Paying homage to Al Jaffe

Q: (from a woman just pulled over by a police officer) Did I do something wrong, officer?

A: No, today we're giving tickets out for doing things right.

A: No, I just got tired of lugging around these heavy summonses, so I decided to give some of them away.

A: No, I'm giving a ticket to this crazy street because it's going the wrong way.

Erospolis applies the time-honored tradition to the current events of the week:

Q: (Overheard at the International Children’s Day Reception in Parliament) Did we keep up the tradition of having a child act as prime minister this year on Children’s Day?

A: No, the prime minister was too afraid to leave his seat after the local election results.

A: We did, but nobody could tell the difference.

A: We wanted to, but gave up when we saw Melih Gökçek pretending to be a kid.

Q: (Overheard at the Foreign Ministry) Have you heard the rumors that Minister Babacan has been replaced by Ahmet Davutoğlu as the foreign minister?

A: You mean Mr. Davutoğlu was not already the foreign minister?

A: Don’t ask me, I was under the impression that Mr. Gül was still in charge here.

A: Oh, I thought something was wrong when Mr. Babacan did not turn up, but I thought he was just questioned under Ergenekon.

Q: (Asked to the Turkish representative by a member of the audience after a full day of debate on Turkish accession to the EU in a conference in Brussels) Do you think Turkey will become a member of the EU one day?

A: As a matter of fact, I came all the way here to tell you that we Turks are no longer interested.

A: Sure. What is 50 years between friends?

A: As soon as the EU fulfills the Ankara criteria, Turks will be more than happy to accept.

Q: (Between political analysts) Why does Recep Tayyip Erdoğan want to reshuffle the Cabinet?

A: To punish some ministers for failing to obtain the towns where the AKP absolutely had no chance to win at the local elections.

A: Because he is tired of seeing the same faces.

A: Because, much as he wants to, he cannot change other countries’ Cabinets.

Q: Does Ergenekon really exist?

A: No, but the state really had to do something to compete with the ratings of "Valley of the Wolves."

A: Of course it does. Do you think the larks brought all those grenades?

A: I will give you my answer as soon as I get out of the jail!

Q: Have Turks been hit by the global economic crises?

A: Mehmet Şimşek certainly has. Rumor has it that he will be losing his seat as state minister responsible for economy.

A: Of course not. All those closed shops and people fired are simply taking a break.

A: Hasn’t the prime minister said the crisis bypassed us? Do you think he would lie?

Q: Will Turkey normalize relations with Armenia?

A: Yes. It will take a while, however, to normalize relations with Azerbaijan.

A: No. Neither of us is quite normal.

A: That’s what we told Obama, and we are sticking to it until the end of April.

Many thanks, Al Jaffe.