GEOPOLITICS

The old man sat in the dark in his office. His face had a greenish tint to it. His face was also lit up by the green glow from his computer screen. Something worried him.

"Pronto," he said with a comma to silence the ringtone that had been worrying him.
"Gesundheit" said the caller and hung up.

The old man's best mate Tony had said something in an email that disconcerted him. Being disconcerted is a very worrying thing for a musician kind of like a teacher being declassified or a cleaner being unwashed. Tony had asked Richard if Erdogan would rename Istanbul to Constantinople - this being some sort of long running joke between the two. For once (we're being kind here) Richard was flummoxed. He didn't know who Erdogan was. "Who is Erdogan?" he emailed back to Tony while racking his brain to find the answer himself. Was he a musician? An educationalist? A commercial cleaner? Or, was he a made up name like Uara Kundt, Sucurone Kok, Upur Arse, Wayne Kerr, Phillip Edward Nis and others that he had made up.

The computer screen came back to life with an incoming email, this time from Mike.
"Erdogan is Turkey's Leader/Duce/Dictator" wrote Mike.
"OK" thought the old man, "politics then. Turkish politics and not delightful ones either. Where's Turkey again? I should know as I was in geography class at school. For all the good it did me I should have studied latin. Geography? And politics. Geopolitics!

He was worried.