CLIFF JOANNOU
Real girl power
WOMEN HAVE ALWAYS BEEN at the centre of my life. And no, I’m not talking about my love of Mariah. (Top three albums: Butterfly, Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, MTV Unplugged, if you’re asking.)
My large Greek Cypriot family is very femalecentric: my mother is one of seven sisters, my father has three. They had three or four kids each, which meant I had upwards of 50 cousins, the majority of us born in glamorous (lols) Croydon, Sarf London. The females in the family outnumbered the males four to one. It makes for a very hectic Christmas. First you heard us, then you’d smell the moussaka, finally, as you approached, you’d see the big hair — a huge barrage of bouffants, curls and backcombing. Wider Greek culture is very male-dominated.