High Seas

It was a particularly malicious wave, that wave which knocked me on my ass felled me these three years ago, not because it was so strong (which it was) but because I believe somehow that it knew and therefore delighted in the knowledge that I'd be feeling the aftermath of that ass-skid across the floor of the Mediterranean for the next few days. Certainly, back in the bathtub of our hotel room that night, I would gladly have sold my soul to the devil (and had I not already had, I surely would have) to lay my hands on an industrial vacuum cleaner outfitted with a crevice tool to clean the sea's detritus out from my - well - crevice.

And by the time I finished showering, there were enough pebbles and sand and grit and bits of vegetation and crustacean shells to build a brand new water formation.

Nor did I get everything "out" that first night. Nor did the welts and bruising and torn flesh along my thighs and buttocks dissipate much that first week.

And why am I boring telling you all this? Because last Sunday night, as I found myself again wishing that I could lay my hands on an industrial vacuum cleaner outfitted with a crevice tool (and regretting having already sold my soul to the devil), my thoughts hearkened back to that fateful Escape-from-Ramadan holiday Mr. This Cat's (Not) Abroad and I took to the south of Spain. Only this time, the problem wasn't my crevice - or rather lack of a crevice tool - but my feet.

In fact, I hadn't even gone swimming on Sunday. My fateful mistake it seems, was making the rather foolish decision to walk barefoot along the beach of the Black Sea. And the price I paid for my lunacy: cement feet.

I have exhausted the internet (not really - in fact, not even close) trying to learn if the Black Sea - that inland sea bound by Europe and Asia - or more accurately, its sand, has some sort of unique chemical property which, when it comes in contact with skin, sticks to it like glue. Consider the photo (above right) taken just a few moments after extricating my dry feet from the dry sand. Conversely, consider the photo (top left) taken many many moments after (but before my excruciating ass-skid across the floor of the Med) extricating my very wet feet from the dry sand.

See the difference? Do you see cement feet in front of a gorgeous Mediterranean backdrop? No you do not.

Not only that, but by the time I got home on Sunday, so much sand had adhered to my body - I had this awful glue-sand everywhere - that I could have joined a circus as The Amazing Sandcastle Lady. Tack on a bit of seaweed and I could have been The Amazing Bearded Sandcastle Lady.

Dear Reader Readers, that freaking sand just would not come off. I washed, I loofah-ed, I scrubbed - finally I had to use a pumice stone to scrape away at the sand. And by the time I finished - for in the battle of porous volcanic rock and insidious Black Sea sand, the former was the victor (but just barely), there were enough pebbles and sand and grit and bits of vegetation and crustacean shells to build a brand new water formation.

Quite frankly, I don't really care if the Black Sea is a favourite resort spot for vacationing Turks. I don't think I want to go back unless I'm wearing a HazMat suit or I'm ensconced in a plastic bubble. Cleaning up afterwards isn't worth it and I swear I'm now itchy all the time.

Looking back on these two seemingly unrelated visits to the seaside, I am struck by one glaring similarity: both happened on the eve of Ramadan. If I were a betting Amazing Bearded Sandcastle lady, I'd say that someone sometimes known as Great and Compassionate and Merciful had had a hand in this. So much for being Compassionate and Merciful - I call that being just plain mean.

Misadventures in Electronics

I know that I've been rather remiss in keeping my blog au courant these past few weeks, but what with this and that, and a bit more of this, I've become a neglectful cow. And to make matters worse, I'm not even going to post the riveting conclusion to my last post (although I eventually will) but spin off in another direction altogether.

So instead of coiffures, I give you computers.

My laptop, purchased 3 1/2 years ago in Morocco - with amazing ease and no cash down - is doing rather poorly. In a nutshell, it flickers. In all likelihood, this incessant flickering has more to do with the fact that I've hauled it across 3 continents (usually not in a padded laptop bag), tripped over its power cord literally dozens of times and sending it flying across the room, dropped it (a lot) and abused it in other diverse ways. Yes, the power jack, she is shot. In any case, I fear that I am now developing serious rage issues photosensitive epilepsy from said incessant flickering.

The price of fixing it is roughly the same as buying a new one. There's probably a tricky math equation in there somewhere but needless to say, it's not getting fixed any time soon. Compounded with my laptop's other indisposition - a battery with the world's shortest charge - I've been in a leviathan more-than-average black crappy mood these past weeks.

So Mr. This Cat's (Not) Abroad suggested that we buy a mini laptop: they're awfully cheap and although not conducive to watching sweeping epic motion pictures on, will do the trick as a stop gap until we buy a regular laptop (on which we can watch sweeping epic motion pictures). So we read reviews, checked the specs, visited the principle electronics stores in the area, compared prices, and yesterday - with a fistful of lira - popped down to the electronics shop around the corner from us. Because it is a major chain in Turkey, and their CEO might both be an avid reader of this blog and be a tad litigious, I'll just refer to the shop as That Crap Turkish Electronics Store.

We pop in - with a fistful of lira - and there is the laptop we want, kept securely behind barricaded glass doors. In its Istanbul chain, the same laptop sits happily on a display table where potential buyers might actually touch it - but no mind, perhaps Izmitites are, by nature, a thieving lot and extra security is de rigueur. We are ignored by the store's sales staff - which, because this is Turkey, means that there are four times as many staff as customers - because we have been overheard speaking English and therefore have come equipped with a 10 foot pole. Had we not been overheard, we would have been harassed by every person in the store within seconds of entering it.

Finally I catch one Unlucky Girl's attention. In truth she cannot ignore me - although she no doubt wishes she could have - and I point to the imprisoned laptop in question and motion for her to free it from its glass cell so we can touch it, and maybe even buy it. No luck, she doesn't understand. She shrugs and looks blankly at us. I ask - or rather mime it - again. No go - we're shit out of luck and she has no intention of finding anyone in the store with a smidgen of English. She begins to walk away. On the verge of leaving That Crap Turkish Store with a fistful of lira and no computer, I modify my charade to include an unlocking motion and Unlucky Girl's metaphorical light bulb (it is an electronics store, after all) flickers (momentarily) on.

She looks for help.

A moment later and she's hauled Unlucky Fellow in front of us. He's undoubtedly pissed because he had been successful in avoiding our glances earlier and voilà! here he is serving us. He has enough wits about him to unlock the glass prison and allow us to touch the computer; however, he never actually turns it on. We explain (sort of - more charades) that we want to buy it - good thing we've test driven that model at other locations - and huzzah! he pops into the back room and returns with a boxed laptop. This is going so well!

We pay for the laptop - it comes to 615.55 lira - with exact change and we receive our receipt and a client loyalty card. He opens the box and from its deep recesses releases our new laptop and turns it on. It works! We are very excited. No more flickering! No more pseudo-epileptic fits! He turns to us and mutters "English?" - what we assume is a hieratic version of "would you like the language of the operating system on your computer to be English?" and we nod enthusiastically. He begins to load Windows onto our laptop. We see a series of drop-down menus appear on the screen and then he walks away.

Where has he gone? I ask, for in his absence, nothing much happens. Shouldn't he be selecting menu options? I ask Mr. Cat's (Not) Abroad. As the words spill out of my mouth, another sales person who, until this moment has had nothing to do with our transaction, leans over the counter and arbitrarily starts pushing buttons. What is she doing? I ask. Stop touching our laptop! I spit- knowing full well that she has no clue what I am saying.

Unlucky Fellow returns and looks quizzically at our laptop. Soneone has played with the buttons. This does not bode well. He too taps a few keys. Finally we here the chirrupy Windows welcome tune and see welcome emblazoned on our laptop in Turkish. He looks at us. In unison, we shake our heads that no, Turkish is not acceptable. He reboots and starts from scratch. At this point a Pain in the Ass Customer appears and decides to toss in her two very limited cents' worth into the process. She goes behind the cash desk to assist him. I sincerely wish that she would just fuck off and stay away from our computer. It is, after all, our computer. I have a receipt and a client loyalty card to prove it.

For the second time, our computer welcomes us to its world in Turkish. Unlucky Fellow shows us the box in which the computer comes and explains "old box - not English". Old box? Are you serious? This has zippo to do with the box but everything to do with the fact that he doesn't know how to install Windows properly and there are too many Pinheaded Cooks in the Kitchen (the kitchen being behind the cash desk).

At this point, one might expect any or all of the following to happen:

a) Unlucky Fellow calls a manager over for assistance,
b) Unlucky Fellow asks that Pain in the Ass Customer to leave the secure area and mind her own beeswax,
c) Unlucky Fellow, who truly believes that the problem with the computer is that the English-only language box is old and therefore misleadingly does not contain an English operating disc, grabs another (maybe newer) box from the stockroom and tries again,
d) Unlucky Fellow calls the other handful of That Crap Turkish Stores in Izmit - and Istanbul if necessary - to order in a new one,
e) Unlucky Fellow offers us a comparable model for the same price,
f) Under no circumstances does Unlucky Fellow allow us to leave the store with a fistful of lira and no computer.

Of course, Option A should have taken care of everything but that never happened and nor did Options B to F. What did happen was that Unlucky Fellow voluntarily and rather arbitrarily processed a refund, handed me back my cash and confiscated my client loyalty card. And because this is Turkey where money is almost always rounded up (or down) rather than having to deal with the onerous task of counting out 5 kuruş coins (= 3 1/2 cents), I received a refund of 615.50 lira.

So just to sum up:

1) We left the shop without a computer, and
2) We left the shop 5 kuruş poorer than when we went in - in spite of the fact that I paid with exact change,

and thirdly,

3) my f-ing computer, on which I am tippy-tapping this blog post, is still flickering like hell.

Of Rabbits, Bees, Turkeys and a few Barbers: A Tale in Two Parts

Part the First: An Introduction and Cuts the First and Second

By way of introduction, I offer you a brief time line:

* 8th-9th century: the founding of Seville
* February 1816: the premier of Rossini's Almaviva, or the Useless Precaution - better known as the Barber of Seville.
* 1950: Warner Brothers (Looney Tunes) releases Rabbit of Seville.
* 2006: publication of my insightful blog posting: the Rabat of Seville.
* 2007: publication of my equally insightful blog posting: the Rabbit of Madrid.

Yes, they are all sort of interconnected and no, I don't expect anyone to actually read (or even reread) any of my older blogs. I just like to be thorough.

So. I got my haircut last week - my 3rd in Turkey. And for the record - in spite of my frequent blogs - no, I don't have a hair fetish. After all, I haven't bothered blogging about my hair since 2007 and I have had a few haircuts during that time. One might even say - in fact, I would - that I have fairly low maintenance hair. I went so far once as to suggest that it was nigh impossible for me to get a bad hair cut. O the hubris!

And then I flew to Turkey.

Cut the First:

I have not had my hair cut since before I left Italy in February and, it being April, my hair is approaching Shaggy Dog proportions. A Salon in Question (I have no clue what it's called) comes highly recommended (important) by a colleague of mine who speaks Turkish (very important) and who offers to come with me (insanely important). So off we go. Not unlike beehives salons in Morocco, it is populated by lots of twittering Helper Bees who do God-knows-what (beyond offering me tea and pick their nails) and a young King Bee with hair like a gorgon who does the styling & cutting. I find a photo in a magazine which, with the help of my translator, I explain pretty much mirrors what is on my head if you removed 3 inches of hair. King Bee nods and I am sent off to have my hair washed.

Having my hair washed, as it turned out, is a rather painful affair. I don't know why it should be so except to say that the King Bee (surprisingly he washes my hair rather than a nail-picking Helper Bee) keeps twisting my head from side to side quite abruptly. With both hands. I fear he may have permanently damaged my vertebrae.

King Bee cuts my hair and I smile mutely and gormlessly into the mirror (we share no common language) and I generally like to be encouraging. My Turkish is limited, at that time, to the words beer, thank you and stapler, so way to go King Bee! seems out of the question. I smile. Then I notice that my translator is gone. It seems that she has an appointment at a tanning salon. No mind, King Bee appears attentive enough, has only dropped his scissors once - and besides, I have yet to get a bad haircut.

I do wish he would look at the photo though.

King Bee lays aside his scissors - is he done? There isn't much hair on the floor - and rummages about in a drawer. He takes out a hairbrush. What does he need a brush for? I wonder. I haven't used a hairbrush since I was in grade school and even then it was my mother who used one on me. An uneasy noisome feeling begins to swell in my stomach as I realize that it is a small round brush and, brandishing it like a scimitar, he is coming towards me. Before I can scream (which I am stupidly too polite to do), he is back-rolling my 2 inch hair. I look like Don King. O the horror!

Where the fuck is my colleague/translator?

With super-human strength, I am able to swallow my politeness and scream interject. I frantically mime (recall that my Turkish vocabulary is beer, thank you and stapler) that I don't want my hair back-rolled but dried forward with his fingers. Or my fingers. Just let me dry my own freaking hair. He understands only that I want my hair dried forward and solicitously continues drying my almost dried hair in the opposite direction causing it to stand up and dry completely vertical. Hair wax is produced and he then assiduously styles my hair so that the back is, if possible, more vertical than ever while the front and sides look like I have just walked through a wind tunnel, with the wind coming from due west.

I am distraught but know that once I get home, I can wash it and style it myself.

Distraught, I go home, wash it and style it myself.

It is a bona fide shitty haircut. I will have to take scissors to it and redo the bangs and sides. My efforts are an improvement but just barely. My head is ugly. I console myself with 2 facts:
1) My bona fide shitty haircut only cost 25 lira, or about 11 euros.
2) It will grow back.
3) I will never go back there.

Cut the Second:

I go back there.

My hair is yet again approaching Shaggy Dog proportions and I have been unsuccessful in finding a new hairdresser who speaks a modicum of English and who can simulate a haircut from a photograph. My translator/colleague who, I suspect, is a little in love with King Bee offers to take me back there. I don't have the heart to tell her that I hate him and his stupid salon because she has cancer (I figure she's had enough bad news lately) and because she is a little in love with King Bee. I think, with her at my side (in theory), perhaps my second visit will be better. It is not. Nor is she by my side. What is the point in having a translator/colleague if they keep disappearing?

To be fair, King Bee remembers that I don't like my hair rolled backwards off of my head. Beyond that, cast your eyes up and begin reading at Cut the First. Stop after reading - but not before - I will never go back there.

Cut the Third:

I do not go back there.

My hair is yet again approaching Shaggy Dog proportions and I have been unsuccessful in finding a new hairdresser who speaks a modicum of English and who can simulate a haircut from a photograph ...

To be continued.

Religious Rackets Racquets

Honestly, I don't know why this story amuses me so much but it does. And I have absolutely no doubt that it says far far more about me than anything else but, still, petty, juvenile, puerile amused I remain.

In the Anatolian town of Konya - one of the most religiously conservative parts of Turkey - the mufti there has announced that students taking a summer course in Qu'ranic studies will also have the opportunity to learn badminton.

Yes, students who opt to save their souls by taking the 8-week God-intensive classes and, of course, who express a modicum of interest in the game, will be able to "watch a CD on badminton and then participate in the sport." There is no mention of an actual instructor.

The roots (or feathers) of badminton can be traced back to ancient Greece and given the on-again/off-again hostilities Turkey harbours towards Greece (i.e., since the dawn of time Greece has stolen anything & everything it possibly could - including a few islands in the Aegean - from Turkey), I'm surprised that they even allow it played here, let alone in a religious institution. Indeed, one of my favourite games at school is suggesting to students that it was the Greeks who invented baklava or the döner. Money just can't buy moments like those.

Then again, besides producing stunning carpets and religious zealots, Konya is the final resting place for Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, the Persian poet who was the founder of the Sufi order - of Whirling Dervishes fame. Maybe spinning mystics and flailing racquets aren't that incongruous.

In any case, I just hope the word shuttlecock translates into something equally prurient in Turkish.

Close Encounters of the 4th Kind

It's been a while (I think) since I've dipped my toe into the churning waters of political incorrectness so I think the time to stick my foot in it (i.e., those churning waters of political incorrectness) is long overdue. And to be fair, I wasn't even going to bother spilling any more ink on this topic (my previous vents are well-documented) were it not for the fact that a visiting friend, himself a Turk now living in Canada, raised the topic while we catching up in Istanbul recently.

What's with these women? he asked. Look at them! What's happening to this country?

My friends: I give you The Headscarf.

But not The Headscarf per se, but The Turkish Headscarf. (Or perhaps what fashionistas might call The Scarf à la turque.)

So while Presidents Obama and Sarkozy battle over a woman's right to wear a scarf - which itself is tied up with Turkey's future in the EU - and rather than airing my own feelings about covered women, or even commenting on the often volatile politics of the headscarf in this country tempted though I am, let me just say this: headscarved women here are weird-looking.

And by weird-looking I mean that those heads that are so modestly covered by shiny gaudy synthetic silk scarves look like they belong on a space alien or an 18th Dynasty Egyptian princess.

Seriously.

It just seems that Turkey is overrun by women with misshapen heads. Our friend, who had just returned from a trip to Saudi and the Emirates - where no women wore their scarves accordingly - couldn't get over it: they look like aliens he gushed. Yup. Took the words right out of my mouth.

I have lived and worked and travelled in enough Muslim countries to know that covered women needn't look like this. It is avoidable! And yes, I understand that there are different styles for different regions and for different ages and for different budgets: I have seen the so-called rapunzel-style, the Jerusalem twist, the simple ribbon style, the simple square scarf. But this?

At first I thought there might be a head bustle at work or a skull extender of sorts under all that rayon. Then I thought that perhaps women here are tying back their hair into a chignon of sorts, a chignon which juts out almost perpendicularly from the back of their heads. Once layered and scarved, the hair bump becomes exaggerated. Or maybe not. Of course, I could just shell out the cash for the videos How to Wear a Turkish Hijab (volumes 7 and 8) but didn't I find the links on youtube? - which is banned in Turkey because of anti-Atatürk comments made on the site, but, because this is Turkey and everything is possible, there are ways to circumvent the ban.

So I checked out the tutorial (don't bother unless you've already seen its sister video: How to Watch Paint Dry, volumes 2 and 3) and, for the most part, it was as useless as tits on a bull although I did appreciate the tip on hairspraying the scarf to keep it nicely arched. Then finally at the 8:12 point, the demonstrator mentions that the wearer should put her hair up in a high bun with a loose pony-tail which makes no sense to me because it's either a high bun or a pony tail, right?

Nonetheless ... bingo! Voilà: The grotesque head bump.

Of course, not all women look like they're packing a cycling helmet under their scarves: many don't bother covering their heads at all while others opt for the cocoon-like vitamin D-sucking full niqab. And of course some wear a normal headscarf and I-can't-believe-I-just-made-reference-to-a-normal-headscarf. But it does seem that the covering of female follicles is on the rise in Turkey where over 60% of women already wear some form of head covering.

Personally, I'm rather smitten with one of my alien-headed female students who came to class last week with a face piercing. Not sure how that fits into the whole ideal of feminine desexualization modesty but perhaps the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) just wasn't all that forward-thinking. Ooops, did I just say that out loud?

When Om Means No

After I left Morocco, I swore that I would never work in a Muslim country again which, at the time, meant never ever ever again but which actually meant that I would never work in a Muslim country again unless the conditions were really really really good. Unfortunately, those particular Muslim countries which offer really really really good conditions either hold little or no appeal to me or won't hire me.

But when the prospect of gainful if not somewhat illegal employment in Turkey reared its wattled head, I paused and considered the matter. After all, as I said elsewhere, Turkey is not an Islamic country, its 99% Muslim citizens (and its gazillion mosques) notwithstanding. Turkey is a secular country, does not promote any one religion, and supports religious freedoms. At least on paper.

And while I'm talking about paper, let me toss up this little gem which recently saw the light of day in one of Turkey's English-language newspapers. Entitled It's OK to Stretch, Just Don't Believe, it outlines concerns that Ali Bardakoğlu, the head of the Directorate of Religious Affairs has about - wait for it - yoga.

Let me just say that when I saw that such an animal as the Directorate of Religious Affairs should even exist in a secular country, which does not promote any one religion, and supports religious freedoms (at least on paper), my head spun. Not in any Exorcist sort of way, but spin it did.

So here it is in a nutshell: Mr. Bardakoğlu is worried that people - presumably Muslims - who practice yoga will become extremists. Funny, I never equated the words yoga, extremism and Islam before but then again, I never bothered to read the 9/11 Commission Report. Anyway, as we all know, and he goes to great pains to remind us, yoga-induced extremism leads to the disintegration of traditional Islamic beliefs. These concerns were widely published in right-wingnut, conservative papers with the headline Yoga Warning from Religious Affairs. And I thought the only warning we needed to heed before assuming Downward Facing Dog was to consult our physicians before attempting such exercises.

Moreover, he adds, it is often loneliness that pushes otherwise Allah-fearing men and women towards yoga. And for him, the real concern is why these otherwise Allah-fearing men and women aren't finding the answers to what ails them in Islam. Because the answers are there. All of them.

It's probably because the poses aren't much fun.

According to Mr.Bardakoğlu, because its roots lie in Indian-oriented Far Eastern philosophy, yoga is at fundamental odds with Islam and its practitioners are doing nothing less than indulging in missionary (proselyting not the position) activities. By asserting that yogis are only relieving stress and acquiring flexibility by a Half Lord of the Fishes pose is, at best, disingenuous. And of course, at worst, it propagates a "religion" which is anti-Islam. And in the middle? - it's feeding a cash sacred cow, i.e., the yoga industry. He adds "The services in Islam, for instance, are free." Fair enough. One for Mr.Bardakoğlu.

Mr. Bardakoğlu's comments have instigated a flurry of responses from around the country ranging from wholehearted support to the more sane some head-scratching what-the-fuck?'s. Personally, I would like to pause and have a WWAD (What Would Atatürk Do?) moment. I would like to think that Modern Turkey's Founding Father would have a few shots of rakı (his favourite tipple) and remind Bardakoğlu that blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.

Relic Hunter 2009

It was announced recently that a certain Mr. Necat Selimoğlu has filed a petition to quash the serving - and presumably, the drinking - of alcohol from the Konyalı Restaurant at Istanbul's Topkapı Palace. In other words, he wants the restaurant's government issued & inviolably legal pre-existing alcohol permit torn into a million little pieces and strewn in the Bosphorous Sea. Or possibly the Sea of Marmara. Maybe even the Black Sea. I don't think his petition is quite that specific.

In any case, the Topkapı Palace is just one of many sparkling jewels in Istanbul's jewel-heavy crown - whether you're a historian, tourist, or a cat-lover (there is a formidable herd of well-tended cats on the Palace's sprawling grounds) - a visit to what was once the official residence of the Ottoman Sultans for some 400 years is de rigueur. But what may no longer be de rigueur is a nicely chilled glass of Efes beer after a day gawking at, among other things, thrones, calligraphic manuscripts, porcelain and more diamonds than you can throw a stick at.

And why, you ask, does Mr. Selimoğlu wish to snatch this not very guilty pleasure away from millions of visitors? Well, it would seem that among the sacred relics housed on site are:

* the Prophet Mohammed's (pbuh) mantle
* the Prophet Mohammed's (pbuh) standard
* the Prophet Mohammed's (pbuh) sandal
* the Prophet Mohammed's (pbuh) cup
* the Prophet Mohammed's (pbuh) seal
* the Prophet Mohammed's (pbuh) footprint on a stone (my personal favourite)
* the Prophet Mohammed's (pbuh) swords & a bow
* the Prophet Muhammad's (pbuh) soil which he used for ritual ablutions, and
* the Prophet Mohammed's (pbuh) tooth

Do you detect a common theme? Moses' staff, the forearm of John the Baptist (the head would have been really neat), King David's sword, and Joseph's (He of the Technicolour Dreamcoat) turban (the Technicolour Dreamcoat would have been far more impressive) are apparently kept on the Palace grounds as well, but their proximity to gin martinis and nicely chilled glasses of Efes beer doesn't seem to be rattling Mr. Selimoğlu too much.

Nope, it's the Prophet's (pbuh) swag.

According to Mr. Selimoğlu, the alcohol permit is a "curse" on the Holy Tooth. I don't know if he expects some divine retaliatory action taken against Turkey on account of this juxtaposition of tooth and tipple - apart from granting Mr. This Cat's (Not) Abroad and me residency permits - but he is seething with righteous indignation. The government is taking his petition seriously, (i.e., it's been officially received) presumably - and hopefully - because it has to. Turkey is not an Islamic country, its 99% Muslim citizens notwithstanding. And my limited understanding of all things Turkish suggests that the government likes receiving millions of tourist dollars tourists a year.

Needless to say, the restaurant's owner is less than enthusiastic.

I have my own opinion about relics of any faith - Calvin once opined that there are enough fragments of the "true cross" to build a sizeable ship - and I don't want this post to devolve into a fit of giggles debate about their authenticity and veneration. (Tempting though it is.) No, this is about something more important: it's about liquor. And given that the Prophet (pbuh) himself is said to have said (to have said) that there are rivers of clean water, fresh milk, and wine - "delicious for the drinkers" (Sura 47:15) in no less than Paradise, then perhaps Mr. Selimoğlu's petition should be filled away in a manner which would have made those ancient file-pushing byzantine bureaucrats of Old Constantinople weak in the knees. Like under a mile-high stack of paper.