In this weeks round up of the local news cheque thieves are caught red handed, drunk falls into the sea, reveller loses his cool and Fethiye is now a popular wedding destination for Brits.

Nicked

Another success for our local police this week when they arrested three men and charged them with theft of cheques worth 210,000TL.

The cheques went missing some time ago from the office within the wholesale fruit and vegetable market.

The police recovered the cheques when they made their arrests.

Three Sheets to the Wind

On 30 December (note not even New Year’s Eve) a young Turkish man who’d had too much to drink fell into the harbour and was soon floundering, fully clothed, in the sea.

Another young man, Ali Konakcı, jumped in fully clothed and rescued the drunk.

Later Ali told the press “We have to look after one another, I didn’t think twice about jumping in when I realised he was drowning.”

“Banged” to Rights

And on New Year’s Day, 24-year-old Mehmet Uysal, went out to celebrate the arrival of 2010.

In the early hours of the 2nd he left to drive home and hit another car en route.

Neither car was badly damaged but Mehmet took a pump-action shot gun from his car and started to threaten the other driver.

He then began to fire into the air and police were summoned, one of whom was hit in the leg by a shot from the gun.

By this time Mehmet had totally lost control and was observed waving the gun and shouting the Turkish equivalent of “You can’t catch me”. They did.

Fethiye Now a Popular Wedding Destination

And Fethiye’s Registrar announced this week that weddings for foreigners were up 30% in 2009 on the previous year.

He married a total of 338 foreign couples, the majority of them British.

The number of foreign women marrying Turks was, however, down on 2008.

In that year 93 foreign women married Turkish men, in 2009 a mere 74 took the plunge. We shan’t comment but maybe ‘Take a Break’ magazine will.