One Thousand Shades of Grey

Eskişehir (meaning old city) is located on the banks of the river Porsuk in north-western Turkey in Eskişehir province on the main road and rail route between Ankara and Istanbul. Eskişehir is currently largely ignored by western tourists (although has a thriving tourist industry of visitors coming from the east) presumably due to its landlocked location and sometimes harsh climatically conditions. However Eskişehir is truly one of the gems of central Turkey, the city itself is very modern and beautiful and offers a range of eateries, shopping destinations, Turkish baths, nargile houses, museums and Ottoman architecture. The two universities give the cosmopolitan city a lively and youthful vibe; it’s a fantastic destination for foodies as the quality of the restaurants here is very high. The city has a few local delicacies including helva, boza and my personal favourite çiğ börek, a fine dough mixture filled with ground meat, spices and onions then pan fried in hot oil and chased down...

It might come to some as a strange turnaround for me to decide to support a football team for the first time in 33 years having spent the rest of my life sitting on the fence as to which football team I support. When it comes to supporting national teams then no problem I always follow England and Turkey as family ties dictate, but when it comes to supporting local clubs I have never found one relevant enough to me to take an interest and to support any of the teams my friends support i.e. Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester united just makes no sense after all I’m not from north London or Manchester so these clubs hold little relevance to me on a personal level. That all changed on the 26th October in Eskisehir when the decision was taken out of my hands. I went with my brother in law, sister in law and wife to watch Galatasaray play Eskisehir in the Turkish super league at a bar in Eskisehir city centre just outside the stadium. In an historic game Eskişehirspor hammered Galatasaray 4-2 ...

So I have arrived back in England after a two week visit to Turkey a country which I absolutely love, I am one hundred percent self confessed Turkophile. However whilst I was there I tried to update this blog with some random ramblings about what I was up to out there and was met with the following message: Bu siteye erişim mahkeme kararıyla engellenmiştir. T.C. Diyarbakır 1. Sulh Ceza Mahkemesi 20.10.2008 tarih ve 2008/2761 sayılı kararı gereği bu siteye erişim engellenmiştir. Access to this web site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2008/2761 of T.R. Diyarbakır 1st Criminal Court of Peace. My first reaction was confusion, surely there must be some mistake but no, I tried clicking the link again and was met with the same message. My second reaction was akin to some kind of violent suppressed rage as it dawned on me just how wide and indiscriminate the website ban in Turkey was, I mean I had heard talk about You tube being inaccessible due to a slanging match between G...

The land of the free has led the charge again in an astounding attack on the individual privacy of pretty much anyone entering the country. US border agents are now empowered to seize then search electronic devices of any traveller, without any grounds for suspicion or probable cause. Be it your laptop, mobile phone, MP3 player or your child’s hand held game console it’s all perfectly justifiable. A data trawl that can snoop anyone unfortunate enough to step of a plane onto federal soil. Once searched, they can decimate the information between the empires other government agencies as they see fit. There is no guarantee your device will even be returned, as some travellers to the states have already reported. However do not be alarmed this is all part of the department of homeland security’s drive to protect you (American citizens) from terrorists, junk peddlers and nonces. It’s only a matter of time before they put you in cage where you will be nice and safe, presumably with curtains a...