Increase in Britons Abroad Makes For Cheap Calls to Turkey

As one of Britain's greatest national pastimes, leaving Britain, reaches peak season and extends to ever distant corners of the earth, formerly tranquil seaside destinations the world over are becoming littered with British pubs, curry houses and-you guessed it-Lancashire lassies on hen nights.

With flights from Gatwick to Antalya on Easy Jet falling below the £250 return marker and budget airline Monarch having tripled the volume of international flights into the country over the last eighteen months, it appears that all is not as it should be in the former Ottoman. Statistics suggest that the Turkish Mediterranean coast is set to become the latest victim in a long, illustrious line of soon to be defunct British vacation spots that include St. Tropez, Ibiza, Agadir, Faliraki, Alicante and, more recently, Sharm-El-Sheikh.

Perhaps scariest of all for the average Brit-fearing Turk is this: with 32,000 Britons already owning property in the country, numbers which are set to rise significantly over the coming years, the Turkish population will be contending not with Britain Abroad, but with a British contingent intent on making themselves feel at home. Binge drinking, multiple arrests, morning-after pill vending machines and general loutishness are sure to follow. Perhaps the vending machines are a slight exaggeration, but the overall picture should be clear, various embellishments notwithstanding.

On the bright side, lettings and estate agencies, PR firms and first-rate telecoms services are following the Brits and their sterling-stuffed wallets and purses all the way to Ankara. For international business, Turkish expatriates living in the UK and Britons who've made a home away from home in the Byzantine Republic this translates into a newfound ability to make cheap calls to Turkey. UK property development companies are opening branches all around coastal Turkey, and as the number of vacationing Britons mounts, so to do the connections between Eastern Mediterranean and English Channel.

The thing to remember here is that if your friends, family or loved ones find themselves in trouble with the law, the locals or one another, you can call Turkey at a moment's notice using one of a number British telecommunications firms. This should allow the general populace to send money, find a lawyer, a curry or a vacation home, or simply to fix up two mates otherwise destined to a Thousand and One lonely Arabian nights.