A robot car and a retaining wall

Hey, did you know they built a Transformer in Ankara? Believe me, this is absolutely correct. 

Turkish engineers built a robot named Antimon. It transforms into a normal car, or if you want, it becomes a robot with a head, arms and legs. It talks and it even dances. What makes it superior to all others like it in the world is that it is able to move all its joints. Well, at the end of the day, it has Turkish features; of course it is meant to excel at dancing.

I don’t know how much it would cost me but, just for fun, I would like to rent it and park in in front of İstinye Park Mall and then transform it into a robot with its remote control. Then I would like to watch the looks of the crowd while it is dancing. 

In the same newscast as the story about Antimon, the next story was about the collapse of a retaining wall at a giant construction project at Istanbul’s İkitelli. In other words, we can build a car that can transform into a dancing robot but we cannot build a supporting wall. Let alone a construction project, it has been revealed that after all the “our history; our ancestors” references, Topkapı Palace has cracks in its basement. 

Outside the borders of Turkey, in other countries, there are plenty of brilliant Turks occupying extraordinary positions; here, in Turkey, we cannot find the adequate number of teachers, engineers, architects, judges and bureaucrats.  

Why is this so? I wonder if this is associated with well-equipped, honest, correct people not being promoted to the positions they deserve for years. I do not want to mention “merit” once again because it is one of the top 10 words that we use most frequently in our daily lives since July 15. Well, here I go, I have used it again. 

Local and national lipstick

Aren’t we all so lucky? The maximum installments for credit cards have been increased to 12. Apparently there is a fall in consumption and a reverse in this trend is desired. However, there will not be any installments for cosmetic products, which used to be bought in nine installments. 

Hey, what problem do you have with our lipsticks and blushes? Shouldn’t a girl cover up the dark circles under her eyes? Should the Turkish woman go around with a white face? 

I am guessing that local products are trying to be promoted. My suggestion is that the nine-month-long installments should be maintained for local products; they have the same quality as international products. This sector has to be supported. I think they look very promising. I should not be contributing to the rent of a Paris store and the American film star they hired, but I want to support my brother in Bayrampaşa producing quite good blushes, foundations and mascaras, right? How do we do that?  

If you pop, “Is this the problem of Turkey now?” Well I am so filled up in problems that it has hit its peak. I am a comedy writer; I cannot save the country alone. Let us pretend we are living in Norway this week and talk about the number of installments in cosmetic purchases, will that kill us? 

Film sets are no playgrounds  

There is no cold or hot, day or night, indoors or outdoors in them. There is “which scene?” In cold weather, you sometimes act wearing just a shirt for hours while you can see your breath. If you happen to have a thoughtful producer, they would fetch thermal underwear for you. They would also bring ice so you could put it in your mouth before the scene so your breath would not be visible and ruin the ambiance.  

You would eat snacks while you are standing; you would drink water while you are moving. It would be a luxury if you could put up your swollen feet on a plastic chair between scenes.  

The rush of finishing a piece of 120 minutes per week reflects as tension, stress, hurry, carelessness, shouting and yawping. There may be tears, sulking and depression. 

Add to them the blues of “Am I good enough? Would they cut me from the show? Am I famous now? How should I get used to fame…”

This is a package deal that only those over 18 can handle, or sometimes those at 35 cannot handle. 

For this reason, I am strongly supporting that the working conditions of child actors are corrected. Even if under better conditions, personally, I would not prefer my child, brother or sister, or nephew or niece play full time on a TV show. They can be guest actors from time to time, take part in children’s theater or have a part in a film during summer vacation. Do commercials. But for a TV show, I would want them to wait at least they are 18.