Ερημίτης Erimitis

My friend the writer Richard Pine, who lives in a village in the north of Corfu, has drawn my attention to a recent article by Gerald Durrell’s widow - Lee Durrell - about the 'development' of Erimitis, a nature reserve in the north east of the island. Richard's already written about this man-made disaster in the international press (TLS, Kathimerini English edition, irish Times) and Lee Durrell has a terrific piece in the Sunday Times.

The ‘tiny, green jewel’ of Erimitis in North East Corfu faces being bulldozed for a 45-acre tourist resort. Places where nature remains undisturbed have become so rare these days that we have a duty to try to save them. Such a place, near and dear to my heart, is found on what is still one of the most beautiful islands in the world — Corfu. Glimpses of that beauty are seen in the ITV series The Durrells, the lovingly crafted story of the childhood of my late husband, Gerald Durrell, on Corfu in the Thirties.
Gerald left Corfu as a boy in 1939 and returned as a man in 1960, not without trepidation. He said: “There is always an element of risk in returning to a place in which you were happy.” But Corfu worked its magic once again, and Gerry was overjoyed to be back.
The later Sixties began casting a shadow over him, however. He was dismayed to come across so much plastic on the beaches and offended by the unsightly developments at Paleokastritsa, long one of the island’s peaceful beauty spots, which now reminded him of a “Greek Margate”.
Fast-forward to today, and the undisturbed nature area being threatened is a headland on the northeast coast known as Erimitis, or “the Hermit”, referring to a local fable about a man who lived there as a recluse after his daughter was kidnapped by pirates. It is accessible only by foot or by sea, and the human touch there has been light, with traces of centuries-old buildings, wells and a quarry. Otherwise the dense evergreen maquis is punctuated with bright pebble beaches, brackish lakes and marshes teeming with life. Home to otters, orchids and magnificent strawberry trees, the area is also rich in waterfowl and raptors. Locals and tourists take pleasure in walking (or running!) the steep narrow paths and swimming in the clear warm waters beyond the shore.
Over the years Erimitis has attracted artists, writers and naturalists. Edward Lear was known to visit the area, and Nikos Ghikas, one of Greece’s greatest painters, loved it so much he built a house and lived there from 1969. More recently the botanist David Bellamy has led students and fellow naturalists “in the footsteps of Gerald Durrell” to discover and delight in the fauna and flora.
This natural paradise, however, is in great danger. The Greek government has sold the headland to an American property developer, NCH Capital, which plans to transform it into a tourist resort. Thus, one of the most beautiful and least developed areas of the Mediterranean is about to be bulldozed for what will be one of the biggest development projects in the history of the Ionian islands.
Viewed in a satellite image, Erimitis is a tiny green jewel of 500 acres nestling between a drab inland countryside and the bright blue sea. NCH now has the freehold on 120 acres and plans to sprawl its “tourist village” over 45 acres, with nine acres of buildings. Bafflingly, there seems to have been little consideration of the effect this development would have on the wider infrastructure of roads, water supply and rubbish collection, already stretched to breaking point in many parts of the island. One example, as every visitor to Corfu over the past few years can sadly corroborate, is the piles of rubbish along the roads.
A few concerned citizens have made the municipality of Corfu well aware of the situation, but little action has been taken. Imagine the pressure a huge complex at Erimitis would add.
And what about the effect on the responsible and sustainable tourist industry that has grown up here over the past 40 years? New and returning visitors bring profits to the local people and tax revenue to the government. They come to see and experience the beauty and tranquillity of the region, not to be crammed together in a holiday complex that could be anywhere in the world. It is difficult to imagine that such an extensive development could be sufficiently site-sensitive as not to render a much wider area disagreeable to tourists and the locals. If people start to go elsewhere, the local economy will suffer and, in turn, the community.
Then there’s the impact on faunal biodiversity: the eradication of a unique and fantastic array of birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and invertebrates.
It is not surprising that local opinion has come out strongly against this development, regardless of political affiliation. The regional authority of the Ionian islands, backed by local residents, appealed to the Greek Supreme Court against the sale of Erimitis. Syriza, at that time the main opposition party and now the party in power, protested that the sale was “illegal, unconstitutional and in breach of international law”. Inexplicably, both challenges were dismissed.
Gerald wrote to the Greek prime minister in 1968: “I do hope the necessary authorities in Athens give more power to people on the spot, who are as worried as I am at the all too rapid and tasteless development on the island.” I do not know if Gerry received a reply, but exactly 50 years later I wrote to Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister, voicing my objection to the development at Erimitis... and did not receive an answer.
Gerry avoided Corfu in the 1970s, but came back with me in 1983, wanting desperately to show me the natural places and the wildlife that had made his childhood so special. That is when I fell in love with the island. We returned in 1986, with family and friends, to an old villa in Barbati, where we feasted on Corfiot specialities, swam at night in the tepid, moonlit waters and took leisurely boat trips up and down the coast.
On these excursions Gerry would turn his back to the island as we motored by the vast new hotel complexes that scarred the landscape, waiting for our signal that we’d passed these “carbuncles”. Then he would turn and gaze quietly at the olive and cypress-clad hills he remembered so well and at the bright horseshoe bays of his childhood. Gerry died in 1995 but I know what he’d think of this fiasco.
The clock cannot be turned back, no matter how hard we try, but the exigencies of modern times can be challenged, especially as we learn from our mistakes. Corfiots, other Greeks and foreigners who love the island have learnt that uncontrolled and insensitive development has taken a serious toll on Corfu and its environment.
We also know short-term gain by the few at the expense of the many is not acceptable in a small island community. Many in Corfu and elsewhere have already raised their voices against the development of Erimitis. We should continue to do so loudly until the situation is resolved in favour of Corfu and no one will ever turn their back, muttering “carbuncles”, on the enchanting headland of the Hermit.Gerald left Corfu as a boy in 1939 and returned as a man in 1960, not without trepidation. He said: “There is always an element of risk in returning to a place in which you were happy.” But Corfu worked its magic once again, and Gerry was overjoyed to be back.The later Sixties began casting a shadow over him, however. He was dismayed to come across so much plastic on the beaches and offended by the unsightly developments at Paleokastritsa, long one of the island’s peaceful beauty spots, which now reminded him of a “Greek Margate”.Fast-forward to today, and the undisturbed nature area being threatened is a headland on the northeast coast known as Erimitis, or “the Hermit”, referring to a local fable about a man who lived there as a recluse after his daughter was kidnapped by pirates. It is accessible only by foot or by sea, and the human touch there has been light, with traces of centuries-old buildings, wells and a quarry. Otherwise the dense evergreen maquis is punctuated with bright pebble beaches, brackish lakes and marshes teeming with life. Home to otters, orchids and magnificent strawberry trees, the area is also rich in waterfowl and raptors. Locals and tourists take pleasure in walking (or running!) the steep narrow paths and swimming in the clear warm waters beyond the shore.Over the years Erimitis has attracted artists, writers and naturalists. Edward Lear was known to visit the area, and Nikos Ghikas, one of Greece’s greatest painters, loved it so much he built a house and lived there from 1969. More recently the botanist David Bellamy has led students and fellow naturalists “in the footsteps of Gerald Durrell” to discover and delight in the fauna and flora.This natural paradise, however, is in great danger.

The Greek government has sold the headland to an American property developer, NCH Capital, which plans to transform it into a tourist resort. Thus, one of the most beautiful and least developed areas of the Mediterranean is about to be bulldozed for what will be one of the biggest development projects in the history of the Ionian islands. Viewed in a satellite image, Erimitis is a tiny green jewel of 500 acres nestling between a drab inland countryside and the bright blue sea. NCH now has the freehold on 120 acres and plans to sprawl its “tourist village” over 45 acres, with nine acres of buildings. Bafflingly, there seems to have been little consideration of the effect this development would have on the wider infrastructure of roads, water supply and rubbish collection, already stretched to breaking point in many parts of the island. 

One example, as every visitor to Corfu over the past few years can sadly corroborate, is the piles of rubbish along the roads. A few concerned citizens have made the municipality of Corfu well aware of the situation, but little action has been taken. Imagine the pressure a huge complex at Erimitis would add. And what about the effect on the responsible and sustainable tourist industry that has grown up here over the past 40 years? New and returning visitors bring profits to the local people and tax revenue to the government. They come to see and experience the beauty and tranquillity of the region, not to be crammed together in a holiday complex that could be anywhere in the world. It is difficult to imagine that such an extensive development could be sufficiently site-sensitive as not to render a much wider area disagreeable to tourists and the locals. If people start to go elsewhere, the local economy will suffer and, in turn, the community.Then there’s the impact on faunal biodiversity: the eradication of a unique and fantastic array of birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and invertebrates. 

It is not surprising that local opinion has come out strongly against this development, regardless of political affiliation. The regional authority of the Ionian islands, backed by local residents, appealed to the Greek Supreme Court against the sale of Erimitis. Syriza, at that time the main opposition party and now the party in power, protested that the sale was “illegal, unconstitutional and in breach of international law”. Inexplicably, both challenges were dismissed. Gerald wrote to the Greek prime minister in 1968: “I do hope the necessary authorities in Athens give more power to people on the spot, who are as worried as I am at the all too rapid and tasteless development on the island.” I do not know if Gerry received a reply, but exactly 50 years later I wrote to Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister, voicing my objection to the development at Erimitis ... and did not receive an answer. Gerry avoided Corfu in the 1970s, but came back with me in 1983, wanting desperately to show me the natural places and the wildlife that had made his childhood so special. That is when I fell in love with the island. We returned in 1986, with family and friends, to an old villa in Barbati, where we feasted on Corfiot specialities, swam at night in the tepid, moonlit waters and took leisurely boat trips up and down the coast. On these excursions Gerry would turn his back to the island as we motored by the vast new hotel complexes that scarred the landscape, waiting for our signal that we’d passed these “carbuncles”. Then he would turn and gaze quietly at the olive and cypress-clad hills he remembered so well and at the bright horseshoe bays of his childhood. 

Gerry died in 1995 but I know what he’d think of this fiasco.The clock cannot be turned back, no matter how hard we try, but the exigencies of modern times can be challenged, especially as we learn from our mistakes. Corfiots, other Greeks and foreigners who love the island have learnt that uncontrolled and insensitive development has taken a serious toll on Corfu and its environment.We also know short-term gain by the few at the expense of the many is not acceptable in a small island community. Many in Corfu and elsewhere have already raised their voices against the development of Erimitis. We should continue to do so loudly until the situation is resolved in favour of Corfu and no one will ever turn their back, muttering “carbuncles”, on the enchanting headland of the Hermit.

A link to Lee Durrell's petition Save 'The Durrells' Coastline from Developers

How this island indulges me!

Friday evening I cleaned the stove chimney, putting the pipes back in place and showered off the soot on myself, made myself supper and watched a film based on Lionel Shriver’s book We need to talk about Kevin. In the end it's about not getting answers to why someone does something very bad. The frightfulness of the ‘something’ intensifies the need for an answer. What might have been curiosity about a minor oddity  “Why do you collect your nail clippings?" becomes "Why did you kill all those people?”

There are plenty of minor examples, though preveniently sinister, in the proleptic screenplay. Explanation of the larger horror becomes a desperate and collective need. Since the perpetrator, 16 year old Kevin, is in prison beginning, in the perception of his community, to become a co-victim, the remaining explanation, since her husband and daughter are among the murdered, is the mother. At the end of Lynne Ramsay’s film of the book we are left only with our own answers - or their absence.
“I want you to tell me - why” asks brilliant Tilda Swinton, Eva Khatchadourian, of brilliant Ezra Miller, Kevin. Long pause. I wait with her for an answer. Then with raptorish stare Eva's shaved prisoner son mutters almost inaudibly
“I used to think I knew. Now I’m not so sure”
The matter of what he ‘used to think’, which I doubt he’d have volunteered, is interrupted by a guard saying “Time’s up”. I half expected a notice with the credits "If you have been disturbed or affected by issues raised in this film you can phone our 24 hour hotline on...' What a brilliant film - again low budget like Attenberg.
If I were a psychopath or a sociopath I might say the film was tedious 'except for the stuff on bows and arrows.' As a child I was enchanted by the adventures of Robin Hood and later in life, with my children, enjoyed using the long-bow. The film's technical advice on archery is immaculate, tho’ I could swear that in the book, Kevin carries out his Gladstone High school massacre with a cross-bow...

...but more dramatic with the hunting bow, a gift from his father.  He’d had to have been most accurate to cause such death and injury with the small tipped arrows he uses, but we know that’s one of his few gifts.
Labels for Kevin are an illusion. Film and book make that clear. The answers we invent; seeking consolation; calling Kevin ‘evil’ since birth, or Eva a ‘bad mother’ don’t work for anyone capable of remaining puzzled – inhuman, though, if your child were his victim.

Baddeley, S (1995) ‘Internal Polity’ Human Relations, 48 (9) pp.1073-1103

****
“Can you check my brakes?”
George puts my bicycle on a stand, clamp on the cross-bar.

“You need new pads. How much slack do you want in the levers?”
“A little as possible. I won’t forget not to stop too abruptly. And can you check my gears? I’ve slipped the chain a couple of times”
He turns the pedals, running quickly through the gears, pausing to take up a small driver to turn the Philip’s screws that adjust the chain tension

“Front or back did it slip?”
“Front. With the guard it’s fiddly getting it on again”
In seconds the job is done to his satisfaction. To mine too as I feel the difference cycling on into town. Apart from the cost compared to a motorcar, much satisfaction is to be gained from tuning a bicycle. Its mechanism so directly transmits the energy of human exertion to forward motion that small adjustments make satisfying improvements to the ride, especially on long ascents.

Rear chainset - 7 cogwheels behind, 3 in front. 21 gears

The snug fit of my new toe straps; saddle and handlebar height and angle are essential corrections. There are plenty of other things that I don’t know about. Racing cyclists shave their legs to reduce the time it takes for abrasions to heal if they fall on the road. This is outside my trousered Long John orbit. In the light rain yesterday I got back from a lesson and a game of croquet with Tony Blok, who I met after hearing from Cinty, who gave him my phone number, he’d bought Dave and Fran’s house at the bottom of the village. He wanted to know more about Ano Korakiana; his quid pro quo, a fish supper (octopus hors d’œuvres, fish stock soup, roast sea bream, pear pudding, coffee, brandy) at Pomo D’Oro in town and an offer to tutor me in croquet, his delight.

Tony’s set up a club, a website and maintains several well-tended well-equipped lawns inside the entrance to Gouvia Marina. On Sunday he and I played alone under grey skies; later drizzle. With a generous handicap and several discrete indulgences I was allowed to win by one hoop after a tie, despite wearing shoes that were tough on the grass and paining Tony by cutting a few divots from his immaculate surfaces. Two hours passed unnoticed so absorbed did I become in a game I’ve normally played on my mum’s unruly front lawn above Strathnairn when the children were young.
In the marina bar, where Tony and I sat over hot chocolates, I came across Pauline Sheriff with a friend, a tartan blanket over her lap. I’d heard only the day before that her husband had died before Christmas. He lies in the British Cemetery. Linda and I bought their boat Summersong six years ago, clicking ‘buy now’ on Norman’s eBay ad - ’27 foot yacht on permanent free mooring in Corfu’ - thus coming, by degrees, to Ano Korakiana and Democracy Street. In 1981 Norman, a Yorkshire man, made a redundancy deal with the railways, bought an already old boat in Spain and with minimal seafaring experience voyaged with Pauline towards Asia Minor, travelling as far as Turkey, settling at last in Corfu where for a while they lived on the boat, eventually, and with a wrench, selling her to us, to live in a small bungalow on the edge of Temploni – a Mediterranean Odyssey neither might have imagined when younger but by bold choice made true. That their place in Temploni was rented I put down not to finance but a dream of further travel.

Norman Sheriff sailing Summersong

****
I was 20 minutes late meeting Tony at Gouvia because I hadn’t got to bed until six the same morning. After visiting Carol at the Lighthouse sale on Saturday; putting out the word we were interested in child-gates, a baby-buggy and even a cot, I cycled home slowing my approach to Ano Korakiana...

...walking the steeper parts of the last mile, savouring the light and shadow passing unevenly over the mountains above the houses and the new flowers in the greenery beside the road.

“I disavow the sympathetic fallacy. I choose animism, personification, metonymy and synecdoche mixing place and heart, word and song…it’s not your fault Kerkyra that you’re so beautiful some ravage you while others like me look at you, gazing.”

From the Co-op came the sound of machinery. Anastasio took me round to see the stages of the one hour process; the same tour as Sebastianos' a few days back, though now a crop was going through. Rolando, a farmer from below the village, waiting with plastic tanks to collect his harvest.

I saw the black Corfu olives turning in water like pebbles in a shallow stream; leaves and twigs separated, the polished olives, ground six kilos at a time, their mush twice centrifuged – fast then  faster - until the opaque yellow-green oil poured out in a steady stream.

  

Getting permission, Anastasio broke a piece off a loaf, held it a moment under the spout and handed it to me.
“Extra extra virgin!” I said, tasting Rolando’s oil on warm new bread next to the clatter of machinery. I’ll think of this delectable snack when I see an elaborately labelled bottle of costly olive oil in an up-market delicatessen.

[Back to the future: 31 March 2012 - Extra Virgin Olive Oil scams and corruption...Tom Mueller's article in New Yorker....In 1997 and 1998, olive oil was the most adulterated agricultural product in the European Union, prompting the E.U.’s anti-fraud office to establish an olive-oil task force. (“Profits were comparable to cocaine trafficking, with none of the risks,” one investigator told me.) The E.U. also began phasing out subsidies for olive-oil producers and bottlers, in an effort to reduce crime, and after a few years it disbanded the task force. Yet fraud remains a major international problem: olive oil is far more valuable than most other vegetable oils, but it is costly and time-consuming to produce—and surprisingly easy to doctor. ..this academic report and Mueller's book Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil... for all the things that are right about olive oil, there’s a whole lot that’s wrong. Again and again I’ve witnessed the same bizarre drama. Olive oil bottles labeled with fancy phrases – “cold pressed,” “made in Italy,” “first pressed,” “extra-light,” “pure,” and the ever-present “extra virgin” – that are meaningless, and often downright lies, false virgins selling at a fraction of the price of true extra virgin olive oil, which systematically undercut honest producers. Faced with this situation, governments do nothing, oil buyers turn a blind eye, big bottlers and oil-traders pocket the cash. Consumers everywhere are systematically defrauded, and honest growers go bankrupt. Over the last five years I’ve seen one of the world’s greatest foods reach a breaking point, where the future of quality oil is in question....]

At home again Paul and Lula arrived to check on the small but obstinate leak in the roof; not the part his people had built.
“We’ll sort it while you’re away. Let’s go and eat”
We tried Strapunto but we were an hour too early for the kitchen, so I guided them to Limeri at the Y-junction in Kato Korakiana. Lula got a call
“Lucinda’s been hit by a car”
There were calls back and forth between Lula’s family in Ag.Ioannis, Lula tearful while our dignified host waited in the wings. She organised a hunt for the stray dog they’d adopted which had been hit a glancing blow and run off.
“I suppose when you find her – which you will” said Paul resignedly asking for wine “you’re going to keep her now, after we’d planned to find her a new owner.”
Just into some delectable starters, as the main course spread aromas from the kitchen, came word Lucinda was found and fine. The Kato village square was packed, in the midst of a carnival drama, while we, for the two hours we were there, the taverna’s sole guests, treated with easy solicitude, as the radiators, on for us, warmed the whole room and I, normally unfriendly to background music, enjoyed some well selected folk songs whose singers Lula recognized for me. We spoke of history, of the crisis and things that interested us including why some farmers so liked genetic modification; whether ‘peasant’ was a term of abuse or something in which to take pride, how difficult it is for the bourgeois – like me -to grow things to eat; whether autism played some original part in the long process of human evolution.
“Hm?” said Lula
“Maybe?” said Paul humming and haaing as friends do in debate.
They dropped me at the Co-op where I’d been in the afternoon. The pre-carnival dance was in full swing, souvlaki roasting outside overseen by Forti. Effie and Natasha told me to pull up a chair to their table.

Someone handed me wine. The DJs were equipped with two laptops capable of making especially seamless transitions between genres – pop, rock, folk, song and dance - from Greece and the rest of the world. Dancers did likewise - alone, in pairs and in a circling group, longer with every bar, all without pause, the disco lights changing from dark to bright to frenetic staccato and back with a mirror ball throwing light about the working walls of the co-op now decorated with streamers, balloons and pictures.

Πραγματοποιήθηκε για μια ακόμη χρονιά, χθες το βράδυ, στην αίθουσα του Συνεταιρισμού του καθιερωθέν τα τελευταία χρόνια καρναβαλικό πάρτυ. Η αίθουσα που το πρωί εξυπηρετούσε τη λειτουργία του ελαιουργείου, μέχρι το βράδυ μεταμορφώθηκε κυριολεκτικά από τους καρναβαλιστές, προκειμένου να υποδεχτεί κοινό όλων των ηλικιών. Ο χορός και η μουσική κράτησαν μέχρι τις πρώτες πρωινές ώρες, στους ρυθμούς των Νίκου και Γιώργου Μεταλληνού σε ρόλους ντισκ-τζοκεϋ. Έξω, η ψησταριά που είχε στηθεί από το Φώτη Κάρμπουρη, ξεπούλησε γρήγορα όλα της τα αποθέματα, ενώ το μπαρ στο εσωτερικό της αίθουσας, προσέφερε ανάσες δροσιάς στους ακατάπαυστα χοροπηδούντες καρναβαλιστές….

All ages danced, from toddlers, through ten-year-olds to oldies like me with young men and women now and then crouching in a circle as skillful dances were done by individuals - that Greek thing where you bend over back or forwards and just as it looks as if you’re about to fall over, drop on flexed knees, hands in the air or slapping an ankle, and leap up again, torn paper standing in for smashed crockery and lots of clapping,  syncopated and on the beat, with now and then a break to drop a key and start another rhythm.
“And what about the Greek deficit?” said Sebastianos at the bar offering me a cigarette, refilling my wine. On and off through the evening we talked - his English excellent - of history, local and wider. I was relieved my research on 19th century Corfu let me keep up with his references which - ahah - included unprompted the notorious alleged petitions from Ano Korakiana and Kinopiastes asking the British not to leave in 1864.
“The peasants did not know what they were signing. They were put up to it by interested parties, benefiting from trade with the British garrison”
We spoke of Storks, Gladstone, Young and other British Protectorate High Commissioners. Our conversation jumped between then and now; between here and there
“This roof in this building needs €20,000 to repair” He pointed out the details, and the temporary supports under some beams.
“That can surely be found”
“If there's the will. If!”
I didn’t actually decide to dance. I was gently tugged into the ones I could just about do, swung myself about and followed others, had more to drink and continued the conversation until drawn back to the party. The music was relentless yet not so loud you couldn’t chat and the wine so easy to drink I didn’t notice myself waxing hyperbolic until I recalled myself, sober, saying things like “Go tell it to the Lacedaemonians that here obedient to their laws we lie” and “Toὺs Laestrigonas kaὶ toὺs Kiklopas, tὸn thimomeno Poseedona mi foovᾶsee, tetia stὸn dromo sue pote soo thὲn thὰ vrees, ἂn men' i skepsis soo ipsili, ἄn ἐklekti singinisis tὸ pnefma kai to soma soo ἀngizei”* then wanting to cry, but I didn’t, and once dancing again became more clearheaded.
"I really like the way Greeks don't get drunk" I said
"Oh yes they do get drunk"
"No they don't!
"Yes they do!"
"No they do not. Not like some northerners - being sick and making silly noises and falling over"
"Oh yes they do"
"Did you go to a pantomime when you were in England?"
"Oh no I didn't!"
At this point I'm laughing - a lot.
I called Lin, holding the phone to the sound of the party, wholly insensitive to her mood in our kitchen in Birmingham
“You sound like you’re having a good time. Don’t get too drunk”
“Σ' αγαπώ, Λίντα γυναίκα μου”
“Yeah yeah”
"Now Sebastiano, tell me how I get to see the inside of the village Museum"
"Nothing to do with me. That's a different Metallinos"
"Yes but.."
"You will never get to see it"
"Oh yes I will"
"Oh no you won't. It was only called a museum to solve a legal problem of inheritance. Have another cigarette?"
By four there were fewer people around but the dancing and conversation continued with me drawn between both – struggling to understand, nearly but not stumbling, glad of the strength cycling’s given my legs.

Around 4.30 a friend said
"Come on to our house"
"Don’t we need to tidy up?” I said to Sebastionos.
“On Monday”.
There was a slow circular dance without background music, all singing in a monotone. Ten people from the last left, holding hands.
“This is Dionysus. They’re chanting lewd things. Next Sunday the old people sing this.”
So to Angeliki and Anthony’s house where ten people sat at a great wooden table and I was given meat and bread, wine and the usual courtesy of breaks in Greek to keep me informed and involved.
How this island indulges me! I’m not saying I’m a scrounger, but without Lin’s gift for reciprocity I may be overdrawn in that direction. I do bring small gifts - my interest, my company, love and friendship..hm…great curiosity, conversation (prolix? no! I can’t speak Greek), but in the last five weeks on Democracy Street, I’ve been given supper, over and over, in Mark and Sally’s home, shared bean soup, bread, sweetmeats and wine with Lefteris and Vasiliki and, as in the past, been handed - over our shared garden fence - bottles of their wine (in whose making last year I turned a wheel), been given tea and cakes and cooking advise by Cinty, who with Paul and Sally and Mark,  give me their Wifi and phone for calls to the UK (bringing out tea and wine as I work), been taken to lunch and supper several times by Paul and Lula refusing to share the bill, as well as been lunched – similarly - by Jim and Maria, partaken of food provided at the end of the seed-share meeting in the Co-op, been treated to supper and dancing by Effie and Adoni, my close neighbours, plus Tsipero, bread and mezes in their garden as well as a plate of tasty cabbage dolmades brought over to my house, been served mezes and drinks at Aleko’s home in Nisaki with his mother and sister, taken out for a swell meal at Aristoteles Megoulas' Pomo D'Oro by Tony Blok - tutoring me at croquet - had a long Sunday lunch with Niko and Sophia at their home in the village, paid a small contribution for souvlaki at the grill in the street on Tsiknopemti, followed by generous portions of wine bread and spare ribs far beyond the one euro I'd been asked to put in the collection box, to late night meat and drink after the pre-carnival party at Antony’s and Angeliki’s, slices of New Year cake at the 2012 Vassilopita celebration at Luna D’Argento, warm bread sprinkled with Rolando’s olive oil direct from the press by Anastasio and an embarrassing number of cigarettes from Sebastianos Metallinos the other night and the brothers, Paul and Mark, may have found a suitable replacement engine for Summersong which with their skill and some good fortune they’ll put into her.
*** ***
21 Feb'12: Press reactions reported by the BBC on the second bail-out now agreed..."Many European news websites highlight the problems that still lie ahead for Greece after the second bailout agreed by eurozone finance ministers."
24 Feb'12: Corfu Blues links on the crisis: The FT today (24/2/12) carries an article on 38 specific 'State-Building' changes demanded urgently of Greece by creditors. They include centralising health insurance and completing an accurate land registry as well as reducing state spending on pharmaceuticals by Euro1.1bn; and the liberalising of professions such as tour guides. One risk-consultancy analyst considers the speed and scope of the targets almost impossible to achieve....What then?
25 Feb'12: Philhellene Richard Pine's increasingly grim op-eds written from Perithia in Corfu, published regularly in The Irish Times, takes one of his firmest positions - moving from a journalistic respect for description, he turns to prescription - 'Time for Greece to leave not just euro but EU itself':

...It’s not very honourable to renege on one’s debts, but the situation for every man, woman and child indentured to poverty is so intolerable that default and exit seem the only possibility. The problem is one of self-determination. With its sovereignty now completely suspended by its acceptance of the new bailout memorandum, Greece cannot look itself in the face. In order to regain self-esteem, it’s essential that Greece turns its back on those elements in Europe which are exacting this level of punishment. Like so many divorces, Greece’s exit from the EU would be messy and acrimonious, but it is in a place where it doesn’t belong.

Reading his whole article, talking to him over lunch in town in Chrysomalis the other day, I'm strongly persuaded. Not being involved in affairs of state, nor even a citizen of the Republic, I react from experience on a domestic scale, thus like my own divorce in 1973, even thinking of what Richard (and many others) advocate for a nation, surfaces feelings associated with a 'messy and acrimonious' personal crisis from long ago - τοὺς Λαιστρυγόνας καὶ τοὺς Κύκλωπας, τὸν θυμωμένο Ποσειδῶνα. Would we become foreigners of a divergent kind, in a place we don't belong, needing visas, changing pounds into drachmas, spectators of our neighbours' pain, feeling materially richer, psychologically more impoverished? How will the hi-politics of Hellas act upon the lo-politics of our daily life?

In Athens the other day

______________________________
*...The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon -- do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your spirit and your body.

...Τοὺς Λαιστρυγόνας καὶ τοὺς Κύκλωπας,
τὸν θυμωμένο Ποσειδῶνα μὴ φοβᾶσαι,
τέτοια στὸν δρόμο σου ποτέ σου δὲν θὰ βρεῖς,
ἂν μέν' ὴ σκέψις σου ὐψηλή, ἄν ἐκλεκτὴ
συγκίνησις τὸ πνεῦμα καί το σῶμα σου ἀγγίζει.

Prophet Elias before Mother Greece

Searching for the petition from Ano Korakiana

This book- The British and the Hellenes: Struggles for Mastery in the Eastern Mediterranean 1850-1960 by Robert Holland and Diana Markides [see Richard Clogg's review in The TLS 20/6/07]- has taken ages to come, but I'm delighted it's at last arrived, having awaited with the same eagerness as once, as a child, I anticipated the insertion through our letter box in Hampstead, weekly comics inside a roll of newspapers for grown-ups. In those days - the 1950s - I could smell the newspaper and especially the print - some of which came off on my hands. This book from Oxford University Press is well made, so even though the modern paper is outside my olfactory range I get a faint smell of the binding glue, at least that's Lin's diagnosis, after I'd passed the pristine book across the kitchen table for her to sniff. First sentence:

Greece, Lord Palmerston once remarked, was an 'emotional word'.

The chapters that especially interest me are those linked to the cover image of a troop of British soldiers emerging from the Old Fortress of Corfu, a watercolour, circa 1850, by George Savage MD. Between pages 13 and 80 are Chapter 2 - Gladstone and the Greeks: The Extraordinary Mission to the Ionian Islands, 1858-1859, and Chapter 3 - The Abandonment of the Ionian Protectorate, 1849-1864. At last I get to learn that Gladstones' journey from England to Corfu lasted from just over a fortnight from 8-24 November 1858 via Vienna relying on train, and steamer down the Adriatic (pp.22-24) and he left Corfu on 19 February 1859 on HMS Terrible for Trieste having toured the Ionian Islands and had talks in Athens during his twelve week visit to Greece. I like these kind of details because although I do not expect a reference in the book to the actual document I seek for Thanasis and Kostas I feel closer to the level of detail that I will need to dig around among primary sources at the Public Record Office at Kew. I think I can get there on 12 March. I phoned this morning and chatted to a friendly librarian. Adrian, who did some swift searches through Colonial Office Records in the ranges suggested to me by Eleni Calligas in her e-mail of 14 January 08:

I would suggest that the best place to look is the High Commissioner's Correspondence at the Colonial Office archive of the Protection, housed in the Public Record Office, now re-named National Archives but still held at the Kew. I would look at the last couple of years, from 1862 onwards - probably starting from CO136/177 to /184. If such a petition does exist and is signed by inhabitants of the village, it would be interesting to identify the local figure of importance, as the initiative probably emanated from there.

He was finding the same things I'd found. The level was too high and I need papers from villages, as described by Thanasis and Kostas in their letter of 5 December '07.

Dear Simon, It is said that before the Union of the Ionian Islands with Greece (1864), inhabitants of Ano Korakiana signed a "paper" asking the British Government to keep the islands under Britain...We have been looking for this paper for years at the Greek archives without result. We wonder if you can help us by searching this paper in British archives (Parliament, Colonies archives, Foreign Office etc). We are sure that one of the names that signed the paper is Panos, Panayiotis or Panagiotis Metallinos (Μετταλινος). He was the 'leader'. A similar paper has been signed by inhabitants of Kinopiastes (another village in Corfu) and one village in Zakynthos island... [Note from the Ano Korakiana website: The oldest families still existing in Korakiana are ... Savvanis (since 1473), Vradis, Mandilas, Ionas, Markos, Metallinos, Laskaris, kaloudis, Linosporis, Reggis, Balatsinos, and finally, Kendarchos and Kefallonitis during the first half of the 16th century.]

I need to turn up with ID and proof of residence and then I can do some searching there and even order copies of documents. I'm not sanguine about finding any of these papers at once. They are reported, orally, as having been delivered to Sir Henry Storks, who, as a career administrator, took over from Gladstone's Extraordinary posting to the role of Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands, and stayed in that post until the Protectorate ended in 1863. I don't know if the so-called 'papers' or petitions are in English or Greek or both; in print or writing. * * * I've been travelling, as usual, for work - London, Cardiff, Brighton, Stafford, Lowestoft, Norwich in the last few days. A glossy brochure (page 8) for my May workshop in Australia has arrived describing a session at the LGMA national conference at Gold Coast. I'm introducing a workshop called IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO: GETTING THE POLITICAL-MANAGEMENT LEADERSHIP ROLES RIGHT:

Executive leadership in local government requires a recognition of the ambiguity, confusion and tension that arises at the overlapping boundaries of political and managerial spheres of action. In this workshop designed for elected officials and senior managers, Simon will show video extracts from a small sample of chief executive and elected member conversations to explain how politicians and managers in the UK jointly create government - a perennial puzzle of increasing consequence for the sector.'

* * * Meantime several local concerns have arisen over Handsworth Park and Black Patch Park, at recent evening meetings of my neighbours. The community centre on the Black Patch has been closed down but ill-secured for over 18 months so that footballers have no changing room and there's no meeting space for local groups to meet. An e-mail from our secretary, Andrew:

Hi Simon. Sue contacted me this morning about the community centre and I've been down myself this afternoon to have a look. Someone has been inside and broken windows from the inside - also Sue reported evidence that someone has tried to set the building on fire. She has been in touch with Sandwell MBC and the Fire Service. I couldn't get in so the doors appear to be secure but entry via the roof might still be possible. Sue is wondering whether we ought to contact the press about this. Sandwell haven't made any attempt to repair the damage to the roof or taken adequate measures to secure the windows and doors. Our fears are that the damage to the building will become beyond repair! Best Wishes Andrew

While I've agreed, at a meeting of the Handsworth Park Association, last night, to try to get a local councillor to arrange a meeting with the developer and other interested parties over the extended delays in laying out seven acres of private green space to pass on to Birmingham City Council. Here's the basis for a draft letter to Cllr. Kim Brom:

Dear Cllr. Brom. I wonder if you can arrange, as a matter of urgency, a meeting with the developer of the housing on the Victoria Jubilee Allotment, our Community Planning Officer, the Chair of Handsworth Cricket Club, the member of the City's executive who has allotments and sport in their portfolio and the relevant Scrutiny Chair. Graham Winfield, current Chair of the Handsworth Park Association, phoned me in Corfu, saying how concerned he was at the delayed arrival of the very much needed extra sports facilities on the VJA site that were going to be handed over to the city on conclusion of the 106A. As it is a large area of valuable green space - grass seeded with some remaining hedgerows is just sitting there. I was well aware the implementation of the planning gain deal was delayed. The developer was claiming the agreement included a provision to delay laying out the allotments, playing fields and other elements of the agreed plan until they had disposed of 40 units of the 80 houses on the site. By last July they had sold 20 (their figures and these may not be accurate now). This provision was not confirmed by the Planning Department. The matter is complicated by the change of developer (under terms I don't know) from Westbury to Church Homes. I've raised this matter twice at Ward Area sub and other meetings. During 2007 we've had the continuing problem of the 'green pathway' that was agreed as being integral to the original plan but which cannot connect the site to the Park because there's a 'hostage strip' of private land between the fence and the park where that gate should be. It is the garden of one house garden designed in by the developer which effectively means we have a public gate to nowhere and therefore makes the path impossible - so that what we feared and spoke strongly against, is a separation between the Park and the VJA site's recreational resources, and indeed the link between the park and the new housing. I understand the city planning department is, for the moment, not budging on this and even Alan Orr is unhappy about it. What the committee make of it when it is presented to them I don't know and perhaps a 'fudge' has been privately agreed that we don't know about. There's problem brewing here. The worst case involves the developer goes broke or selling to another developer who then lobbies to have more of the site to build cheaper homes so they can make what they view as a workable profit from the site. Meantime the community loses not only the land already built on, but yet more green space, and the planning gain deal is rejigged to provide fewer allotments and sports space and the project to bring new allotments and sports space into the area as part of Handsworth Park, is delayed for years...

* * * Just before I left the house where we'd had our meeting I saw a dark hard-wood bust of an African woman, along with other items that Dlci told me came from an artist friend in Kenya. As I examined the bust, she showed me privately taken colour photographs of people lying dead in their church in pools of dried blood following one of the violent episodes spreading across Kenya. The art is a from a Kenyan friend. The photos were sent by her to raise money and to show what has happened to her neighbours and relatives. I thought, in my safety, of Kevin Andrews' reference to murder driven by :...uncritical, unquestioning adherence to the revolting shame of lesser people’s stupidity, cynicism and cheapness.' (p.185 The Flight of Ikaros) * * * One of my mentor texts came in useful the other day when I was arguing about what could and couldn't be taught about political awareness in government. I said I'd learned from the Meno about problems of teaching things no-one can satisfactorily define. "But" I said "you can demonstrate its existence" "I'll accept that" he said. "Conversation helps" I said "and knowledge". The Meno patently indicates Socrates' courage; the vexation amounting to rage his words induced in some, and the danger he faced for being so persistently awkward. With Meno, the young man in the eponymous dialogue about the impossibility of teaching virtue, is sometimes uncomfortable, but there's respect even amid Meno's bewildered consternation, but, near its conclusion, the Democrat Antyus is drawn into the dialogue. Socrates had been arguing that even Thucydides for all his qualities could not teach his children to be good:

SOCRATES: Now, can there be a doubt that Thucydides, whose children were taught things for which he had to spend money, would have taught them to be good men, which would have cost him nothing, if virtue could have been taught. Will you reply that he was a mean man, and had not many friends among the Athenians and allies? Nay, but he was of a great family, and a man of influence at Athens and in all Hellas, and, if virtue could have been taught, he would have found out some Athenian or foreigner who would have made good men of his sons, if he could not himself spare the time from cares of state. Once more, I suspect, friend Anytus, that virtue is not a thing which can be taught. ANYTUS: Socrates, I think that you are too ready to speak evil of men: and, if you will take my advice, I would recommend you to be careful. Perhaps there is no city in which it is not easier to do men harm than to do them good, and this is certainly the case at Athens, as I believe that you know. SOCRATES: O Meno, think that Anytus is in a rage. And he may well be in a rage, for he thinks, in the first place, that I am defaming these gentlemen; and in the second place, he is of the opinion that he is one of them himself. But some day he will know what is the meaning of defamation, and if he ever does, he will forgive me. Meanwhile I will return to you, Meno..

At no point in this conversation has Socrates spoken evil, though Antyus had already reiterated contempt for Sophists - paid teachers of wisdom. How I loath sentences that include "if you take my advice", let alone the barely veiled threat "I would recommend you to be careful. Perhaps there is no city in which it is not easier to do men harm..."

[The images illustrating 'conversation' and 'knowledge' are from my research on the 'construction of trust' between politicians and administrators in government. They are in the public domain with permission from participants]