Macedon

Vergina, Βεργίνα - ancient Aigai, Αιγαί. So many beautiful things brought from the tombs of the kings of Macedonia, the dynasty of Alexander the Great to England. I shall go to Oxford for the day to see them.
Heracles To Alexander The Great: Treasures from the Royal Capital of Macedon, A Hellenic Kingdom in the Age of Democracy, The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 7 April -29 August 2011.

Macedonia, Greece

It's confusing, and nothing if not controversial in some circles, that there's a land-locked country in the central Balkans that's claimed the name of Macedonia, with a southern border on Greece - a border that marches with the Greek province of that same ancient name.

The land-locked Republic of Macedonia - capital Skopje

And I'd be playing Candide, if I did not recognise that this is a subject to be held in the tongs you'd use to pick up a glowing coal. Haven't I read any history? Don't I know of the 201 villages, 12,400 houses burned, 4,694 people killed by the Ottomans, 30,000 refugees fleeing to Bulgaria after the Ilinden Uprising, Илинденско востание, Ilindensko vostanie, of August 1903? Don't I know of the significance for Greeks of the Vergina Sun unearthed in 1977 during excavations in Vergina, in the northern Greek region of Macedonia, by archaeologist Manolis Andronikos - an artefact that between 1992-95 was a prominent part of the national flag of FYROM - sitting in the UN Assembly under 'T' as the EU entity 'The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia' - subsequently muted but still a political symbol used to express a link with Alexander the Great and a claim to be as Greek as the Greeks? Have I not studied the ancient migrations, invasions, dispersions of DNA and the idea of Sklavinia and its borderless maps laced with the fuzziest of boundaries, focus of unending debate about identity?

The newish country of Macedonia contends with Greek Macedonia and indeed with the Hellenic Republic, its geographical association with that most famous of Macedonians, Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great.

The Kingdom of Macedon in 336BC

Where the confusion of names becomes more sinister, taking on the character of a frozen conflict, is the existence of a notorious Balkan phenomenon - a big idea. [Back to the future - 8 Jun'11: Skopje-Macedonian snap general election results. On-line guide to the political environment in the Macedonian Republic. A global diaspora has electoral significance in a country of many parties, with significant ethnic divisions. The social web contributes to the connectivity of political debate ]
There has been a Croatian big idea - Red Croatia Crvena Hrvatska. There's been an Albanian big idea, which also includes Chameria. The Greek big idea, Μεγάλη Ιδέα ended in bloody tears.

The Greek Big Idea - recovering Constantinople, capital of Byzantium

There was a Serbian big idea - Greater Serbia, Velika Srbija, whose chief agents stand in the dock at the Hague.

A Serbian big idea - from the Adriatic to the Black Sea

Although it is not supported by anyone in the national government of the country of Macedonia - there is a Macedonian big idea looking like a blood splat - involving the circulation of maps titled Autonomous, Greater and United Macedonia - Obedineta Makedonija.

A big idea from Skopje - expand into Bulgaria, Greece, Albania and Serbia

** ** **
I've been returning meter readings to power suppliers. A letter came from Siemens asking for my electric meter reading even though I already record this on a website for Scottish Power. The letter asks for my name, my MPAN (electricity) and my MPRN (gas) and the date of the reading. I can find out the meaning of these acronyms easily enough, but they might confuse some. The easiest way to get these readings, given that the gas meter which is outside is tricky to read in direct sunlight while the electric meter in the garage is rather high up, is to take a photo of each dial.

The website address given me to report the reading returns an 'error' message...

...without direction as to where to go to provide a reading I've already recorded with Scottish Power's quite efficient website. I take a lazy moment to send an email to Siemen's Customer Business Manager:

Dear Mr Alan Fletcher. I'm sure you won't read this but in a Panglossian spirit of optimism I'm taking a couple of minutes to email you to say that this is now the second time you have sent me a letter asking me to record my meter readings via the website:  The website with the URL supplied in your letter yet again reports an error with no clear directions as to where to go to record my gas and electricity meter readings. Any chance I could earn a discount on my energy bills for going to the trouble as a customer of Scottish Power of letting you know about the error in your letter asking me to contact you with my meter readings? Ha ha. I have recorded my current meter readings on the Scottish Power website where I have account - MPAN 1413713321000. Yours etc.

The reply is is instant:

Thank you for contacting Siemens Metering Services. Your e-mail has been received and will be passed on to the relevant department for their attention. This is an automatic e-mail; please do not reply. SIEMENS Siemens Metering Services, Woodyard Lane, Wollaton NG8 1GB

Meantime I received another email:

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR UNIVERSITY ACCOUNT. This email has been sent by IT Services at The University of Birmingham and is intended for the member of the staff who's University ID ends in ******. IT Services have been informed that the password associated with your Active Directory account ****** has not been changed since *****. In accordance with current University policy, you are required to change the password associated with your personal Active Directory account every six months at least. This email is intended to remind you that unless you change the password associated with the Active Directory account ***** before ***** it will be forcibly changed on your behalf. If this should happen, you will no longer be able to login to your Active Directory account or read your email until the password associated with the account has been reset.  You can change your password yourself - from the login page for the IT Service Desk website - from the login page for my.bham username and password or which contain links to web pages asking for your username and password. IT Services never sends such messages. (of course I've excised phone numbers and IDs)

Birmingham Identity Integration Services (BIIS) is a service of exemplary efficiency; a pleasure to use. I phone a number I know to confirm the email's not a phish and get through almost at once. It's 24/7 service. I'm reassured. I go smoothly to the relevant site and change my password, knowing if I have problems I can talk almost immediately to a human being anytime of the day or night, and if I'm struggling go in the week to the IT Service Desk and meet and even touch a real human being.  In this case I follow clear instructions and get an instant auto email reply 'The password for the Active Directory account "*****" has been changed at ****.'  This is an ace service, well protected (as it ought to be), to be coveted given that it gives me access not just to email and information about the university, but, and this is the real gift, access via Athens and Shibboleth to every university or affiliated library in the world allowing me to read and often download almost every academic journal paper and publication that exists.

*** ***

For inefficiency surpassing the call of normal bureaucratic hebetude there's the challenge Linda and I, and other designated members of the working committee for Central Handsworth Practical Care Project (CHPCP), face trying to alter the signatories on the project's Business Account with Barclay's Bank.
In Feb '11 I'd been approached by Edmund Branch (see him in the film) following the resignation of the Project Manager Mr Ali, who'd taken over, in vague circumstances, after the death of the project's founder Glynis Foley in 2010. Could Linda and I help? We were asked the same by Mahmood Hussain, co-founder of the project, though he is now no longer a councillor. We recruited friends; called an emergency meeting on 31 March. A paragraph in the minutes of that meeting mentioned the bank account:

In order to cash cheques two signatures are required. Currently the only signatories are Mr A and CB. Theoretically no cheques can be signed because Mr Ali is no longer a member. At least three signatories need to be appointed to avoid this situation happening again. It was agreed that, as an interim measure, these would be MT, CB and EB, and appropriate forms have been completed. An appointment with the business manager at Barclay’s Bank, Perry Barr, needs to be arranged in order to submit the forms. In the meantime we have asked Mr A to continue to sign cheques. 

Prior to the meeting we'd picked up Mandate forms from Barclays' Perry Barr. Once the meeting had approved the 'interim measure' three of us took our completed Mandate forms with names, addresses and proofs of identity for each signatory into the bank. We were told by someone - didn't think to take their name - on the customer side of the counter that no-one could help. We needed to see the Branch Business Manager, Selina Cooppen, who, owing to reorganisation, divided her time between several branches. She was available at Perry Barr on particular days at certain times. The person who told us this photocopied our IDs and attached them to the completed forms, promising they'd be given to Selina, who would switch the account to the new signatories on the Mandate forms. The whole process "takes about a week" we were told.
In the meantime we were acutely aware that though cheques could be paid into the project account by clients for whom Edmund and Krzysztof were working, no money could be withdrawn to pay wages, insurance or tax or materials for jobs. Edmund would have to continue taking some payments for work in cash - all receipted - out of which he could glean what he and Krzysztof  needed to keep the project going. They'd have in the interval to do without their normal monthly wages. The interim committee managed at least to get hold of Mr Ali - unobtainable since his resignation - long enough to have him and Charles sign three holding cheques to reassure the Inland Revenue and pay partial wages to Edmund and Krzysztof. Three more cheques to cover similar outgoings were signed with just CB's name, assuming these could be co-signed by one of the new signatories, on our assumption that by the time they were needed the account would be active. Thereafter further cheques could be drawn on the account as and when.
With that, as we believed, in hand, Lin and I left for Corfu on 1 April, feeling we had moved forward from insolvency, with agreements in place for the payment of insurance, MOT, the next month's wages and further sums to the inland revenue, and a second emergency meeting agreed for 19 May'11.
While we were in Corfu Edmund sent us messages reporting new work, client cheques paid into the project's bank account and agreed jobs done. We assumed things were going smoothly. The second emergency meeting was at our house on 19 May'11.

Lin, Leslie, Edmund, Krzysztof and Mike - second emergency meeting

An extract from the Minutes of that meeting, completed with a supplementary note the next day:

The bank has not yet approved the new signatories for the cheque book, though the mandate forms were taken in 2/3 weeks ago. E & M will contact the bank to check progress. Update following phone calls to the bank: The bank has ‘lost’ both the mandate forms for adding (new names) to the list of signatories, even though they were taken in at different times. They are sending new forms, but this will delay the process considerably and perpetuate difficulties in gaining access to funds. Linda Baddeley complained by phone to Barclay’s (the main number, not the local branch). They will speak to Selina Cooppen (Business Manager, Perry Barr branch) and contact Charles Bate (as the only remaining official signatory) after investigation.

Over the next week Mike and I completed a new set of Mandate forms, and resubmitted them to the branch with the same IDs. We were  told the Bank would phone as soon as these had been processed. Edmund and Krzysztof  were getting more and more frustrated and worried - for obvious reasons. Three days ago Mike, who'd been making regular phone calls to the Perry Barr Branch of Barclays was told, a fortnight after the new Mandate forms had been submitted that the branch had no record of them. He phoned us.
"Guess what. The bank has lost the second lot of forms. We've got to fill in another set and bring them in with ID again."
Later Mike came to our house with another new form for me that he'd collected from the Perry Barr branch. I filled this in, planning to go to the Perry Branch branch the next morning.
Mike phoned again.
"I think I've found a way forward. I've taken my form to Barclays' Birmingham HQ on the Hagley Road. They've promised to give it to their Mandate team on the third floor. They can't process the new arrangement until they have your form, Simon. You go to Barclays HQ tomorrow. Ask for Andrew on the Mandate team and he'll deal with you"
Yesterday - 3 June - Lin and I, after she'd found a lucky parking place, went into Barclays on Hagley Road with my completed form and ID.
"Hullo" says Lin to Zahir Khan behind a counter. She introduced us; explained our errand. He looked puzzled
"We've come to see Andrew in the Mandate Team."
"Do you have his surname?"
"No just 'Andrew'. On the third floor, with the Mandate team"
"There are lots of Andrews up there."
"I don't believe you," said Lin
"They don't come down anyway. It's not in their remit" He turned to a thin young fellow employee. "They want to see someone in the Mandate Team." The beardless youth curled his lip and shrugged. I glared at him. I'd asked Lin to do the talking because I didn't trust my manners.
"Look" said Lin, "you have over £3000 of this project's money. We can't pay wages. One of our staff has been given notice for non-payment of rent at his flat. He and his mate haven't been paid in three months. We owe money to the inland revenue. We can't buy essential materials...and Barclays, who we approached about this at the end of March, have now mislaid two sets of Mandate forms. Do you understand the urgency?"
He apologised with formal profuseness.
"Wait a moment I'll see what I can do." He wandered off across the bank's immaculate concourse.
"He's probably gone round the corner to wait for a few minutes," muttered Lin "He'll be back to tell us 'computer says no'. Did you hear him when he said 'there are lots of Andrews up there'?"
If I'd been a kettle I'd have boiled dry after a long whistle. After a few minutes Mr Khan did return.
"Someone from upstairs will speak to you on the phone in one of our private booths."
He took us to a desk in a booth, dialed a number and handed the phone to Lin who found herself listening to a recorded message with options - as if she'd phoned from outside. Having pressed the right buttons she got through to Sophie in the Mandate Team and explained the situation.
"I'll come down." she said
"So they can break their remit?" observed Lin.
In a few seconds we were chatting to Sophie, a nice young woman, who copied my passport and other ID - a utility bill with my address -  and assured us the matter would be dealt with by the end of the banking day or by Monday.
"Monday the 6th? Are you sure?" asked Lin
"Yes. Promise."
We headed home.
"I don't think I've experienced quite such a sequence of inefficiencies," I said to Lin "God I hope Sophie-without-surname gets things done by Monday. At least we'll be up to a starting line for the project."
We've our next CHPCP meeting on 16 June. We've been circulating letters to the old committee members to attend and join in, send apologies or resign. One was in India, another had just disappeared, but slowly we are getting in the signed slips with names and addresses that will legitimate declaring a new committee with the approval, or at least acceptance, of the old. On 23 June we have a meeting with Yvonne Wager and her colleague Jessie Gerald to explain what's been happening, to show that the project is up and running, legitimate, able to take work from the City.

2. Dissolution of the current Board. There were no members of the old Board present, despite Edmund having advised those he managed to see of the date and time of the meeting. No communication by letter, phone or email had been received from any of them. Consequently, it remained impossible to dissolve the current board. It was agreed at the meeting to continue the meeting with the voluntary advisory group set up at the previous meeting (agenda item 2 – 31/3/11). In these circumstances it was agreed to defer discussion of agenda items 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 until the new committee is established.
In order to resolve the continuing problem of how to dissolve the old Board so that a new committee for the CHPCP can be properly constituted, it was agreed that a special general meeting will be held on June 16th. In line with the present constitution, all Board members will be sent a formal written invitation giving at least 21 days notice. This letter will be delivered by hand and a receipt obtained. If any Board member cannot be contacted, the same letter will be sent to their address by recorded delivery. They will be informed that, if they do not attend the special meeting or send apologies, it will be assumed that they do not wish to continue participating in the activities of the project. In the meantime the present group will continue, on a purely voluntary advisory basis, to attempt to resolve the project’s current difficulties.
Recognising the difficulty created in the meantime for the reputation and standing of the project, it was agreed that a meeting will be arranged with a senior manager of the Perry Barr Constituency as soon as possible. 
Update regarding the proposed meeting
This meeting has now been arranged with Yvonne Wager, Neighbourhood Manager, Lozells and East Handsworth Ward and Jesse Gerald, Perry Barr Constituency Support Officer on 21 June ’11

5 June '11: I've drawn the attention of Barclays' Complaints site to my account of our experiences and received this instant computer generated response:

Thank you for taking the time and trouble to let us know of your disappointment on this subject. We value your feedback and we are sorry that you have experienced dissatisfaction on this occasion. Your complaint has been forwarded to the Customer Relations Team who will provide you with an update within the next five working days. Please note that for security reasons they will respond to you in writing rather than email. We want to reassure you that we are dealing with your complaint as quickly as possible and will investigate all aspects fully. Please see our website for further information on how we deal with complaints, Regards, Barclays Bank PLC

***** *** *****
European authorities and the IMF say Greece will receive the next instalment of its bail-out funding -  €110 billion to be paid before August 2011. She is the hesitant beneficiary of another big idea - the EU

** * ** * ** * **
I read many texts on the internet, I buy most of my books off the internet, but I do like the heft of a book, the smell and touch of paper. I don't think I'll buy an e-book reader. I had a chat on Facebook about the future of books and book-selling with my niece after she'd written a piece in the Spectator
...Anna, I agree with you, but I strive to build evidence based arguments that demonstrate the market failure of turbo-charged capitalism where it pushes the 'logic' of terminator seeds, 8000 cow dairy parlours, and the rationale of intensified food production. Next time you write throw in a seed of hope that some trends aren't inevitable, and I don't mean wishing for a new ice age. Uncle S XXX

01 June at 08:04 ·  · 

• • 
    

    Anna Baddeley haha yes it was a little pessimistic. Sadly though I do think this one is inevitable, in the longer term at least. Waterstone's may survive in some shape or form but not without closing a lot of shops — there just isn't a big enough market for full-price literary fiction & non-fiction.
    

    01 June at 11:53 · 
  • 
    

    Simon Baddeley http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/06/ebooks-not-there-yet/2/ ..doesn't mean the way is clear for e-books tho' S X
    

    Yesterday at 01:26 · 
  • 
    

    Anna Baddeley thanks Simon that's interesting. He makes some good points among the silly ones, eg would def make sense to get an e-book with your print edition. They are about to take off in a big way though, the new kindle is really good.
    

    21 hours ago · 
  • 
    

    Simon Baddeley ‎"About to take off " but we're still on the apron. Kindle's good for book business, critics and judges. I'm less sure about readers. A bound book, sentiment aside, is nothing if not ergonomic. See archivists too on anxieties about long term digital storage. Paper even parchment seems to last better than rejigged ways of story zeros and ones (e.g. binary) - or do you know something I don't...as someone who's enjoyed reading handwriting in archives I suspect we lose something with the loss of pen to paper, as we do with digital drawing and painting. I'm saying William Morris has a point.
    

    20 hours ago · 
  • Anna Baddeley Yes definitely, although whether a 608 page hardback is more ergonomic than an ebook is debatable! Don't think books are in danger of dying out anytime soon, but I am seeing more and more people with kindles & ebook sales have now outstripped hardbacks on amazon. Interesting times! x
    

    14 hours ago · 
    Simon: I'm also impressed with a piece in the NYRB Publishing: The Revolutionary Future by Jason Epstein who while confessing to inhabiting a study of loved wall-to-wall books writes: The transition within the book publishing industry from physical inventory stored in a warehouse and trucked to retailers to digital files stored in cyberspace and delivered almost anywhere on earth as quickly and cheaply as e-mail is now underway and irreversible. This historic shift will radically transform worldwide book publishing, the cultures it affects and on which it depends. Meanwhile, for quite different reasons, the genteel book business that I joined more than a half-century ago is already on edge, suffering from a gambler’s unbreakable addiction to risky, seasonal best sellers, many of which don’t recoup their costs, and the simultaneous deterioration of backlist, the vital annuity on which book publishers had in better days relied for year-to-year stability through bad times and good. The crisis of confidence reflects these intersecting shocks, an overspecialized marketplace dominated by high-risk ephemera and a technological shift orders of magnitude greater than the momentous evolution from monkish scriptoria to movable type launched in Gutenberg’s German city of Mainz six centuries ago.....
    

So will I get my paper books via an Espresso machine? Will I come to reading books out of sentiment as I might refuse to use the engine on my sailing boat, or cycle rather than climb into a car, or dig ground for my vegetables rather than buying them over the counter, will I prefer wood joinery to cheaper synthetic construction? What are the questions here? My great grandmother, Lucy Halkett, who died at 99 in 1969 taught me to read when I was very young and taught me too to look after a book... “never turn down a page to keep your place; never turn back the spines on themselves; never write in a book.” I've disobeyed her, but even now as I jot in a margin, underline a phrase, fold the tip of a page, stain a book with jam or gravy or wine, leave it in the sand on a beach, push it doubled up into a baggy jacket pocket, I note her advice, prepare my excuses. I think she'd have been fascinated by an e-book, as she wondered at and used the phone and taught me about listening to her valve-powered radio in the 1940s that used to take a minute to warm up, as she flew -  in her 80s - to see her family stationed in Hong Kong, and enjoyed watching the television...and got worried, in her 90s, her mind was going because it was taking her nearly an hour to do the Times Crossword.
** ** **
Last night I led a scrutiny course for Forest Heath District Council deep into the flatlands of East Anglia. Council offices at Mildenhall, without a station so I took a taxi to and from Ely, an amiable Pole, demonstrating his skills as a taxi driver, told me his reasons for coming to England without telling me, and his thoughts about England without sharing them - or rather I can't recall a thing he said.

SCRUTINY BASICS: WHAT A MEMBER NEEDS TO KNOW

2 June 2011

This programme will assist members in understanding:
· what scrutiny is, the existing and new legislation, and how they can make it work well and engage local communities, and the public, in the scrutiny process;
· what goes on beneath the surface. How the process in managed, by the leading councillors working with the officers, and, and how all the councillors can be involved in interesting activities which assist the council;
· The challenges and opportunities opened up by scrutinizing organisations outside the council.

PROGRAMME

6.00 Welcome, Introductions

6.10 Making a Success of Overview and Scrutiny: What it is, and what have we learnt about how to make it work well. Including the 2000 Act, new legislation, call-ins, calls-for-action, and the procedures in Forest Heath Council

6.45 Issues facing Scrutiny in the Current Context (work in small groups, with feedback and discussion)

7.10 Managing the scrutiny process Engaging with local communities, involving the public, monitoring the process and ensuring effective action

7.40 External scrutiny: Developing an interesting and relevant programme (with work in small groups, and feedback)

8.00 Comments and Conclusions*

8.15 Seminar concludes

* Andrew C had drawn my attention to a report that came out this February with implications for scrutiny ‘Taking the Lead - Self-regulation and improvement in local government’. With the ending of the Audit Commission, Public Service Agreements (PSAs) and Comprehensive Area Assessments (CAAs) and other external performance inspections and measurements, it's a report offering practical advice on greater self-regulation and improvement by local authorities. Implicit in this is the contribution of overview and scrutiny, which many feared would be an easy target amid public sector cuts.

Ely: waiting for my train back to Birmingham

Starting to learn the map of Eastern Europe

The map in my head of Eastern Europe is vague. A large area east of old West Germany and Italy which now includes parts of what was once the Soviet Union and, of course, the Balkans through which we will make our next journey to Corfu in January 09. Cities - Vilnius, Minsk, Leipzig, Dresden, Warsaw, Krakow, Graz, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest, Zagreb, Sarajevo - resound in significance, but their location in relation to each other eludes me, like those towns in western Europe to which American's affix the country; 'London-England', 'Paris-France'.

[16/10/08 Back to the future: Eastern Europe's experience of recession] [15/11/08 Balkanology: Architecture & urban phenomena in SE Europe: 'Since the collapse of the socialist economic system in ex-Yugoslavia and Albania and the war that lead to the split of Yugoslavia, a new form of urbanisation typified by extensive informal building activity has appeared on the territory. Taking advantage of sketchy legal frameworks and governments initially too weak to enforce rules and regulations, inhabitants have taken the issue of housing shortage in their own hands, they started building new dwellings from scratch and adapting existing edifice for their own purposes.']

As we waited in the ferry terminal at Igoumenitsa on Tuesday evening I looked at maps. Here was one of Epirus - the mainland province of Greece we see from Ano Korakiana. To my delight a rail route diverts from the mainline between Thessaloniki and Athens to Makrynitsa, then west to Kardetsa before turning north to Kalambaka from where, after visiting the monasteries at Meteora, we can take a bus via Trykala to the coast at Igoumenitsa. On the ferry to Ancona there was a wall map of Europe. I checked distances between Athens and other eastern capitals - beginning to make sense of the line Warsaw-Poland, Prague-Czech Republic, Bratislava-Slovakia, Budapest-Hungary, Bucharest-Rumania, Ljubljana-Slovenia, Zagreb-Croatia, Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Belgrade in Serbia, Tirana in Albania, Skopje in FYROM, The Republic of Macedonia - the country with the contested name that borders the Greek province of Macedonia [25/11/08 e.g. Μακεδονία] - then Sofia in Bulgaria. Then east of this line, running north-south from the Baltic are the smaller countries of Estonia (Talin), Latvia (Riga) and Lithuania (Vilnius), with the exclave of Russia (Kalingrad), whose existence was unknown to me, squeezed between Lithuania and Poland, followed southwards by Belarus (Minsk), Ukraine (Kiev) on the Black Sea and another small landlocked state squeezed between Rumania and Ukraine - Moldova (Chişinău), and marching on Moldova's eastern border with Ukraine, the frozen conflict zone of Transnistria (Tiraspol). I'd not heard about this place until today and the ominous phrase 'frozen conflict' wasn't in my lexicon. It's an obvious offspring of 'cold war'. Where 'thaw' implied conciliation, here it means conflict breaking out. We'd had the idea of flying to one of the cities of Poland or a country further south, then going on via rail and bus to Greece. Back in Birmingham we studied the cheapest flights to Eastern Europe with rail connections southward and came up with Sofia, from where trains go to Thessaloniki south to Athens. I began when looking for these to find out the unreliability of the web, so convenient for arranging rail travel in Western Europe. Linda booked us two return air fares from Luton to Sophia by Wizz Air Hungary - one we hope survives until next year. Our flight gets in around 0050 and the first bus into town and the mainrail station - number 84 - runs at 0500 [information at Sofia Airport site in English]. We'll need to bivvy down until the first bus to town. That was straightforward but it took a while to find the Sophia-Thessaloniki timetable via a link on Bulgarian Railways' website. From Thessaloniki we catch one of two daily Athens trains south via Larissa, ours leaving at 0700. OSE Hellenic Railways website was unhelpful, so I'm unsure when we get to Larissa. For Larissa to Kalambaka, I found, from another site that athough there is a rail route, the bus is probably simpler for this part of our journey to Corfu:

Larissa to Kalambaka: The bus will take you to Trikkala in one hour, price: €4, first at 0630, they run almost hourly until 1930. Then it is 30-min and €1.8 to Kalambaka; buses leave every 30-min. (ask at info booth in Larissa for direct bus to Kalambaka...there are some...then you do not have to change at Trikkala). Buses leave the main station in Larissa, 150 mtrs north of Pl.Laou at Olympou & Georgiadou.

We will find a place to stay at Kalambaka so we can visit Meteora before going on to Igoumenitsa. The same site helped us on this:

Kalampaka to Igoumenitsa ... There are 2 buses you can take: 0850 and 1520 from Kalambaka to Ioannina (3 hrs) €10.50. If you take the 1520] to Ioannina you should still be in time to catch the 2000 bus to Igoumenitsa. Believe the cost is about €8 additional. 2hr trip. If you are looking to leave Igoumenitsa for Corfu the night you arrive... you better hurry, the last ferry of the night leaves for Corfu around 2200 ... It will likely wait for late arrivals off that last bus, but it won't wait too long and it won't wait IF it is filled. Hopefully you will be taking the morning bus out of Kalambaka and not worry about it. Good luck. Calh taxidi. Denny

It disappointed me is that the celebrated Man in Seat 61 hyperlinks to Greece and Bulgaria, though directing me to these country's rail services, said nothing about the inadequacy of their websites. A helpful man at the Greek National Tourist Office in London apologised for the OSE website while assuring me of my itinerary to Corfu this way. The Rail Europe office who have been helpful in the past could not help with rail travel in Eastern Europe, nor could International Rail to whom Rail Europe referred me. * * * An e-mail to All Experts:

Dear Denny. Your other answers on getting to Kalambaka and on to Igoumenitsa have been very helpful, but the OSE website is not so helpful. Can you tell me when the early afternoon train from Thessaloniki arrives in Larissa, for us to connect with a bus to Kalambaka on 21 Jan 09? Also when does it stop, morning and afternoon, in Larissa on the way back to Thessaloniki? Best wishes, Simon & Linda

Answer from Denny:

Yiasou Simon, thanks for the question. I am not quite sure why you want to do that ... Why not just take the bus from Thessaloniki to Trikala (3hrs. 6 per day. 0800-2100 daily. €15), then take the bus to Kalambaka from Trikala. Every 40 min. 30 min ride. Under €2. Taking the train from Thessaloniki into Larisa to catch the connecting bus to Trikala/Kalambaka will require you get to Thessaloniki train station by 1000 to catch the 1030 to Larisa. It is a 2-hour train ride (€5). Gets you into the Larisa station at the 5-way intersection on Panagoula about 1230 in the afternoon. Then from the 5-way intersection, walk about 600m to the gas station bus stop on the left, still on Panagoula. The 1-hour trip by bus to Trikala makes at least 3 runs between 1300 and 1930. Price €4. (So you will save money this way, as about €11 is the cost of the train/bus combination vs. about €17 going bus all the way from Thessalonika. So it will be cheaper but not as convenient. good luck Simon. Calh taxiedi Denny

* * * I enjoyed the opportunity on flickr to describe why I own five Brompton folding bicycles. * * *
I was scanning the excellent blog - An American in Athens. Engaged to a Greek citizen (I think) Kat quotes national comments, and telling stats, on corruption in Hellas, quoting Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). Greece scores - ever so slightly - better on corruption measures than some of the enlargement EU countries of Eastern Europe. In my old age I should be in a better position to be widely understanding of human weaknesses, but how I detest public corruption, especially as practised among the prosperous, wont to whinge priggishly about danger in the streets and squares of the world while gutting the commons; snatching from the public purse; sharing smug self-justification to excuse their criminality - and 'oh so sorry' - shrewdly commodified repentance - on the few occasions they do get their just desserts. * * *
Phone chat with my mother in Scotland. She told me that at the start of September four friends of one of her best friends, related to each other, went walking in the woods. They collected and ate some cortinarius speciosissimus, (two pictures on the right) possibly mistaking the fungi for chanterelles (two pix on the left) which are delicious. I pick them when I'm in Strathnairn. I've had trouble noting differences between false (bottom pic: less egg yolk yellow, slightly slimmer stem) and real chanterelles. Fungi are seldom like the neat pictures in guide books. I suppose CS could be mistaken for chanterelles. Trouble is, where the false chanterelle is merely tasteless and tough, CS can be fatal or make you very ill.

A missing commentary - the debate between sea and olives

Dora Bakoyannis, Greece's impressive Foreign Minister, and ex-Mayor of Athens, was doing things in London this week - like talking with David Miliband about Greek-Turkish relations and the FYROM issue. She brought a signed copy of Alexander the Great's birth certificate issued well south of the Slav upstart state claiming his history. No seriously, that's a squabble that has to be talked out by diplomacy - so it never gets fought out.

[Back to the future - 17 Dec '09: At the end of November 09, DB lost a fight with Antonis Samaras for the Leadership of New Democracy, in opposition since PASOK won a General Election in October '09. Op-Ed from Kathimerini]

DB is a politician who tends not to put a foot wrong. (Future PM?) Bakoyannis, in the Mercouri tradition, met the British Committee for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles. She thanked them for their campaigning, stressing that Athens' goal (diplomatic metonymy) was to "reunite" the Marbles being held at the British Museum in London with those in Greece - a shrewdly used word; a change of name.

'They do not only belong to Greece but the world has a right to see them united at the new Acropolis Museum'

Consider the blank space on the west pediment above our heads in this snap taken by another couple who we'd just snapped for their album. Whether you have the place to yourself - which can happen - or whether it teems with visitors, its genius loci is undeniable, yet in this world of 'signage' designed to teach visitors and remind locals about their history - the most finely crafted commentary on the Acropolis is missing. Blast away its roof and scar its pillars, it is the story told in marble on the pediments and friezes of the Parthenon that is as important to its integrity as Genesis is to the Bible or the statue of Romulus and Remus suckling a wolf is to Rome.

The theme of the western pediment is the rivalry between Athena and her uncle, Poseidon, as to who should be patron of their favourite city. Witnessed by Cecrops, the Goddess offers an olive branch; the God, a saltwater spring. What's that about? Ponder pethia! Think visitors! Or head to northern climes and check it while I have a skirto.

Olives are good food, good wood and their oil fuelled lamps. Both could be traded. Poseidon's gift was about sea power - important for defence and trading. Which is the best gift? What qualifies Cecrops to judge? Poseidon and Athena occupy the central, high point of the west pediment's triangle - or should. Also up there - or should be were he not in the British Museum - is Cecrops, half man and half serpent, born from the soil, ancestor of the Greeks, who, by preferring Athena's gift, founded Athens teaching her citizens to bury the dead, honour the contract of marriage, to read and write. A civiliser. The Parthenon was named Cecropia in his honour. It became home to Phidias' building-high ivory and gold statue of Athena. Can you see the problem here - a tension between peace and war; between the practicality of the olive, not to mention its beauty, and the fact of Piraeus and the security of the broad blue highway from whence came the trading economy of the Aegean basin and littorals beyond? Some lesson! Did the neat little recording gadget tell you that while you were gazing in wonder at the remains of the marble narrative - chipped and bowdlerised by ill advised cleaning - in the British Museum? [one of my students stands before the east pediment marbles a few weeks ago] Erichthonius, also on the west pediment, was the second king of Athens. I am confused about him. There seems to be speculation about his history and identity. He wasn't Athena's son but she brought him up. He taught his subjects to work silver, put horses to chariots, and to pull the plough. I don't think Poseidon liked him. I need to learn more. Then there are more water divinities - Iris and Hermes among them - joining in a debate which, for the moment, remains muted and remote since the chamber above our heads is sadly empty. When I was last there, I was looking at the miniature reconstructions of the pediments in the museum on the Acropolis. I got into conversation with a Greek visitor from Thessalonika. I said I'd very much like to see the marbles returned, since their absence made me ignorant, stopping me shifting my gaze in a helpful way from pediments to frieze - a four-fold lesson there - to the larger structure, to the city below and towards the sea to the south. He said 'Yes they must come back, but we are not ready for them. Because of the air pollution in Athens they will have to go from your museum to our museum.' Having first seen the incomparable Parthenon in the late 1950s I was indeed struck by the pollution damage since then; more harm in 30 years than in many previous decades. I saw his point. More pragmatic than moral. Athens' pollution problems are not helped by her magnificent topography. The great city is located in a basin surrounded by high mountains and the dear dark faced sea that has served her so well. Air dispersion despite the etesian winds of summer is minimal. It is the only city where I - a traveller - have suffered as much from the humid heat of August and which makes cooler suburbs like Kifissia so seductive. The main sources of air pollution - motorised traffic, industry, domestic heating and air-conditioning - is increased by solar radiation during spring and summer. Athenians know 'the nefos'. The fires on Parnitha and closer in Kifissia amplify the problem - driven by ill-chance and yearning for land. Traffic congestion seems as bad as ever. [19/01/08 Problem continues: Stavros Dimas to Parliament on CO2 emissions measurement “This issue can create a problem for the entire EU – imagine the ridicule for our country" ] In 1977 the pollution of Athens was so bad, that, according to then Greek Minister of Culture, Constantine Trypanis, the caryatids of the Erechtheum had seriously degenerated, while the face of the horseman still on the Parthenon's west side was all but obliterated. Strict measures during the 1990s improved air quality. Five of the caryatids were replaced with replicas - the orginals placed in the Acropolis Museum. Elgin had the sixth. [He's got a receipt. 'Hold on it was in my pocket just now. Wait. it's somewhere here, I promise.']. The nefos is rarer, but summer 2007 saw great palls of smoke blanketing the city. All the same, more Athenians are on bicycles. Many more rely on the superb rapid transit system that came with the Olympics. But people are people. They love their cars. They covet, they yearn and sometimes they burn. The National Law 1650/86 contains the main legal framework for the protection of the environment. Air is monitored in a highly detailed scientific way, but...so much depends on human beings, corporate responsibility and confident government. ['The pilfering lords have gone, but the hungry clouds of pollution do damage in Athens nearly as bad.' Richard Stoneman (ed) Land of Lost Gods: The Search for Classical Greece, London: Hutchinson, 1987, p.300] If the Parthenon marbles return to their pediments - not just to a superb air-conditioned humidity-controlled museum nearby (politically correct as that would be) - Greece will have achieved more than a just restoration, she will have tackled one of the great urban problems of the world. The statue of Romulus and Remus is in the Musei Capitolini not in the open on the Capitoline Hill, needing similar protection from air pollution. If the Parthenon marbles do not return to their original place, then can you reproach those with the means who also retreat to 'superb' air-conditioned humidity-controlled environments separated from their fellows, shielded from the effects of their way of life? The message on the west pediment - the debate between Poseidon and Athena, between sea and olives should be renewed and resolved. They may argue. They may quarrel. But if they cannot share the same space then nor can we. The next time I enjoy an olive from Kalamata or Halkidiki I will be more aware of its salty taste.

[Back to the future: For another juxtaposition of sea and tree or rather 'boat vs. tree' see this blog entry on how toy-sized boats are being replacing by trees in Greek Christmas celebrations. Christmas trees came to Greece rather as they came to Britain - in King Otto's Bavarian baggage to Greece and in Prince Albert's German baggage to Victorian England] [Who owns the Codex Sinaiticus, until the 19thC in the Monastery of St Catherine, Sinai - probably the earliest copy of the Holy Bible in Greek?]

* * *

What British things have been taken to another place? I can't think of any that are a bone of contention. US universities have bought quite a few original manuscripts, and now and again we hear of British Museums trying to save certain works 'for the nation' in competition with overseas private collectors. I'm failing to imagine what it must feel like to want the Parthenon Marbles back - because they are 'ours'. Cargo cults are driven by a shared feeling in a subject population that a powerful tribe has run off with their forefathers' wealth and magic powers, their technology and art. I wonder if growing Greek self-confidence will lessen demands for the return of the marbles so that when they come back, as I think they should and eventually will as part of the integrity of Pericles' Acropolis, the party will be ill-attended. Had Elgin not completed his mission for which he suffered famous abuse from Byron*, illness, impoverishment and gross disfigurement, the world might not have the marbles that now exist.

*Cold is the heart, fair Greece! that looks on thee,

Nor feels as lovers o'er the dust they lov'd ;

Dull is the eye that will not weep to see

Thy walls defac'd, thy mouldering shrines remov'd

By British hands, which it had best behov'd

To guard those relics ne'er to be restor'd.

Curst be the hour when from their isle they rov'd,

And once again thy hopeless bosom gor'd,

And snatch'd thy shrinking Gods to northern climes abhorr'd.

Childe Harold: Canto 2 (15) 1812

[see note on bad building on Corfu]

[Back to the future: 5 Aug 2009 - Since writing this I've learned of a sturdy intellectual thread in Modern Hellenic culture that has mixed feelings about widely venerated emblems of Classical Greece such as the Parthenon, including growing political sophistication about the way regimes exploit the supposedly objective work of archaeologists - preserving, rebuilding and destroying resonant symbols. As a discipline it's referred to as 'socio' - or 'social archaeology'. See for instance Liana Giannakopoulou 'Perceptions of the Parthenon in Modern Greek Poetry' Journal of Modern Greek Studies, 20 (2) Oct 2002, pp. 241-272

The Parthenon is not a popular source of inspiration for modern Greek poets. Only a few poems are devoted to it, expressing either the poet's grief for bygone ages of glory or his praise of the immortal Greek spirit. Against this background, three poets can be distinguished for being different and original. For Palamas, who fights for the cause of Demoticism, the attitudes of his contemporaries towards the Parthenon encapsulate what he takes to be a sterile veneration of the ancestors. He thus opposes the idea of the restoration of the Parthenon, promoting the Modern Greek language instead. For Sikelianos, the Parthenon is only one monument among many. This weighty symbol of ancient Greek tradition is not a source of awe or embarrassment, but the yardstick that indicates the importance of the modern poet's achievement. For Calas, finally, the Parthenon is associated with the declining values of a doomed bourgeoisie and should therefore be blown up and replaced by new standards in life and art.

And see also Yannis Hamilakis 'The Other "Parthenon": Antiquity and National Memory at Makronisos' Journal of Modern Greek Studies, vol 20 (2) Oct 2002, pp. 307-338

Makronisos, the small, uninhabited island off the Attica coast, was the location of the most notorious concentration camp set up by the Greek government during the Civil War (1946-1949). It was a place of brutality, torture, and death, but its distinctive feature was its role as an indoctrination centre for many thousands of political dissidents (mostly left-wing soldiers and citizens, but also ethnic and religious minorities) who, after they were "re-educated" in the national dogmas, were sent to fight against their ex-comrades. Classical antiquity was one of the main ideological foundations of this "experiment," the audience for which was the whole of Greece and the international community. In the island, still known as "The New Parthenon," the "redeemed" inmates were encouraged to build replicas of classical monuments, and the regime's discourse emphasized the perceived incompatibility of the inmates' "destiny" (as descendants of ancient Greeks) with left-wing ideologies....]

[Back to the future: a 21 August 2009 op-ed on the debate about the ownership of antiquities]

[Back to the future - 19 Dec 2009: 'The Parthenon frieze can now be digitally observed, piece by piece' - a website in Greek analysing the frieze with superb images...also see p.14 of 11 Dec 09 Athens Plus in which there's a piece about modern marble craftsmen working on the Acropolis]