█Reports of Bodrum’s “Faux Pas Royale” are undoubtedly reverberating in the international ‘royalty watch’ gossip arena: the Swedish Princess Birgitta, sister of the king of Sweden, waited unrecognized with her luggage for more than 30 minutes on one side of the Bodrum airport while the protocol reception committee twiddled its thumbs elsewhere. There is no excuse for such a blunder, and the nonchalant efforts of our local authorities and media to treat this in the standard “oh well, never mind, things like this happen” manner add insult to injury. HRH Birgitta apparently dindn’t feel that way since she is reported to have said that nothing like this has ever happened to her until now. Add to this the sloppy carelessness of some of our media misspelling the name of the royal visitor and we see Bodrum getting a public relations black eye at a time we can’t afford any negative publicity. Just apologize and get on with it!

☼There are a number of art exhibits continuing or opening in Bodrum and vicinity and we don’t have the space here to name them all. This time we’ve chosen the Eren Uysal exhibition opening at the Ottoman Shipyard Tower Gallery on 30 Sept. ’08. One of Eren Uysal’s paintings is shown in our inset. Prints with Ottoman themes are also featured in this exhibit open every day (except Mondays) 09:00 to 20:00 hrs. ♫Make a note for 4 Oct. ’08: Bodrum Chamber Orchestra plays a special concert at the Oasis to commemorate the 35^th anniversary of the death of Cevat Sakir Kabaagacli, a.k.a. the Fisherman of Halicarnassus. ♀A sailing event of note are the upcoming International Women’s Cup Sailing Races starting at the Turgutreis D-Marin Marina on 6 Oct. ’08 – We announce this here before our next week’s posting date to help you plan participation. It’s a big event for female sailors; we hope that a large Turkish women’s contingent will take part.

♣As happens all too often, the Turkish Hoteliers Federation was disappointed by the lack of attendance at a meeting called to examine the excessive use of electricity, water, chemicals etc. by tourism establishments with a view to controlling these excesses in order to help to protect the environment. 8000 invited, 273 attended – not bad actually! What matters are results!! Do let us know what happens, please.