By Lucie Robson 
I have long thought that if there is one thing that nobody should have to pay for, it is death.
I think this is the one thing that the state should cover as a last gesture to a departing citizen and their family, you could say.
In my, admittedly, rather...

By Andrianne Philippou
Certainly loads of entertainment in Limassol this week – anyone would think recession or utility bills were a thing of the past and the gas pipeline was already pumping cash. I’ve never seen anything like it (well, actually I have, every year around this time on...

By Charlie Charalambous
It was upsetting to discover that civil servants have been predominantly hard hit by the recession because the government will no longer give them interest free loans to buy luxury cars. Well, in fact any kind of car.
They must, like the rest of us suckers, go...

By Charlie Charalambous
I really want to like AVB – he is youthful, talented and has strong ideas about how football should be played. But he has been found wanting at the highest level in charge of Chelsea. The Blues are not going to play like Barcelona or play one-touch-lovely-feely...

 It’s gathering dust in the boiler room at the moment.
Sitting there in the dark, waiting for its moment.
For a few weeks after it was bought last year, it was out every weekend, sending smoke signals into the air and filling that same air with the scent of delicious grilled food...

By Andrienne Philippou 
 It really felt like that this weekend…
Isn’t it weird how we’re always bumping into people we know in the strangest, most unexpected places? I’ve just come back from spending a weekend in the quiet, unassuming village of Mandria, on the outskirts of...

By Lucie Robson 
I have been in a low level bad mood for several days since I was summoned to the Paphos Social Security Office and advised, as yearly routine dictates, as to the sum I have to pay the government every three months as a self-employed person.
Considering how my...

 By Lucie Robson
Next Tuesday is that "second only to Christmas commercial extravaganza", Valentine's Day.
I haven't been paying much attention to window dressings but I imagine that they are festooned with the usual glitzy array of red and pink chintz, paper cut-out cupids and...

A price too steep 
There can be only anguish at what is happening in Greece. Soaring unemployment – yesterday’s estimates put it at more than 20%, or one million people.
Plunging living standards as wages and pensions are slashed, uncertainty and despair about the future....

 Picture this.
You shuffle furtively into the seedy backstreet café and collect your cup of coffee from the counter. Retire to a seat in the darkest corner of the room and settle down, looking around you for any nosy neighbours.
Very, very carefully you put your trembling hand...