Prior to 2008, I had visited Turkey only twice, and both times for business events in Istanbul – the kind of events where sleeping, eating, partying… and of course a little business too… is all conducted within the walls of the same opulent yet generically international hotel. Then in 2008, I met the woman who was to become my wife, and so began a love-affair (well, two I suppose) and a certain fascination with the city and country in which she had been born and raised. As an Englishman of a certain age, I’m ashamed to admit that prior to this, one of the most enduring associations I had with Turkey was that of Turkish Delight – and not even the real stuff – the sickly sweet, chocolate covered version sold and advertised in the UK with beguiling yet grossly misleading TV ads such as this one from the early eighties. Over the last five years however, I have come to know and love Turkey as a country teetering on a knife-edge between tradition and modernity. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Istanbul, a vibrant, colourful, yet chaotic city, heaving with over 15 million inhabitants, many of whom spend hours each day commuting between the continents of Asia and Europe across the mighty Bosphorus which, like a glistening scimitar, cleaves the populous in two. Istanbul is a city for which my wife feels both pride and frustration, and if the events of the last few days are anything to go by, it would seem these feelings are shared...