My Spider Friend

This unidentified little spider built a web next to my window and was constantly around during the last six-or-so months I was in London. Winds and rains kept tearing its web, but it persistently built it anew. I wonder how the little spider is doing now, now that I am back in Istanbul for a month...

Newspapers from the Past

I saw this crappy old piece of discarded furniture on the street the other day. I was just about to pass it by when...

...I saw the piece of newspaper that had been glued to its base, and realized that the thing was older than I was! Click on the picture above to get a super-enlargement, the date is 16th of March, 1984! Important news on that day's newspaper include:

*A Vietnam vet pilot having a sex-change operation.
*A man with his throat slit writing the name of his murderer on the walls with his own blood.
*Some long-forgotten artists coming over to visit Istanbul.
*A famous Turkish film star (Ahu Tugba,) going into prison, but don't worry -it's only done for a film!
*Two girls offering two random guys shelter against rain, and promptly getting raped. ("It rained and they lost their virginity!" reads the title.)
*An old woman looking for a young and beautiful girl to marry her younger husband.

As you can probably figure out by now, the newspaper, TAN, was its day's Turkish equivalent of the Sun.