Carnival Guignol

The supper last Wednesday.
“Look you lot…” I said when Paul, Cinty, Mark and Sally had arrived at 208 Democracy Street, as opposed to me leaving there to visit them
“Hm. Nice smell” said someone
“...this is hardly” I continued “pay-back time, since I’m still getting all the pleasure of your company”
“Enough of that, Simon”
“Yes but seriously…”
“Enough!”
Cinty had bought a cheese vegetable dish to pass - nicely judged to complement and not, given her cookery talent, up-stage my efforts.
“Sit down. Sit down…help yourselves to olives and here’s prosciutto wrapped round pieces of mozzarella”
The conversation re-began from where we’d left it at our several last evenings. Lin had e-mailed me earlier:

Make tomato and basil soup for starters. It's really easy and you can make in advance. You can make it the day before if you want and reheat gently when needed. Don't boil it. 1. Gently heat 1 carton of pasata, adding a good sprinkling of ground black pepper.(That's tomato puree - should be some in the cupboard by the fridge.) 2. Add ½ pint (10 flid oz/ ½ litre) chicken stock. (Add one stock cube from jar on the shelf to boiling water to make this.) 3. Add 1 heaped teaspoon dried basil and simmer for 5 minutes. (Should be plenty on the shelf or in wall cupboard - righthand one, I think.) 4. Taste. If it just tastes like tomato, add more basil and simmer again. Keep doing this till it tastes right. 5. When needed, reheat gently and add half a carton of cooking cream. (I think there's some in the cupboard…The pack with dark blue, as opposed to light blue, on it is thicker, so better.) That makes 1.5 pints, which is enough for a reasonable portion for 4 in the proper soup dishes in the dining room cupboard, but no seconds.

I doubled the ingredients for this, ladled the warm soup into a big bowl and took it  upstairs where the table was laid with bread and bowls. There was enough soup with some seconds for the five of us. Then roast chicken – “cook it first on its breast so juices run to the meat” said Lin over the phone from England – “about 170 Fahrenheit for an hour and half”, said Cinty over her phone, just up the road. I made baked potatoes and Sally brought gravy to be heated and decanted into a jug. Cinty in our kitchen carved the nicely browned chicken - into which I’d stuffed a lemon on Lin’s advice - and laid out its meat on a platter to go along with her mix of broccoli and leaks in cheese sauce. Meantime before my guests started on the wine and beer they’d bought I served - cooled in an ice-filled cocktail shaker - margaritas - ⅓ Tequila, ⅓ lemon juice from our trees (plus the juice of two oranges, and ⅓ Grand Marnier, with the rim of each glass wetted with a slice of lemon to hold a rime of salt. It was all going swimmingly.
After a good pause from the main dish, I fetched up the pudding from the freezer – Margarita Granita, made by mixing the mush of squeezed lemons mixed in equal parts with Grand Marnier and Tequila and spooning it into a selection of hollowed lemons, a hole cut in the top lidded with the head of the fruit, cut flat at the bottom so it’d sit upright.

"Don't put your faces too close - remember Alien!"

The alcohol hinders freezing so the result is a lively soft filling the consistency of praline in the dark chocolates from Emeral served besides. We used the emptied lemons to finish the jug of margarita...

**** *****
On Friday I went into town and visited St Spyridon’s Cathedral, having to dash out quietly as my mobile went off.
“What’s your passport number” said Lin “for booking flights in August?”
“I’m just at the cathedral. Lighting a candle for Amy and the baby”
 “Oh good. Shall I phone later?”
I gave her the number and then returned to that friendly serene place, in the centre of the city, to pick two candles’ light them and plant them among hundreds more in the sand tray by the east porch.

Noticing people writing prayers on paper I wrote “For our beloved daughter, Amy and, with God’s will, her son, our grandson” and added it to the little stack in a dish by the altar rail. Lin has reservations about my hypocrisy but I answered that some time ago so she tolerates these things, pondering them, no doubt, in her heart, her lips slightly pursed. I may have no faith, I’m not sure about Amy’s and can certainly not speak for the child within her. If I could write him one of the letters I’ve been sending so regularly to Lin and my mum these past 6 weeks, I’d want to say something about the paradox by which a dead reckoning was used to prepare an accurate position based on a sighting of the sun, moon or stars and reference to exact time and tables “when it comes to words, rather than music, I hope that you, our grandson, will read and learn from the Bible – preferably from a translation whose prose honours its content, and - especially when you are young - its beguiling stories. In some editions substituted for the King James version the meticulous pursuit of accessibility has, like the application of leeches, bled the text of memorable peculiarities and persistent idiom; best sometimes to compare the many translations at your fingertips, and start to learn that words are written by humans of miscellaneous opinion and varied inspiration. You do not need believe in angels or miracles, virgin birth or resurrection, though coincidence and the inexplicable march alongside skepticism, that people have amazing dreams stimulating science and scholarship.

A bloody good read

Where better than from the Bible may you learn in clear and magnificent ways the nature of your humanity, your shared mortality, the minute degrees by which you are both free and constrained in your choices, the extent of human moral frailty, your cowardice, sadism and cruelty, your courage, malice, compassion, kindness and capacity for forgiveness and grace, your anger and vengefulness, your mercifulness, your feckless inconsistency, the possibility of redemption, the moral quagmires into which you can be driven by lust and envy, your nobility and decency, the nature of love, of desire, grief, wisdom and wit, forbearance and sacrifice, the beauty, violence and ugliness of the world and the enigma of infinity – the capacity of language, any language, to convey mystery, to describe in words what is beyond words, to encompass paradox, that eternity may be given time and space by the minds of men ‘In the beginning was the word, and the word was made light’. Where other great works match the bible’s richness strive to know them, but you’ll search far to find works beyond its sway and spur, and, because the Bible is the book of your immediate context, it’s as good an introduction as any to your understanding of plot, structure and narrative, of good and bad writing, or - like mine – passable but inadequate for the truth I’m struggling to convey. The Bible’s contrary texts have long been used to justify perfidy and virtue. Don’t use it for instruction. Know that neither religion nor secularism occupy ground higher than the other; that they can co-exist and contain what is worst and best in you and your fellows. And should you have faith in God – a product of revelation not will - know that prayer is not to get things you want for yourself nor others; that God’s existence is in no way discounted by the fate of humans at the hands of nature or other humans, or that despite faith you may not believe yourself, amid pain, forsaken, and, if you have no faith – a reasonable, though no more nor less logical state, than its reverse - that atheism provides no guarantee of feeling unnoticed.” I’d want to add some sturdy prejudice about the bowdlerisation of King James, and for that matter Cranmer’s Prayer Book, by well-meaning committees led by educators, but the best and kindest words on that were written in an essay by Alan Bennett for a meeting of the society, or some such, for the ‘preservation’ of that supreme text. He said, after a paean for the King James that were he a priest stumbling up the urine smelling steps of a tower block in hope of bringing some unction to a parishioner in despair, he'd not bother that much about the words - though he wrote that thought far better than I.

Psalm 77 (KJV)
1. To the chief Musician, to Jeduthun, A Psalm of Asaph. I cried unto God with my voice, even unto God with my voice; and he gave ear unto me.
2. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: my sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted.
3. I remembered God, and was troubled: I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah.
4. Thou holdest mine eyes waking: I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
5. I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times.
6. I call to remembrance my song in the night: I commune with mine own heart: and my spirit made diligent search.
7. Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more?
8. Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore?
9. Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah.
10. And I said, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High.
11. I will remember the works of the Lord: surely I will remember thy wonders of old.
12. I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings.
13. Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary: who is so great a God as our God?
14. Thou art the God that doest wonders: thou hast declared thy strength among the people.
15. Thou hast with thine arm redeemed thy people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah.
16. The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee; they were afraid: the depths also were troubled.
17. The clouds poured out water: the skies sent out a sound: thine arrows also went abroad.
18. The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven: the lightnings lightened the world: the earth trembled and shook.
19. Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known.
20. Thou leddest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

*** ***
“That’s a bummer” said Mark
We were all peering into Summersong’s engine cavity, Paul with a vernier to measure the prop shaft diameter, Mark with a piece of cardboard on which were jotted the measurements of the new engine we’d hoped would replace the old.
“There’s 30 centimetres to find if the new engine’s gear box and couplings are to fit. It won’t work. I’ll go back and remeasure the engine tomorrow but…”
 I swallowed my disappointment, in part because ill-news from friends comes easier if – what am I’m trying to say?
“It’s a bummer?”
That morning. Paul told me. his motorbike - one on which he’d lavished much attention - had been stolen from outside his house in the night.
And yet 24 hours later Mark has told me he has almost certainly now raced an engine of the same type that will almost certainly fit. I've been in touch with Mr Vangelis to prepare to slip our boat, clean and anti-foul her and let Paul and Mark work on her at Mandouki in April, while Dave has texted me that he will get Summersong down there on her old engine and put a small boat in her place to hold her mooring at Ipsos. I've also had word with the fisherman in the security kafeneon by the harbour and have a receipt for their special attention to her security. Being moored there for over twelve years helps.

Vangelis Yard at Mandouki - above me a forest of humming masts

*** *** ***
‘Hellas, once first among nations, what asses we are now’ ...

...written on the back of a de-sexed Carnival King, thus with derisive laughter, shouting and oompapa music, marched this year’s most self-critical of village carnivals; irreverent as ever, innocent fun for the very young mixed, with scathing mockery of Greece and Greeks; sprinkled with flour a phalanx of young bakers and cooks pranced happily along mingling with men and women dressed as militia...

...holding toy machine pistols, some dressed in plastic military helmets, wearing swastika armbands their faces decorated with toothbrush moustaches, waving whips...

...marching behind a white donkey stumbling under the weight of a man with the blackened face and hands of a chimney sweep.

 Past the co-op we went where ‘ΒΟΗΘΕΙ ΜΑΣ’ was scrawled on a sheet - an orange balled golden phallus poking between ‘ita’ and ‘thita’. HELP US. The donkey was relieved of its burden before the hill into Democracy Street - the point made. Grand guignol in the middle of the afternoon. Later at the dance...

*** ***
A note to Richard Pine, after reading his grimmest of op-eds in The Irish Times arguing Greece should, to save herself from further abasement, leave not just the Eurozone but the European Union:

Dear Richard. Your op-ed has sparked table talk over the past few days - and no doubt some of the flack you were expecting, though not from me. Whether you are right or not, we seem to be at a point of decision - one that is quite out of our hands, though we’ll experience the consequences and historians will argue over it when we’re gone.
I hope that Greece will not leave the EU nor the Eurozone. I hope her people can acquire the ‘intricate skills’ required to govern a modern state - these being managerial, in terms of striving to work with fine-tuned logic and best technology in managing fiscal detail; monitoring and checking the performance of  a multiplicity of public services; involving all citizens in a constant educative dialogue about those services and earning the conditional respect for government which will lead people to pay taxes and follow the rule of law in returning to the state, what it needs by way of information and cash to work. This is a process which should be far far simpler than it is at present, employing information technology, individually available to those who can help others learn to use it, to perform, at household and business levels, the tedious but necessary duties of citizenship. It’s problematic that the Republic’s civil servants and ministers are being tutored in these things by Germans. But  unlike you, I think that making use of European (not only German) expertise in government need not be experienced as invasion or even humiliation. Greeks, proud inventors of democracy, are even in their villages deriding their failures as a modern state (see the slogan on the Carnival king’s float in Ano Korakiana last Sunday) - a parade of derisive self-mockery, not just fist-shaking at the Troika, the Government and the Germans.
I’m not sure that even more problematic than five centuries of Ottoman Occupation, is another historical circumstance I mentioned over our salad last Wednesday, that Greece has had no industrial revolution and, even though classical art  inspired that event across 15th century Europe, no Renaissance. I was struck by words from the script of the recent Greek film Attenberg in which the architect says to his daughter
“We missed an industrial revolution. We’ve built a colony of factories on sheep-pens”.
Turkey also had no industrial revolution but contains within itself the history of ruling an empire, even tho’ decayed, and the more recent memory - painful but necessary - of Kemal Ataturk’s reforms across every dimension of government; public finance, education, infrastructure, transport. Of course there’s corruption there too. Think of the ill-regulated multi-storey blocks that collapsed like cards after the last big quake under Istanbul. But there does seem to be a critical mass of expertise in Ankara, lacking in Athens, that supports the modernisation of government - and the constant need to submit reform to review and further change, something taken as a given across northern Europe.
Despite your arguments about misery, humiliation and loss of sovereignty, none of these demanded reforms if they occur - and I hope they will - can deprive the Greeks of their identity or culture (certainly not compared to the historic privations and suffering of the country’s population over the  over the past 100 years), unless you accept the proposition that using the habits of corruption inherited from Ottoman rule is an inextricable part of that culture - that separating corruption from probity involves risking the lives of conjoined twins. I don’t think that. Do you? A lot of Greeks don’t think that - if the chorus of frustrated anger at their country’s corruption is a guide. Nor need Greeks surrender their rights as citizens to be involved in making choices in government - though I suspect the knowledge and values required to exercise local democracy have been developed further in other countries than in Greece. Present protest entails futile sparring with police most of whom are in the same boat as the rioters. Is the long schism between klepht and modernist so intractable? S

...less these thoughts presume some Anglo moral high ground see this posting by Jim Potts on Corfu Blues quoting a rebuttal letter from Heinz Stiller in Berne Switzerland, about the mess made of capitalism by some of Greece's would-be 'helpers' published in Kathimerini’s online English edition on 27 Feb in response to a Bloomberg article by Clive Crooke ('Greek deal leaves Europe on the road to disaster'):

Mr. Crook’s article fits well within the barrage of doom and gloom press articles about Europe from American and British sources which pretend to analyze problems, but in reality are nothing but expressions of irrational chauvinist Anglo arrogance toward Europe. Britain and the US have been highly successful in one thing: They have turned capital markets into a casino-style gambling system which has taken the world to the brink of catastrophe by having blown up the 'funny money' supply to absurd proportions. By relying excessively on Keynesian economics, they have neglected structural economic policies and almost ruined their respective 'real economy' bases. The internet bubble (already forgotten?), the housing (ABS) crisis, and Lehman -- all nice gifts to the world by our Anglo economic expert friends…When hares, hunted by dogs, get tired of running away, they sometimes push other hares out of their holes so that these are now hunted by the dogs and they can take a rest.  Anglo coverage of European problems reminds me of this behaviour....But, as they say, you can’t fool all the people all the time…Europe will not go down the drain, no matter if Greece stays in or not. But in due time, financial markets will center in on the real problem economies of the world, the US and Britain, as these do not even try to tackle their problems.

And this hip-hop tirade against ACTA - The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement - captures in nimble rhetoric (how very well suited is Greek - which starts at 00.44 - for rap) feelings and thoughts that go well beyond the immediate concerns of the campaign against the new copyright legislation before the EU parliament:

**** ****
At dawn I can see that one of Ano Korakiana's olive presses has been working through the night - has been for several weeks...

Clean Monday - Kαθαρά Δευτέρα - starts the 40 days of Lent. Foti asked me as he has for the last two years to join his family for lunch at his family's place near Doctor's Bridge on the Sidari Road. There was a laden table including octopus and squid, spinach pie, macaroni, feta, green salad, wine, taramosalata and Lagana bread - which you're supposed to break not cut - and I could recall nearly everyone's name, and Dimitra whispered me the one's I struggled with. I explained to those who wondered where Linda was that I was here alone as she was accompanying her father - 93 - to the doctors "but it's alright we think and she sends her love and we will both be here for Easter"

Philoxenia  - Φιλοξενία - on Clean Monday

Part way through the meal, with help from Natasha where my Greek failed I made a very short speech
"Tomorrow I go to England. I am sad to be leaving but I am happy to be going. Linda and I are expecting a grandson in March!"
I tried to go on thanking them for their generosity and hospitality but everyone was clapping and raising their glasses, so I had the sense to sit and continue the pleasure of the meal as the children, their food finished, began to dance for themselves and us.

Λαγάνα

How this island indulges me!

Friday evening I cleaned the stove chimney, putting the pipes back in place and showered off the soot on myself, made myself supper and watched a film based on Lionel Shriver’s book We need to talk about Kevin. In the end it's about not getting answers to why someone does something very bad. The frightfulness of the ‘something’ intensifies the need for an answer. What might have been curiosity about a minor oddity  “Why do you collect your nail clippings?" becomes "Why did you kill all those people?”

There are plenty of minor examples, though preveniently sinister, in the proleptic screenplay. Explanation of the larger horror becomes a desperate and collective need. Since the perpetrator, 16 year old Kevin, is in prison beginning, in the perception of his community, to become a co-victim, the remaining explanation, since her husband and daughter are among the murdered, is the mother. At the end of Lynne Ramsay’s film of the book we are left only with our own answers - or their absence.
“I want you to tell me - why” asks brilliant Tilda Swinton, Eva Khatchadourian, of brilliant Ezra Miller, Kevin. Long pause. I wait with her for an answer. Then with raptorish stare Eva's shaved prisoner son mutters almost inaudibly
“I used to think I knew. Now I’m not so sure”
The matter of what he ‘used to think’, which I doubt he’d have volunteered, is interrupted by a guard saying “Time’s up”. I half expected a notice with the credits "If you have been disturbed or affected by issues raised in this film you can phone our 24 hour hotline on...' What a brilliant film - again low budget like Attenberg.
If I were a psychopath or a sociopath I might say the film was tedious 'except for the stuff on bows and arrows.' As a child I was enchanted by the adventures of Robin Hood and later in life, with my children, enjoyed using the long-bow. The film's technical advice on archery is immaculate, tho’ I could swear that in the book, Kevin carries out his Gladstone High school massacre with a cross-bow...

...but more dramatic with the hunting bow, a gift from his father.  He’d had to have been most accurate to cause such death and injury with the small tipped arrows he uses, but we know that’s one of his few gifts.
Labels for Kevin are an illusion. Film and book make that clear. The answers we invent; seeking consolation; calling Kevin ‘evil’ since birth, or Eva a ‘bad mother’ don’t work for anyone capable of remaining puzzled – inhuman, though, if your child were his victim.

Baddeley, S (1995) ‘Internal Polity’ Human Relations, 48 (9) pp.1073-1103

****
“Can you check my brakes?”
George puts my bicycle on a stand, clamp on the cross-bar.

“You need new pads. How much slack do you want in the levers?”
“A little as possible. I won’t forget not to stop too abruptly. And can you check my gears? I’ve slipped the chain a couple of times”
He turns the pedals, running quickly through the gears, pausing to take up a small driver to turn the Philip’s screws that adjust the chain tension

“Front or back did it slip?”
“Front. With the guard it’s fiddly getting it on again”
In seconds the job is done to his satisfaction. To mine too as I feel the difference cycling on into town. Apart from the cost compared to a motorcar, much satisfaction is to be gained from tuning a bicycle. Its mechanism so directly transmits the energy of human exertion to forward motion that small adjustments make satisfying improvements to the ride, especially on long ascents.

Rear chainset - 7 cogwheels behind, 3 in front. 21 gears

The snug fit of my new toe straps; saddle and handlebar height and angle are essential corrections. There are plenty of other things that I don’t know about. Racing cyclists shave their legs to reduce the time it takes for abrasions to heal if they fall on the road. This is outside my trousered Long John orbit. In the light rain yesterday I got back from a lesson and a game of croquet with Tony Blok, who I met after hearing from Cinty, who gave him my phone number, he’d bought Dave and Fran’s house at the bottom of the village. He wanted to know more about Ano Korakiana; his quid pro quo, a fish supper (octopus hors d’œuvres, fish stock soup, roast sea bream, pear pudding, coffee, brandy) at Pomo D’Oro in town and an offer to tutor me in croquet, his delight.

Tony’s set up a club, a website and maintains several well-tended well-equipped lawns inside the entrance to Gouvia Marina. On Sunday he and I played alone under grey skies; later drizzle. With a generous handicap and several discrete indulgences I was allowed to win by one hoop after a tie, despite wearing shoes that were tough on the grass and paining Tony by cutting a few divots from his immaculate surfaces. Two hours passed unnoticed so absorbed did I become in a game I’ve normally played on my mum’s unruly front lawn above Strathnairn when the children were young.
In the marina bar, where Tony and I sat over hot chocolates, I came across Pauline Sheriff with a friend, a tartan blanket over her lap. I’d heard only the day before that her husband had died before Christmas. He lies in the British Cemetery. Linda and I bought their boat Summersong six years ago, clicking ‘buy now’ on Norman’s eBay ad - ’27 foot yacht on permanent free mooring in Corfu’ - thus coming, by degrees, to Ano Korakiana and Democracy Street. In 1981 Norman, a Yorkshire man, made a redundancy deal with the railways, bought an already old boat in Spain and with minimal seafaring experience voyaged with Pauline towards Asia Minor, travelling as far as Turkey, settling at last in Corfu where for a while they lived on the boat, eventually, and with a wrench, selling her to us, to live in a small bungalow on the edge of Temploni – a Mediterranean Odyssey neither might have imagined when younger but by bold choice made true. That their place in Temploni was rented I put down not to finance but a dream of further travel.

Norman Sheriff sailing Summersong

****
I was 20 minutes late meeting Tony at Gouvia because I hadn’t got to bed until six the same morning. After visiting Carol at the Lighthouse sale on Saturday; putting out the word we were interested in child-gates, a baby-buggy and even a cot, I cycled home slowing my approach to Ano Korakiana...

...walking the steeper parts of the last mile, savouring the light and shadow passing unevenly over the mountains above the houses and the new flowers in the greenery beside the road.

“I disavow the sympathetic fallacy. I choose animism, personification, metonymy and synecdoche mixing place and heart, word and song…it’s not your fault Kerkyra that you’re so beautiful some ravage you while others like me look at you, gazing.”

From the Co-op came the sound of machinery. Anastasio took me round to see the stages of the one hour process; the same tour as Sebastianos' a few days back, though now a crop was going through. Rolando, a farmer from below the village, waiting with plastic tanks to collect his harvest.

I saw the black Corfu olives turning in water like pebbles in a shallow stream; leaves and twigs separated, the polished olives, ground six kilos at a time, their mush twice centrifuged – fast then  faster - until the opaque yellow-green oil poured out in a steady stream.

  

Getting permission, Anastasio broke a piece off a loaf, held it a moment under the spout and handed it to me.
“Extra extra virgin!” I said, tasting Rolando’s oil on warm new bread next to the clatter of machinery. I’ll think of this delectable snack when I see an elaborately labelled bottle of costly olive oil in an up-market delicatessen.

[Back to the future: 31 March 2012 - Extra Virgin Olive Oil scams and corruption...Tom Mueller's article in New Yorker....In 1997 and 1998, olive oil was the most adulterated agricultural product in the European Union, prompting the E.U.’s anti-fraud office to establish an olive-oil task force. (“Profits were comparable to cocaine trafficking, with none of the risks,” one investigator told me.) The E.U. also began phasing out subsidies for olive-oil producers and bottlers, in an effort to reduce crime, and after a few years it disbanded the task force. Yet fraud remains a major international problem: olive oil is far more valuable than most other vegetable oils, but it is costly and time-consuming to produce—and surprisingly easy to doctor. ..this academic report and Mueller's book Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil... for all the things that are right about olive oil, there’s a whole lot that’s wrong. Again and again I’ve witnessed the same bizarre drama. Olive oil bottles labeled with fancy phrases – “cold pressed,” “made in Italy,” “first pressed,” “extra-light,” “pure,” and the ever-present “extra virgin” – that are meaningless, and often downright lies, false virgins selling at a fraction of the price of true extra virgin olive oil, which systematically undercut honest producers. Faced with this situation, governments do nothing, oil buyers turn a blind eye, big bottlers and oil-traders pocket the cash. Consumers everywhere are systematically defrauded, and honest growers go bankrupt. Over the last five years I’ve seen one of the world’s greatest foods reach a breaking point, where the future of quality oil is in question....]

At home again Paul and Lula arrived to check on the small but obstinate leak in the roof; not the part his people had built.
“We’ll sort it while you’re away. Let’s go and eat”
We tried Strapunto but we were an hour too early for the kitchen, so I guided them to Limeri at the Y-junction in Kato Korakiana. Lula got a call
“Lucinda’s been hit by a car”
There were calls back and forth between Lula’s family in Ag.Ioannis, Lula tearful while our dignified host waited in the wings. She organised a hunt for the stray dog they’d adopted which had been hit a glancing blow and run off.
“I suppose when you find her – which you will” said Paul resignedly asking for wine “you’re going to keep her now, after we’d planned to find her a new owner.”
Just into some delectable starters, as the main course spread aromas from the kitchen, came word Lucinda was found and fine. The Kato village square was packed, in the midst of a carnival drama, while we, for the two hours we were there, the taverna’s sole guests, treated with easy solicitude, as the radiators, on for us, warmed the whole room and I, normally unfriendly to background music, enjoyed some well selected folk songs whose singers Lula recognized for me. We spoke of history, of the crisis and things that interested us including why some farmers so liked genetic modification; whether ‘peasant’ was a term of abuse or something in which to take pride, how difficult it is for the bourgeois – like me -to grow things to eat; whether autism played some original part in the long process of human evolution.
“Hm?” said Lula
“Maybe?” said Paul humming and haaing as friends do in debate.
They dropped me at the Co-op where I’d been in the afternoon. The pre-carnival dance was in full swing, souvlaki roasting outside overseen by Forti. Effie and Natasha told me to pull up a chair to their table.

Someone handed me wine. The DJs were equipped with two laptops capable of making especially seamless transitions between genres – pop, rock, folk, song and dance - from Greece and the rest of the world. Dancers did likewise - alone, in pairs and in a circling group, longer with every bar, all without pause, the disco lights changing from dark to bright to frenetic staccato and back with a mirror ball throwing light about the working walls of the co-op now decorated with streamers, balloons and pictures.

Πραγματοποιήθηκε για μια ακόμη χρονιά, χθες το βράδυ, στην αίθουσα του Συνεταιρισμού του καθιερωθέν τα τελευταία χρόνια καρναβαλικό πάρτυ. Η αίθουσα που το πρωί εξυπηρετούσε τη λειτουργία του ελαιουργείου, μέχρι το βράδυ μεταμορφώθηκε κυριολεκτικά από τους καρναβαλιστές, προκειμένου να υποδεχτεί κοινό όλων των ηλικιών. Ο χορός και η μουσική κράτησαν μέχρι τις πρώτες πρωινές ώρες, στους ρυθμούς των Νίκου και Γιώργου Μεταλληνού σε ρόλους ντισκ-τζοκεϋ. Έξω, η ψησταριά που είχε στηθεί από το Φώτη Κάρμπουρη, ξεπούλησε γρήγορα όλα της τα αποθέματα, ενώ το μπαρ στο εσωτερικό της αίθουσας, προσέφερε ανάσες δροσιάς στους ακατάπαυστα χοροπηδούντες καρναβαλιστές….

All ages danced, from toddlers, through ten-year-olds to oldies like me with young men and women now and then crouching in a circle as skillful dances were done by individuals - that Greek thing where you bend over back or forwards and just as it looks as if you’re about to fall over, drop on flexed knees, hands in the air or slapping an ankle, and leap up again, torn paper standing in for smashed crockery and lots of clapping,  syncopated and on the beat, with now and then a break to drop a key and start another rhythm.
“And what about the Greek deficit?” said Sebastianos at the bar offering me a cigarette, refilling my wine. On and off through the evening we talked - his English excellent - of history, local and wider. I was relieved my research on 19th century Corfu let me keep up with his references which - ahah - included unprompted the notorious alleged petitions from Ano Korakiana and Kinopiastes asking the British not to leave in 1864.
“The peasants did not know what they were signing. They were put up to it by interested parties, benefiting from trade with the British garrison”
We spoke of Storks, Gladstone, Young and other British Protectorate High Commissioners. Our conversation jumped between then and now; between here and there
“This roof in this building needs €20,000 to repair” He pointed out the details, and the temporary supports under some beams.
“That can surely be found”
“If there's the will. If!”
I didn’t actually decide to dance. I was gently tugged into the ones I could just about do, swung myself about and followed others, had more to drink and continued the conversation until drawn back to the party. The music was relentless yet not so loud you couldn’t chat and the wine so easy to drink I didn’t notice myself waxing hyperbolic until I recalled myself, sober, saying things like “Go tell it to the Lacedaemonians that here obedient to their laws we lie” and “Toὺs Laestrigonas kaὶ toὺs Kiklopas, tὸn thimomeno Poseedona mi foovᾶsee, tetia stὸn dromo sue pote soo thὲn thὰ vrees, ἂn men' i skepsis soo ipsili, ἄn ἐklekti singinisis tὸ pnefma kai to soma soo ἀngizei”* then wanting to cry, but I didn’t, and once dancing again became more clearheaded.
"I really like the way Greeks don't get drunk" I said
"Oh yes they do get drunk"
"No they don't!
"Yes they do!"
"No they do not. Not like some northerners - being sick and making silly noises and falling over"
"Oh yes they do"
"Did you go to a pantomime when you were in England?"
"Oh no I didn't!"
At this point I'm laughing - a lot.
I called Lin, holding the phone to the sound of the party, wholly insensitive to her mood in our kitchen in Birmingham
“You sound like you’re having a good time. Don’t get too drunk”
“Σ' αγαπώ, Λίντα γυναίκα μου”
“Yeah yeah”
"Now Sebastiano, tell me how I get to see the inside of the village Museum"
"Nothing to do with me. That's a different Metallinos"
"Yes but.."
"You will never get to see it"
"Oh yes I will"
"Oh no you won't. It was only called a museum to solve a legal problem of inheritance. Have another cigarette?"
By four there were fewer people around but the dancing and conversation continued with me drawn between both – struggling to understand, nearly but not stumbling, glad of the strength cycling’s given my legs.

Around 4.30 a friend said
"Come on to our house"
"Don’t we need to tidy up?” I said to Sebastionos.
“On Monday”.
There was a slow circular dance without background music, all singing in a monotone. Ten people from the last left, holding hands.
“This is Dionysus. They’re chanting lewd things. Next Sunday the old people sing this.”
So to Angeliki and Anthony’s house where ten people sat at a great wooden table and I was given meat and bread, wine and the usual courtesy of breaks in Greek to keep me informed and involved.
How this island indulges me! I’m not saying I’m a scrounger, but without Lin’s gift for reciprocity I may be overdrawn in that direction. I do bring small gifts - my interest, my company, love and friendship..hm…great curiosity, conversation (prolix? no! I can’t speak Greek), but in the last five weeks on Democracy Street, I’ve been given supper, over and over, in Mark and Sally’s home, shared bean soup, bread, sweetmeats and wine with Lefteris and Vasiliki and, as in the past, been handed - over our shared garden fence - bottles of their wine (in whose making last year I turned a wheel), been given tea and cakes and cooking advise by Cinty, who with Paul and Sally and Mark,  give me their Wifi and phone for calls to the UK (bringing out tea and wine as I work), been taken to lunch and supper several times by Paul and Lula refusing to share the bill, as well as been lunched – similarly - by Jim and Maria, partaken of food provided at the end of the seed-share meeting in the Co-op, been treated to supper and dancing by Effie and Adoni, my close neighbours, plus Tsipero, bread and mezes in their garden as well as a plate of tasty cabbage dolmades brought over to my house, been served mezes and drinks at Aleko’s home in Nisaki with his mother and sister, taken out for a swell meal at Aristoteles Megoulas' Pomo D'Oro by Tony Blok - tutoring me at croquet - had a long Sunday lunch with Niko and Sophia at their home in the village, paid a small contribution for souvlaki at the grill in the street on Tsiknopemti, followed by generous portions of wine bread and spare ribs far beyond the one euro I'd been asked to put in the collection box, to late night meat and drink after the pre-carnival party at Antony’s and Angeliki’s, slices of New Year cake at the 2012 Vassilopita celebration at Luna D’Argento, warm bread sprinkled with Rolando’s olive oil direct from the press by Anastasio and an embarrassing number of cigarettes from Sebastianos Metallinos the other night and the brothers, Paul and Mark, may have found a suitable replacement engine for Summersong which with their skill and some good fortune they’ll put into her.
*** ***
21 Feb'12: Press reactions reported by the BBC on the second bail-out now agreed..."Many European news websites highlight the problems that still lie ahead for Greece after the second bailout agreed by eurozone finance ministers."
24 Feb'12: Corfu Blues links on the crisis: The FT today (24/2/12) carries an article on 38 specific 'State-Building' changes demanded urgently of Greece by creditors. They include centralising health insurance and completing an accurate land registry as well as reducing state spending on pharmaceuticals by Euro1.1bn; and the liberalising of professions such as tour guides. One risk-consultancy analyst considers the speed and scope of the targets almost impossible to achieve....What then?
25 Feb'12: Philhellene Richard Pine's increasingly grim op-eds written from Perithia in Corfu, published regularly in The Irish Times, takes one of his firmest positions - moving from a journalistic respect for description, he turns to prescription - 'Time for Greece to leave not just euro but EU itself':

...It’s not very honourable to renege on one’s debts, but the situation for every man, woman and child indentured to poverty is so intolerable that default and exit seem the only possibility. The problem is one of self-determination. With its sovereignty now completely suspended by its acceptance of the new bailout memorandum, Greece cannot look itself in the face. In order to regain self-esteem, it’s essential that Greece turns its back on those elements in Europe which are exacting this level of punishment. Like so many divorces, Greece’s exit from the EU would be messy and acrimonious, but it is in a place where it doesn’t belong.

Reading his whole article, talking to him over lunch in town in Chrysomalis the other day, I'm strongly persuaded. Not being involved in affairs of state, nor even a citizen of the Republic, I react from experience on a domestic scale, thus like my own divorce in 1973, even thinking of what Richard (and many others) advocate for a nation, surfaces feelings associated with a 'messy and acrimonious' personal crisis from long ago - τοὺς Λαιστρυγόνας καὶ τοὺς Κύκλωπας, τὸν θυμωμένο Ποσειδῶνα. Would we become foreigners of a divergent kind, in a place we don't belong, needing visas, changing pounds into drachmas, spectators of our neighbours' pain, feeling materially richer, psychologically more impoverished? How will the hi-politics of Hellas act upon the lo-politics of our daily life?

In Athens the other day

______________________________
*...The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon -- do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your spirit and your body.

...Τοὺς Λαιστρυγόνας καὶ τοὺς Κύκλωπας,
τὸν θυμωμένο Ποσειδῶνα μὴ φοβᾶσαι,
τέτοια στὸν δρόμο σου ποτέ σου δὲν θὰ βρεῖς,
ἂν μέν' ὴ σκέψις σου ὐψηλή, ἄν ἐκλεκτὴ
συγκίνησις τὸ πνεῦμα καί το σῶμα σου ἀγγίζει.

Prophet Elias before Mother Greece

ΤσικνοΠέμπτη

Tsiknopemti. "The smoke has the taste of the meat." Dancing in Democracy Street, Ano Korakiana on Thursday, Πέμπτη, evening.

This morning the clouds have disappeared. Sun leaks into everything. I'm cycling into town to post two long letters - one to Lin and one to my mum - and just to be out of doors on such a day as this.

'...though we cannot make our sun stand still, yet we will make him run'

*** ***
Damn! I should have cleaned the chimney already.

***** *****
Στην έγκριση του Μνημονίου… «τση κούπας» καλεί το Κορακιανίτικο Καρναβάλι άπαντες τους μασκαράδες, Κορακιανίτες και μη. Η εκδήλωση θα λάβει χώρα στην ισόγειο αίθουσα του Συνεταιρισμού το Σάββατο 18 Φεβρουαρίου 2012 από ώρα 9ην βραδινή και μετά υπό τη συνοδεία μουσικής και κρασιού…Προκειμένου δε, να διασφαλιστεί η μυστικότητα της ψήφου καλούνται άπαντες οι προσκεκλημένοι να προσέλθουν μασκαρεμένοι…ώστε
"Μνημόνιο να γράψουμε
ως καλοπερασάδες
για να το αφιερώσουμε
σ’ αυτούς τσου μασκαράδες..."

Πρόκειται για το καρναβαλικό πάρτυ που πραγματοποιείται τα τελευταία χρόνια, τέτοιες μέρες στο χωριό!!!!

Party at 9.00pm in the Co-operative on 18 Feb - come masked!

The road at night

Yesterday evening after various morose chats at Sally’s Taverna in Ipsos, while I did email, having again bailed Summersong’s cover and checked her mooring lines, I treated myself to several euro’s worth of prosciutto at AB and bought a bottle of Tequila to make the puddings I’ll serve my guests next Wednesday.
Christopher at the bar in Sally’s said he hoped Greece would revert to the drachma, that indeed the whole Eurozone project should dissolve and everyone go back to their own currencies. I disagreed, though that could well be the succession of events if Greece defaults.
“Angela Merkel’s tied her place in history to Germany saving the eurozone” I said
“And she’ll be out soon along with Sarkozy” replied Christopher "and then things’ll start to happen”
“And what will happen to the poor and dispossessed of Europe?”
“They’ll go to the wall” muttered Scot George, sat next to Christopher at the bar.
“The family will return to its own, and the villages” said Christopher
“They’ll go to the wall” repeated George, who’d been complaining how the UK government keeps extending his pension date.
In the dark I began the ascent from Pirgi to Ano Korakiana, a route I've come to know by signs, shrines, buildings, particular stretches of fence and bends, dividing up my journey in my head to spread my pedalling energy. The Kandylakia which mark halfway and completion of the main hill to Ag Markos are, Sophia told me last Sunday, not shrines for road victims, but mark churches at the end of steep paths. Up and up I went, until the road became black, lit by the dim light of my cycle dynamo’s headlamp.

Panorama Bar

In Ag. Markos I stopped at the Panorama Bar, a small warm oasis. I greeted three men in there, ordered a glass of wine and sat on a sturdy dark varnished bench close to a wood stove. We stared up at a TV screen over the door, relaying pictures of a seriously concerned news announcer, ribbon titles running across the bottom of the screen as clips came from the European Parliament, from the Bundestag, and the chamber of the Hellenic Parliament, earnest Greek, German and Italian politicians sub-titled in Greek, interspersed with serious groups of men holding folders walking in bunches in and out of glass foyers, a shot of Venizelos speaking over a bouquet of logoed sponges on sticks...

...with cut-backs to studio conversation, with repeated shots of Athens police in riot gear dashing about Syntagma targeted with missiles, fireman hosing smoking burning buildings, glass strewn streets and a shopkeeper wringing her hands over the wreck of her shop. Now and again one of the men in the Panorama would make a laconic comment on what we were viewing. The others would smile and shrug resignedly, observing shared dismay. A long-haired terrier wandered out from behind the bar, its coat matching the tawny floor. I stroked and scratched its back as it sniffed my feet. Someone spoke to it in a friendly way. It settled by the fire as a woman came out, the owner’s wife, to join the taciturn company. The owner wandered over, hefted the round stove lid with a neat tool, peered into the glowing fire and added a log. The TV switched to a weather report on deep snow in Macedonia, pictures of snow ploughs in narrow streets, sheep and goats herded into byres, a well scarfed woman telling us it was cold and snowy, with subtitles saying it was cold and snowy. I said 'goodnight' and headed on up the darker road to the village..

The road to Ano Korakiana

..glad to see the street lights that start around the road up to Venetia. At the shop I asked Stammatis about 'the news'.
“The football?”
“No no. Greece!”
“I only get football on this set”
"Goodnight Stammati"
"Goodnight Simon"
*** ***
Jim Potts on Corfu Blues has had a go - quoting some telling passages in Greek and English, in support and refutation - at answering my first  'exam' question to him and Maria when we were lunching at Rouvas the other day:

1. Is the architectural, environmental and spiritual desecration of Corfu offset by the alleviation of the material and mental poverty of its population? 

This is one from Augustus Sordinas on The Corfiot Peasant:

*** ***
Our ward councillor Waseem Zaffar in Birmingham Handsworth, has asked as many of as can to contact as many others about the second conference for the ward on 3 March:

Dear Colleague. You are cordially invited to attend the second annual Lozells & East Handsworth Ward People's Conference 2012. The Conference will be held at 10.00 - 1.00 pm on Saturday March 3 2012 at City College Birmingham (Soho Road Handsworth Campus B21 9DP).
The Conference continues the theme 'communities coming together' - how, with fewer resources, residents, third sector and public sector organisations can work together to make Lozells, Handsworth and Birchfield better places in which to live and work.
People's Conference 2011 succeeded in raising key themes and putting forward recommendations for addressing them.  We have been acting on those recommendations and are organising this Conference as a way of sharing with you what we have been doing as well as illustrating some of the exciting initiatives occurring across the ward.

On behalf of the Conference planning group, I would like to express our genuine enthusiasm for this Conference. As a community we have so much to celebrate and yet so much more to achieve. I hope you will be able to join us for the Conference and help us continue the momentum that has developed.I hope you will also be able to pass this information to family, friends and colleagues who might not have been included in the mail-shot. It would be helpful for catering purposes if you could indicate the likelihood of your attendance. For any further information, please do not hesitate to contact me or Michael Brown of the North West Birmingham Development Agency on 0844 870 7982 or by email Michael Brown michael.brown@nwbda.org.ukYours truly, Waseem Zaffar 
Councillor for Lozells & East Handsworth Ward

Lin's copied me her letter to members of the voluntary advisory group for Handsworth Helping Hands (HHH), previously Central Handsworth Practical Care Project (CHPCP)

Dear All, I've renewed our free tipping permit, though it won't be for long. Attachment is description of our status and intended activities that I sent Bridget Kearney, Birmingham City Council, Fleet & Waste Management, for their records.I've advertised the chipper on the Preloved website. I'll put it on more sites when I have time. I'm hoping to get to the meeting at Mayfield on Thursday re. Heathfield Neighbourhood Forum. Might see some of you there. Lin

And again Waseem has sent this round to kick off a new forum more specific to our area within his ward:

The launch of Heathfield Neighbourhood Forum is taking place on Thursday 16th February, 6.30pm start at Mayfield Special School, Heathfield Road Entrance, Heathfield Road, Birmingham B19 1HJ. Are you concerned about the issues affecting your area including: environment, health, transport, leisure facilities, education, housing, jobs and training, community safety & crime. Then join the HEATHFIELD NEIGHBOURHOOD FORUM. A community meeting has been organised for local residents who are interested in tackling issues affecting the Heathfield area including all roads within the perimeter of Lozells Road, Birchfield Road, Church Hill Road (not including Church Hill Road) and Hamstead Road. Do you care about where you live and want to play a more active role within your community, then come along to Mayfield Special School to find out more information about the steering group launch for the Heathfield Neighbourhood Forum. Ongoing training and support will be available to all the volunteers. Free energy saving items will be given to all those participating. For further information and clarification of the neighbourhood forum area, please contact Rajinder Rattu of Neighbourhood Consultancy on 0121 448 8187 or email rajinder@neighbourhoodconsultancy.co.uk - please forward information across your networks. Yours truly, Waseem Zaffar, Councillor for Lozells & East Handsworth
Telephone/Fax: 01215513300 Mobile: 07790 161889
Email: waseem@waseemzaffar.co.uk
Mail: 16 Heathfield Road, Birmingham B19 1HB
Website: www.waseemzaffar.com
Twitter: @WaseemZaffar
Facebook: Waseem.Zaffar
Skype: Waseem.Zaffar1
LinkedIn: Waseem Zaffar
BBM: 272EE8CA

We've also got messages about new localised refuse collection arrangements happening soon:

Dear Colleague. Following the pilot of ward-based refuse collections in the South East of the City, Birmingham City Council have decided to introduce this form of refuse collection across a number of wards across the city including our ward, Lozells & East Handsworth, with an introduction date of Monday, 6th February 2012. In brief this will result in all refuse collection and recycling rounds being changed so that each ward will have a dedicated refuse collection and recycling crews. According to Birmingham City Council, as well as improving accountability this approach allows for greater synergy between the refuse/recycling crews and the dedicated street cleansing teams already working in the ward. However, as the existing collection rounds are not co-terminus with wards, implementation of ward based collections means that there will be changes in the day of collection for many residents. The time of day collections are made may also be changed, but will be between 6.00am and 3.30pm. Birmingham City Council state that as with the pilot, there will inevitably be some teething problems as residents and crews adjust to the new arrangements. However, to keep this to a minimum, each household in the ward will receive a post card outlining the new arrangements and days of collection. A hotline has been established by the Council for enquiries from residents. Please telephone 0121 675 7454 to report any issues with the new service or visit the website www.birmingham.gov.uk/collections.
I also enclose a map that has been provided to me illustrating the collection day for different areas of the ward. Please try to convey this information to local residents to ensure a smooth transition to the new system.  Please forward this email across your networks. For any further information, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. Yours truly, Waseem Zaffar, Councillor for Lozells & East Handsworth Ward

*** ***
Email purporting to come from my friend Ted Rudge. My server thought it was spam, but it used his normal e-mail address.

From: <his email>
Subject: ?spam? Terrible Trip....Ted Rudge
Date: 16 February 2012 12:37:45 EET
Reply-To: <same name different e-dress>

Sally looking over my shoulder said 'delete at once', but I hesitated. I know Ted so well and 'if he's in trouble' I thought, yet spelling, grammar and style! Woeful. But then he might be distraught, injured, whatever:

I really hope you get this fast. I could not inform anyone about our trip, because it was impromptu. we had to be in Madrid , Spain for a program. The program was successful, but our journey has turned sour. we misplaced our wallet and cell phone on our way back to the hotel we lodge in after we went for sight seeing. The wallet contained all the valuables we had. Now, our passport is in custody of the hotel management pending when we make payment. I am sorry if i am inconveniencing you, but i have only very few people to run to now. i will be indeed very grateful if i can get a loan of 2,720 Euro from you. this will enable me sort our hotel bills and get my sorry self back home. I will really appreciate whatever you can afford in assisting me with. I promise to refund it in full as soon as I return. let me know if you can be of any assistance. Please, let me know soonest. Thanks so much..Ted and Maureen Rudge

Swift e-mail from Linda "I can't think why you would 'pause and ask'. It's classic scam material. Ted's email has been hijacked. I've emailed to tell him" and a mutual friend, Andrew Simons, in Birmingham, also one of the Friends of Black Patch Park, has checked. It's already amazing to me that I could have, even for an instant, not immediately agreed with Sally. The hustler plays on the mark's feelings, sometimes greed, but in this case, compassion for a friend. Even tho' I'm well alert to multiple web scams, keeping myself informed about them through all the channels, this one stopped me for a moment. It's an example of the influence and power of emotion over common sense:

Hi Simon. I rang Ted just to check and spoke to Maureen. Ted is out buying bricks in Earlswood and definitely not in Spain. Like you the way the email was written didn't sound like Ted and I'm sure if stuck in such a predicament he would contact family first, but I was taken aback when I first received it because usually scams like this involve some anonymous person who claims to have come into unexpected money which they wish to launder through a UK bank account and for which you will receive a generous percentage. Best Wishes, Andrew

Bacon and eggs

The sun has got his hat on. He’s coming out to play. Rain rain go away come again another day. Bright dazzling reflections off wet surfaces everywhere, jocund, auguring Spring. Seedtime. Licensed though?

“How do you know” asked a woman at the seed-sharing meeting in the Farmers’ Co-op last Saturday “whether a tomato is a hybrid or from Corfu?”
“The one from Corfu will start to decay when it’s no longer fresh”
This answer produced murmuring chat across the floor; to some it’s hardly an issue. GM seeds grow tomatoes with no need for pesticide and the harvest takes far longer to rot giving plenty of time for distribution, longer retail and less waste.
“But you can grow tomatoes without pesticide”
“Ever tried?”
“And what happens to other insects?"
"So what?"
"What about not being able to keep seeds for the next crop. Having to buy them under licence? What about the difference in taste?”
“Ever tried to feed a family running a farm?”

I was on the phone – a gift call from Mark and Sally as I enjoyed another supper with them.
“Do you want to phone your mum?”
He dials the number which I forget now and then but Sally keeps a record. I talk first to Richard at Brin Croft another day with Emma, before taking the night coach back to Birmingham
“We went to see the windmills”

“Did you cross the river OK?” The swift burn that runs water of the moor beside the Garbole Road, to be forded on the rough track up to the turbines.
“No problem. We went to Coignafearn”
“Has Emma been there before?”
“No”
“Did she like it?”
“I guess. There were a lot of trees blown down in the winds we’ve been having.”
Pines spread for nutrients rather than burrow into impossible granite. Falling, they pull up a large flat saucer of raw sandy earth laced with torn roots.
“I bet the wind had the turbines whizzing”
“I guess so”
I give him some silence
“We found a pheasant that had been hit by a car. Lying by the road. I put it out of its misery. We bought it home. It’s hanging in grandma’s game larder.”
I spoke to my mum to say I’d booked a flight to the Highlands in mid-March.
“I love your letters” she said “I keep them by the bed. Take them out and read parts again. Oh yes. I finally got the phone of the girl on the Black Isle who’s got the terrier I gave her”
“Is she interested in her seeing Oscar”
“Very much so”
“Oscar’ll be up in August, for the Game Fair, Do you think her dog will be in season?”
“Fingers crossed”
“Chickens?” My mum's been planning to have chickens for a while.
“The coop is here already, just outside the window by the table where we eat, looking west”
There’s shelter there from a small ridge of higher ground above the river and they’ll be visible from the house.
“It’s super of Sharon to go along with this so long as there’s no cockerel”
“I want to get some of those black hens that lay those deep brown speckled eggs, but I’m not sure yet. I’m not going to be ambitious.”
Mark said “Do you want to phone Lin?”
This was a different matter as I needed to talk money with her.
“Mark and Paul” I said “think they may have found an engine for Summersong”
At this point I handed the phone to Mark who to my delight took it and explained some of the details before handing back the phone.

“So how much?” she asked me. I told her what was being discussed “Not bad” she said.
I punched the air for Mark to see and smiled like a kid promised a treat
“It’s your money” said Lin “Indulge yourself. We’ll be able to go places we always wanted to visit.”
"We've still got to see if it'll fit the boat"
The extras are going to be the challenge – at least one new sea cock, a repositioned shaft, proper electrics, battery, flushing the fuel tank, new gear arrangements in the cockpit, hauling out, cleaning and anti-fouling and any other problems bound to arise in getting the devil out of the detail.
I’d phoned Dave with whom I’ve been out of touch for ages.
“Can you get me a tow down to Mandouki for some work on Summersong?”
“No problem. But no need for a tow. We can get her present engine to do that”
“Thanks Dave”
“No problem”
Over supper we discussed the times. We all want Greece to stay in the Eurozone, both for Greece and Europe
“If Greece goes can Italy, or Portugal or Spain be so far behind?”
I pondered what might happen if there was a return to the drachma.
“It won’t be the old drachma. De La Rue will print it new. Probably one drachma to one euro. That will take months. I doubt the contingencies are so advanced they’ve got stocks.”
“What happens to the euro’s in your pocket”
“They can be exchanged for drachs”
“At one to one?”
“For a very short while, if the point is to devalue the currency to boost exports, as in Argentina. It would quickly go to ½ a euro for one drach.”
“Ouch”
“Yes. People with lots of euros will stuff them in the boot and head for the border where they’ll be stopped and searched by lots of new officials”
I recalled a tale told me long ago by Jack of a wealthy Jewish engineer getting late out of Nazi Germany, his family escaped already, the border officials searching his car inch by inch, determined that all he owned stayed in Germany. Having stripped him of his dignity and everything but his car and the clothes he wore, purloining rich takings for themselves, they let him drive through failing to notice that a set of tools needed for roadside repairs had been painstakingly forged out of pure platinum.
“So what happens before the official drachma starts circulating?”
“There’ll be scrip – local overprinted euros with the same value as the new drachma.”
“Hm”
“If it happens it’ll be sudden, to avoid the confusion, protest, dashing back and forth, that would go on if it were officially forecast”
“But if there were a leak, given how much of a run there’s already been on the banks?”
“Watch for a report of a scene involving someone famous stopped at a border”
Meanwhile I’m planning on bringing Euros into Greece to buy Summersong a new engine.
“What about all the speculation?”
“The vultures and jackals have been doing that to the Greek economy for the last five years. There’s little left to scam.”
There were only about five rich brown hens but with them was one light yellow chick and a lime duckling barely out of their eggs, and a small tabby kitten just able to walk, its large eyes open and puzzled, shaking out the coils of a crinkled tail. These three snuggled their way under one of the hens who’d made her way into a nest box in the coop – new cut deal, smelling of its joinery. I gazed at the birds. It reminded me of a painting I’d seen the day before by Natalie, Cinty’s mum, of a green Venetian door, a green bicycle and a brace of chickens looking on beside its wheels. I raised the lid of the nesting box. The brooding hen sat flattened in her nest. I put my hand on her back stroking the shallow hollow ούτως ειπείν της χάιδεψα στο βάση ραχοκοκαλιάς της. The counterpane of feathers beneath my hand seemed like the most generous thing in the world or as Dr F, might once have said “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”.
For breakfast, having lit the fire with kindling chopped last night, I made myself a plate of hash browns (grate potato and small onion, squeeze out liquid in fist, press together and lay in pan with sizzling olive oil), mushroom (big one, sliced in three), bacon, eggs, and a thick slice of local tomato...

Χαρδιακή προσβολή στο πιάτο 

 – what a zealous medic once dubbed ‘a heart attack on a plate’. I shall cycle down to Ipsos to bail out Summersong’s cover again and do shopping in readiness for, at last, making a meal for guests instead of as it has been since I came, me the guest even at taverna’s where I’ve been forbidden to pay, my arm grabbed as I reach for my cash. Jim Potts, who did this the other day to me at Rouvas, observed “Greeks get bemused when we go shares, eating out in England.”
*** ***
An email from my stepfather’s friend Nick Wright – a response to my email telling him and other’s interested that yet another set of 34 masters of Jack’s films, which we had been pursuing round the UK most of last year, and momentarily thought recovered have gone back to earth for fear of copyright writs – not from me:

Sorry to hear you are having such a run-around with these idiots, and I hope that in time something positive may come out of all these exertions. As I believe I told you previously, the difficulty of putting sound to picture is a messy but entirely possible process which simply takes time and common sense. The difficulty for developing forward any new series with this material is that I don’t believe Jacks 'chat' through the material was ever recorded. I think with his natural ease he simply talked live to the films as they were broadcast, so the commentary never existed unless somewhere somebody recorded the programmes on a domestic level. The positive about that is that if you can discover such domestic recordings, sound quality will probably be OK for use today, whereas originally broadcast picture would look pretty jaded after all this time. (The stored picture original will retain its quality for probably 50 years) So the hunt really should be to try and find a domestic recording of transmitted programmes, and lift Jack’s voicetracks from that to create new integral programmes. The ha-ha  factor of that would be of course that as the voice track was never technically 'recorded' (only transmitted), then there can be no claim to copyright of those voicetracks from the broadcaster. To claim copyright you have to prove you were first to 'capture' the 'object' in some physical form (e.g. painting, writing, notation, recording etc.). So that might prove an interesting question for the legal people.
The original audio used for Jack’s films was very simple, little more that atmos (atmospheric sound) and occasional effects (a gate closing, car door shutting etc). Because of a pioneering arrangement between Jack and the Unions, he and Stanley Bréhaut were able to operate so flexibly and lightly (just the two of them) because they 'proved' they didn’t need a sound crew because they recorded no speech-based sound. Jack was very proud of having struck this deal because it enabled him to move quickly and easily and without a huge entourage, into the natural environment where he felt comfortable. And of course it kept the budget down…Good luck, and please continue to keep me in the loop. Hear from you sometime soon I hope

And part of a reply from another good friend and helper:

… Finally I am quite happy to test the water and upload one of my rebuilds onto my own Youtube site, as Youtube will only ask me to take it off if there are infringements. There are some recorded editions of How & other Southern material on Youtube from xxx's library of owned programmes which have stood the test of time…both D & myself believe that the rebuild episode with the Australian Dogs and Dorset Clock Museum which you already have…are not contained in the list of those 34 masters. We have been able to date both these Southern Broadcasts from teletext information contained in the recordings….My wife and I know of a retired BBC employee who we believe is still living in this area and who started his career working on film in Ealing Studios and was involved with film and sound transfers etc. It is unlikely that our paths will cross again until June or July, but I could put out feelers then as to whether he could help or know of someone else who might help with the SWFTA archive.

*** ***
Email from John M in Australia, coming to a conference in Rome, then off to cycle across Canada:

Dear Simon. We have a clear image of you on your bike or with stave in hand loping up the narrow roads of the Corfu mountains. I hope to get there one day in the winter as I have no sense of what it is like to be there at that time as we have only ever been an experienced the wonderful summer. How are the Greeks? We see images of riots on the street of Athens. It doesn't look so good and the financial woes continue on with bleak predictions. How did it get like this?
Your view of public value in our work is one I agree with (I’d emailed him about a paper I’d been invited to submit an abstract for to a conference in the US this September), because I have seen it explored at that individual, one-on-one relationship. I suspect the common garden variety view of public value they are touting is about community engagement level and structures and policies that reflect the recognition of what is valued in government. It is post hoc and structural, not immediate and personal. I will be interested in your views on this. I suggest you have a good look at the rhetoric on public value as it is being espoused so you can counter such claims.
We are now in count-down mode for the travels of 2012. 7 April to Rome for a week's conference, then on to Vancouver for a few days with the kids before we start the cycle journey, first up and down Vancouver Island as we wait for the right weather to cross the Rockies…Take care in Corfu. No going on any demos with the unions in Corfu Town, they look pretty serious! Keep in touch, John

Dear John. I am not doing much walking except when pushing my bicycle. I am mainly using the 21 gear roadster and except for the final slopes onto Democracy Street I can, in 1:1 get up just about anything Corfu has to offer. The roads are excellent for cycling here, except at night when you may encounter potholes easily spotted in daylight. I suspect these pose far greater risk to scooters and motorcycles, but fingers crossed…I find that after an hour’s uphill I’m still going pretty well but the lactic acid is building up in my knees and my groin’s chafing. That makes the final climb into the village harder. I’ve added toe clips which are great. The other thing here is splinters of acacia. They get stuck in bits of mud and dog or cat dirt. Before a ride I brush each tyre as clear as I can and go over every centimetre - occasionally finding and digging out an embedded thorn with the tip of my penknife…. I am checking out reading on public value as you suggest. I fully agree with Kurt Lewin that there’s nothing so practical as a good theory and I love ideas as much as anyone, but reading so much material on governance I struggle to believe that the researcher has accessed details or been closely engaged in the activities about which they theorise. The reality that I’ve experienced as participant as well as observers and theoriser seems absent. I have heard X speak disparagingly of studies solely based on case material…but I read the highly theoretical work of my great great grandfather Henry Maine who’s major works were Ancient Law and Village Communities in East and West…replete with details of events and opinions to colour his profound and precise theorising. Marx does the same as also Freud, and other great theorists. When I read so much material on governance I am struck by the gap between those who write cases for 'practitioners' which are weak on theory and those who write complex theoretical expositions based on empirical studies of course that fail to convey a sense of what is going on, what it looks and feels like to the people involved. (There are marked exceptions - especially Mark Moore's work on Public Value built on the experience of many many practitioners) Am I just being grumpy, uninformed and insufficiently familiar with the literature?.....So you will soon be in cobbled noisy Rome. Barring Amy’s son being born later than expected we will be in Corfu from early April. I go back to UK in a fortnight via Bari and Venice, a nice mix of ferry, train, bus and plane…I've tried to convey something of the feel of Greece at the moment; in meetings I sit in on in the village, tit-bits of news, in speculative gossip with friends. Deadline succeeds deadline with warnings becoming more dire. I read and hear of the greatest impact of the ‘megali krisi’ - μεγάλη κρίση (as it’s referred to) as being in Athens, not just the riots but also the abandoned rows of shops, new no-go areas, drug dealing, makeshift table-top sales, busy pawnbrokers, runs on banks, middle class people begging beside the poorer who’ve been at it longer, soup kitchens, mortgage foreclosures, emigration as has been traditional in earlier crises among those who can find work or university places outside Greece, politicians unable to risk going out in public without heavy security, car number plates being handed in as people abandon their cars unable to afford increased vehicle tax and rising fuel costs, more people on scooters, people turning to wood burning stoves for the same reason, more land being cleared for a return to farming olives, fruit, vegetables and stock, stories of a return to villages by some city people to be with family, to be more self-sufficient, to return to fishing, to run rural businesses. Here in the village it can feel remote from Athens’ urban dystopia (as also Thessaloniki and other Greek cities).  People will mention the ill-news, with a resigned shrug. In chat they will talk of the cuts in income and reduction in pensions and the burden of increased property taxes we’ve been paying with our electric bills this year, but the village feels as it normally does in the five winters we’ve spent here - wet, cold, windy with people hibernating and waiting for occasional sunny days to hang out their washing and looking forward to Easter. Of course we have church services and lovely music and Carnival is on 26 February with me recruited to the carnival planning volunteers (sweeping, painting and moving chairs and tables)...Supermart shelves on the island empty very fast when there’s a strike or expectation of one, so there would be measures to prevent hoarding. All this suggests stronger protests, disorder and possible repression tho’ it’s very unlikely the police will be so obedient to a discredited government or that anyone in the army would risk getting anywhere near a coup. The memory of the Junta is still near and shaming to Greece…So far except for empathy we are not affected.

Capital of happiness

We have no wish to even contemplate selling our home here, tho’ that would be next to impossible if we hoped to get back what we paid, let alone profit. Funny that Lin and I have never experienced negative equity while we had mortgages and now we own a house outright which must now be a third or half what we paid for it, it causes us no worry. Our capital’s tied up in our happiness at living here part of the year. I might be talking differently in a year’s time but then there’s a strong sense that Greece is a bellwether, capitalism’s coal-mine canary. So the grass isn’t much greener anywhere else within three hours flight!

You ask 'how did it get like this?'. Explanation risks sounding like excuse. Greece is an extreme victim of the credit-pushers, corrupt politicians the portal for their access to the people who, over the last 15-20 years, went mad with plastic in a country that produces mainly tourism, now in weak competition with many other tourist destinations. On a Greek film script I saw two days ago one character says “We missed out on an industrial revolution. We dug quarries and built a colony of factories on sheep-pens.”  The same leadership used the new credit to compete in buying voters instead of investing it in advanced tourist infrastructure, hi-tech industrialisation, improvements in the built environment of cities, green spaces and traffic management that cities in other parts of the world have carried out to attract white collar professionals. They failed to make higher educational institutions competitive with the universities to which bright Greeks head in droves in US, Australia and northern Europe. (But see this illustrated paean by Cretan Dimitris Petrakis posted recently on Facebook railing against lies and myths about Greece). Why did wiser voices not prevail as this great failure of vision occurred? That’s because the arrogant, male-dominated, queue-jumping, bribe-ridden, clientelist, patronage culture of Greece, especially Athens, was never flushed from its corridors. (see my friend Richard Pine's latest op-ed Letter from Corfu for the Irish Times) The legacy of Ottoman occupation, like colonialism in Africa, is forever cited as explanation and excuse for a dependency in Greece that was continued by her role as post-war pawn of Britain and later America. A weakened US and now a weakened Europe makes that dependency unfruitful, and now new ideas and capital are beginning, as in Africa, to arrive from China; a new global ball-game…Even now Greece’s political leaders, aware of a General Election planned in April, might be said to be playing on fears in the rest of Europe of what will happen if the country descends into some sort of Argentinian chaos. I’m reminded of the old maxim about 'bacon and eggs’ ‘pigs and chickens'. Greece’s highly privileged politicians (in terms of income, expenses and other benefits) are the chickens with their eyes on the ballot box while proclaiming their enthusiasm for Greece to change through greater and more prolonged austerity. The ordinary people are the pigs who are, when it comes to bacon and eggs, committed in a rather more serious way. Love to all, Simon

**** ****
There is an intriguing museum in Ano Korakiana, in the plateia, a slight widening of the road rather than a proper square. There are signs guiding people to it. Pavla was trying to see it a couple of years ago when we met as she drove by me as I strolled up Democracy Street. 

There are plaques and the word Museum - ΜΟΥΣΕΊΟ - in large metal letters on the front of the building, which celebrates a self-taught village sculptor who lived at the start of the last century, and created works that were a mix of Greek and Hindu style - what a friend back in England called ‘a bit naughty’.

She knew this only because one of Aristidis Metallinos’ statues is displayed on a small pedestal halfway up the front wall of the museum. No-one I know, or have heard about, has ever seen the inside of the Metallinos Museum and, though inhabited, it is never open. No neighbour, despite kind efforts, has managed to enable me to make a visit. I would like to but perhaps I'd be disappointed.