It is rather laughable that Cyprus is now ‘courting’ a country that has more UN resolutions outstanding against it than Turkey.
SNC Nicosia
 ... 2 comments

You may not believe this but many tourist are put off coming to Cyprus for holidays because of the signs in the toilets NOT to throw used toilet paper down the toilet.  The general answer to tourists as to why this is so, is that the waste-pipes are too narrow to cope with paper...even in newly built holiday flats and small new remote hotels.  Many tourists I have spoken to over the years - since my first visit in 1988 - say they will not return because of this rule.
My impression is that the owner of the properties just want to avoid frequent emptying of their cesspools because of the cost... 8 comments

From 1982 to 1995 I had the privilege of living in Nicosia. Did I always appreciate the island? No. Do I wish I still lived there? Yes. Two of my sons were born in Nicosia but all my children and I now live in the US. Sometimes we have to leave what we have to see the full value of what we left behind... 5 comments

I'm looking for my father who is Cypriot. I was born in the UK, in
1964 but my biological mother left him and put me up for adoption. My mother's maiden name - when she met him - was Jennifer Curd.
He worked in Brighton at a coffee shop under the name ‘Nicholas Nikolaides’, but the paperwork I have says his name was ‘Miday Mehmmet’, although a Lawyer I consulted in the north of Cyprus said it couldn't possible be Miday, and the correct name must be ‘Nidayi’. I'm am no longer in contact with my biological mother but seven years ago she said he has last been seen in Elephant and Castle, London by a Greek friend called Andy, who said he was living with a Swedish woman and he knew he had a daughter and wanted to find her... Read on

If you want to understand more about the relationships between Turkish Cypriot, Greek Cypriot, Turk & Greek, ‘Echoes from the Dead Zone’ is a 'must read' - and, in my view, be compulsory reading in schools. Yiannis Papadakis went to Turkey to learn Turkish, and there,  and in Greece, delved into the relationships between Greeks & Turks. He then immersed himself in the Greek and Turkish communities in Nicosia, “locked in their mutually contemptuous embrace, to explore their common humanity and understand what divided them”.
It's a sad read, in one way – what we have lost by the division - but also there's hope that the two communities can live together as he describes. They did in the past.
Penny Douglas
Limassol... Read on

With reference to  ‘Theatre of the Absurd’ by Loucas Charalambous (Sunday Mail August 22), war invasion and loss are traumatic and nasty. I know from other conflicts and experience in my family of being refugees who have lost everything.
A lust for justice, if not retribution, often generates absurd beliefs and expectations that are never likely to be met. After all these years, Cypriots need, for their own mental well-being if nothing else, to move on from the illusion that all wrongs can be put right and all wrongdoers can be punished... Read on

My husband and I have lived in Cyprus for five years, We bought our house in Pegeia  and for first two years worked for an international company, which we enjoyed very much. It was a dream to live and work on such a beautiful Island with such lovely people.
Then things started going horribly wrong. The bottom started to fall out of the property market and the company we were working for were struggling. I managed to get a job at an insurance company and my husband got part-time gardening work, a job more suitable for a 30-year-old not someone of 65, but he has stuck at it and worked hard... 10 comments

Despite an extensive advertising campaign and inclusive deals at many hotels the number of visitors from the UK remains down compared to previous years while the numbers holidaying in the north are on the increase... 8 comments

It is with some dismay that I read your editorial of August 19, ‘Tough times ahead for Christofias’.
For while Eroglu speaks of a ‘parting of ways’ and Greek Cypriots wonder why there are any talks at all, the Turkish Cypriots, according to another recent article of yours, are now a minority in the north. This in my opinion can only mean that they have been annihilated as a political voice.
Yet I have failed to notice anyone directly dealing with the question of whether the Greek Cypriots actually think they can negotiate with Turkey, which they are to all extents and purposes doing. It would seem as if Turkey has already settled the issue of Cyprus geopolitically... 3 comments

Douglas Allan was a son of William Andrew Allan (my great uncle), probably born in London and I believe he eventually settled/retired in Paphos.
I have been told that Douglas worked at some point in Africa for the British Government, although I have no idea in what capacity. He may have met and married his wife there.
From what I understand, he came home to visit his parents, who had retired to Cornwall, England. Douglas then sailed his own boat from Falmouth, England to Cyprus.
If still alive, I guess Douglas would now be in his late 70s or early 80s, although I believe Douglas and his wife had a child, who also went with them to Cyprus... Read on