The men in dark suits seem to have been right in their forecast. Don't know whether to play this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds2GfiH5y1o or , more probably, as the five thirty news reports indicate , this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O-WG3eKZS4
Over breakfast yesterday 'The Font' suggests that it might be time for Angus to have a haircut ... the word ' soon' is added , emphatically, to the end of the sentence. So it is that at nine on the dot I'm in the barbershop located next to the 'artisinal' jewellery store . There are at least three barbers in town all of them proudly proclaiming that they're Turkish. Two other 'salons' exist but both cater to a student audience with a taste for the adventurous that Angus does not share.
Inside a Syrian gentleman is sitting playing a computer game on his phone. ' Good morning ' I say cheerfully. ' Howzat ' he replies . The Syrian gentleman, surprised at having an early rising customer, disappears into an office at the far end of the salon. Left alone Angus notes that above the basin there is a picture of a man who looks just like Kim Il Sung sporting a luxuriant perm. I think of taking a photo but the Syrian gentleman returns, without his phone, smiling broadly. He points towards a chair by the window and says ' Wozizyewwont'. I explain that I'd like my hair cut. 'Not too short'. I repeat this - twice - to make sure there can be no misunderstanding. To add certainty to the outcome I take a strand of hair and hold it a centimetre from the end to show where it should be cut. " Scissor or machine ?" asks my smiling friend.
Quarter of an hour later I meet 'The Font' in Starbucks. " Goodness " is the immediate response followed by ' You certainly got your monies worth '. The 'not too short' has been interpreted as carte blanche to get hard at work with the electric trimmers. The end result ? That Soviet era prison look. .
They don't speak French - which can't have helped : https://edition.cnn.com/travel/us-couple-dream-life-france-became-nightmare/index.html