were so cheap that I could literally buy a round for the entire bar and still have change from ten pounds, or whatever was the Turkish Lire equivalent.
We sat on the stools by the bar and ordered a couple of Heinekens. After a few sips Terry sloped off for a quick tinkle in the Men’s room and a drunken Turkish sailor came over and sat beside me. There was still a vacant seat on my other side, so I tried to ignore him.
He smiled at me like a fat man surveying a banquet. He licked his lips and ordered a Rake, which is the Turkish equivalent of Ouzo, then leant over and spilt it on my crotch. I must admit I was somewhat alarmed, especially when he put his hand on my dick and pretended to wipe it off.

“What the FUCK do you think you’re doing?” I snarled at him, whilst brushing aside his hand.

“You come back to my boat.” He suggested earnestly, staring longingly into my bedroom hazel eyes.

“Get the FUCK out of here!” I replied, with vigor.

Just then Terry returned to the bar, looking like a young Alain Delon in his white Replay shirt and navy blue, linen slacks.

“You bring him too!” Insisted the sailor.

At this point, the bar owner, who I had been talking to earlier, came over and turfed the offending individual off the premises with the hopefully penetrating line,

“And, don’t come back!” Still ringing in his ears.

We thanked the manager and I toweled off my crotch and ordered another Heineken. Just then, two very attractive and slightly exotic looking young women sauntered into the bar and came and stood adjacent to us at the bar. I prayed for rapid evaporation.

“Terry.” I whispered surreptitiously. “Hide my matches.”

“What?” replied Terry, slightly more conspicuously than I would have liked.

At this point I should explain that Terry was so good looking that he really didn’t have to try too hard, and therefore did not have that much in the way of actual game. I, although no Quasimodo, had to rely a little more on my English charm and occasionally a little subterfuge. Terry eventually caught my drift and hid the matches, which were sitting on the bar in front of him. I picked out a cigarette and then made a little display of looking for a light. I knew that the girls were now giving us the once over. I smiled and wandered around the bar towards them, my cigarette dangling unlit in my hand. One of the girls was a tall blonde with long straight hair and a golden tan. Let’s call her Kylie, for it was in fact her name, and she was, naturally enough, an Australian. The other girl was slightly shorter, and a little more buxom, with long dark brown hair and an olive complexion. Her name was Pinta, which apparently means fresh (by name, and fresh by nature?) She was a Turk.

Did I mention that Terry likes blondes and that I prefer brunettes?

Pinta regarded my unlit cigarette with a quizzical smile, whilst delving into her bag for a lighter.
She held it out comically, in a pretend trembling hand, as she lit my Lucky Strike (they’re toasted!) I cupped her hand in mine, as if to ward off a non-existent breeze, and I felt a charge of warmth as our fingers embraced.
“The name’s Bond, James Bond.” I was thinking quietly to myself, but somehow managed to give my correct name. I sat for a while conversing, while Terry, still around the bar, feigned indifference. Then, suddenly, the seat next to Kylie was vacated and Terry materialized in it like Captain Kirk. He introduced himself whilst I was still giving him my best ‘you took your bloody time’ stare. But now, at last, all seemed right with the World.
We drank. We laughed. We went to the Disco next door.
Everything was going so swimmingly that I suspected a honey trap. But then Kylie freaked out and accused some Turkish guy of feeling her up on the dance floor. She looked at Terry and shrieked.

“That bastard just grabbed my ass! What are you going to do about it?” Suddenly, we were surrounded by sixteen Turkish guys, (I counted them), and they all had flick-knives.
“Well nothing.” Replied Terry, (my Hero). “I’m going to back out of here slowly, and I suggest that you all do the same.”
Once we had made our escape we decided that it might be a little safer to go back to our Hotel and have a drink in the bar. Oh, how wrong we were.
The night manager didn’t even want to let Pinta into the Hotel because she was Turkish, and he also didn’t think that she should be fraternizing with us, the infidels. I managed to persuade him that we were just looking to have a quiet drink at the bar, and not to take the girls to our room and eventually he agreed, provided that we only drank coffee, which for some reason turned out to be much more expensive than alcohol.
Thinking back, he probably was forbidden to serve alcohol to a Turkish girl.

Soon, the night staff, who were all Kurds in their twenties, were congregated in the bar asking us questions about what it was like living in London. The owner of the Hotel was safely tucked up in bed, and now the young Turks were free to play.
Unfortunately, although we were drinking coffee, the staff was still knocking back the Rake and getting pretty hammered. Two of the boys lifted a pair of Scimitar swords off the wall and began play fighting, and generally showing off in front of the girls. The owner, abruptly awoken from his slumbers came rushing down into the bar and fired everyone on the spot.
Terry and I interceded on their behalf, and persuaded him that it was really our fault and he eventually reinstated them all except for the night manager, who he insisted should have known better, as he was in charge. It was hard to argue with that. But, we felt bad.


We decided that it was probably time to take the girls home. They were staying at a campsite down by the beach. No mod cons for these girls. As we walked along the promenade we noticed that the deckchair attendants had made little homes out of the deckchairs to protect against the wind, and were living on the beach. Except for our deckchair attendant of course, whom I spotted running towards us from the campsite with a big stick in his hand. He was wearing a pair of dirty, yellow Speedos, and was almost black from lying out in the sun. His teeth shone in the moonlight like Donny Osmond in blackface.

“Michael! Michael!” He cried. A face stretched by fear.
“There’s something in my tent, I think it’s a rat!”

Much against my better judgment, I agreed to take a look. I borrowed Pinta’s lighter and crawled
into the small, one-man bell tent. There, sitting quietly on his bed, was the World’s smallest tree frog. I eventually managed to capture it after a brief hop around the tent. I made a lot of noise to impress the girls, and eventually emerged with cupped hands. Yellow Speedo now had a new nickname, and it was “Froggy!”
Thus ended our first day in Turkey.

The next day we got up late, had breakfast, and meandered down to the beach for a quiet, relaxing time. I was now reading a biography of the Kray Twins, the notorious Cockney gangsters. It was slightly easier beach reading than Elia Kazan. We were already feeling a little bit iffy, tummy wise, and were having a hard time finding anything safe to digest, as everything looked so disgusting and unsanitary. I was particularly wary of the water, and had avoided salads because I knew they were probably washed in tap water, but then I remembered the vodka tonics from the night before. Ice cubes- Damn! They got me, Ma.

That evening we went back to the Paradise bar and met up with Kylie and Pinta and a bunch of English and Americans who had come over on vacation and just stayed and got jobs. Jim, a quiet but charming American, had a boat that he chartered out to tourists.
Later that evening a bunch of Turkish sailors came into the bar and tried to pick a fight with him.They resented him because normal people would rather charter a boat from a tall, clean,
'All American' like Jim, than, well I think you know my opinion of Turkish sailors. Fortunately there were enough of us to chase them off, although I now discovered that Kylie had a mouth on her like a drunken sailor, and could swear equally well in Turkish,
English or Australian.I knew that she was going to be Trouble, (with a Capital T) and mentioned this to Terry.
He replied, "Yes, I know, but she's just so damn HOT!"
Sadly, I had to agree. Pinta and I were getting along pretty well, but I decide for safety sake not to get too involved.
I kept having visions of her male family members hunting me down like the dog that I am.

About two o’clock in the morning, I was sitting at the bar talking to the owner, who used to live in Birmingham, which is where I was born. We didn't live there long fortunately, I think we were in between houses, and my parents were staying with my Mom's family in Stirchley, next to the Cadbury’s factory. Oh, the childhood memories of wafting cocoa clouds still linger.
I like to joke that when I was born, an the nurse spanked me on the bum, I spoke my first words, which were “Dad, get me the Hell out of here before I get the accent!”
Fortunately, he was listening.

When I was at Art College in Wolverhampton many years later, I met someone who was born in the same Hospital as me, and on the same day. What were the odds? He was a Potter allergic to clay, poor fellow, he had to wear surgical gloves or else he got welts.

As I was sitting talking to the owner, a bunch of thuggish looking characters from a B movie came into the bar. He excused himself, went over to the cash register and pulled out a bunch of notes. I quickly realized that this was the Turkish Mafia come in for their payoff. An argument quickly arose as they informed him that the price of ‘protection’ had gone up. He told them that if the price had gone up, then the Boss should come down and inform him personally. He told me later that he thought the thugs were just skimming off the top. The Mafia guys, all sporting huge 'Zapata' moustaches and wearing leather jackets, despite the heat, then strutted around the bar knocking glasses out of customer's hands, and eventually smashed every glass in the place. They left, and two minutes later the police, who were apparently paid off by the Mafia, came in and closed the place down.

"Oh dear, oh dear, I can't believe you are still open at 2.30am."

Oh course every bar in town was open until at least 4 am, but it was evidently time to go home.

The next day went fairly smoothly - beach, beer, books, and beautiful babes. We even found a restaurant that would make us an almost passable Spaghetti Bolognese. That night we returned to the Bar. The Mafia had been pacified, and everyone was having a great time. About 2 am, I was standing at the bar collecting a tray of drinks. I walked gingerly over to our table, a little sozzled, but generally cohesive. One of the Mafia guys from the night before came into the bar on his own, and for some reason walked over and slapped me across the face, sending my glasses flying. I was wearing a beautiful Prince of Wales linen suit with a navy Sea-Island cotton Polo shirt on underneath, and I'm now soaked in beer. I quietly placed the tray of spilled drinks down on the nearest table and took off my jacket. I then went steaming back after the guy who just slapped me. Fortunately, Terry and Jim, alert to my intentions, rugby tackled me to the floor.

"Michael," said Terry, "what the fuck are you doing? He's Mafia. If he doesn't kill you, they will!" I was still mad as hell.
The owner, let's call him 'Mustafa', threw out the Mafia thug.
"I pay you for protection, asshole, not to attack my customers!"
That night we re-christened the bar, 'Trouble in Paradise'.
Jim suggested that the following night he would have a party at his house, that way we could avoid the bar altogether, and feel a lot safer.

Day three: Beach, books, beer and babes. Spaghetti Bolognese.

Taht evening we went to Jim's. We were all having the best of times, slowly getting drunk and staring at the stars. Terry and Kylie were sitting at a table outside the front door, and Jim and I were nearby sitting on cushions on the tiled floor drinking beers, and looking for the North Star. We couldn't find it, so decided to walk around the house, and lo and behold, there it was! Satisfied, we returned to the front of the house. Terry and Kylie had now disappeared, probably into one of the bedrooms. A Turkish guy, who lived in the apartment upstairs, was now sitting at the table, he had Jim's bag, which had been under the table, sat in front of him. It was open, and all of Jim's money was gone: His rent, mooring fees, grocery money, the lot, all gone. Unfortunately, paper money all looks the same, so it's very difficult to prove ownership. And, it is very dangerous to accuse a Turkish man of theft in his own country.
I tried to calm Jim down. Terry and Kylie, hearing the commotion, reappeared. Kylie then discovered that her bag too has been gone though and all her money was gone. She was hysterical, and Terry had to take her home. I was fast realizing that once again we were being out numbered by the Turks, who were suddenly materializing out of nowhere. All of our friends were either comatose on the floor, or had already gone home. Lying on the ground behind me was an English 'Squaddie', a sergeant in the British paratroops; built like a brick shithouse, and twice as strong. I knew if I could just wake him up we stood a chance, but he was dead to the world, despite my foot tapping ever harder into his ribs as he lay unconscious behind me.
There was now just Jim and me, and a bunch of Turkish guys with knives. I Felt like I'd been here before, and was still not ready to die just yet. I looked at Jim, and mad as he was, he began to recognize our predicament.

"Jim." I whispered, "Listen to me. We'll go over to the bar and have a whip round for you, get you enough money to pay the rent etc. and that way we don't have to die!" He, being slightly smarter than the average bear, finally agreed, and that's what we did. Only another six days to go!

The next morning, Terry and I decided that we'd had enough of Turkey for a while and decided to take a daytrip by boat over to Samos, a nearby Greek Island. Boy, was it beautiful! The natives were friendly, the food delicious and they even had the English newspapers. I just wish that they had room at the Inn.
After a perfect day, with heavy hearts, we begrudgingly boarded the boat back to Turkey.
That evening we decided to avoid the bar altogether and just go for dinner, spaghetti again, as it was still the only thing that we had found to properly digest. Terry had had a seriously jippy tummy for a few days now, and had to keep running off to the bathroom. I just felt nauseous and hungry most of the time, surviving mostly on bread and beer.
The spaghetti arrived, but each night it had got progressively worse, and tonight it was so over cooked that it just broke off the fork and slithered back down onto the plate. UGH!
I complained to our waitress, who was an English bird from Bolton. She said that if I wanted to complain, it was her last night, so she would back me up. The chef, an enormous bullet headed Turkish monster, his apron covered in sweat, grime and blood, came out of the kitchen with a purple face, carrying a huge glinting meat cleaver. He then chased us screaming down the street.
Note to self: Never complain about the food again anywhere! Ever.

We popped into the bar for a quick drink, which for once was quiet and uneventful, but later turned out to be the most fortuitous thing that I had done all week. A few days went by, either at the beach or on little field trips to ancient Roman cities such as Ephesus, which was very cool. The Romans used to scratch signs on the stone pavement giving directions to the whorehouse. I think it was a naked girl and an arrow, but I could be wrong. We had decided to avoid the bar and the girls and any other signs of trouble for as long as we could.
We would seek out culture, and new experiences – like a real Turkish bath and a massage.
The building itself was a magnificent cathedral of vaulted ceilings and stained glass windows. The sun streamed in like a laser, sending multi-coloured beams shooting across the walls like an Oceans Eleven bank vault alarm. Otherwise the main room was dark and atmospheric with mosaic tiles and small wooden chambers that you could sit in and ladle freezing water over your head from a stone sink on the floor. In the middle of the room were two huge stone tables like something from Narnia.
Gigantic Turkish masseurs would rub you down with a coarse glove exfoliating all your dead skin. You would then go shower off, and then they would soap you up and down with a muslin cloth. Another shower, then they would go to work with their big stubby fingers. Terry and I spent a couple of hours just steaming and showering, tipping water over our heads, trying to forget the nightmare that had been our vacation thus far. Finally we climbed up onto a table for a good rub down. We were the last people left except for the masseurs. Unfortunately, they did not speak any English, because I was trying to explain that I had a huge scab on my elbow, from where I fell whilst running after the Mafia goon.
In the end I just point at it and expected him to comprehend. He removed it with the first swipe of his hand. I thought I was going to blackout from the pain, but I just bit my lip instead. Finally after the massage was over, we just lay there like limp rag dolls unable to move. One of the Turks went out and returned with a wooden crate filled with tall, glass bottles of ice-cold water, with silver foil caps. I looked up at my masseur as he towered over me, bottle in hand. He glanced down, grinned, nodded at me knowingly, and then poured the bottle over my head, and then down my aching body. I have to say that it was one of the most orgasmic experiences of my life.

It was now our last night in Turkey, and we had survived! We decided to go back to the bar to say a fond farewell. For safety sake, we sat in a booth down by the dance floor that nobody used. It was dark, and I thought we could avoid any trouble. Kylie and Pinta, Jim, and a few others, came and joined us there as we celebrated the joys of life in abundance. Around Midnight, a coach load of Watford football hooligans came in, drunk and disorderly. They lay down on the dance floor and did a dance called 'the dying fly'. This basically entailed lying on the dance floor and kicking your legs in the air and wriggling a lot, and cannot be done properly whilst sober. Kylie, who for some reason was sat next to me, picked up my beer and threw it on top of them.
At first I thought that they were too drunk to notice, but as they got to their feet and discovered that they were soaked, they looked around, and there was the tell-tale trail of beer leading directly to our table. In fact, to an empty beer glass that was now sitting red-handed in front of me. All twenty of them muscled over to our table.

"Who threw that beer?"
They inquired, whilst staring at me.
"I did!" replied Kylie, "What are you going to do about it?"
"Well, nothing to you, cos you're a girl, but he's dead meat."

Pointing at me.

"When you leave here we are going to beat you to a bloody pulp!"
They then went and sat in the booths opposite, and glared at me for the next two hours. As you could imagine, I was not too happy about this situation, and didn’t really want to leave the bar, but my plane was at 7 am. Time passed slowly, oh so very slowly, but then a young chap I vaguely recognized came into the bar with his girlfriend. He came down onto the dance floor to converse with the Watford supporters.

"See that guy over there?” They muttered, whilst pointing at me.
“When he leaves here we're gonna kill him!"
"No mate, you can't. " he replied, " He's my mate!"

Suddenly I remembered who this guy was. The night that I had come back from Samos, and got chased down the street by the chef, we had popped into the bar for a drink, and I had a copy of The Sun newspaper with me. This guy had come over to my table to check the football scores, and after a brief chat I had given him the paper. He was from Watford. I have to say, that was probably the best 20 drachmas I have ever spent in my life.

A few minutes later, the twenty louts came over to our table again. "Was it really you who threw the beer?" They asked Kylie.
"Yeah! " She replied insolently, " Fuck off!"

At this point they each produced a pint of beer and poured it over her pretty little head.
She screamed, and stood up shaking, like Carrie covered in pig’s blood. Her long blond hair plastered to her sticky little face, her nipples poking through her wet T-shirt like football studs. We, recognizing the signs, had quickly emptied the booth to escape the deluge. She made a dart for the door, still screaming and shaking hysterically, and disappeared into the night.

"Aren't you going to go after her?" I ask Terry, sarcastically.

" Not bloody likely!" he replied.

We managed to make our plane ride home. Terry spent most of it in the toilet with diarrhea and vomiting. I was merely hung-over and exhausted. Now I really needed a holiday. At Heathrow airport, I sat on our bags outside yet another toilet, while Terry ran off for yet more expurgation. I looked, and felt like a dog's dinner.

"Hello Michael!"

I turned around to see my ex-girlfriend, a fabulously beautiful Maltese girl who owned a fashion store in London. She, of course, was dressed to the nine's and was flying off to Milan to buy more
frocks. They say that looking good is the best revenge, but is there no justice? I could not have looked or felt worse. (I can’t quite remember why I had broken up with her, but I suspect that she must have been a little boring.)
Terry's doctor put him on a diet of potatoes and bananas when he got home, and he vowed not to even go to Torquay, because it sounded too much like Turkey. Sometimes, whilst walking down the street he would see a Turkish restaurant and cross the street to avoid it.
Turkey anyone? Not even for Christmas.