Remember the meze, though, with the full 15 to 20 courses depending. My first was at the Romantic Bar in Limassol in 1969 and cost 8 shillings including non-stop Kokkinelli; the following night it was 12 shillings for the same treatment at the Britannic, Britannia or similar. My big problem was that I thought that Kokkkinelli was merely red wine when, as you all know, it is actually fortified red wine. I learned about drinking from that.
Digressing a bit, my parents retired to Limassol and we would often go for a meze together, usually to the Klima in the tourist area as they had quite a good floorshow. They would advertise '15 courses for £2.500' or the like. My mum would count the courses and, invariably, a couple wouldn't arrive. She would enquire sternly, 'Where's the sheftalia. We're not tourists, you know. We live here.' They never dared argue with her - nor did I.
Digressing further but my last visit, in 2000, got me wondering if Cyprus was losing its charm. My brother, brother-in-law and I sought out a nice little bar and ordered 3 pints of ice-cold draught Keo. Three beers arrived but in glasses of about 300cl capacity. I said, 'Excuse me but we ordered 2 pints.' 'Those are pints.' 'No they're not.' 'Yes they are - they're Cyprus pints.' This was said without a spark of humour and we were charged the full whack. 'We're not tourists, you know' didn't work without my mum around to utter the words. This incident told me that maybe the legendary Cyprus friendliness was on the wane. Please tell me I'm wrong.