Painting the balcony, making shutters

A Sunday morning in Corfu; a brilliant sun casting long shadows inside our silent house, shining on lemons, oranges and the fresh leaves of sprouting vines. The sea beyond St Elias glitters through a haze that hides the mainland. Swallows flash by, their chattering flirtations adding to a muted cacophony of pigeons, cockerels and barking dogs between the village and grey tree covered hills surrounded by morning mist. At eight twenty a Matins bell. Mountains south of Ermones float between land and sky - Vatos to Cape Plaka below Agios Yiorgos, Gliffada and Pelekas, and beyond the invisible city, Deka and the summit with the dish – 16 miles away above the airport.
***

Lin is painting the balcony railings deep Corfu green – a frustrating job with corners and niches to reach with metal paint. Leftheris is making shutters, using tongue and groove deal, knots sealed by singeing, cracks filled before undercoating and painting. These are "proper" for Ano Korakiana he said, “not those” he said pointing at louvre shutters. We have the latter - a devil to strip and sand - so I like the idea of replacing some with the simpler kind, though I’m struggling with making my first frame and shutters for a small window downstairs. Leftheris lent a hand with his circular saw to cut a margin off the side of the recovered kitchen cupboard doors I was using – offering helpful advice on positioning hinges. I’m beginning to get enough prepositions and adjectives to make such discussions intelligible – words like ‘before’, ‘over’, ‘under’, ‘about’, ‘together’, ‘exactly’, ‘in front’ ‘behind’, ‘almost’ – that can be strung on verbs and hung in front of nouns.
Later we were having tea outside and one of the cats began edging its way through the front door and I said – if I remember – “Orchi gata! Oxi mesa stin spiti” as if a cat would take any notice in either language.
Vasiliki gardening next door said “Simon! ‘sto spiti’…orchi ‘mesa’…orchi ‘sto spiti!’”
“Efharisto Vasiliki”
“Parakolo Simon”
‘House’ is neuter – ουδέτερο - and I was treating it as feminine - θηλυκό. Later Natasha told me a special imperative for cats - τσίτο! And other solely for dogs: όξω!
At the end of the afternoon Lin had just finished with the long ladder which I’d held while she finished painting the struts on the balcony railings and other patches of ironwork she couldn’t see before. I had a cup of tea; Lin her coffee. Natasha was sat outside her house almost beside us.
“Theleis tsai;” I ventured.
She shook her head gently. “My father has tea. For his throat”
“Of course tea is medicine – iatriki – ιατρική (a word I’d learned) in Greece.”
“You like coffee?” Natasha asked Lin
“Nescafé” she replied
“Ugh!” I said “but Lin was a teacher"
"I only drink tea with my mother – mazi mitera mou” said Lin
“Why do you drink so much tea in England?”
“Polli tsai stin Anglia! Polli tsai” I said
We laughed. “So much tea you are always going to the toilet” observed Natasha
“No no” I replied “when anything bad happens in England we always say ‘Have a cup of tea’ Polli tsai. Panda tsai.”
“What’s ‘the day before yesterday’” Lin asked me
“Prin xthes, ti einai;” I asked Natasha
“Proxthes – Προχθές”
“Ne proxthes’ said Lin “an earth tremor. Did you …?”
She gestured palms down shaking “Ah yes. Very little. My friend phoned from Ioannina. I slept.”
We too had slept through this early last Wednesday morning. We all gestured sleeping. Mark down the road told us it had woken him. Slowly we learn.
“Seismos - σεισμός” I ventured “Πίνω κούπα τσάι! Trauma (borrowing another word) - Κάθε τραύμα, πίνεισ κούπας τσάι!” Adonis had said last week “After only five years.” He held out five fingers, careful not to present his palm “You will speak Greek” “Like Mrs K speaks English” muttered Lin. Our dear neighbour of 30 years came to Britain from Krakow after  the war. She conveys her meaning via an enduring struggle with English grammar.
** ** **
The Greek test last Tuesday went well. Aleko at Sally’s in Ipsos selected from several pages of phrases in English; sought answers in Greek, from individuals in turn and from the group – just four of us. Of course I’d had help from Yiorgos while we waited for our flight from Manchester. So I couldn’t crow even quietly, but I was pleased I could often answer without looking at my screen. Lin whose pronunciation is better than mine decided not to come – unsure she knew enough.

SOME OF THE TEST ANSWERS
Who is it? (man or woman) = Ποιός είναι;
Peter is looking at the television = Ο Πέτρος βλέπει τηλεόραση
Who is looking at the television? = Ποιός βλέπει τηλεόραση;
Andreas smokes a lot = Ο Αντρέας καπνίζει πολύ
Who smokes a lot? = Ποιός καπνίζει πολύ;
Is your friend handsome/pretty Andrea? = Είναι ο φίλος σου όμορφος/όμορφη; Αντρέα
Yes, he is very handsome/she is very pretty = Ναι, είναι πολύ όμορφος/όμορφη
What colour are his eyes? = Τι χρώμα είναι τα μάτια του;
What colour are her eyes? = Τι χρώμα είναι τα μάτια της;
His eyes are blue = Τα μάτια του είναι μπλέ
Her eyes are blue = Τα μάτια της είναι μπλέ
His hair? = Τα μαλλιά του;
Her hair? = Τα μαλλιά της;
I don’t know. I think it is black = Δεν ξέρω. Νομίζω είναι μαύρα
Yes, black = Ναι, μαύρα
The poor man (not rich!) = Ο φτωχός άντρας (άνθρωπος)
The rich man = Ο πλούσιος άντρας (άνθρωπος)
My garden is big = Ο κήπος μου είναι μεγάλος
Yesterday was Sunday = Χτες ήταν Κυριακή
The day before yesterday was Saturday = Προχθές ήταν Σάββατο
Three days ago it was Friday = Πρίν τρίς μέρες ήταν Παρασκευή
Now I am here = Τώρα είμαι εδώ
One hour ago I was at my house = Πρίν μία ώρα ήμουν σπίτι μου
Where were you Maria one hour ago? = Που ήσουν Μαρία πρίν μία ώρα;
I was in my garden = Ήμουν στο κήπο μου
I was with my sister = Ήμουν με την αδελφή μου
You were here one hour ago = Ήσουν εδώ πρίν μία ώρα;

Dear Simon and Linda. I am glad you enjoyed ‘the test’! As I said it would be fun and next time I hope Lin joins us. It’s very strange but the very word ‘test’ or ‘exam’ frightens so many people! For example X who is usually very good was not her usual self and when I asked her later she said that even when she was at school, when they had exams she didn't go!! Full of nerves she was!! Why? why? why? Next session, can't remember if I told you, I intend to teach one week and the following week do what we did yesterday. Isn't this a better idea? So, NO final test! Last week of April meet me at ‘my’ kafenion 19.30 for a quick drink and then we will go on to ‘Vitamins’ (hope he is open by then) for something to eat. Please confirm that this arrangement is suitable for you, because if it is not we can change it. With love,  Aleko

*** ***
On the Wednesday before we left for Greece I took the train south, via London, to see the Hills and again enjoy Wendy’s delectable fish pie followed by apple crumble and their kind hospitality including cups of tea. I missed their neighbour John who was out, wanting to thank him for two things – setting me on my search for Jack’s original films and introducing me to Richard and Wendy Hill. I showed Richard a photo of one one of the old olive logs I was thinking of bringing him to carve. He shook his head “Look at those shakes. It’ll just fall apart, Simon.”
An email from John Peters in Havant:

Hi Simon. Sorry that I missed you on your last visit. I was teaching computers to the local organisation for people with physical and mental disabilities. Richard said that you have lost my email address and I have now scanned the copy of the paper clip that Richard gave you. Maybe you would like to include it on your webpage. Its in A3 format. I hope to see you perhaps next time. Regards

The News (Portsmouth) 10 Feb '11

Great! I’m so glad to  have recovered your email John, so I can keep you posted on our continuing search for JH material – as kicked off by you! I’ll write to you at greater length next week. Best wishes and thanks for the newspaper story which Richard and Wendy told me about and kept for me. It’s useful to have it digitised. Simon

I’ve told John I’d like him to join the ‘JH Committee’ - so now it includes Ian Wegg, Tony Herbert, Mark Taylor, Mark Jack, Jennie Constable, Ray Langstone and John Peters; an informal group, two of whom I’ve not yet met in the flesh – Ian and Tony; people who share my interest in Jack’s films, enjoying his broadcasts when younger, and now helping make them available again. Tony has sent me a DVD with a superb sample of Out of Town episodes - the best I've yet seen.

Tony Herbert's recordings of Out of Town episodes

Dear Tony... having just watched the Out of Town episodes starting with clapper board, trade carts, various objects, high pheasant and the fishing gossiper stymied by Stan, and Jack's recollection - with French accent - of the talk about Marianne and Britannia, and the breaking of the chalk springs, I'm over the moon. What quality at last! Linda who met JH just a few times (he was at our wedding) was listening to it while cooking downstairs and said "he sounds alive".' It certainly is an example of how the quality of the film makes the difference. I felt frissons. I'm not sure how I feel. He seemed so close, even though these episodes are older than the ones I've had for quite a while. They're different too from the Meonstoke films of course, having been live broadcasts. Wonderful.   I'm now looking forward to seeing the rest of what you've sent me. I was wondering about streaming some of this but my inclination - even if I had your permission - would be to hold back on this material. It is especially precious.   As I say even from Greece I felt this evening like picking up the phone and saying 'thank you' more directly. I hope we shall soon be able to visit Marion B together, but I'll leave that until mid-May.   I am currently ripping the three Out of Towns from both disks for my collection. To watch the other material I will refer solely to your brilliant DVDs. I have that little trench pipe with the silver band and the goldfinch. I take it you added titles and credits but seamlessly - even with the abrupt start on the Dorset clocks. This has to be an example of how starts and endings might be sliced on to archive 16mm film for public showing, doesn't it?    As for the 'last broadcast' OoT wouldn't it be good if the OB film for this turned up either at SWFTA or among Marion's tapes? Then we can splice your top and tale to it....S

****
After midnight, early Saturday morning, we strolled through the well lit streets of the village, until beyond the bandstand and carpark the road went dark enclosed by tall trees between us and Venetia, scops owls calling from above and below, far and near.
“I’m not sure I’d care to stroll here at night alone” said Lin
“Two can put a hold on each other’s imagination. Alone you may think you hear something, embellish olden fears, summoning things that watch and wait. Remember our late night walks in Lydbrook. We knew all the paths. All unlit. The wind rattling the hedgerows in winter; the full moon showing us shapes and shadows; the things that followed, murderous ghouls, the chain-saw man who lurked that Richard and Amy begged me to invent."
We woke dogs which barked across the night waking other dogs who took their turn to warn the world of our passage. In the narrows of Venetia we took the cobbled steps of narrow Odos Iacobus winding down through houses and hedges to the lower road, on which we walked back into the village, a circuit that took us back up a rising path to the medical centre on Democracy Street.
** ** **
It seems as if the long projected PAOK supported soccer pitch below the village will not now be completed. The site has stood there for at least a decade. Then, last winter, there was a hint money might be found to complete it, but the latest news is that the proposed €420,000 grant that was to be made available by the old Faiakon Demos - abolished under last winter's Kallicrates reform of Hellenic local government - has been in some way or another recalled to a central budget. The suggestion is that the site be returned to pasture.

Τελικά, τα χρήματα για την αποπεράτωση του γηπέδου του ΠΑΟΚ, δεν υπάρχουν πλέον… Κατά την επίσκεψη του Προέδρου του Τοπικού Συμβουλίου στην πρώην Νομαρχία, έγινε γνωστό ότι πλέον δεν υπάρχουν ούτε τα χρήματα που αποτελούσαν το μερίδιο της Νομαρχίας στην εργολαβία του γηπέδου. Τα χρήματα που αντιστοιχούσαν στο μερτικό του πρώην Δήμου Φαιάκων, ήταν εξαρχής έωλα. Έτσι, το γήπεδο μπορεί άνετα πλέον να μετατραπεί σε βοσκότοπο, σε πείσμα των προ δεκαετίας σχεδιασμών για Αθλητικό Κέντρο. «Τις πταίει?»

It would be good if a football field for Ano Korakiana could be paid for by money from the projected windfarm project on Pantokrator.
***
Richard, our son's E4 competition entry

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.

Where democracy begins

...or as my friend Jonathan Davies comments "Bread, peace and land!". Freecycle took us to Antrobus Road where someone was giving away plants. Soil's too dry to plant so I mixed some of our rich compost - worms in abundance - with dry topsoil from the garden, kneading it into a friable mix for us to pot and water a selection of cherry saplings (for the orchard on part of our allotment), aromatic geraniums, St Johns Wort, lilac, forget-me-knots, Lady's Mantle, tomatoes, a nameless hedge shrub with fluffy pink flowers...

Between theory and practice

Η κοινοτοπία του καλού

*** ***

Learning to decline a verb - our homework for next week:

TO BE I am Εγώ είμαι You are Εσύ είσαι He is Αυτός είναι She is Αυτή είναι It is Αυτό είναι We are Εμείς είμαστε You are (pl) Εσείς είμαστε They are (m) Αυτόι είναι They are (f) Αυτές είναι They are (n) Αυτά είναι

Some tutoring on YouTube with phrases in Greeklish and this and more ruddy homework:

Singular/Ενικός
	I	You	He	She	It
Nom	Εγώ	Εσύ	Αυτός	Αυτή	Αυτό
Gen	Μου=my/mine	Σου=your	Του=his	Της=hers	Του=its
Acc	Με=me	Σε=you	Τον=him	Τυν=her	Το=it
Voc	-	Εσύ	Αυτέ	Αυτή	Αυτό

Plural/Μληθγτικός
	We	You	They (m)	They (f)	They (n)
Nom	Εμείς	Εσείσ	Αυτοί	Αυτές	Αυτά
Gen	Μας	Σασ	Των	Των	Των
Acc	-		Τους	Τις	Τα

**** In Ano Korakiana there's been a meeting on the future of the long unused PAOK funded soccer pitch near Saint Athanasios Church. Perhaps it may at last be played on.

9/07/10 Ano Korakiana website: Από τη σύσκεψη προέκυψε ότι η Νομαρχιακή Αυτοδιοίκηση ετοιμάζει την δημοπράτηση του χλοοτάπητα του γηπέδου για τις επόμενες βδομάδες (πιθανότατα για τις 3 Αυγούστου 2010) και θα εξετάσει τη δυνατότητα αποκατάστασης και των αποδυτήριων, ενώ από πρόσφατο έγγραφο προκύπτει ότι ο Δήμος Φαιάκων θα ολοκληρώσει άμεσα τις δικές του δεσμεύσεις (ολοκλήρωση περίφραξης κλπ)

In Parliament in Athens pension overhaul legislation has been passed (See Teacherdude's images from Thessaloniki of public reaction).

The gifts of the senior Greek politician - Sotirios Hatzigakis (Σωτήριος Χατζηγάκης) - to his friends and relatives, while in office, have been revealed and widely reported especially in Germany but unlike many German readers who see this as a reproach against bailed-out Greece, my vexatious contempt is for all corrupt politicians and the harm they do to democracy and social trust. While Hatzigakis was Minister of Justice in the previous government he spoke at the 13th International Anti-Corruption Conference.

And Richard Pine has notified friends and acquaintances of his new book, just reviewed in The Irish Times. I've never heard of Charles Acton and until I'd begun Richard's study of Brian Friel it wouldn't have occurred to me to go to a performance of Dancing at Lughnasa as we did earlier in the year.