A letter form a friend - "Your welcome friends to Cyprus"

A good friend of mine in London after seeing the video “Your welcome friends to Cyprus” called to ask me if the whole thing was a big joke. or if it  was ‘frighteningly serious’. Until then, I had been unaware of the content having only seen some comments online. After watching the video I called and left a message on her voice mail saying- no, the video was indeed produced in Cyprus by professionals and it was not a joke.

Some hours later I received the following email from her which I now share with you.

“ Dear Petros,

Thank you for clarifying that the video was not some hoax.

Sadly the image of Cyprus as a forward thinking cosmopolitan country, one that has produced highly creative, talented, men and women, took what can only be described as a massive body blow when, the so called ‘welcome’ video was unleashed onto the unsuspecting public.

The recipients of this ‘welcome’ will be those countries looking to Cyprus as they head the European Council, sadly the  video is so amazingly bad in every respect that it looks as if Cyprus is effectively raising a sole digit ( a middle finger) to the EU.

The music is ghastly, the singer is off key and the words are so dreadful they take ‘corny’ to an entirely new level.

We have a man in a white outfit who is first seen crouched behind a rock as if caught short after a few beers, he then rises up to face the camera - to then waggle in front of us  two gold painted olive branches, also a less than fine pair of tuned tonsils.

As he does this simultaneous ‘waggling’ he threatens via the special ‘welcome’ song that  visitors ‘will  never be alone in Cyprus’ and ‘all will find themselves ‘walking with the lady Aphrodite’

By the end of this visual and audible torture -ones head is buried in a blanket of embarrassment as the Corn level has exceeded even this not so jolly, not so green, and defiantly no giant in any regard.
Its rumoured that 60.000 euros went into the making of this aberration- and 12 key sponsors were obviously keen to see their names listed at the end of the video-

Next time sponsors- best employ  a blind shepherd, and a donkey, fit the video camera to the back end of the donkey and have the shepherd sit astride the beast to wander the roads of Cyprus whilst reciting the Pafos phone book with  Abba singing along in the background –now thats what I call a Welcome video!”