Context

Before first light the parched island is soaked by a drenching downpour, a timely damping down of hectares of tinder. We lie in bed surrounded by unaccustomed gloom, lightning flashing through the curtains, crashes of thunder, constant rumbling. Mountains and sea are obscured; our forested foreground, now grey-green under a drifting overcast. The trees beside the house are wrung by the wind. Pouring rain spatters our windows, its fall muffled on the roof tiles, echoing in the downpipes. Water spills over the gutters splashing on the common path. Where I left a small gap in the kitchen windows, the counter’s wet. Water glosses the plaka under the veranda, the decking and concrete of our balconies, dribbling from the  yellowing leaves of the wisteria, soaking the green and red of the bougainvillea, bowing its branches. Abruptly a quilt is welcome on the bed and I switch to shirts with long sleeves and socks. I wear underpants again; even a jumper in the evening.

From this day of rain a fortnight follows of clear blue skies. The mountains in the east – rising in Epirus and the southern tip of Albania – return, during these unexpected days of early autumn , to their Wedgwood blue haze. The strip of sea between Corfu and the mainland could be mistaken for a placid lake, our green hills along its western shore, barer land over the strait.  

After weeks of washing clothes by hand – no great problem - we’ve bought a washer to replace the old one Lin couldn’t mend. Mark took it away for scrap after I’d unbolted its concrete steadying weights. I've carried them down to the garden where they stand as modernist shapes. From the same store on the road to Lefkimmi we’ve also bought a new wood stove – exact match of the one that came with the house 12 years ago. Age and misuse had warped the old stove's lid; its body leaked smoke from cracks at each corner. I manhandled three hundred weight of cast iron down the balcony steps, through the apothiki, to the garden where, filled with soil from the compost heap, the old stove sprouts a young bougainvillea we’ve bought.   

In search of context I’ve been reading a school text describing British economic and  social history from 1700. It ends in 1975 when I was 33 - just starting to live in a grown up way so it seemed; helping me to try understanding the next 44 years – my small life's window that included marrying Linda, her having our two children, getting our own house, the job I’ve had until I left the university a few years ago; my bicycles and my travels on them, the advent of Mrs Thatcher, the routing of the public sector, privatisation, the ending of the narratives and ideologies of modernism with its vision in many dimensions of 'one society'. About ten years ago I was strolling, with my folding bicycle, along the slab pavement of the Thames South Bank in London. Under my feet I found a commemorative plaque celebrating the Festival of Britain - marking its centre. For a millisecond I caught a full-body memory of a 9 year-old holding mum's hand in just that spot pausing amid many people - an enthusiastic crowded space - in 1951. "I have no wish to return to that time. I'd rather be in the now and the future" I thought. But I liked the thought of having been there long ago. 

So...the changing fabric, population and demography of our city, Birmingham, and other cities, the implosion of empire, the blatantly diverging fortunes of rich and poor, automation, artificial intelligence and the spreading role of decisions by algorithms indecipherable by their authors, the vast harvesting of personal data, the end - almost - of posting letters in mailboxes, the ubiquity of screens and roving phones, the hours spent dealing - over the phone - with energy service companies, the world wide web which I entered only in 1995, personal data harvesting, the dilution of place as a product of vast increases in the ease of transience "I'm both somewhere and anywhere",  identity politics "I'm a type on a bureaucratic check list which is useful to know, and I'm not at all which is also a lesson"; the tsunami of superficial distraction, but also my allotment, my continuing work with family, on getting the work of my stepfather  - Jack Hargreaves - restored and published, and also our project with his descendant family ("such a privilege") to give a a wider profile to the laic sculptor of Ano Korakiana, Aristeidis Metallinos (1908-1987), my involvement with local campaigns especially Handsworth Park, the Victoria Jubilee Allotments...

With our grandson, Oliver, on Plot 14 of the Victoria Jubilee Allotments (photo: Tim Hamilton)

... Black Patch Park and our small charity Handsworth Helping Hands,

Handsworth Helping Hands committee meeting

...our encounters with the law, my membership of 1000Elders and participation, as a subject, in research into healthy ageing, the growing up of our children, the arrival of our grandchildren, our homes in Handsworth, the Forest of Dean and Corfu, the boat Summersong, and, the long association with the Highlands from a childhood Christmas at Fasnakyle through the time my mother married again and went to live near Inverness for forty years, to go back to the 35 years before 1977, my childhood, my abrupt encounter aged 12, on a desk in the study of a schoolfriend's father of black and white photo's, in a hard backed book, of thin bodies bodies piled on trucks and being pushed by a bulldozer into a pit, and youth, my old travels on land and sea, sailing the Channel...

Sailing to France in Two Pearls in 1963 (photo: Barbara Hargreaves)

... the coast of Brittany, the Mediterranean from France to Greece, across the Atlantic in Young Tiger from the Canaries to the Caribbean, my time in America, the faces of those who loved me and taught me, long dead but ever in my mind, the panoply of art, literature, poetry, film, music, sculpture, design, architecture that educates me, and enriches my understanding, my ever-present confusions, vexations and perplexities…

I’m also re-reading – much more closely than in earlier years - Out of Town: A Life Relived on Television by Jack Hargreaves. Published in 1987

‘...this book, like my programmes – is concerned with those times, with the feeling of the old, small-farming life and the know-how of it’. The story my stepfather tells is of the time when his mother and father met in 1889 to 1929 when Jack would have been 18 - ‘until I left the farm to go to London University and read Veterinary Science’  

*** *** ***
There can hardly be a citrus tree on the whole island of Corfu that is not now infested and blighted by citrus scale insects, which over the last two years have settled in numberless scores on the underside of every young leaf, sucking its sap to access its sugar, bringing black mould to the leaves' upper surfaces. We are almost entirely bereft of once plentiful oranges and lemons. We see no end in sight for this grievous blight.

Our orange tree struggling against citrus scale insect infestation, beside three more similarly affected lemon trees

Some cut down their citrus trees. Others pollard them severely. Many paint the tree trunks with asvesti (white wash) but these insects do not travel up the trees from the ground. They move through the air on broad vectors across large areas. The insects, sometimes in a symbiotic relationship with ants, return as soon as new leaf shoots appear. Some spray with insecticide, which works temporarily but is not good for the fruit. We try regular spraying of non-toxic olive oil soap solution under the leaves. It works a little. So far we have avoided the blackened waste that has afflicted some trees we see in passing. We've heard that Bayer have a systemic insecticide applied to the soil around the roots which kills to insects leaving the fruit 'safe' after 3 weeks, and lasting a year. We are considering this option. Meantime we maintain the soap solution spraying with a pump action garden spray. Naturalist friends say there may be a chance of the trees learning to resist the harm caused to the vital photo-synthesis of leaves by insects and mould. They also say that a predator on scale insects may emerge. This is a low visibility catastrophe affecting tens of thousands of lemon and orange trees on Corfu and surely elsewhere. I'm always pleased when travelling on the island I see, now and then, a citrus tree bearing fruit, it's leaves unaffected and healthy. I saw a tree full of oranges in a garden on high ground in a village west of Agros a few days ago. Is it are resistant species? Have the pest insects not yet arrived? Waiting like a evil character in the wings is the olive tree plague Xylella Fastidiosa.

Sailing to Pirate Island

It wwould be a fabled island. Guy, Dave, Oliver and I set out in Summersong from her little home port of Ipsos; motoring without wind from the aquamarine shallows into the deeper blue of the Kerkyra Sea.

“See the engine?” said Dave
Oliver peered down on our engine under the first cabin step; made engine noises.
“Bob bob bob bob? Call it ‘Bob’’
“We’re going to Pirate Island” I said
Slowly the old boat headed south a little away from the coast, then further past Dassia Bay.
Water for Oliver, beer for the grown-ups and small croissants for everyone . The sandy pebbly shores passed slowly by and a small tree covered island appeared on the horizon
“There it is”

“Does he know what an island is?” said Dave
“I don’t know. But we can give Ollie some memories – for us; his innocence to make a different account of this melancholy place. Wouldn’t I prefer to set aside the arguments about what happened there; set aside in all its squalor. Wouldn’t I prefer my grandchildren to think of me living on Pirate Island - where we buried treasure; a cross or two pointing to the spot.”
We approached the island carefully; edged up to the ragged low jetty and took a line ashore; and headed inland.
“Ssssh watch out for pirates”

Under the shaded pines and through the ruined buildings where the pirates go.
"Could this be the place where the treasure was buried?"

"Hear their noise!"
"Ssssh they'll know we're here?"

'Back to the boat...Quick!"
In no time we'd returned aboard, cast off, and were heading home, Oliver at the tiller steering with the foresail up before a gentle breeze. Quiet. Ripples and small splashes against the hull.

Dave, Guy and Oliver sailing on Summersong

I found a souvenir - a thole-pin in a block of wood broken from the gunwale of one of the pirate's sally boats; rusted spiky nails sticking from it. Dave banged them flat against the stone work of the jetty. I drew out the pin and put it in the other way round.
"A boat!"

The boat I found on the island

In my childhood there was a lot of time without grown-ups. I don't recall missing them when I wandered in gardens. Perhaps they were there watching, but a lot of the time I think I got to be on my own. I have early memories of walking along the banks of the Itchen, peering into deeper fast running water, finding it and knowing it could end my existence. I don't recall being told the dangers. I just knew them. In London I was taking the bus and the tube on my own from 10 years old. When I learned to cycle - late at 10 years old - I roamed widely through narrow streets and across Hamstead Heath. We had horses. I rode out on my own. The countryside was my oyster. In later years I started sailing making my own adventures. My rules were strict; less for my safety than the strict duty to attend to the seaworthiness of my 'small ship'. I was never a fan of 'Swallows and Amazons'. Why read a grown-up's fantasy about the private adventures of childhood? How I have wanted my children to have their own adventures; suppressing anxiety, being what some would consider an irresponsible parent. I'm so glad they walk the city. Brought up in the inner-city; witnessing and judging its hazards; street-wise, but also country-wise, knowing stock, alert to the seldom-dangers, knowing the riskiest thing is to get near a cow and her calf. That they've cycled and walked in wild places on their own and walked the city at night; unfazed by rain and wind and the insanely exaggerated fears of 'stranger danger'. 

The blue of the sea we've left behind

South wind on the west coast of Corfu

Sat either side of the aisle we saw lozenges of perfect blue as our plane ascended, banking in a wide circle that brought us over Pantokrator, then the high coast of Albania, before sea and land receded below bright white clouds. On the flight from Corfu we enjoyed prosciutto and cream cheese sandwiches in a round loaf from the village bakery made up for a picnic before we left.
We landed around one-o-clock at Luton with a slight bump that made someone exclaim. After an hour waiting by a carousel for our bags, a timorous tannoy voice apologised for the delay, "caused" - with fudged syntax - "by operational reasons".
A resigned British crowd, but for a tearful mother with a toddler, awaited belongings from Riga, Malaga, Faro, Palma, Corfu and somewhere else - luggage unloaded in no special order.
"Sunday lunchtime's always diabolical" said a slightly harassed women fielding mild grumbles at a service desk. Thirteen flights had landed at the same time causing a "massive back-up"

Luton luggage jam

"I don't recall such recurrent inefficiency in Corfu" I said to Lin "Yet people are wont to to throw up their hands at Greek confusions. When have we encountered that?"
The crowd was a lively metaphor for British acceptance of our economic mess. Jan wrote just now:

Hi Simon...when are you returning to Blighty? I would stay longer if I were you. The weather here is simply foul. I am interested to read your outline for Member-Officer courses. Do you think it's possible to weave in some of the issues we have exchanged views on in the last few months? I suspect it's a matter of it evolving and bringing authorities on board based on their own experiences and requirements, but there is no doubt in my mind that fundamental (irreversible ) changes are taking place and given local authoritys' relative powerless position vis-à-vis government, they frequently spend  much  of their energies on 'chasing and adjusting' to government requirements which are going to become even more challenging over the next few years; to such an extent that LAs, as we have known them, will cease to exist (SB note: news item - 7 June 2013*) and be replaced by something else yet to emerge.
The government’s approach is crude but becoming clear - 'delegate' (dump) difficult and unpopular (toxic) tasks to LAs (e.g. housing and welfare) then top slice (cut back) the monies available  to carry out these tasks, thus achieving both financial and political objectives in one swoop. We are going to see more of this during the next Spending Review where I fear LAs will receive another hammering bordering on a coup de grace.
The scenario is obviously a bit more sophisticated than that and there are still 'hooks' for LAs to hang their issues on (e.g. City Deals, Community Budgets) but the general direction of travel is fairly clear and I believe beyond the tipping point because even the 'hooks' are in place by government decree and would not be there but for the government. This is the reality and the starting point for all those who want to see Localism become meaningful.
I have mentioned before the need to recalibrate the relationship between LAs and government and for LAs to have their own 'narrative' for this. Whilst this remain important, I am coming more and more to the conclusion that it is the relationship between LAs, their population and local community, which requires more attention and recalibration. The traditional models are becoming increasingly irrelevant; no longer fit for purpose. The old saying that “all politics are local” remains true, but a narrative (and practice) based on delegated democracy, selective engagement and top-down consultations is not going to promote Localism...more likely it will be used to drive the current policy objectives. Perhaps the time has come to  phase out this narrative or reconstruct it within an overall narrative of 'mobilisation and support'; for LAs to make this focus a priority because if (when) successful this would impact significantly on the LA-government relationship, simply because the political foundations of LAs would strengthen. No government could ignore that for long.
This will take courage and persistence. The starting point is to ditch the parent-child relationship of local to centre; 'cleanse' local government of its Stockholm syndrome with Whitehall...a tall order; to get  hundreds of LAs to 'sign up' is near impossible, but what is the alternative?
What I find frustrating is that no such narrative, backed up by analysis, leading to  a Localism Agenda has even started to emerge. This may be unfair but it seems that the mind-set is stuck in the past and past methods are being rolled out to deal with the new agenda when in reality something very different is called for. We are talking about culture and behaviour change more than anything else. A new skills set is desperately needed but  I can’t see one emerging yet. I am mindful of the saying that all generals fight the last war instead of the current one. Any thoughts on this?
The main news at this end is around the horrific terrorist attack on a soldier in Woolwich in London. This has some very challenging implications for Localism. The other big story is around is the tax affairs of large international corporations[ the way they avoid tax (legally) by moving monies around the world and manipulating the tax regimes of various countries. If they paid according to the spirit of the legislation, or on the same basis as the rest of us, then the public financial deficit would largely be resolved. Tthe sums are staggering. What is even more striking is the government’s total impotence in dealing with this. They are simply unable (unwilling) to act. We have plenty of moralistic shroud waving but total paralysis as far as actions are concerned. I think this demonstrates the power (and arrogance) of the 'new feudal elite'. They are not in the slightest bit apologetic and have no plans to change. They operate totally outside any democratic accountability. Their financial muscle is greater than most countries and beyond meaningful scrutiny. At the same time we are becoming more and more dependent on them for jobs and services. LAs are often desperate to attract them into their localities and you can see why.
Perhaps the time is right to start to talk about local taxation in a meaningful way - local taxation without which Localism cannot exist. The implications for  the rest of society are quite staggering in terms  of  living standards and well–being especially for vulnerable and disabled people (the precariat)*. We are all paying more taxes than we should and enduring more welfare cut-backs than we should (more about ideology than anything else).  These circumstances are manifesting themselves at local level in communities all over Britain; albeit very differently in poor areas compared to wealthy areas. Here you have an issue upon which 'mobilisation and support' could begin to emerge, but the silence is deafening. Why has this not yet filtered into the political-managerial agenda. Is ethics the missing link in the reading/carrying model, or is this a matter of hard-nosed politics?
The ramifications of the local council elections are rumbling on. The Tories are tearing themselves apart on Europe and gay marriages. If anything it is becoming worse; quite a spectacle; clearly now impacting on local politics. Many authorities are having to adjust to having significant numbers of UKIP councillors on the council. These are new and inexperienced people but with strong views on a  narrow range of issues. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. It could shake things up or, more worryingly, it could  lead to a strengthening of the worst underlying forces in many local communities  (prejudice, xenophobia, insularity, nimby-ism, cronyism, and similar ugly forces). We have to recognise that there are - potentially - some very nasty downsides to localism. There needs to be a counter-balance to this. That is why I am talking about a recalibration of the relationship and a re-alignment of the power relationship. Not a divorce. It is difficult to envisage Civil Rights in the USA developing the way it has through a reliance on Localism on its own. Therein lies the  challenge and pitfall of localism. What about a chat in June when you are back? Best Jan

*07 June 2013 Watchdog warns cuts could lead to collapse of councils....Local authorities must come clean in explaining to residents what services they might have to cut in the next Spending Review period, a parliamentary spending watchdog has reported.  A Public Accounts Committee report into the National Audit Office’s (NAO) study, published in January, into the financial stability of local authorities, finds Whitehall doesn’t properly understand the overall impact of the 28% budget cuts taking place over the existing spending round. The MPs expressed fears those councils more reliant on government grants - which serve poorer and more vulnerable communities with higher demands on services - are experiencing the greatest spending reductions. Whitehall does not fully understand how budgets cuts are affecting vulnerable groups, the PAC said. ‘This raises the spectre of the worst-affected councils being unable to meet their statutory obligations,’ Ms Hodge added. She urged the Department for Communities for Local Government (DCLG) to get a better understanding of how cuts affect vulnerable groups and demanded to know how Eland House would respond in the event of multiple financial failures of local authorities....

We left Ano Korakiana at 1030 after a rush of tidying. Vasiliki and Effi came out to kiss and hug us. I dropped in on Katerina to say 'goodbye'. All said the customary "Kalo taxidi, Καλό ταξίδι" as we loaded our bags into the car and I stood beside Adoni to say bye-bye to our house, our other beloved home.

With Adoni at the top of our steps onto Democracy Street

From Digbeth Coach Station, our taxi dropped us home just before seven; Oscar there to greet us. Before rain starts I must mow the grass - as green as the blue of the sea we've left behind - and get on with the in-tray waiting for us.

Greeting Oscar in the garden at Handsworth

*** ***
What of Summersong, now floating again at her fore and aft mooring in Ipsos?

Dave has done great work on her exterior. Now, he sets to on the interior!

Summersong's cabin roof

We've made lists of what more needs to to be done to have her sailing (and motoring). Two days ago I was inhaling a heady whiff of fibre glass and oily bilges. On hands and knees I was reaching through a small access trap to sponge away buckets of blackened water collected in the shallow space below the cabin floor - not a leak, not seawater, but rain that entered when, last year, the self-draining plug holes in the cockpit were blocked with old flaking paint.

From bilges up, every inch has to become shipshape; carpet, squabs, warps, cabin linings, curtains, sail inventory, compass, auto-pilot, main anchor chain, roller reefing and of course her jetty - rickety and slowly collapsing...

......Running and standing rigging are fine. The engine's working well but I'll only be confident after sea trials - for me as much as the boat - with wind and wave. 'I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky'...and as Spike wrote 'I left my shoes and socks there, I wonder if they're dry?' Lin even said "I\d like to visit the Mani" Is that possible? Could we really?

*** *** ***
“There’s the Sea of Tranquility”
Martin was gazing up at a gibbous moon, recalling how his Dad had built a reflecting telescope with which he’d shown his son places on the moon from their garden in Birmingham.
“I haven’t got my glasses or I could make out the crater of Copernicus”
“Over there, that one bright light, with darkness to the left, marks the border with Albania. The line of twinkling lights further south. That’s Sayada and then even further there’s Igoumenitsa”
We looked at the Plough overhead and subtended the angle of the last two stars on its front to see the North Star just above the edge of the crags above the village, dimly underlit by our street lights.
“The moon’s too bright to see the Milky Way”
We recalled wondering, on childhood nights, at the sight of the full starred heavens, the edge of our galaxy strewn from horizon to horizon, across the abyss of black space.
“There’s too much light pollution too”
Along the closer horizon of the island lay the glow of the city. I called to Lin and to Martin’s wife, Sandra, chatting downstairs, to come and join us on the balcony. A few days before we returned to Birmingham they, our best friends in England, were our guests in Ano Korakiana.
We listened to the sounds inside this space, stood on our balcony together; people talking below the village, a lot further off than the Skops owl calling to another among trees beyond the houses edging Democracy Street. There was a dog complaining in the distance.
“That’ll set off all the others” I said as barking spread closer. Cockerels do the same but they were quiet at midnight.
The blinking lights of a plane appeared silently over the hills between us and the city, turned towards us and became a sound droning swiftly over Trompetta.

Sandra and Linda at Piattsa on Democracy Street

While he’s been here Martin has drawn a plan for a new jetty for Summersong, helped show us how to arrange the frame and hinges for our bedroom wardrobe ....

and, frustrated by its eccentric grating on the marble floor of the kitchen, re-hung the door between it and the dining room. A little packing on the old latch, longer screws in the hinges, a few millimetres planed off the bottom of the door...

...the job done in twenty minutes and years of minor irritation gone.
“So why didn’t you do that?” says Lin.
“I tried but I didn’t know how and it sort of worked with the chain and the hooks”

We’ve been go-betweens for house improvement for Steve in England who wanted the walls of his house, next to the café, rendered. All work had stopped after his regular builder had to go to Ioannina for heart surgery. We’ve got a local builder to start rendering, sending Steve pictures as the work proceeds.

Dear Steve. Before talking to A, our friend Martin, a builder/architect, currently staying with us, inspected your rear wall. He noticed that your wall ends in an uncovered section that is part of X’s property. In Martin’s opinion, X's strip of wall, if not rendered at the same time as yours, would let damp into any new render on your property. X, as you'd expect, says he’s no money to make this strip good…We tend to agree with Martin that this extra cost would represent a saving for you in the long run….Do you want the short iron bars sticking out of the wall, that were used to support a vine, removed? Let us know what you think. Best, Simon

Well I'm like a spoilt kid at Christmas, I can't stop getting the picture up and looking at it… After so many years of neglect the little house is finally getting some TLC, which its deserved after standing so many years. Wish you could see the smile on my face. many thanks for organising and overseeing the work on my behalf. Steve

While they were here we showed a little of the island to Martin and Sandra, walking, driving, swimming, eating out and eating in, enjoying drinks at Stamatti's café Piattsa, seeing the city and the country, ascending to the top of Pantokrator and down to the sea at Paleokastritsa.

Our friend Sandra on Angelokastro

Picnicing below the oak tree on the top of Angelokastro we saw, at first cleverly camouflaged in its deep serrated bark, a host of moth caterpillars - indeed several colonies attached to different parts of the tree.

*** *** ***
From the Ano Korakiana website - our neighbour's daughter Dimitra, flutist, is first left:

Λιτανεία στην Αλεπού

Λιτανεία της εικόνας της Αναστάσεως σήμερα το απόγευμα (Κυριακή 26 Μαΐου 2013), στην Αλεπού. Από τις Κουλίνες, βήμα-βήμα τον επαρχιακό δρόμο, στους ήχους της Μπάντας και με τις «φωνές» της Χορωδίας της Φιλαρμονικής Κορακιάνας, ίσαμε δύο χιλιόμετρα απόσταση. Ανά διαστήματα «συστάδες» κόσμου στο δρόμο, για να παρακολουθήσουν την πομπή να περνάει. Κάθε τόσο και κάποιος ιερέας πύκνωνε τις τάξεις του ψαλτηρίου, μέχρι και τα τελευταία μέτρα της πορείας. Στην άλλη λωρίδα του δρόμου η κυκλοφορία των οχημάτων συνεχιζόταν περίπου ανενόχλητη, συνθέτοντας ένα περίεργο ηχητικό κράμα θορύβου, μελωδίας και ψαλμών. Στην εκκλησία της Θεοτόκου, στο στενό της ενορίας, όπου κατέληξε η πομπή, ευλογήθηκαν και μοιράστηκαν άρτοι. Είχε πια νυχτώσει, όταν χορωδοί και μουσικοί πήραν το δρόμο της επιστροφής για το χωριό… Υ.Γ.: Απαραίτητος συντελεστής της Λιτανείας, αποδείχτηκε το Ι.Χ. φορτηγάκι, που, αφού μετέφερε τα «έπιπλα», κουβάλησε και αρκετούς Χορωδούς, από το χώρο στάθμευσης μέχρι το σημείο εκκίνησης. *** *** *** *My colleague Chris Game has written in the Birmingham Post about the recent ESRC report on poverty in Britain. 'This is the fifth scientifically conducted independent study of poverty since 1983' he says 'and the situation is worse today than it has been for the past 30 years.' He summarises findings from the report titled The Impoverishment of the UK - officially published tomorrow: * Over 30 million people (almost half the population) are suffering to some degree from financial insecurity * Almost 18 million cannot afford adequate housing conditions * Roughly 14 million (almost 1 in 4) cannot afford one or more essential household goods * Almost 12 million are too poor to engage in common social activities considered necessary by the majority of the population * About 5.5 million adults (1 in 11) go without essential clothing * Around 4 million children and adults are not properly fed by today’s standards * Almost 4 million children go without at least two of the things they need * Around 2.7 million households (1 in 10) live in homes that are damp.* 11 per cent of children over 10 living in households without enough bedrooms for every child aged 10 or over of a different sex to have their own room * 4 per cent of children (well over half a million) living in families who cannot afford to feed them properly * 9 per cent of children going without one or more items of basic clothing * 9 per cent of working-age adults (3 million), 12 per cent of 18 to 25 year olds and 21 per cent of those unemployed and looking for work unable to afford appropriate clothes for a job interview * 33 per cent of adults (16.5 million) unable to pay unexpected costs of £500 * 30 per cent of working-age adults (about 11 million) unable to afford regular payments into a pension. [...and in America] *** *** Involved early in the development of Aftab Rahman's Lozells and East Handsworth Heritage Trail I was still in Ano Korakiana when the trail had its launch on 25 May.  Dear Sir/Madam   Launch of Lozells and Handsworth Heritage Trail – 25th May 10am – 1pm   We would like to invite you to the launch of our heritage trail for Lozells and Handsworth.  This has been a very exciting journey for us, we have learned so much about this amazing area and its heritage and we would like to share it with you.  The area is home to Soho House which is Matthew Boulton’s former home, St Mary’s Convent designed by Pugin, St Mary’s Church where Matthew Boulton, James Watts and William Murdoch are buried and there are several other historically significant buildings and places.  The registration will start at 9:30am at Soho House (Soho Avenue – off Soho Road, B18 5LB) and the tour will commence at 10am.  It is likely to take two hours approximately.  We have a reception at 1pm at South and City College – Soho Campus, on the Soho Road.  You will be able to hear from key note speakers and our tour guides – this will include a networking lunch.We have been working with South and City College to train 20 passionate people to become ‘tour guides’.  They will be your guides on the tour and will share their knowledge of the area with you on the walk.  Yours sincerely, Aftab Rahman, Director, Legacy WM Aftab circulated the trail guide with maps and photos and profiles of guides.

Handsworth Park on a Saturday afternoon in early summer

Our park at Christmas

Continuity

Dave was already attaching slings beneath Summersong when we arrived at the harbour. The crane, four sturdy supports extended either side of its carrier, squatted between boat and water, its driver smoking as Dave worked.
Up she comes a few feet. Dave hurries beneath, scraping and rolling on anti-foul under each twin keel and skeg where the boat had stood on the grass.
“It’s the bit I don’t like, If one of those old slings gives…”

I joined him in the scraping sensing the crushing weight suspended above us, like a touch of vertigo when peering from a sheer height. Then slowly the crane revolves on the truck carrying the boat towards the water, almost touching moored fishing boats, and then, with Dave holding a mooring line on the jetty, lowers her just beyond into the sea.

She starts to float and with some of her weight on the crane thus reduced the driver extends the crane enough to draw her hull away from the fishing boats mooring ropes, before letting her gently down into the sea.

Dave hands me a rope to hold her, walks across a boat, climbs onto Summer Song and removes the slings. He starts the motor.
“Come on board” I clamber over the bow and push off.
“It’s very shallow here” says Dave.

I realise we couldn’t have launched a single keel boat here. A shoal of tiny fish flashes beside us all their sides catching their sun at once. Gingerly, Dave at the tiller, we motor towards deeper water. I take the tiller. We up the throttle and take a turn beyond the mole and bring her gently home to pick up her old mooring bouys, one covered in a cluster of mussels.

*** ***

Hi Simon. Remembering our exchange some years ago (Feb 2012) about cultural continuity in Greece (Ancient, Modern), I came across this poem by Aristotle Nikolaidis, 'Word', translated by Kimon Friar in the US poetry journal Poetry, November 1981. Hope you're enjoying the boat and the weather. Not very exciting here, especially with leg in cast!, Jim

WORD
I first came upon it in Homer
and then for years afterward pursued it
through various texts. Disguised at times,
it surfaced in neglected choniclers (chroniclers?)
or was it wedged tight but breathing in compound words.
I found it again in a somewhat altered meaning
In distant dialects of the Greek,
and in chemical laboratories transformed
into specialized terminology; barbarous lips stammer it
in a variety of pronunciations.
                                                    Oh yes, it never died,
but traveling throughout the centuries, rooted
in the deep mouth of the Poet, it will be preserved
with unsuspected leaves and branches, with secret
flowers – a word that had perhaps been articulated for the
first
time by the lips of devious Apollo.

I'm asking Jim if he can dig up the Greek version of this poem. I'll wager it blends Homeric, classical,, polytonic, katharevousa and demotic Greek in subtle ways to make its point.
*** ***
Λιτανεία της "νηάς" Δευτέρας

Γράφει ο/η Σαββανής Σπύρος

18.05.13

Παρά τις σοβαρές ρωγμές της κοινωνικής μας συνοχής και παρά το κλίμα δυσπιστίας και χαμηλού επικοινωνιακού επιπέδου, που σημαδεύει τις μεταξύ μας σχέσεις, η φετινή Λιτανεία της Δευτέρας του Πάσχα έδινε μία εντύπωση αναγεννητική και πάντως ήταν καλύτερη από πολλές προηγούμενες Λιτανείες. Δεν ήταν μόνο η παληά Εικόνα της Παναγίας που προστέθηκε. Ήταν τα παιδιά του Σχολείου που πήραν μέρος με φροντίδα της κυρίας Ντίνας Σπίγγου και της κας Σπυριδούλας Τσηλιάκου. Ήταν η Μπάντα και η Χορωδία που έκαμαν μία από τις καλύτερες εμφανίσεις τους. Ήταν το μεγάλο ποσοστό των νέων ανθρώπων που σήκωσαν τα λεγόμενα (παληά ορολογία) «έπιπλα» (εικόνες, φλάμπουρα, σκόλες, σταυρούς κλπ). Ήταν όλα αυτά, μα πάνω από όλα ήταν η υποσυνείδητη διάθεση να δοθεί συνέχεια στην παράδοσή μας με , όσο γίνεται, πληρέστερο και σοβαρότερο τρόπο. Γιατί αλήθεια, θεωρούμε την παράδοση σαν σημαντική έννοια; Σ’ αυτό το ερώτημα μπορεί να αντιστοιχούν περισσότερες της μιας απαντήσεις. Και θα ήταν ενδιαφέρον να ακουστούν. Μία πάντως από αυτές θα μπορούσε να είναι και η εξής: η παράδοση είναι η κιβωτός ανθεκτικών στο χρόνο σημείων αναφοράς και αξιόπιστων στιγμάτων στο χάρτη της ατομικής και συλλογικής μας πορείας. Είναι η φανέρωση και η περιγραφή του Συλλογικού μας υποσυνείδητου. Συμφωνείτε; Αν αυτή η άποψη είναι σωστή, τότε η παράδοση αποκτάει «προστιθέμενη αξία» σε ιστορικές περιόδους σαν αυτή που διανύουμε τώρα σαν Λαός. Μιας  περιόδου σκληρής, οδυνηρής, εχθρικής και άκρως επικίνδυνης για την ΑΚΕΡΑΙΟΤΗΤΑ μας. Την σωματική, ψυχική και πνευματική μας ακεραιότητα. Συνεπώς, η παράδοσή μας σαν μέσο στήριξης και σαν οδηγός πλεύσης αποκτάει επιπλέον σπουδαιότητα. Συγχρόνως, φαίνεται να αποτελεί, αν όχι το μοναδικό, τουλάχιστον το ισχυρότερο όπλο άμυνας απέναντι στον καταιγισμό των απελπιστικών γεγονότων που έχουν σαν σκοπό τους να μας καταποντίσουν και εν τέλει να μας εξαφανίσουν. Χρόνια πολλά (και καλύτερα) σ’ όλους τους συντελεστές της φετινής Λιτανείας και καλήν αντάμωση του χρόνου, με ακόμη μεγαλύτερη, καλή διάθεση. ΣΠΥΡΟΣ Π. ΣΑΒΒΑΝΗΣ

*** ***

The house has at last been repainted from top to bottom. I’d have paid to have it done – a while ago. Between other work, Lin has been working for years preparing surfaces – always what matters - despite my wish to get on with laying on paint. A variety of different coverings have been scraped off over several years – a flaking patchwork of asvesti and plastic paint which if not removed will peel away bringing new paint with it, coming off on the paint roller or brush. The simplest solution – one that helps avoid such painstaking surface preparation – is to apply a transparent vinyl, astari. It fixes to unreliable surfaces like glue, creating a sturdy base. But Lin wanted everything smoothed back to the original render. Ten days ago I was helping this process, after nearly all peeling paint had been removed with a scraper; applying a rotary sander to every wall in turn. Intimate contact with walls revealed yet more partially hidden patches needing yet more scraping. We're laden with flakes and dust. All cleared surfaces are washed down. But wetting reveals yet more patches of peel.
“Will you ever be satisfied?” I mutter
“Probably not” says Lin, relentless to achieve a perfect finish before applying paint.
There are also cracks to be filled and, in the lower walls, where render is roughened with gravel, there are spaces where it has broken away; others where a hollow noise shows that that too is loose and must be chipped away. Lin mixes mortar and fills these vertical potholes, sometimes with several layers, ensuring a matching stipple. There are a variety of screw holes that must have fixed something to the wall, some with old rawlplugs showing. These are removed; the hole filled. The stub of two iron rods, once part of a bracket for an external water tank beside the front door, stick out from the wall a few millimetres.
“They hardly show” I say
“Have you seen them after dark when then porch light is on? The shadows they cast!”
I remove them with the metal cutting disk of my angle grinder, cutting into the render in the process and touching up the cut metal with a dab of Hammerite, so rust won’t bleed into the new paint. Lin makes good the crescent scar left in the render, making the surface smooth.
And now at last we can choose colours, using the paint-sample book and a computerised colour mixing machine at the ironmonger at Tzavros.

She was already applying our choice of paint as I was finishing some of the other surfaces with sander, wire brush and scraper and – on an unassailable stretch of paint under the eaves above our south facing balcony – applying astari.
We’d chosen white for the porch and the sides and bottom of Alan’s concrete balcony, and for the wall under the veranda, and a nameless orangey yellow – with numbered paint code on the top of the plastic paint pot – for the walls seen from the street and above the seaward balcony. With me looking over Lin’s shoulder at the sampler, we’d chosen a darker colour, vaguely matching the paint for the side walls and above the balcony, for the stippled hems on two walls.

Lin, calculating coverage, buys no more no less than is needed, adding in some new brushes, and two roller trays.
Painting went on all day into dusk, and the next and the next. The work was complete in under four days. The roller covered most space quite swiftly. Either a smaller roller or a brush served smaller spaces.

A brush on a stick completed edges, work that took up most of our painting time. Even I rollered, brushed and helped wipe off paint that had spilled on shutters, sills and window frames.
“There’s still paint there” says Lin, after I’ve cleaned with sponge and flannel, a shiny stretch of green frame.
“No there isn’t”
“Wait until it dries, you’ll see” I wipe again. “It looks fine to me”
“No, more”
“Jesus, Lin. Come on!” I’m angry at her conscientiousness even as I respect it.
“Don’t you dare talk to me like that!”
“OK OK” I rinse and wipe again.
Towards the end of the third day Vasiliki, sat outside with neighbours, stands and exclaims
“You are making our house look tatty!”
Linda is still wandering around checking, adding filler to newly revealed blemishes, touching them up with the small brush from a small pot.
“Thanks” she laughs with Vasiliki, who leads everyone, including me, in a clap
“Bravo Linda! Bravo!”
It is a most satisfactory piece of work. Later we lean on the green rail that edges Democracy Street and, with neighbours - grown-ups and children - enjoy looking down at our work.

I searched through earlier photos of the house and found a picture I'd taken six years ago - April 2007 - when a visiting Brit we'd met in Ipsos was helping barrow the rubble into the garden where Lin planned to lay plaka. We were starting to put right damage done by the previous owners 'improvements'. I had borrowed a jack hammer from Dave to begin demolishing three breeze block 'bunkers' that their builder had put beside the house as - so he claimed -  'flower beds'. Their real function was to store, under a layer of soil, some of the rubble created by - idiotically - demolishing the house's external stairs and balcony. These breezeblock 'flowerbeds' efficiently collected rain streaming over the roof gutters when these, as is frequently the case, cannot cope with regular Corfu cloud bursts. They could hardly have been better designed, along with the loss of the sheltering balcony, to feed damp into the wall. It didn't help that they lacked drain holes. The extra rubble I created by breaking up the 'bunkers' was bagged up, carried up the steps to Democracy Street, and carted, laboriously, with several journeys in our small hired saloon, to help create the foundations of an extension to the ironmonger's shop at Tzavros, where he'd planted a notice inviting people to dump their 'bazza'.

The side of the house in 2007

**** ****
After an excellent phone chat with my director at the University, I’m looking forward to working with her on some in-house political skills seminars.

DRAFT
Political Management Skills: Negotiating the Overlap
Training sessions for XXX Council (Date/s & venues to be agreed)

Good government is where the best of politics and management combine. This seminar for senior managers in XXX focuses on the skills, codes and values that strengthen trust between elected members and officers.

Objectives: To explore techniques, processes and ways of working that can be used by those leading in a political environment; to enhance understanding of how the roles of political and managerial leaders are changing and how this is manifested in these councils.

Style: short talks, exercises, hand-outs and film clips showing senior managers and politicians describing the way their work overlaps, enabling participants to explore the verbal and non verbal communication vital to constructing trust at the point where politics and management overlap.

Programme

- Brief introduction - overview of the morning (or afternoon)

- Leadership at the apex: overlapping spaces

- Analysis of film clips of member-officer conversations

- Defining and discussing skills and values

- Work on ‘critical incidents’: facilitated by tutors

- Summary and feedback: Q & A

Tutors
Simon Baddeley: As a visiting lecturer at Birmingham University where he has worked since 1973, Simon Baddeley’s fascination is with the working relationships of politicians and managers and how these relationships  contribute good local government. He’s taught in Australia, Sweden, Japan, Canada and New Zealand. He has invented many training approaches to this sensitive subject, including the ‘owl/fox/donkey/sheep’ model (co-author Kim James), and created a film collection of interviews with politicians and managers working across political-managerial boundaries. He continues to run events for local councils across the UK on ‘political-management leadership’ and ‘political sensitivity’ for members and officers, and carries out film research on political-management working relationships. He was a member of the 2005 SOLACE Commission, convened by Cheryl Miller CBE, examining the challenges of working in a political environment. He has long been involved in voluntary community work, currently helping run an unincorporated social enterprise serving the area of Handsworth. Contact: s.j.baddeley@bham.ac.uk

Catherine Staite, Director of INLOGOV: Catherine teaches community engagement, collaborative strategy and strategic commissioning to Masters’ level.  Her research interests include collaboration between local authorities and the skills and capacities which elected members will need to meet the challenges of the future. As Director, she leads and coordinates INLOGOV’s collaboration with a wide range of organisations, including the LGA, NLGN, Nesta, iMPOWER and SOLACE as well as universities in the USA, Europe and Japan, to help support creative thinking, innovation and improvement in local government and the wider public sector.
Catherine joined INLOGOV in 2010 from OPM, where she was Director of Organisational Development and Policy and led a number of major research projects. Previous roles include Head of User Focus and Deputy Head of Policy for the Audit Commission, where she was responsible for national research projects and leading internal change and Regional Partnerships and Planning Manager for the Legal Services Commission, where she delivered needs-based strategies for civil legal aid. Previous non-executive roles include non-executive director of Rampton Hospital, where she was responsible for review of patients’ continued detention, Vice Chair of Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust and member of the Board of Visitors at HMP Hull, with particular responsibility for oversight of the prison hospital and welfare of mentally disordered offenders. Contact c.staite@bham.ac.uk