Leaving the Highlands

For breakfast I fried two eggs from the new hens in butter and laid them on buttered granary toast, added a little pepper...

...Tuesday morning, after the swift farewell mum prefers and a hug and kisses for Liz, Sharon dropped me and Oscar at Inverness station. All reservations were booked into the first coach on the platform, my seat surrounded by large fellow passengers with large children and luggage. Three coaches closer to the front. We had a table to ourselves most of the way to Edinburgh. An hour and ten minutes out of Inverness I'm alerted, as ever, to the train speeding up, even though the small river that meanders beside the single line still flows north we're descending and then - I always miss it - another similar river, is winding south, the watershed at a T-junction from the stream out of long Loch Ericht...

Past the watershed, the river's flowing south

...past the slopes of Badenoch into softer country; the beginning of the Lowlands. At messy Waverley bustling with Festival crowds I found my way by lift to the banished southern platforms and caught a Virgin Train towards London, among the last. First Group takes over the West Coast Line in December - it's winning bid for the franchise described as highly risky. I read most of the way; Jan Morris' Venice; watched Helen Mirren and Anne Bancroft in The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone, through Lancaster, Preston, Wigan North West, Warrington Bank Quay. By Crewe I'd returned to my book shrinking the journey with recognition and memory of places - not only that city but Padua, Ferrara and Bologna where I left the train to Rome, catching one south east along the coast, with time to buy a picnic, for my onward journey south through Rimini, Ancona, Pescara, to Bari for a ferry to Greece. Leaving Wolverhampton as we hurried beside familiar towpaths and canal bridges through green burgeoning dereliction I  phoned Lin who, thirteen miles later, collected us outside New Street station.

Waiting for Linda at New Street Station

Settling in at home, going through my post, an email from Sharon with a photo. She's managed, with help from Liz, to coax Mum out for a conversation with the hens.

***** *****
Wednesday: It's been pouring on and off; a sample from my in-tray - send energy meter readings and phone the energy company to ask for a refund of the credit they've collected from me, check a cheaper storage place on the Tyburn Road for my stepfather's archive - half the present price; work up Handsworth Helping Hand's (HHH) guidelines for safeguarding children and vulnerable adults, circulate minutes and prepare an agenda for our meeting on Thursday night; meet up with Aftab Rahman at Soho House, moving on to Colin Simm's terraces on Hamstead Road then St Mary's Convent on Hunter's. He'd brought along a young film-maker, Amirul Hussain, and a photographer Johur Uddin, joined later by Jesse Gerald, to help assemble materials for our planned Lozells and East Handsworth Heritage Trail. We were joined by Rajinder Rattu and Cllr Waseem Zaffar. As we looked at Colin's gardens I asked Waseem what he knew about an inexpensive way to get HHH people Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checked, something we need to do to qualify for funding. Rajinder told me we must get these through a CRB registered agency, HHH being too small to be so accredited.

Colin and Simon

L-R: Colin Simms, Rajinder Rattu, Cllr Waseem Zaffar,  Amirul Hussain, Aftab Rahman and Johur Uddin

*********
Liturgy for the Madonna in Ano Korakiana...On the Eve of Our Lady, one neighborhood is preparing to share celebrations with all the village; a procession beginning and ending at the small church above Mourgadas - της Μουργάδας - where the service will be.

Marietta’s conscientious attention has spread whitewash up Tsimpani hill, reflecting off edges and old ways. The afternoon starts with decorating the Epitaphio and Icon of Our Lady. Sophia Nikolouzos will offer ribbons woven by devout sisters (from old Korakiana families), while Alexandra Spingou-Trivizas will decorate the cross with Cloves and Basil. Commissioner George Kentarhos will as usual oversee the ceremonies. Following its recent refurbishment, pictures, like the image of the Virgin of the Life-Giving Spring - της Παναγίας Ζωοδόχου Πηγής, hang on the walls at the back of the little church. The clouds thickened but the threatened storm left the village alone....By evening amid candles and cherubs, young children have early positions guarantee - Michael, Constantine, Mary, Nectarina, Ellie, Vangelis and several others.

Some reckon the unusually high numbers a sign of the times...Wednesday morning, the day of the feast, and the scene’s repeated; lots of people gathered in the small courtyard, crowded inside the church, despite the heat and humidity....Το πολυπληθές ψαλτήρι σε σπάνια αρμονία και χωρίς φωνητικές εξάρσεις συμπληρώνει μια εικόνα αγαλλίασης, όπως θα πει λίγο αργότερα ο κορακιανίτης γαμπρός, γιατρός Γιάννης Βαρβαρίγος. Στα γύρω σοκάκια, τα παιδιά δεν κρατιούνται και ξεδίνουν στο παιγνίδι, όσο και αν ακόμη βαραίνουν τα αφτιά τους οι οδηγίες των γονέων. Το τελείωμα της Λειτουργίας θα ακολουθήσει το προσκύνημα της Εικόνας και οι ανταλλαγές ευχών. Η προσφορά άρτων από την Ενορία και σπερνών από την οικογένεια Αλέκου και Κατερίνας Ιωνά, συμπληρώνουν το καθιερωμένο κέρασμα, που προσφέρει η οικογένεια Κώστα και Ειρήνης Μπαλατσινού.

Wednesday evening, the curtain fell on the last night of our Band’s Cultural Programme for August, a performance by our musical association’s dance group. As usual, three ‘generations’ of dancers performed in a composition of traditional rhythms from different parts of our country, set against austere and beautiful scenery....

...With a boat named ‘Victory’ - designed by G. Metallinos, Katerina and Alekos Jonah - sailing through blue waters and Nike Kentarhos, their skilled captain, quietly directing the performance of the dance, with the help of Francisco Koveou on sound. Wonderfully encouraging was the Association’s children's ‘set’, getting the audience’s repeated applause.

“They will be here next year” promised Spyros Savvani, Philharmonic President, celebrating the annual contributions of long term supporters of the dance section since it was founded.  
Η αυλαία των Αυγουστιάτικών Πολιτιστικών Εκδηλώσεων της Φιλαρμονικής έπεσε χθες το βράδυ, με την παράσταση του Χορευτικού συγκροτήματος του Μουσικού μας Συλλόγου. Όπως πάντα, οι τρεις «γενιές» χορευτών και χορευτριών έδωσαν το παρόν με μία μουσικο-χορευτική σύνθεση παραδοσιακών ρυθμών από διάφορα μέρη του τόπου μας, με φόντο ένα λιτό και όμορφο σκηνικό. Με ένα καραβάκι ονόματι «Νίκη», που επιμελήθηκαν οι Γεράσιμος Μεταλληνός, Αλέκος και Κατερίνα Ιωνά, να αρμενίζει σε γαλάζια νερά και με τη Νίκη Κεντάρχου, επιδέξια καπετάνισσα, να διευθύνει αθόρυβα την παράσταση του χορευτικού, με τη βοήθεια του Φραγκίσκου Κωβαίου στα ηχητικά. Σίγουρα ενθαρρυντική ήταν η παρουσία του παιδικού «κύκλου» του τμήματος, που απέσπασε επανειλημμένα τις επιδοκιμασίες του κοινού. «Ραντεβού για του χρόνου στο ίδιο μέρος», υποσχέθηκε ο Πρόεδρος της Φιλαρμονικής Σπύρος Σαββανής, κάνοντας παράλληλα μια ενδεικτική αναφορά τιμής στα πρόσωπα που στήριξαν το χορευτικό τμήμα όλα τα χρόνια, από την ίδρυσή του έως σήμερα.
*** *** ***
With various other things out of the way Linda and Denise went down to do some work for Handsworth Helping Hands, weeding, digging and planting a neglected raised bed at the top of Putney Avenue, a car-filled cul de sac. They'd a Pelagonium left from previous plantings by us, four Dahlias from a resident, and from Jill, Lin's friend, Geraniums, Bergenia and Euphobia.

Lin and Denise doing voluntary work in Putney Avenue

I took a hand-fork and a rake from them and weeded the bed on one side of Church Vale - one we'd dug, weeded and planted three weeks ago, and picked up litter in and around the bed. Ten of our ninety Pelagonia gifted by Allen Broad at the Park have been taken; but Lin was told the miscreant, a rather rickety old man, had been caught by a neighbour who'd asked him why he was taking the flowers. He'd replied "Because they're nice" 

Out of Town

'Here, long after I'd left home, is my stepfather on set, relaxed in the 'shed' he invented for the programme, a yoke of studio lights reflected in his glasses...

Jack Hargreaves ~ Out of Town 

...Growing up with Jack I spent a lot of the time we weren't out of doors, in a shed - watching him, sometimes helping him, always listening. It was a comfortable space suffused with the aroma of Gallaghers Honeydew and a bench rather than a desk next to tool racks and an accumulating plethora of useful odds and ends that would have cluttered a studio.'
I've just prepared this paragraph as a comment on a Southern Television studio photo in family files taken, I suspect, in 1980 when Jack must have been touching 70, about to leave the company, knowing it was almost certain to lose its franchise in the latest round of ITV bidding. I'm working with Ian Gilcrist at Delta who are preparing some images and texts to go with their release of 34 original Out of Town broadcasts.

These are as far as we know the only complete episodes of Jack's Out of Town programme that survive. The set that Charles Webster of Delta, who I've been working with over the last three years, plans to release later in the year. His 'box' will include an account from me of the search for this material and one from Simon Winter of Kaleidoscope of the extraordinary mix of luck and wisdom that unearthed them, with a short accompanying website, in which my stepfather's portrait will feature.

1951 ~ Gallagher's Golden Honeydew

I probably know as well as anyone how accurately Out of Town transferred my childhood to the tele’. In that posed studio photo he sits at a desk with the Falcon pipe he’d draw on through count-down - a concession to indoor smoking that even as early as 1980 had to be negotiated. He’d rest the pipe gently on the desk as he went on air, relighting it with the credits.  There was in the end surprisingly little difference between Jack’s carefully devised set and the shed next to our house; little difference between Jack Hargreaves as a natural on TV and Jack in a real shed being a dad to die for. He chatted as he worked. I was endlessly entertained, understanding, years later, why he sub-titled his book - Out of Town - ‘a life relived on television’. I'm sure that was because of, rather than despite, the artifice. Never am I so reminded of the fancy that we invent our lives, or at least our biographies.

*** ***
I don't wish recession on anyone but this is nectar:

ATHENS, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Greece's dire economic plight has forced thousands of businesses to close, thrown one in five out of work and eroded the living standards of millions. But for bicycle-maker Giorgos Vogiatzis, it's not all bad news. The crisis has put cash-strapped Greeks on their bikes - once snubbed as a sign of poverty or just plain risky - and Greek manufacturers are shifting into fast gear. The high cost of road tax, fuel and repairs is forcing Greeks to ditch their cars in huge numbers. According to the government's statistics office, the number of cars on Greek roads declined by more than 40 percent in each of the last two years. Meanwhile, more than 200,000 bikes were sold in 2011, up about a quarter from the previous year. Shops selling bicycles, and equipment ranging from helmets to knee pads, are spreading fast across the capital, popping up even between souvenir shops on the cobbled pedestrian streets of the touristy Plaka district. "They're sprouting up like mushrooms," said Vogiatzis, who designs and builds tailor-made bicycles in his workshop on the Aegean island of Rhodes....

*** *** ***
To my delight the chickens have arrived. Four healthy looking two year old hens. Two Suffolk Lights and two Rhode Island Reds. They were delivered to their run and coop on one side of Brin Croft at 7.45 Wednesday morning...

...kept in there for 24 hours. Friday afternoon three are out on the grass basking in  unaccustomed sun, wings outstretched, and Blanche seems to be broody in the laying box. "I doubt we'll have any eggs for a while. They need to settle in" said my mother, who sees them first on my computer...

...and names them, Blanche, Edith, Rhoda and Gladys - Edith the Suffolk with black speckles on her cape, and Rhoda, the Rhode Island with darker feathers on her back. I bought back a large bag of laying pellets and a water feeder from Harbros on Harbour Road in Inverness.The doctor and nurses have been dropping in, courtesy of the NHS to check on Mum who's not feeling so good. The arrival of hens and relatives cheering her up a little. Her grandson, my sister Bay's son, Antony, has taken a house in Tomatin for a week and is there with that side of the family. I've been ferrying Bay over the 14 miles to Inverarnie to check on our mum and confer with Sharon, her wonderful carer, and calm collected Doctor Sweeney who's mother's also in her 90s. Bay got our mother to a window to have a first gaze at her new chckens...

...and  my great niece came round with her mum keen to try feeding them...

Sydney with her grandma and the chickens

** ** ** **
I've been taking walks in jocund grazings playground for hundreds of small butterflies - Scotch Argus - myriad small insects, bees large and small, tiny moths fluttering between storks amid the rich greenery along the silvery Farnack...

The Farnack

...heading above this pleasant Highland bocage, on above the forestry line to scan the Strath in all its beauty - a panorama on these clear days to Ben Wyvis in Easter Ross beyond the Moray Firth winding away to Cromarty until it disappears beyond my middle ground, eastern slopes of serried pine, leading south to my point of reference - Brin Rock.

Time travel, like riding a bicycle the first time or skipping, is a mix of chance and craft. My daily biography runs to random slides amid the sounds of the moment; no track for smell. Dipping my nose into a flower, a patch of greenest sphagnum, rotting leaves, an errant pine branch, a handful of long wet grass to hold a living fish going back where it came, broken earth; I flick through a worm hole - momentarily effulgent with joy; sometimes its opposite stench, equally evocative. Possession is immeasurably brief, far outside conscious attention, an elusive sense animating the images and sounds, even the tastes, of lost times - του χαμένου χρόνου. How we mock noses, the part that resists all but teasing poetry. Yet the terriers, all dogs, share an environment of smells and taste. With their wet noses and little lolling tongues they survey and map the walks we take.

*** *** ***
À la recherche ... in Ano Korakiana

A swimming expedition of Korakianers to Dassia - before the they built the big road along the shore

"Η μυρωδιά της τηγανητής μελιτζάνας και πιπεριάς καθώς και η φρέσκια σάλτσα ντομάτας μου θυμίζουν έντονα τα καλοκαιρινά μας μπάνια όταν ήμασταν παιδιά! Από τα χαράματα με ξύπναγαν οι μυρωδιές που προανέφερα. Ήταν η μέρα που θα οδεύαμε προς Δασιά μεριά. Αρκετή η απόσταση όταν την κάνεις πεζή. Όσοι είχαν γαϊδουράκι ήταν τυχεροί. Εμείς δεν είχαμε! Ξεκίναγε η συντροφιά με τα φαγώσιμα κρεμασμένα στα ''σκαρβέκια ''του γαϊδάρου...

The smell of fried aubergines and peppers as well as the smell of fresh tomato sauce reminds me intensely of our summer bathing when we were children. These smells awoke us from daybreak. It was the day we were going to travel to the seashore at Dasia - a considerable distance on foot. Those who had a donkey were lucky. We didn't. Our group set off with the picnic food hanging from the wooden parts - σκαρβέκια - of the Jenny's saddle..."

*** ***
I thought this interesting - from John and Alistair cycling across Canada right now. Looking at what makes a community work -

John and Alistair in Tatamagouche

Sustainability and the Entrepreneurial Spirit: It is the most obvious thing that is missing in communities that are stagnant or in decline. In these places no one is able to refer to any one individual or a group of passionate and committed citizens who are taking action....Business entrepreneurs are the cornerstone of successful small communities. It may not take many, just a handful working on their own business. Together they recognise the efforts of others who also take this risk and they form an important cohort in the community around which others will follow to build a sense of place...
...and another cycle odyssey with a purpose - described in The Carbon Cycle. In 2006 Kate Rawles cycled 4500 miles from Texas to Alaska, following the spine of the Rocky Mountains conversing with people she met about climate change – from truck drivers to the Mayor of Albuquerque – to find out what they knew about it, whether they cared, and if they did, what they thought they could do. I've bought the book...and extract from Kate's blog. I like the fine grain, the small things, the ubiquity of unique individuals, talents I'll never encounter, the amount I miss in the wider world:

25th june '06...wonderful couple of days. great evening at neighbours' yesterday. when we arrived at john and anne's, just us and them. i was imagining a sit-down formal dinner. then another couple arrived, then a car-load, then another. cars kept arriving. soon the house was full of three generations, wandering inside and out, drinking beers, cokes and margheritas. i spoke with a geologist specialising in hazardous waste retraining as a nurse specialising in anaesthesia. (an anaesthetist with a geological time-frame, what a thought! let me put you to sleep for a hundred thousand years....).   his view on global warming was a) climates have always been in flux and this is just another flux and b) in any case talking about global warming isn't a good way to get people to act differently. it's too big and distant. focussing on the geo-political situation and the desirability of energy independance would be much more effective. i spoke with a solar astrophysicist who'd been studying the sun's output since 1970. we can't blame the sun's output for global warming anymore, he said. it's now certain that the output has been constant for the last 30 odd years. and yes, i certainly believe global warming is happening. i spoke with anne who showed me her little black and white cat panda's two kittens and told me a bear had eaten all their chickens bar one last night - and had a go at the hummingbird feeder. (bears? already? goodness!). best of all i spoke with heidi. small and slender, skin tight jeans, beautiful boots, pink and white shirt and white cowboy hat over a long pale plait, large blue eyes with a calm, grounded sort of look. heidi has a very large ranch in utah. in the summer she rides the ranch checking on cattle and fences, sleeping out for five or six nights at a time and then coming back for an occasional bath before setting out again. a real cowgirl (cowperson?!) - and a grandma! what an inspiration. (being a cowgirl is a long-standing fantasy of mine, tho its never sat entirely easily with being a vegetarian). we talked about arabs versus quarter horses (she uses quarter horses), how travelling in an rv cuts you off from so much of what you are travelling through, and how useful dogs are. "they make for lazy cowboys but take the pressure off the horses. they're about 5% useful: most of the time the cattle are chasing the dogs rather than the other way around." tom and rosalind told me later how heidi on form was an extraordinary dancer, known, amongst other things, for tap-dancing on tables and throwing truly wild parties which people would cross states to get to. and she invited me to come and visit! oh my. somehow i must find a way to make that happen.

****** ** ******
I've only just read Richard Pine's latest Letter from Greece in the Irish Times of 3 August 'Living with bribery and tax evasion as normal as the azure sky'...

I plead guilty. Last month I colluded in tax evasion and paid a bribe. I was buying stationery costing €105. The shopkeeper asked if I wanted a receipt. No thanks. “Then that will be €90 – cash, of course.” Of course. I saved €15 and he avoided paying VAT. Collusion. Everyone does it...Meanwhile, the coalition government in place since late June appears to be doing nothing except mouthing empty rhetoric about the need for reform and renegotiation of the bailout. There are reportedly 110 bailout conditions on which no progress has been made, thus imperilling payment of the next tranche of the loan. Government prevarication has registered with the voters: a recent opinion poll indicated that 50 per cent of voters are dissatisfied with the inaction of people who have the power – but not the motivation – to effect change. This is the same percentage that voted for the anti-austerity, anti-bailout parties on June 17th. A house divided, indeed. A visitor, looking at an aquamarine sky, asked: “Where else would you see a sky like that?” To which the answer is: Portugal, Spain, Italy – all the “bad boys” of southern Europe. It isn’t simply a matter of doing business in these countries in a quite different way to those of the north, but a cultural difference. A country in which clingfilm is called “diaphanous membrane”, and where boys are still named Aristotle, Hercules and Perikles, and girls Aphrodite, Urania (sky) and Agape (love), isn’t quite the same as one in which children are called Nigel and Ingrid, and where clingfilm is, well, clingfilm.

The other evening I asked my nephew, who's senior enough in knowledge of economics and finance, to have an opinion I value, about Greece
"You know how I feel. What of the future?"
"Greece will leave - will have to leave the Euro" he said very quietly; a little reluctantly.

"And Spain, and Italy and Portugal and...?" I asked amid a crowd of chatting relatives in my mother's sitting room. He looked at me eyebrows raised knowing I was seeking reassurance.
"Well?"
"They'll pull through"

Olympic debt race - Sophia Mamalinga 2 Aug'12

"What's the difference?" He shrugged and made a small spread of his arms. It was like pulling small teeth.
"Is it corruption?"
"Hm"
"Why Greece? Why not the others? You know how bad things are in Athens" I ran through my present list of harm and spreading misery.
"There's no capital left" He paused and looked away then back at me "Nothing there" Another pause "A dreadful mess."
He wanted to talk and think about something else. I didn't pursue, just felt a small ache in the pit of my stomach. (Telegraph 7 Aug'12: Greek exit from euro is 'manageable’ says Jean-Claude Juncker)

The family came to say 'Goodbye"

Our shed and all it contains

Katzanzakis wrote 'Να αγαπάς την ευθύνη. Να λες: Εγώ μονάχος μου έχω χρέος να σώσω τη γης. Άμα δε σωθεί εγώ θα φταίω' 'Love responsibility. Say: It is my duty, and mine alone, to save the earth. If it is not saved, then I alone am to blame.' Arundhati Roy - my heroine - is especially good on wealth made through plunder in alliance with bribed governments.

'Capitalism’s real “grave-diggers” may end up being its own delusional Cardinals, who have turned ideology into faith. Despite their strategic brilliance, they seem to have trouble grasping a simple fact: Capitalism is destroying the planet. The two old tricks that dug it out of past crises -War and Shopping - simply will not work.' 

Alternatives to state-market collaboration are many. They are diverse; less visible for being, like bacilli or viruses, small. Wander through work associated with Elinor Ostrom:

 ...contemporary research on the outcomes of diverse institutional arrangements for governing common-pool resources (CPRs) and public goods of multiple scale builds on classical economic theory while developing new theory to explain phenomena that do not fit in a dichotomous world of 'the market' and 'the state.' Scholars are slowly shifting from positing simple systems to using more complex frameworks, theories, and models to understand the diversity of puzzles and problems facing humans interacting in contemporary societies...

Ostrom challenges widespread scepticism about community self-organisation in managing common pool resources (CPR) - 'game theory' and the 'tragedy of the commons'. Both paradigms suggest people can't be trusted; that either the market or the state or, in Roy's analysis, state-market collaboration, are essential antidotes to the chaos that is inevitable if people are allowed to self-organise. All of us educated by The Lord of the Flies are nearly right. Our hope lies in the dream that they-we are not absolutely right. Ostrom and her colleagues at Indiana, but also quite separate researchers, have analysed cases of failure, semi-failure, partial success and success from all over the world in governing common pool resources. Shared learning and diffusion of that learning is beginning to upset the traditional model of rich-to-poor aid. We 'rich' have much to learn from cases of self-organisation driven by the pressure to survive -invented and sustained in poorer countries. Seek out examples to move away from looking only to state or market, capitalism or communism.
I should have avoided the word 'allowed' in the context of 'self-organisation'. Even as they may promote it (Big Society for example) governments and corporations will undermine it in the way Roy describes, with seduction and - if forced - violence, preceded and accompanied by subtle and relentless spin. (a mild example: central-local double-speak in the case of UK local government by my friend and colleague Chris Game)
**** ****
An email just received  an abstract I submitted for an academic conference in Minneapolis next September:

Thank you for your submission in response to the call for papers for the upcoming Creating Public Value in a Multi-Sector, Shared-Power World conference. We received a remarkable response to the call, with many strong papers.  After careful review... (at this point I know it's not good news)...by faculty advisers from a variety of fields, we regret to inform you that your paper was not selected for inclusion. However, we hope your interest in the creation of public value will inspire you to attend the conference September 20-22, 2012 in Minneapolis, MN, USA. You can access the conference website and registration information here. Thank you again for your interest and your commitment to the study of public value in a multi-sector, shared-power world.  Kind Regards, John Bryson, Ph.D. McKnight Presidential Professor of Planning and Public Affairs

When it comes to applying for jobs, submitting papers or a thousand other endeavours I assume anything from a 10-1 failure rate upwards.  This doesn't mean I'm not miserable, vexed and chagrined - switching between 'sour grapes' excuses to myself and recognition my abstract wasn't interesting enough:

PROBING THE HEART OF DEMOCRACY WITH VIDEO...In the working conversations between politicians and administrators in government, values, whether as means or ends, are seldom spoken directly. Research access to such conversations...though a popular focus of fictional drama, is problematic. Since the 1980s, Baddeley has been refining methods for exploring how local government politicians and managers work together at what Weber called the greatest source of tension in the modern social order − the relationship between democracy and bureaucracy...As the methodology has been refined, it becomes easier to record the way values are embroidered into conversations about what is technically, legally and financially workable. Film has the benefit of recording verbal, non-verbal and para-linguistic exchanges, allowing minute examination of their dynamic. While film provides no special guarantee of unique authenticity, (the) methodology determines a contract between researcher and participants and their future audience which frames, for further investigation, an exchange between them that is always going to be a performance – but one that the participants are prepared to have presented for analysis as part of the value to which those involved in a public relationship of government...are committed. 

*** ***
Friday morning Lin drove us south-west 70 miles down the M5, M50 to Ross-on-Wye...

Ross-on-Wye on the way to Lydbrook

...and on to Lydbrook six miles further south on the edge of the Forest of Dean, where Royston is slowly and steadily making repairs to Rock Cottage. Since the children grew up and we started living to and fro - πέρα δόθε - between Ano Korakiana and Handsworth, we've neglected it. It's up Bell Hill, way up a steep narrow path some way from the highway, now nigh impossible for our parents.

There are few builders we've trusted as much as Royston. We suggest work; he assesses it; sends us a quote; we approve and refine the detail; he gets on with the work; lets us know when it's completed; we pay and discuss the next stage. Our neighbours - Kirsti and Paul -  a few yards away also keep us informed on the work, which started from the outside stopping ways in which damp had been entering some parts of the upper floor. With the roof and eaves sealed, there's a lot more to do.

A ceiling has been replaced in one bedroom, a wall lined in another, and now Royston will set about giving us a quote for replacing several window frames, two doors and sealing and painting exterior walls.
"When that's done we can stay here again" I said
"...and Amy and Richard will come without us."
"That's fine. That's OK. They'd never let us sell the place anyway."
Our hope -  to have all work completed by Summer 2013.

Richard and Linda at Rock Cottage - a summer long ago

*** ***
The best article I've yet read on the enormously sensible Greek Property Tax, written last September but updated by An American in Athens - a superlative blog. Her article carefully copyrighted, long and rich in detail and illustration, especially on interpreting information about the tax as it appears on electricity bills, measuring properties, exemptions (for types of disability and property), penalties for non-payment, multipliers based on zone and house age, appeals against assessment, future changes currently planned - including the spreading of payments over the year and a future shift away from collecting the new property tax via electric bills to separate bills - likely to start in 2013. People like us, as my grandmother used to say, ought to pay rather more tax, especially death duties. I agree even as I make as sure as I can that I have checked legal means of not paying. I have a relative who regards all tax as 'theft'; does not believe there is such a thing as a public good and regards HM the Queen with her persistent sympathies for the less well off as a dangerous left-winger.

*** *** ***
My mum's had a chicken run built at the end of her house, robust enough to keep out the Pine Martin - more of a threat than fox or rats in Strathnairn. Once the risk of a final cold spell is passed her chickens will move in - four or five now her carer's approval is won.

"Fine" said Sharon "as long as there's no cockerel"
"I'm going" mum told me "to have a pair of Rhode Island Reds and some of those speckled Scots Dumpies."

*** *** ***
Meanwhile in Ano Korakiana:

Η προσπάθεια συνεχίζεται αμείωτη...efforts continue unabated...following last Sunday's Agricultural Cooperative AGM, the registration of new shareholders...with a strong probability the necessary numbers will be recruited by the end of the month. Several young people have responded to the challenge, as well as subscribers from the wider region. Some cases remind us of the situation (one of many) when the family of Kontostanou Chariklia, in the 1930s when the Cooperative was striving to expand its facilities in an even more difficult economic environment. Shareholders took out mortgages on their properties to guarantee the loan needed for the Cooperative...So when, at Christmas, Kontostanou Chariklia's mother had tried to "sacrifice" one of her chickens to make lemon sauce,  αυγολέμονο, her husband had to stop her; telling her the chicken, and indeed the whole coop, was already mortgaged for the Co-op....below, a jar of sweet figs to go with Mrs Metallinos' recent registration

Nitsa Metallinos registers for the Co-op

Στον απόηχο της Γενικής Συνέλευσης του Αγροτικού Συνεταιρισμού του χωριού μας την περασμένη Κυριακή, η προσπάθεια για την εγγραφή νέων συνεταίρων συνεχίζεται αμείωτη, ώστε να καλυφθεί με ασφάλεια ο στόχος, έως το τέλος του μήνα. Μεταξύ άλλων, αρκετοί νέοι σε ηλικία έχουν προσφερθεί για τη στήριξη του δύσκολου εγχειρήματος, αλλά ακόμη και άτομα από την ευρύτερη περιοχή. Και δεν είναι λίγες οι περιπτώσεις που οι παλαιότεροι, μας υπενθυμίζουν την περίπτωση (μία από τις πολλές) της οικογένειας της Κοντοστάνου Χαρίκλειας, στα μέσα της δεκαετίας του 1930, όταν ο Συνεταιρισμός επιχειρούσε τότε να επεκτείνει τις εγκαταστάσεις του σε ένα αρκετά πιο δύσκολο οικονομικό περιβάλλον. Όλοι λοιπόν οι συνέταιροι είχαν βάλει τότε υποθήκη τμήματα της περιουσίας τους, προκειμένου να εξασφαλιστεί η δανειοδότηση του Συνεταιρισμού...Όταν λοιπόν, τα Χριστούγεννα η μάννα της Χαρίκλειας είχε επιχειρήσει να «θυσιάσει» μια από τις κότες που είχε στο κοτέτσι της για το αυγολέμονο, ο σύζυγός της την απέτρεψε ενημερώνοντας την ότι (και) το κοτέτσι τους είχε μπει στην υποθήκη για  το Συνεταιρισμό…...Όπως το βάζο με γλυκό σύκο, που προσέφερε η κα Νίτσα Μεταλληνού, μαζί με την εγγραφή της στο Συνεταιρισμό.

Bacon and eggs

The sun has got his hat on. He’s coming out to play. Rain rain go away come again another day. Bright dazzling reflections off wet surfaces everywhere, jocund, auguring Spring. Seedtime. Licensed though?

“How do you know” asked a woman at the seed-sharing meeting in the Farmers’ Co-op last Saturday “whether a tomato is a hybrid or from Corfu?”
“The one from Corfu will start to decay when it’s no longer fresh”
This answer produced murmuring chat across the floor; to some it’s hardly an issue. GM seeds grow tomatoes with no need for pesticide and the harvest takes far longer to rot giving plenty of time for distribution, longer retail and less waste.
“But you can grow tomatoes without pesticide”
“Ever tried?”
“And what happens to other insects?"
"So what?"
"What about not being able to keep seeds for the next crop. Having to buy them under licence? What about the difference in taste?”
“Ever tried to feed a family running a farm?”

I was on the phone – a gift call from Mark and Sally as I enjoyed another supper with them.
“Do you want to phone your mum?”
He dials the number which I forget now and then but Sally keeps a record. I talk first to Richard at Brin Croft another day with Emma, before taking the night coach back to Birmingham
“We went to see the windmills”

“Did you cross the river OK?” The swift burn that runs water of the moor beside the Garbole Road, to be forded on the rough track up to the turbines.
“No problem. We went to Coignafearn”
“Has Emma been there before?”
“No”
“Did she like it?”
“I guess. There were a lot of trees blown down in the winds we’ve been having.”
Pines spread for nutrients rather than burrow into impossible granite. Falling, they pull up a large flat saucer of raw sandy earth laced with torn roots.
“I bet the wind had the turbines whizzing”
“I guess so”
I give him some silence
“We found a pheasant that had been hit by a car. Lying by the road. I put it out of its misery. We bought it home. It’s hanging in grandma’s game larder.”
I spoke to my mum to say I’d booked a flight to the Highlands in mid-March.
“I love your letters” she said “I keep them by the bed. Take them out and read parts again. Oh yes. I finally got the phone of the girl on the Black Isle who’s got the terrier I gave her”
“Is she interested in her seeing Oscar”
“Very much so”
“Oscar’ll be up in August, for the Game Fair, Do you think her dog will be in season?”
“Fingers crossed”
“Chickens?” My mum's been planning to have chickens for a while.
“The coop is here already, just outside the window by the table where we eat, looking west”
There’s shelter there from a small ridge of higher ground above the river and they’ll be visible from the house.
“It’s super of Sharon to go along with this so long as there’s no cockerel”
“I want to get some of those black hens that lay those deep brown speckled eggs, but I’m not sure yet. I’m not going to be ambitious.”
Mark said “Do you want to phone Lin?”
This was a different matter as I needed to talk money with her.
“Mark and Paul” I said “think they may have found an engine for Summersong”
At this point I handed the phone to Mark who to my delight took it and explained some of the details before handing back the phone.

“So how much?” she asked me. I told her what was being discussed “Not bad” she said.
I punched the air for Mark to see and smiled like a kid promised a treat
“It’s your money” said Lin “Indulge yourself. We’ll be able to go places we always wanted to visit.”
"We've still got to see if it'll fit the boat"
The extras are going to be the challenge – at least one new sea cock, a repositioned shaft, proper electrics, battery, flushing the fuel tank, new gear arrangements in the cockpit, hauling out, cleaning and anti-fouling and any other problems bound to arise in getting the devil out of the detail.
I’d phoned Dave with whom I’ve been out of touch for ages.
“Can you get me a tow down to Mandouki for some work on Summersong?”
“No problem. But no need for a tow. We can get her present engine to do that”
“Thanks Dave”
“No problem”
Over supper we discussed the times. We all want Greece to stay in the Eurozone, both for Greece and Europe
“If Greece goes can Italy, or Portugal or Spain be so far behind?”
I pondered what might happen if there was a return to the drachma.
“It won’t be the old drachma. De La Rue will print it new. Probably one drachma to one euro. That will take months. I doubt the contingencies are so advanced they’ve got stocks.”
“What happens to the euro’s in your pocket”
“They can be exchanged for drachs”
“At one to one?”
“For a very short while, if the point is to devalue the currency to boost exports, as in Argentina. It would quickly go to ½ a euro for one drach.”
“Ouch”
“Yes. People with lots of euros will stuff them in the boot and head for the border where they’ll be stopped and searched by lots of new officials”
I recalled a tale told me long ago by Jack of a wealthy Jewish engineer getting late out of Nazi Germany, his family escaped already, the border officials searching his car inch by inch, determined that all he owned stayed in Germany. Having stripped him of his dignity and everything but his car and the clothes he wore, purloining rich takings for themselves, they let him drive through failing to notice that a set of tools needed for roadside repairs had been painstakingly forged out of pure platinum.
“So what happens before the official drachma starts circulating?”
“There’ll be scrip – local overprinted euros with the same value as the new drachma.”
“Hm”
“If it happens it’ll be sudden, to avoid the confusion, protest, dashing back and forth, that would go on if it were officially forecast”
“But if there were a leak, given how much of a run there’s already been on the banks?”
“Watch for a report of a scene involving someone famous stopped at a border”
Meanwhile I’m planning on bringing Euros into Greece to buy Summersong a new engine.
“What about all the speculation?”
“The vultures and jackals have been doing that to the Greek economy for the last five years. There’s little left to scam.”
There were only about five rich brown hens but with them was one light yellow chick and a lime duckling barely out of their eggs, and a small tabby kitten just able to walk, its large eyes open and puzzled, shaking out the coils of a crinkled tail. These three snuggled their way under one of the hens who’d made her way into a nest box in the coop – new cut deal, smelling of its joinery. I gazed at the birds. It reminded me of a painting I’d seen the day before by Natalie, Cinty’s mum, of a green Venetian door, a green bicycle and a brace of chickens looking on beside its wheels. I raised the lid of the nesting box. The brooding hen sat flattened in her nest. I put my hand on her back stroking the shallow hollow ούτως ειπείν της χάιδεψα στο βάση ραχοκοκαλιάς της. The counterpane of feathers beneath my hand seemed like the most generous thing in the world or as Dr F, might once have said “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”.
For breakfast, having lit the fire with kindling chopped last night, I made myself a plate of hash browns (grate potato and small onion, squeeze out liquid in fist, press together and lay in pan with sizzling olive oil), mushroom (big one, sliced in three), bacon, eggs, and a thick slice of local tomato...

Χαρδιακή προσβολή στο πιάτο 

 – what a zealous medic once dubbed ‘a heart attack on a plate’. I shall cycle down to Ipsos to bail out Summersong’s cover again and do shopping in readiness for, at last, making a meal for guests instead of as it has been since I came, me the guest even at taverna’s where I’ve been forbidden to pay, my arm grabbed as I reach for my cash. Jim Potts, who did this the other day to me at Rouvas, observed “Greeks get bemused when we go shares, eating out in England.”
*** ***
An email from my stepfather’s friend Nick Wright – a response to my email telling him and other’s interested that yet another set of 34 masters of Jack’s films, which we had been pursuing round the UK most of last year, and momentarily thought recovered have gone back to earth for fear of copyright writs – not from me:

Sorry to hear you are having such a run-around with these idiots, and I hope that in time something positive may come out of all these exertions. As I believe I told you previously, the difficulty of putting sound to picture is a messy but entirely possible process which simply takes time and common sense. The difficulty for developing forward any new series with this material is that I don’t believe Jacks 'chat' through the material was ever recorded. I think with his natural ease he simply talked live to the films as they were broadcast, so the commentary never existed unless somewhere somebody recorded the programmes on a domestic level. The positive about that is that if you can discover such domestic recordings, sound quality will probably be OK for use today, whereas originally broadcast picture would look pretty jaded after all this time. (The stored picture original will retain its quality for probably 50 years) So the hunt really should be to try and find a domestic recording of transmitted programmes, and lift Jack’s voicetracks from that to create new integral programmes. The ha-ha  factor of that would be of course that as the voice track was never technically 'recorded' (only transmitted), then there can be no claim to copyright of those voicetracks from the broadcaster. To claim copyright you have to prove you were first to 'capture' the 'object' in some physical form (e.g. painting, writing, notation, recording etc.). So that might prove an interesting question for the legal people.
The original audio used for Jack’s films was very simple, little more that atmos (atmospheric sound) and occasional effects (a gate closing, car door shutting etc). Because of a pioneering arrangement between Jack and the Unions, he and Stanley Bréhaut were able to operate so flexibly and lightly (just the two of them) because they 'proved' they didn’t need a sound crew because they recorded no speech-based sound. Jack was very proud of having struck this deal because it enabled him to move quickly and easily and without a huge entourage, into the natural environment where he felt comfortable. And of course it kept the budget down…Good luck, and please continue to keep me in the loop. Hear from you sometime soon I hope

And part of a reply from another good friend and helper:

… Finally I am quite happy to test the water and upload one of my rebuilds onto my own Youtube site, as Youtube will only ask me to take it off if there are infringements. There are some recorded editions of How & other Southern material on Youtube from xxx's library of owned programmes which have stood the test of time…both D & myself believe that the rebuild episode with the Australian Dogs and Dorset Clock Museum which you already have…are not contained in the list of those 34 masters. We have been able to date both these Southern Broadcasts from teletext information contained in the recordings….My wife and I know of a retired BBC employee who we believe is still living in this area and who started his career working on film in Ealing Studios and was involved with film and sound transfers etc. It is unlikely that our paths will cross again until June or July, but I could put out feelers then as to whether he could help or know of someone else who might help with the SWFTA archive.

*** ***
Email from John M in Australia, coming to a conference in Rome, then off to cycle across Canada:

Dear Simon. We have a clear image of you on your bike or with stave in hand loping up the narrow roads of the Corfu mountains. I hope to get there one day in the winter as I have no sense of what it is like to be there at that time as we have only ever been an experienced the wonderful summer. How are the Greeks? We see images of riots on the street of Athens. It doesn't look so good and the financial woes continue on with bleak predictions. How did it get like this?
Your view of public value in our work is one I agree with (I’d emailed him about a paper I’d been invited to submit an abstract for to a conference in the US this September), because I have seen it explored at that individual, one-on-one relationship. I suspect the common garden variety view of public value they are touting is about community engagement level and structures and policies that reflect the recognition of what is valued in government. It is post hoc and structural, not immediate and personal. I will be interested in your views on this. I suggest you have a good look at the rhetoric on public value as it is being espoused so you can counter such claims.
We are now in count-down mode for the travels of 2012. 7 April to Rome for a week's conference, then on to Vancouver for a few days with the kids before we start the cycle journey, first up and down Vancouver Island as we wait for the right weather to cross the Rockies…Take care in Corfu. No going on any demos with the unions in Corfu Town, they look pretty serious! Keep in touch, John

Dear John. I am not doing much walking except when pushing my bicycle. I am mainly using the 21 gear roadster and except for the final slopes onto Democracy Street I can, in 1:1 get up just about anything Corfu has to offer. The roads are excellent for cycling here, except at night when you may encounter potholes easily spotted in daylight. I suspect these pose far greater risk to scooters and motorcycles, but fingers crossed…I find that after an hour’s uphill I’m still going pretty well but the lactic acid is building up in my knees and my groin’s chafing. That makes the final climb into the village harder. I’ve added toe clips which are great. The other thing here is splinters of acacia. They get stuck in bits of mud and dog or cat dirt. Before a ride I brush each tyre as clear as I can and go over every centimetre - occasionally finding and digging out an embedded thorn with the tip of my penknife…. I am checking out reading on public value as you suggest. I fully agree with Kurt Lewin that there’s nothing so practical as a good theory and I love ideas as much as anyone, but reading so much material on governance I struggle to believe that the researcher has accessed details or been closely engaged in the activities about which they theorise. The reality that I’ve experienced as participant as well as observers and theoriser seems absent. I have heard X speak disparagingly of studies solely based on case material…but I read the highly theoretical work of my great great grandfather Henry Maine who’s major works were Ancient Law and Village Communities in East and West…replete with details of events and opinions to colour his profound and precise theorising. Marx does the same as also Freud, and other great theorists. When I read so much material on governance I am struck by the gap between those who write cases for 'practitioners' which are weak on theory and those who write complex theoretical expositions based on empirical studies of course that fail to convey a sense of what is going on, what it looks and feels like to the people involved. (There are marked exceptions - especially Mark Moore's work on Public Value built on the experience of many many practitioners) Am I just being grumpy, uninformed and insufficiently familiar with the literature?.....So you will soon be in cobbled noisy Rome. Barring Amy’s son being born later than expected we will be in Corfu from early April. I go back to UK in a fortnight via Bari and Venice, a nice mix of ferry, train, bus and plane…I've tried to convey something of the feel of Greece at the moment; in meetings I sit in on in the village, tit-bits of news, in speculative gossip with friends. Deadline succeeds deadline with warnings becoming more dire. I read and hear of the greatest impact of the ‘megali krisi’ - μεγάλη κρίση (as it’s referred to) as being in Athens, not just the riots but also the abandoned rows of shops, new no-go areas, drug dealing, makeshift table-top sales, busy pawnbrokers, runs on banks, middle class people begging beside the poorer who’ve been at it longer, soup kitchens, mortgage foreclosures, emigration as has been traditional in earlier crises among those who can find work or university places outside Greece, politicians unable to risk going out in public without heavy security, car number plates being handed in as people abandon their cars unable to afford increased vehicle tax and rising fuel costs, more people on scooters, people turning to wood burning stoves for the same reason, more land being cleared for a return to farming olives, fruit, vegetables and stock, stories of a return to villages by some city people to be with family, to be more self-sufficient, to return to fishing, to run rural businesses. Here in the village it can feel remote from Athens’ urban dystopia (as also Thessaloniki and other Greek cities).  People will mention the ill-news, with a resigned shrug. In chat they will talk of the cuts in income and reduction in pensions and the burden of increased property taxes we’ve been paying with our electric bills this year, but the village feels as it normally does in the five winters we’ve spent here - wet, cold, windy with people hibernating and waiting for occasional sunny days to hang out their washing and looking forward to Easter. Of course we have church services and lovely music and Carnival is on 26 February with me recruited to the carnival planning volunteers (sweeping, painting and moving chairs and tables)...Supermart shelves on the island empty very fast when there’s a strike or expectation of one, so there would be measures to prevent hoarding. All this suggests stronger protests, disorder and possible repression tho’ it’s very unlikely the police will be so obedient to a discredited government or that anyone in the army would risk getting anywhere near a coup. The memory of the Junta is still near and shaming to Greece…So far except for empathy we are not affected.

Capital of happiness

We have no wish to even contemplate selling our home here, tho’ that would be next to impossible if we hoped to get back what we paid, let alone profit. Funny that Lin and I have never experienced negative equity while we had mortgages and now we own a house outright which must now be a third or half what we paid for it, it causes us no worry. Our capital’s tied up in our happiness at living here part of the year. I might be talking differently in a year’s time but then there’s a strong sense that Greece is a bellwether, capitalism’s coal-mine canary. So the grass isn’t much greener anywhere else within three hours flight!

You ask 'how did it get like this?'. Explanation risks sounding like excuse. Greece is an extreme victim of the credit-pushers, corrupt politicians the portal for their access to the people who, over the last 15-20 years, went mad with plastic in a country that produces mainly tourism, now in weak competition with many other tourist destinations. On a Greek film script I saw two days ago one character says “We missed out on an industrial revolution. We dug quarries and built a colony of factories on sheep-pens.”  The same leadership used the new credit to compete in buying voters instead of investing it in advanced tourist infrastructure, hi-tech industrialisation, improvements in the built environment of cities, green spaces and traffic management that cities in other parts of the world have carried out to attract white collar professionals. They failed to make higher educational institutions competitive with the universities to which bright Greeks head in droves in US, Australia and northern Europe. (But see this illustrated paean by Cretan Dimitris Petrakis posted recently on Facebook railing against lies and myths about Greece). Why did wiser voices not prevail as this great failure of vision occurred? That’s because the arrogant, male-dominated, queue-jumping, bribe-ridden, clientelist, patronage culture of Greece, especially Athens, was never flushed from its corridors. (see my friend Richard Pine's latest op-ed Letter from Corfu for the Irish Times) The legacy of Ottoman occupation, like colonialism in Africa, is forever cited as explanation and excuse for a dependency in Greece that was continued by her role as post-war pawn of Britain and later America. A weakened US and now a weakened Europe makes that dependency unfruitful, and now new ideas and capital are beginning, as in Africa, to arrive from China; a new global ball-game…Even now Greece’s political leaders, aware of a General Election planned in April, might be said to be playing on fears in the rest of Europe of what will happen if the country descends into some sort of Argentinian chaos. I’m reminded of the old maxim about 'bacon and eggs’ ‘pigs and chickens'. Greece’s highly privileged politicians (in terms of income, expenses and other benefits) are the chickens with their eyes on the ballot box while proclaiming their enthusiasm for Greece to change through greater and more prolonged austerity. The ordinary people are the pigs who are, when it comes to bacon and eggs, committed in a rather more serious way. Love to all, Simon

**** ****
There is an intriguing museum in Ano Korakiana, in the plateia, a slight widening of the road rather than a proper square. There are signs guiding people to it. Pavla was trying to see it a couple of years ago when we met as she drove by me as I strolled up Democracy Street. 

There are plaques and the word Museum - ΜΟΥΣΕΊΟ - in large metal letters on the front of the building, which celebrates a self-taught village sculptor who lived at the start of the last century, and created works that were a mix of Greek and Hindu style - what a friend back in England called ‘a bit naughty’.

She knew this only because one of Aristidis Metallinos’ statues is displayed on a small pedestal halfway up the front wall of the museum. No-one I know, or have heard about, has ever seen the inside of the Metallinos Museum and, though inhabited, it is never open. No neighbour, despite kind efforts, has managed to enable me to make a visit. I would like to but perhaps I'd be disappointed.