Excuses

'Back in 2007 the Stern Report warned of the future costs of climate change. But it looks like its happening now. News reports of freak storms and forest fires in the USA, repeated floods in the UK, unseasonable fatal avalanches in the Alps, and yet the impact on subsistence farmers in other parts of the world has barely been reported, let alone counted..' .from a blog by Martin Stott, Sustainability Consultant for local government and beyond

"Martin, I promised myself that the vegetables on our table at Christmas would be from our allotment. They won't be."
"It's been a terrible year, Simon. My allotment was under water for weeks""
"You're kind. Onion fly, slugs, pigeons, rain rain rain - in June and July especially"

Martin's floating garden

"Lots of people have been abandoning their allotments"
"Because it's a lot harder than they realised"
"Also there's such demand. People are getting evicted"
"Yeah. It's all these gardening programmes making it look simple."

In the papers: ...They're to blame for thousands of allotment holders being evicted from unkempt plots....novice gardeners are becoming down-heartened...abandoning their plots to weeds and neglect...an estimated countrywide waiting list of 200,000 for plots, a record number of allotment holders...have been asked to vacate their land, for leaving their soil unworked...surge has been blamed on the popularity of gardening show...Steve Johnson, an allotment rep at Beverley town council, in East Yorkshire ~ “People see these gardening programmes that make it look easy. It’s not like that. They get very depressed when they see the weeds and they abandon it.”Reg Knowles, Allotments & Gardens Council “Unfortunately people watch the gardening presenters on TV and don’t really see how they have a paid team working seven days a week on their plot. When they realise they have to do all the work themselves, it’s a lot and you have to be able to put the time in. People think allotments are easy to maintain but it’s been a bad year weather-wise and people have got disheartened and not bothered doing their plots. You’ve got to be honest with people. The worst thing you can do is not tell them how much work it is.” In Brighton, 1070 notices to quit have been issued...more than a third of the council’s plots but a bite into a long waiting list. Merton Council...has issued 378 notices to quit...almost a third of its 1364 plots. Allotment holders with untended plots in Beverley have been warned to “use them or lose them"...

Martin and I were chatting on campus; a Christmas get-together of Inlogov staff on the 4th floor of the Muirhead Tower, planning ways to put the world of local government - in most distinctive crisis - to rights.

 Christmas lunch and seminar on the challenges facing local government

*** ***
Χωρίς ελληνομάθεια, δεν υπάρχει παιδεία
As of October 2013, the Cambridge Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages will suspend the teaching of Modern Greek as a full Tripos language on financial grounds. If the proposed changes go ahead, no student will emerge from Cambridge with any more than a cursory knowledge of Modern Greek language and culture..... 
Since posting this petition in the first week of December, it's received 10,700 signatures
*** *** ***
I gave a talk at Sheldon Library about The Founding of Handsworth Park. Arose in the wet and set out  for New Street Station where I caught a train to Marston Green. I embrace these drizzling grey wet days, donning full wetwear, including my cosy waxed gloves, putting a waterproof cover over my pannier. From the station I pedalled along a wet path strewn with sodden leaves and paused at the end of the runway as a holiday plane full of passengers from a warmer drier place arrived in Birmingham.

I enjoy talking about Handsworth Park. My audience - about 15 people around my age, umbrellas and raincoats stacked in corners beneath bookshelves, my folded bicycle and dripping rainwear drying by a radiator. I strive to evoke a feel for those ancestors of ours who 120 years ago decided Handsworth should have a park

As the civic gospel of municipal improvement spread from Birmingham into the estates of Handsworth, its local government leaders saw a public park as a benefit for the district. Following the setting up of an education board and a free library, the adoption and proper kerbing of roads, street lighting, tramways and the construction of sewers,1 influential voices in the district began to speak of the need for a “lung” in the city. They did not pursue the idea simply out of expediency or to raise the value of their properties. Such self-interest was present - used unashamedly to strengthen their case among the practically minded citizens of Handsworth - but opposition to the Park from that quarter was at times so intense that calculative motives alone would not have carried the project through....

Sheldon Library

Back into town afterwards. Bought a tray of fish and chips with curry sauce and ate it on the train - relishing its sogginess. Still drizzling on the way home with £25 extra pocket money in my pocket. I treated myself to the ride under the Hockley flyover, through its messy underpasses, smelling of wet cannabis, surfacing by the bill boards at the foot of Soho Hill, a mile from home

Our front door's decorated. I'll put up the tree on Friday evening.Start to lay presents under it.

Mistletoe from the garden and our artificial wreath

Artificial Christmas ~ a bargain buy by Lin 20 years ago

Advent calendar - a present given us 25 years ago by my Greek half-sister

As soon as I was home Lin asked me to take Oscar for a walk, so I headed in the dark to the allotments unlocking the pedestrian gate and wandering through the deserted site to my shed, confirming to my relief that tho' my crop has been so disappointing the ground looks tended, my shed shipshape and dry inside despite the surrounding damp.

My shed on plot 14 on the Victoria Jubilee

Oscar and I strolled home in the continuing drizzle. Amy and Guy arrived with Oliver, followed by Richard and Emma. Tea, coffee, all round and a chance to dandle the babe, my wet clothes laid out in the boiler room.

Χριστούγεννα με τη Φιλαρμονική

| Εκτύπωση |

Γράφει ο/η Κβκ

19.12.12

ΑΝΑΚΟΙΝΩΣΗ Σας γνωστοποιούμε ότι το ερχόμενο ΣΑΒΒΑΤΟ 22.12.2012 και ΩΡΑ 19:00 θα πραγματοποιηθεί στον Ιερό Ναό του Αγίου Αθανασίου  η καθιερωμένη κοινή Χριστουγεννιάτικη συναυλία της μπάντας και της χορωδίας της Φιλαρμονικής μας. Θα ακολουθήσει κέρασμα στο κελί. Επίσης οι μαθητές της Φιλαρμονικής μας θα παιανίσουν τα κάλαντα  στις γειτονιές του χωριού μας το πρωί της ημέρας των Χριστουγέννων μετά τη θεία λειτουργία. Τους μαθητές θα συνοδεύουν και τα μέλη του Δ.Σ. για την καθιερωμένη οικονομική ενίσχυση. Ο Πρόεδρος και τα μέλη του Δ.Σ. εύχονται ολόψυχα σε όλους τους κατοίκους του χωριού μας Χρόνια Πολλά, Καλές Γιορτές και Ευτυχισμένος ο Καινούργιος Χρόνος.                                                             NOTICE

We announce that the customary communal Christmas concert of the band and the choir of our Philharmonic will be held this Saturday 22/12/12 at 1900 at the Church of Saint Athanasius, followed by treats for all. Also the choir of the Philharmonic will go around the neighbourhoods of our village singing carols the morning after the Christmas liturgy. They will be accompanied students and members of the Board for the traditional collection in aid of the Philharmonic. The Chairman and Board wish a wholehearted Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.to all residents of our village.

Έλληνες Τεμπέληδες ~ a fine rebuttal

Alex Andreou

Asking the questions others are too intelligent to ask

RSS

Exploding the myth of the feckless, lazy Greeks

Stereotypes and untruths are everywhere, but this economic crisis is not self-inflicted.

BY ALEX ANDREOU PUBLISHED 18 MAY 2012 11:03

•  
• 
• 
• 

Riot police clash with demonstrators during a protest outside the Greek parliament in Athens, October 2011. Photograph: Getty Images

Maria was born in Paros in 1942. The country was under Nazi occupation. She experienced real fear, real poverty, starvation, bomb raids and executions. She survived the war and went to a Catholic girls’ school. Maria was good at sport and an excellent singer. She left school top of her class, got married, started working for the Archaeological Museum in Mykonos, from where she retired 44 years later at the age of 64 – one year before she was officially supposed to – in order to look after her husband who was dying of pancreatic cancer.

Maria worked two jobs most of her life – times were often hard. She was on PAYE all her life. She contributed to her pension and saved. She raised three children. She sat at her sewing machine many an evening, altering her skirts; so that they wouldn’t look so 50s in the 60s; so that they wouldn’t look so 60s in the 70s.

There are millions like her. She is a typical lazy, feckless Greek woman.

---

Here is the first myth: This crisis is made in Greece. It is not. It is the inevitable fallout of the global crisis which started in 2008.

Are there features in the Greek economy which made it particularly vulnerable? Yes – there is rampant corruption, bad management, systemic problems, a black market. All this has been explored ad nauseam. There are other factors, too; rarely mentioned. The crisis came at particularly bad time for Greece – four years after this tiny economy overextended in order to put on a giant Olympics and prove to the world it had “arrived”. When the crisis came, the country lacked the monetary and fiscal mechanisms to deal with it, because of its membership of the single currency.

However, all of the above are contributing factors – nothing more or less. The catalyst was the behaviour of the financial sector after the crisis. Here is what Angela Merkel had to say in February 2010, when the “Greek problem” started to rear its head, as reported by Bloomberg:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticized market speculation against the euro, saying that financial institutions bailed out with public funds are exploiting the budget crisis in Greece and elsewhere. In a speech in Hamburg, she hit out at currency speculators, who she said are taking advantage of debt piled up by euro-area governments to combat the financial crisis. “The debt that had to be accumulated, when it was going badly, is now becoming the object of speculation by precisely those institutions that we saved a year-and-a-half ago. That’s very difficult to explain to people in a democracy who should trust us.”

And since it was difficult to explain, it appears, she gave up trying.

The crisis is a financial one. It is not. It is a political crisis and an ideological one. The difficulties of an economy the size of Greece (1.8 percent of eurozone GDP, 0.47 per cent of World GDP according to 2010 IMF figures) should hardly register as a blip on the global radar.

The primary reason for the widespread panic is the interconnectedness of the banking sector – the very same systemic weakness which caused the domino effect in 2008 and which the world has collectively failed to address or regulate.

The secondary reason is the eurozone’s refusal to allow Greece to proceed with what most commentators have seen as an inevitable default for many months now.

Both these factors are down to political decisions, not sound fiscal policy.

Greeks are lazy. This underlies much of what is said about the crisis, the implication presumably being that our lax Mediterranean work-ethic is at the heart of our self-inflicted downfall. And yet, OECD data show that in 2008, Greeks worked on average 2120 hours a year. That is 690 hours more than the average German and 467 more than the average Brit. Only Koreans work longer hours. The paid leave entitlement in Greece is on average 23 days, lower than the UK’s minimum 28 and Germany’s whopping 30.

Greeks retire early. The figure of 53 years old as an average retirement age is being bandied about. So much so, that it is has become folk-fact. It originates from a lazy comment on the New York Times website. It was then repeated by Fox News and printed in other publications. Greek civil servants have the option to retire after 17.5 years of service, but this is on half benefits. The figure of 53 is a misinformed conflation of the number of people who choose to do this (in most cases to go on to different careers) and those who stay in public service until their full entitlement becomes available.

Looking at Eurostat’s data from 2005 the average age of exit from the labour force in Greece (indicated in the graph below as EL for Ellas) was 61.7; higher than Germany, France or Italy and higher than the EU27 average. Since then Greece have had to raise the minimum age of retirement twice under bail-out conditions and so this figure is likely to rise further.

Greeks want the bail-out but not the austerity that goes with it. This is a fundamental untruth. Greeks are protesting because they do not want the bail-out at all (or the foreign intrusion that goes with it). They have already accepted cuts which would be unfathomable in the UK. There is nothing left to cut. The corrupt, the crooks, the wicked, our glorious leaders, have already transferred their wealth to Luxembourg banks. They will not suffer. Meanwhile Medecins du Monde are handing out food packages in central Athens.

Greece’s total annual deficit is €53bn Euros. Of that, our primary budget deficit is, in fact, under €5bn. The other €48bn is servicing the debt, including that of the two bail-outs, with one third being purely interest. Europe is not bailing out Greece. It is bailing out the European banks which increasingly unwisely gave her loans. Greece is asked to accept full responsibility as a bad borrower, but nobody is examining the contribution of the reckless lenders.

Western politicians have developed a penchant for standing on balconies and washing their hands like Pontius Pilate; lecturing from a great height about houses on fire with no exits. This conveniently draws a veil over the truth – that our house may have been badly built, but it was the arsonists of Wall Street and the Square Mile that poured petrol through our letterbox and started this fire.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb is the Lebanese-American philosopher who formulated the theory of “Black Swan Events” – unpredictable, unforeseen occurrences which have a huge impact and can only be explained afterwards. Last year he was asked by Jeremy Paxman whether people taking to the streets in Athens was a Black Swan Event. He replied: “The real Black Swan Event is that people are not rioting against the banks in London and New York.”

---

Maria has never dodged a tax in her life. She doesn’t drive a Porsche or own a yacht. She hasn’t voted in ten years – “they’re all the same”, she says, “liars and crooks”. Her pension has been cut to €440 Euros a month. Her benefits have not been paid in almost a year. She faces the same rampant inflation that we do. She is exhausted, but not defeated.

Maria grows as much fruit and vegetable as she can in her small “pervoli”. She keeps chickens so that her grandchildren can have the freshest eggs. She still sings beautifully. She battles daily with Alzheimer’s, looks at pictures of her late husband and smiles, sits at her sewing machine, still, and modifies the same old skirts.

There are millions like her. She is a typical strong, defiant Greek woman, my mother.

*** ***

Change.org|Online Petition Template

As of October 2013, the Cambridge Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages will suspend the teaching of Modern Greek as a full Tripos language on financial grounds. If the proposed changes go ahead, no student will emerge from Cambridge with any more than a cursory knowledge of Modern Greek language and culture. Cambridge is one of only three universities in the United Kingdom which offer a full undergraduate degree course with a specialisation in Modern Greek. Modern Greek is a language of the European Union, and far more than a sequel to Greece’s ancient past. The language is spoken by at least 13 million people today in Greece, Cyprus and diaspora communities in numerous parts of the world. Cambridge has represented excellence in Modern Greek Studies for 75 years; the three holders of the Lewis-Gibson Lectureship have established Cambridge as an academic centre of international renown. Greek in Cambridge produces an annual publication, possesses an active research department and offers extra-curricular language learning opportunities to undergraduates and post-graduates alike. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, the joint submission of the Modern Greek Section and the Faculty of Classics was recognised as the strongest in the UK for this unit of assessment (Classics, Ancient History, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies). This will all cease if these changes go ahead. Now, more than ever, Cambridge needs to be producing academics with an understanding of contemporary Greece. Modern Greek is a thriving subject at Cambridge; the Modern and Medieval Languages Faculty should reflect this in their decision.  We urge the Medieval and Modern Languages Faculty in the strongest possible terms to reconsider their projected suspension of Modern Greek as a degree subject.

*** ** ***
Kotsios Katsikokleftis.posts this from ΓΡΕΒΕΝΑ 1 - GREVENA 1