Living in the “Wild West?”
THANK you for publishing the story about our cat Roger, who was killed by an irresponsible local thug with an air rifle. Whilst I know a few of your readers will be horrified by what happened to Roger, many will adopt the attitude: “So what?”
“So what” to the following maybe? ‘Pensioner raped in her home’, ‘Life savings wiped out in title deeds scam,’ ‘Young parents killed in road accident,’ and ‘African male student tortured and sexually assaulted over debt.’ Add to this a drugs problem seemingly spiralling out of control: Try sourcing a common pain relief drug call Pregabelin 75; don’t bother, the kids have exhausted the supply, as when mixed with a well known cough syrup, it apparently makes for a lively night out on the tiles. Makes you all light-headed apparently, a superman behind the wheel of daddy’s BMW, and it makes you quite dead when you wrap daddy’s BMW around a tree or smash into another car taking the occupants with you to paradise.
There is little here that passes for law and order now. How many of us in this village have played dodgems to get to Girne. Three near misses just the other day and I was only going to the post office. Lane discipline on the carriageway, forget it. Whilst going to Lefkoşa last week, on the 100kph time over distance section, cars came thundering past us. We were at the 100kph limit, clearly cameras on that stretch of the road have selective vision, or certain people are ‘well connected.’
I have driven and still do drive on many roads around Europe, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, France and so on, but never have I seen such appalling behaviour as we see here. Italian roads, where I do much of my continental driving, are a positive paragon of safety and tranquillity, when travelling from Milan to Venice on the ‘Serenissima’ (Autostrada 4) in the beloved Fiat!
Then of course there is the prize prat that drives slap bang in the middle of both carriageways at 40kph. Why, you might reasonably ask? He (or more likely she) is on the phone, taking a selfie or as seen last week, putting on her ruddy lipstick! Ye Gods!!
Sadly, the TRNC is spiraling rapidly out of control, resembling the Wild West, but without the protection of a corrupt, smiling sheriff.
Back to the article about Roger. A very important point was made in that report about the need to have all cats and dogs neutered. No good complaining about the cat and dog population if you are not prepared to do something about it, but causing extreme suffering to an animal by shooting them with air guns is not the answer, and only produces a long slow painful lingering death; whilst I pray that such an event comes to the thug that fired the gun at Roger.
I do hope that before you take on the responsibility of that adorable little kitten, puppy, orang-utan or whatever, you will factor in the cost of veterinary fees.
In closing, one mistake in the article concerns Roger’s vet. His name is Tayfun Çanakç of ANKAVET - just before Dr Nalbantoglu hospital off the Gonyeli roundabout in Lefkosa - and not Petline which is a different practice. I would thoroughly recommend any caring pet owner to check out the services of Tayfun and his colleagues Ankavet which are excellent. Go see for yourself, Tayfun doesn’t bite!