A bumble bee in the cockpit

Rain arrived in the early hours. I heard its patter before dawn and snoozed the better. By midday water was spouting in gouts from the gutter pipes, pouring down steps in the village like a burn in spate, running in rivulets down the street, gurgling into the cross street gutters. Heavy clouds streamed up from the south flowing up the sides of the mountains behind the village hiding the crags, blowing a loppy sea toward the strait. It rained all afternoon, into the evening. I was driving back alone from Tzavros after midnight, windscreen wipers at double speed. At the corner just beyond Marmara Trifona – stone factory – I skidded the car ending up in brambles and hollyoak facing back the way I’d come. In seconds I knew I was stuck there. But I was unhurt and so was the car. A Samaritan had already pulled up just ahead of me. Was I alright “Can I take you anywhere?” Andrioti on his way to Acharavi gave me a lift home to Ano Korakiana. Mark, who I texted, offered to help drag me out but said it was a very dangerous corner ‘better try your car hire company’. I cycled down to see the scene in the morning, sun shining again.

As I surveyed the scene several people stopped to check no-one had been hurt and offer assistance, but Yianni from ValuePlus cars in Sidari was sorting me out in no time. Early Sunday but Sophia, his wife - I think - answered the phone almost instantly. She contacted Yianni and a few minutes later said he’d be along with a tow truck in 45 minutes. Yianni’s first action on arriving was not to check his car but to express his relief I was safe and ask “Are you alright?”, later checking the new tires on the car in case they had been a problem, when I was well aware it was my fault for touching the brake too late on a steep corner in drenching rain. The two truck men, Spiros and another Yiannis, spoke for a few moments, then positioned the truck across the road, with one stopping northward traffic and me waving down southward. In less than five minutes the car was out of the verge, the road clear, and the car on the truck, taken to a layby a hundred yards away, and off loaded. Yianni drove it a kilometer back and forth and back and handed it back. “Everything’s fine. No worry. Pay the truck €40” Which I did gladly, with a tip, especially as I’d been offered an earlier tow for €90 by another passing truck while I was waiting for Yianni.

I’d not told Lin the night before what happened. Wanted it sorted first. Now I did, realizing how fortunate it was that I’d not had my skid at a lot of other places where I could have fallen off the road, toppled the car, injured or killed myself and worse done the same to another on the road. This is how everything goes pearshaped in life; how easily and ordinarily the man with the scythe can drop in for a chat. Now apart from the lesson about wet roads on Corfu – told me plenty of times – I hold the memory of people’s kindness and efficiency. That has so often been my experience here. ** ** ** Nice news from Handsworth. After lying dormant for three weeks rain has brought forth our potatoes, photographed by Richard in the rows I planted them at the end of August.

Chris on the neighbouring plot emailed:

Hi Simon. Good news from hobbit land your tatties are looking great and all seemed to have formed plants at least 15cm. They all seem to have sprouted. Only half of my last ones seem to have come up which is amazing. I have never grown potatoes before so will be interested in any ideas you have when they are ready to eat. We seem to have good soil. I have put my shed up only roof needs finishing. New leader for labour elected today as I find out my and Perdis and teams NHS jobs are now likely to end in April and all cycling work with BCC and Sandwell NHS seems to be slowing and payments have not been made this month. It will be good that the allotment will mean I will not get bored and there will be plenty of time to get good food next year. Hope you are enjoying your break. Yours Chris

** ** ** Earlier in the week: Lin, tidying, broke a favourite piece of strawberry glass; tiny fragments over the marble floor. Natasha, in a brown study, sat on her step was exclaiming about the high cost of the English language book her son needs for his first lessons. We’ve got more dictionaries than we need collected at table-top sales, so I could at least offer that. Apart from our good fortune in neighbours, we’ve already had infinitely more in generosity, food, coffees and wine, informal lessons and invitations to the family table, so it was a relief she accepted it as tiny quid pro quo, but we’re far from evens on gift exchange. **** Email from Val back in New Zealand:

Hi Lin. Sorry I didn’t email you as soon as I arrived, but I was too tired and too cold. Would you believe; freezing weather and snow? So I spent the evening in front of a hot fire. … I slept on all flights on the way home (even from Christchurch to Dunedin , which was very bumpy because of bad weather, and a small plane), and I slept for 10 hours last night! I bought some duty free perfume in Athens; no problem until I got to Bangkok, there a custom officer insisted I put the SEALED duty free bag in a snap lock plastic bag! No problems with the couple of things that I had bought in Dubai. In Sydney there were no problems with the couple of things that I had bought in Dubai , but the customs official - a woman - was concerned with the amount of perfume in the bottle which was still inside the sealed duty free bag from Athens , which was still inside the snap lock bag from Bangkok . Having assured herself that it was an OK amount, she informed me that she had to x ray it again!!! When I got to Christchurch there was no problem with the perfume but as I had come via Dubai and had bought duty free there, I was accosted by a male customs officer at the carousel while I was waiting for my case, wanting to know if I had bought any pipes (hookahs) in Dubai , or any other wooden things. By this time I was feeling very jaded and very belligerent, I just told him “Oh for God’s sake, I have enough bloody crap at home without importing any”. When he stopped laughing, he told me he had to ask because several times a week they had people trying to bring them into the country. The flight from Christchurch was delayed by nearly an hour because there was a bumble bee in the cockpit, and they had to search the airport for some fly spray! It would have been quicker if someone had driven to the nearest shop and bought some. (I have just glanced out of the window, it’s snowing again, so much for showing off my sun tan!) The insect bites are no worse, or better come to that. By the time I got home I had a thing the size and shape of a rugby ball at the end of each leg, but the swelling has gone down considerably overnight. Love Val Hi Val. Glad you arrived safely, in spite of your encounters with overenthusiastic customs officials, and managed to sleep the journey away. Hope I can do the same when we come over! Loved the bit about the bumble bee in the cockpit. Hope the bites will be better soon - I had a nasty one between my big toe and the next toe (the little buggers will find any bit that hasn't been doused in anti-mos stuff!), but good old Germolene has done the trick. Now that you're not here the mosquitoes have turned their attentions to me. Simon is obviously their last choice - not sure what that says about him. He did, however, trip up the steps today and managed to save himself by putting his hand on a wasp, which promptly managed to sting him before being crushed to death. Two Piriton tablets and Anthisan cream to the rescue! The weather has continued very hot since you left, but they've forecast rain tomorrow. We've managed to get some work done…Still plenty to do…Apparently it's freezing cold in the UK too, so I've got that to look forward to. Must go now. I''ll be in touch in a few days. Can't Skype, as it's too early for you. Love Lin

*** ***

Rain rain rain - and a good thing too. Cleaning the roads, washing the walls and paths, freshening the air, reducing humidity. It is almost impossible to imagine sun and brightness when the south wind arrives with its freight of mist and damp. Lin was fussing over a tiny leak in our roof in the back room upstairs and through a join in our flue pipe. For her its like a flaw in her plans for the house that even a drop of rain should find its way into her home. I scolded her for starting at a flea. She almost wept. In the village few people are about. The season is ending for tourism. Wood is being delivered and stored for the winter. Me. I like this weather, quite as much as when its sunny. It shows things in different light; cues different reflections.

A wet day in Ano Korakiana - Ισχυρό ΚΚΕ

**** In Scotland I have news, a few days ago, of the happy meeting of Minoti Chakravarti-Kaul and my mother, who Minto calls Theodora - which is one of my mum's names, but one I've never heard used. She has a way of giving special people she meets a choice of her names - Barbara, Poppet, Theo, Theodora.. A plot is unfolding - loose ends woven; nothing if not intriguing.

Email from Minto (mum says that's the diminutive they used) during their meeting at Brin Croft in the Highlands:

Dear Simon.Thank you so much for your emails and it is only just this moment that I have been able to sit down to my netbook in St Andrews - home of my daughter. I did not want to take up more than 2 hours with dear Theodora Sumner Maine - she will be just that for me for the rest of my life. Unknown to her we did not tell her that we would limit our time and so when we did get up to leave she was just in her natural mode of seeing us off. Contrary to what Sharon said she had no problems with my accent and I spoke up just a little and also went slowly but she is so very alert and it was amazing how she got on to the issue of common lands in the UK.

I left her the big volume on the tradition of commoning with her and we will post the latest copies to her from Langford soon. She wants to know everything about the movement. That is how we could not talk much about what I had planned to ask her and also I had to abandon the whole set of questions I had prepared to ask her. It does not matter as she asked me within a few minutes when I would come back and could I stay with her and I was amazed at how things turned around. She asked this several times so I told her that I would try and be back with her about February/March and if she had her grand children around her that I would rent a cottage somewhere and work on my book and bump it off her and she was delighted with the decision and said she would note it in her diary.

I was going to write chronologically about our visit but I will wait till I get back to Langford and write a more coherent account about our time with Theodora. But let me just say that when I first entered her home there she was like a Dresden china image of Lady Maine and the aura about her and the place was so beautiful and inviting that I almost did not remember all the formal circumstances. When we parted both of us had tears in our eyes as she said that Sir Henry would be pleased with us meeting and remembering him the way we did.

I did tell her a lot of things about Sir Henry and India and the aftermath of the mutiny etc....for the time please bear with me if I am not able to write anything which will capture the extraordinary spirit of our meeting - it was like linking to a hallowed past as if the time had not elapsed. Theodora is just amazing. God bless her. Thank you very much Simon for making all this possible. Regards, Minoti. Prof. Dr. Minoti Chakravarty-Kaul, C-59 Uttaranchal, 5 I.P. Extension, Delhi 110092 URL: http://commonlandsresearch.info

PS. The book shown in my hand there is the one with the paper cuttings of the time ... but the book itself will stay here till I come back next year and bring it back for the collection which may be we should index. What do you say? I have promised Theodora to organise the papers and books she says these are in the other house from where she had shifted to Brin Croft. She had no idea that her father, that is H.C.S. Maine, had several important groups of letters which he had made available to George Feaver! ...She is very interested in the issues of grazing lands in Scotland and shepherding.

And what Professor Chakravarti-Kaul added when I spoke to her on the phone while she was at Brin Croft, among other things, was "Your mother and I have been talking not about the past but about the future!"
Note: The photo of Minoti and my mother at Brin Croft is by Dr Peter Lane 
 ** ** **
 How lucky that now in my late 60s I encounter The Pickwick Papers. I could never have enjoyed these when younger. I wouldn't have understood or found it possible to engage with Dickens' first novel - though others of his I've enjoyed since youth. Leave reading Pickwick until later - like Cavafy. If it's taught in school play truant. Save for old age!

Sam Weller and Samuel Pickwick

*** *** Corfucius has pointed out that a 'spineless' news editor at the BBC has removed an account by the excellent freelancer Malcolm Brabant about the throwing of a shoe at George Papandreou during a recent protest in Thessaloniki. But see this from Teacherdude - citizen journalist - on 30 Sept '10.

Rain

We are surrounded by mist, thunder, and the pleasant sound – for us who trust our roof – of rain pattering, occasionally drumming, on the tiles, flecking the windows, drops dribbling at random down the pane, water streaming from the gutters down the paths to the drains. I get up with a light heart to do easy routines – restarting the stove until it roars merrily, wearing my long raincoat to rescue a lineful of washing from the garden, spinning it and hanging it to dry on a frame by the stove, bringing in wood kept covered and dry and feeding the fire that is no longer smoking, cleaning a pan that had soaked overnight in the kitchen, making myself porridge topped with dark sugar and cream, and calling Lin to wake for a mug of coffee. There’s a Bal Masque for in the Agricultural Co-op tonight on the lower road. We’d seen chairs being delivered. Natasha showed us her costume as we chatted over the fence yesterday. Then on 14 February there will be Carnivali in the village.

Yesterday Lin and I started work filling in the staircase in preparation for closing it altogether from the room through which it passes which we are making into a bedroom. The room next to the kitchen is to be a downstairs dining room, conveniently next to the kitchen and cooler in hot weather.

* * *

Lee Southall at Handsworth Park has circulated a nice poster advertising one of my history tours of the Park on Sunday 21 March. I fear he and his colleagues are under terrific pressure to make and take big cuts in their budgets, and their own jobs. I've written to local councillors across Handsworth and Perry Barr:

Dear Councillors and friends

Handsworth Park under threat from new

proposals for re-organising Ranger Services

These proposed changes to the management of Birmingham’s treasured parks – in particular Handsworth Park - are very troubling, especially as they include reduction in the Ranger Services.

As someone involved in writing the history of Handsworth Park and, with many others, campaigning for its restoration since the 1980s, I learned a lot about the contribution of parks to city life – especially their indirect contribution to health and education and the resulting contribution to community safety. It did not take long for my researches to catch up with something that the public has long known, that you cannot realise the public good of parks without park keepers – now the Ranger Service. Crime, like fire, prevented is very difficult to measure, thus the peacekeeping role of the Rangers in all our parks cannot, in a time of desperate purse tightening, be accurately assessed against the cost to the city of their wages. That failure in accounting practice will bear very directly on all who have come to enjoy what for the last 10 years has seen a renaissance in public parks.

As an almost daily visitor to Handsworth park before and after the Rangers arrived about ten years ago I, and others in my position, can attest to the 1001 incidents that might have gone from petty to serious which have been nipped in the bud merely by the presence of a ranger patrolling, let alone their many direct interventions that have prevented crimes in the park. In addition, our Rangers, in liaison with teachers, local police and community support officers, have participated in a whole range of actions with schools designed to catch potential problems long before they become those that once allowed our public parks to deteriorate into spaces from which the larger public – young and old - were barred by crime and anti-social behaviour.

We hope very much that local councillors and our MPs will be able to come together to press for damage limitation, especially as it was understood as part of the Heritage Lottery Fund grant for the restoration of Handsworth Park that revenue for its continued maintenance and staffing was guaranteed for at least 10 years from the time of the grant. There are still still a few years to run, By cutting back on services especially the ranger service in Handsworth Park the Council may be acting contrary to its agreement with the Heritage Lottery Fund. Can councillors please make urgent enquiries this and make appropriate representations?

I would also appreciate knowing whether we must anticipate any collateral impact on the opening and managing of the new Victoria Jubilee Allotments next to Handsworth Park. Best wishes, Simon

* * *

My talk at the Durrell School about relations between the British and the Ionians in the 19th century went well mainly because an indulgent audience of friends put up with me struggling to cover more information than needed for a 20 minute talk about Lord High Commissioners and the British Protectorate. I managed to cover all but Gladstone, whose role was well filled in during questions by Richard Pine who'd invited me to do the talk. Despite my detours we had a good hour of discussion about character and motives of quite a few of the participants in that 48 year episode in which the Ionians hoped they'd got a Protectorate while the British, with notable exceptions (Nugent, Seaton, Gladstone) assumed they had a colonial possession, getting down to why the British were here in the first place and whether the British, when they left in 1864, were pushed or chose to jump, and the shrewd politics of the Ionian Radicals about whom I’ve learned so much from Eleni Calligas’ work

Slides for my talk - pause the film to read the small writing; click on the image to get full screen on YouTube

Paul came with Lula. There were at least two other Greeks in the audience, which was good, as well as Irish. I felt I’d traversed some mined ground unscathed with kind remarks from a full house on a chilly winter’s evening. The thing is the honour of being invited to give such a talk after being here only a few years. The subject gets richer as I learn more about it. On the way back to our car in the Spaniada we heard a Scops owl hooting right over our head in one of the trees that line the esplanade. Lin, to my relief, said “That wasn’t too bad. I could've kicked you when you went off on one of your diversions.”

Afterwards Richard took us for a meal. “Nothing special. Just basic” “Suits us” Lin sat in a corner by a shuttered window onto Theotoki Street. “That's where Lawrence Durrell used to sit” said Richard. A French tourist had once thrust a copy of Prospero's Cell through this window and asked the author to sign it. We had beef and potatoes, chicken and chips and the local red. “So what of the economy?” I asked.

“Papandreou, having consulted with Samaras, spoke to the country on TV last night. ‘We are in for very tough times. We must all work together otherwise – the abyss.’” We realized the biggest cuts must be in the Hellenic public sector. “KKE won’t buy this. They have significant seats in parliament.” “So?” With a left unwilling to back a one nation response to the problems of the economy there'll be demonstrations. The EU watches; the Greek diaspora too. I mentioned my concern at the news that Birmingham City Council is to make big cuts in its Park Ranger Service. “Well they’ve done that in California...and without rangers the state might close Yosemite National Park”.

* * *

DEMOCRACY STREET AS SHARED SPACE

On main roads people drive fast, tailgate, overtake on bends and hoot to hurry up dawdlers, yet when Lin stops the car on Democracy Street, in a spot even narrower than the rest of the road through the village , above the steps down to our house so we can unload before she goes on to a parking space, other drivers who happen to come along – in either direction - will invariably wait politely. All along Democracy Street, as it winds through the village, drivers have learned just where to give way (wider spots we now know), wave another car on or proceed themselves, making judgements about width, sometimes folding in their mirrors to clear a wall, yet very seldom inconveniencing those on foot. Democracy Street, along with the narrow sinuous main streets of other villages is a shared space – an idea about roads being laboriously recovered in settings where for decades politicians and professionals have favoured the view that roads are for cars and sidewalks or pavements for those on foot – building in traffic lights and occasional crossing spaces to allow pedestrians to enter, at least briefly, a space separated off for people in cars. Thus it is on Corfu’s main roads and indeed on their pavements where despite prohibitions drivers, who would noisily resent a similar encroachment by walkers on their space, will often park their cars. In the middle of many villages here there are often no pavements. Network of narrow streets are often plaka’d to remind visitors that the space between houses are to be shared by everyone on foot, cycle, scooter, car, truck and bus; that indeed walkers are also ‘traffic’ - a word that in the years of the combustion engine has defaulted to exclude cyclists, horses, donkeys and people on foot, moving, sitting or leaning on walls. Everyone can own the street and it generally works, with opportunities for regular acts of civility as people negotiate their way through. Civility that is the essence of this process is largely abandoned on main roads. The human-to-human negotiation of Democracy Street is replaced by automatic regulation of the highway. It was long ago discovered that you can’t use eyes to engage politely with another human once both of you are likely to be passing each other above a certain speed – about 15mph maximum. Thus is the shared space of the village abandoned to the individualised space of the open road. Human eye and the repertoire of non-verbal language that lubricated social interaction was replaced by traffic lights, warning signs, designated crossings, barriers and remote surveillance by camera. What was worse, though it hasn’t happened in many villages here, is that the so-called ‘open road’ instead of just running between communities, was often forced through them, and motorised traffic was encouraged to speed through newly widened and straightened roads between demolished homes, getting their drivers more swiftly from A to B but blighting those settlements that lie between (see: community severance and shared space). * * * * Lin, unable to sleep in the early hours, rose and watched the dawn. That very bright light on the Albanian shore had been out for several days but is there again now.

A very helpful communication

On the basis of the e-mail received this afternoon it's pretty clear I should be off to The National Archives at Kew:

Thank you for your email - I finally did get it, although I am no longer at the British School at Athens. It is indeed a very interesting quest you are on, with that petition!
For some background, I think it is fair to say that opposition to the union of the Ionians to Greece as it was proposed in the 1860s and eventually carried out, came from the two ends of the political spectrum. On the one side was the old guard of the Radicals, who were against it on the grounds that, by ceding the islands as a gift, Britain retained and indeed expanded her influence over Greece (rather than being forced to abandon them on the basis of national self-determination, which was what the Radicals were clamouring for). On the other side were the genuine supporters of the Protectorate, and they tended to be concentrated in Corfu because, as the capital, it had benefited more than the other islands. Most of these pro-protectionists were concerned that, with the demise of the political status quo, their own privileged positions would be threatened. In an effort to influence the issue of the future of the islands (which was debated and very much in the air since Gladstone's 1858 mission, and even more so during Henry Stork's tenure as High Commissioner) a number of petitions were addressed to the British throne (my italics SB) (it being a constitutional right of the Ionians to petition their protecting sovereign) asking that the Protection be retained.
I do not know particular details but a good source for the period is the History of the Ionians by Chiotes (only, I'm afraid, in elegant but rather old fashioned Greek) - he was a witness to the events and narrates the very upsetting last episode of the blowing up of the Venetian fortifications by the departing British, which was bitterly resented by the Corfiots.
Now, regarding the particular document you are looking for, I would suggest that the best place to look is the High Commissioner's Correspondence at the Colonial Office archive of the Protection, housed in the Public Record Office, now re-named National Archives but still held at the Kew. I would look at the last couple of years, from 1862 onwards - probably starting from CO136/177 to /184. If such a petition does exist and is signed by inhabitants of the village, it would be interesting to identify the local figure of importance, as the initiative probably emanated from there.
I hope this is of some use and not off-putting in its detail - I do get a bit carried away as I am still very interested in the subject. It was a pleasure to see the website you mentioned which is very well constructed and informative - it shows great 'meraki'! I have not yet looked at your blog because I have an antiquated internet connection which does not lend itself to surfing - but hope to be able to update soon. Since part of your family is Greek and you live here occasionally, you will be familiar with the vagaries of OTE!
Please let me know how the quest progresses and if I can be of any help in the future.
With my best wishes for the new year, E**** C*******

'His petitioners still long for "the purple seas"'

New York Times (extract) 24 Feb 1859

KKE

I enquired over the internet about a leaflet published by the Communist Party of Greece. Back from their Central Committee's address in Athens, in just three days, in an envelope with postage stamps bearing the words ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ beside rich colours like the ones Dad used in 1949, when he wrote to me at school, has come 'Notes on the Greek Civil War (1946-1949) 60th Anniversary of the formation of the Democratic Army of Greece', with the logo of a red hammer and sickle and a greeting card with a striking painting by Maria Pesmatzoglou 'Best wishes for the new year. 90 years since the foundation of KKE. Central Committee, Communist Party of Greece.' [On this see my friend Lindsay's opinion of 'liberal history']

Burning Greece

In Birmingham it rains and rains. Meanwhile in the wondrous land I read about ferocious flames fanned by gales burning the northern outskirts of Vagelis' Gotham City - destroying the suburban homes homes of Nea Penteli, Melissia and Vrilissia, blackening the slopes of green Penteli. The meltemi drove destruction down the mountain. People threw belongings into their cars, fleeing the fire and the explosions of propane gas boilers. Planes dropped water as Athens broiled. "Strong winds and smoke have hampered our efforts," said Evangelos Falaras for the Greek Fire Brigade. "We can't zero in on the flaming region. So, much water is falling off target" shorting power cables. Penteli was burned by arsonists in the mid-1990s. Reforestation had transformed the region into one of the last areas of greenery accessible to Athenians.

I'm beginning to understand why it's so difficult to obtain proper maps in Greece - ones with details of planning intentions, of the kind I and other lobbyists have been able to refer to when campaigning to save green space from the political pressures to build on parks, playing fields and allotments. Maps are political - but in Greece they are too political. Greek land has constitutional protection, but its use is not, so far as I know, defined in detailed land use 'bibles' prepared every 20 years or so to link land use or what we now call spatial strategies to maps of an area - what we call Local Development Plans, Unitary Development Plans or Structure Plans.

Perhaps I should be pleased we have no constitution - since our legal system is a living thing based on precedent and practice; not fixed in the amber of grand language. I'm sure sophisticated maps exist of all Greece - for military purposes at least - but most people are without access to detailed maps of the kind that could be pinned on a wall at a public meeting or laid across tables in a kafenion or someone's sitting room where it's implications can be debated. Citizens cannot inspect zoning plans for an area. A senior researcher at the Forest Research Institute - who wanted anonymity - suggested to one Agency (SPIEGEL ON LINE NEWS "Forests don't vote" 17/07/07) that Greece’s forest management policies are a contributing factor. Forest protection is written directly into the Greek Constitution, so it is difficult to rezone forest land for other uses - even on the edge of growing cities like Athens. There are no official maps indicating the boundaries of forests, so once trees have been reduced to ash, developers claim land. Desire for land to build on may lead to arson. "This is the heart of the problem. Politicians, though, would never touch it. It wouldn't be so difficult to provide good maps, but they don't want to because there are so many votes involved.”

Elections are in September. Will 'unofficial rezoning' figure at the ballot box? How can local and national politicians make this into an election issue. It can't just be a national issue because the land market in Greece is driven by international custom - look at us! This is why I'm pleased that our home in Corfu is deep in the sokaki, but even so we are having an impact on the character of Ano Korakiana.

No man is an island. Isn't it ironic that someone at their computer screen in Greece can call up the detailed structure plan for any area of England and even lobby local politicians about a local plan in my street in Birmingham, but I cannot do the reverse. This is the best plan I can get of Ano Korakiana from the Municipality of Faiakon in Corfu. I love to look at it for what it reminds me of the beauty of this place, but it's as much use for land use planning as a glamour pin-up for an abdominal surgeon:

But see: THE GREEK NATIONAL STRATEGY TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT and official opinion from Greece on EUROPEAN SPATIAL DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVE (ESDP), and National Reporting on Greece to the Twelfth Session of the COMMISSION on SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT of the UNITED NATIONS. The critical thing is the adoption of professional analyses and prescriptions by political heavyweights. Looking through agency reports the President made the environment a key note headline in July, and there have been statements during the height of the fires from ND, Pasok and KKE leaders but I didn't see anything about strategy. It's more about visits to shake hands with emergency workers rather than meetings with planners. Kapodistrias-2 for the reform of local government is significant, but such things provide no photo opportunities. This is not to knock politicians, but it is to express hopes for Kapodistrian style statesmanship, managerialism, detail detail detail - driven by political will. How do you make a Structure Plan sexy?