'Cher Michel. Pouvez-vous m'aider avec un problème...'

X to Y:

Here's the link to that piece. You're very right that we're still only at the beginning of this business. Until Greece elects a Thatcher - and Greeks would have to grow a spine first in order to do that - no-one will be there to tell the hoi-polloi that the happy days of anemelia (Greek for carelessness) are over and we need to radically downsize our expectations. The proletariat are proletariat and no amount of feel-good sloganeering and post-dictatorship populist govts will change the fact that if you work as a plumber you don't get two houses and three cars (except if you were a farmer during the Delors packets in the mid-90s in which case you have that and sex-tourism to Bangkok). Sounds harsh, I know, but it points to the other great danger of our commodified consumerist culture: that the have-nots are not only exposed but full-frontally assaulted by what the haves have. The walls have come down from around the villas, and they have migrated to the corner of our living room inside our TV sets. Again, many thanks for your valuable insight. All best. X

Y to X:

I would be careful about wishing for a Thatcher. She sent inequality soaring to pre-war levels, ruined a generation and was allowed to do so by our rather pitiful trade unions. She created the economic conditions we now face by turning Britain into a giant hedge fund - all financial bubble and no substance. Thanks to her and latterly to Blair/Brown, we are as badly exposed to the crisis as any country in the World. Ultimately, that's capitalism; increasingly speculative booms alongside increasingly vicious and globalized crises. I cannot see anything but despair in the Thatcher road I'm afraid and I honestly think the Greek working classes would have defeated her - as would the French for that matter. She only looked strong because the opposition was so weak. Cheers Y

X to Y:

Of course you're right, and Thatcher is not the way to go. But what I was trying to express was that we need someone of Thatcher's willpower to crush trade unions that are out of touch with where the world economy stands and where we stand with it in relation to our productivity and what we can contribute to the world economy. In the world economy, Greece's tourist sites and energy crossroads geography are its greatest assets. Not much else. The EU has pigeonholed our highly-educated workforce as becoming the economic bloc's middling white collar managers in the Balkans region and maybe even the Levant. But that's about it. The trade unions have nooooooooo clue of where the world is headed and where it's at now. They do not access the Internet even. Forgive me if I sound parochial (they don't access the Internet) :)

Y to X:

The big question is how one conceives of the world economy and what it should look like. Until now, it has been left exclusively to the rich and powerful (including a few Greeks), who have indulged themselves at the expense of everyone else for a generation and they are directly responsible for the crisis now. My question is, if not the trade unions, who will make them pay for their crimes? Put another way, the weaker the trade unions are, the more capitalism will be allowed to run rampant and the greater the eventual cost to the whole of society will be. A 'modernized' Greek economy based on longer working hours and lower wages is a recipe for misery and that is what would happen if the trade unions were smashed. David Harvey's work expresses this perspective most eloquently - his short book 'A brief history of neoliberalism' is well worth a read. Best Y

X to Y:

It's not about Greece though, is it? The average Greek worker has it a hell of a lot better than the average Chinese or Indonesian one. That is the tableau we're now playing on. As for the second juncture of your thinking which I interpret as self-regulation, it is to be hoped that the EU will be better at regulating Greek elite excess (I chortle as I write this, knowing how deeply we're scraping the barrel at this point) than the unions can be. The trade unions have never regulated the Greek elites. They have just sought to get a better deal for their workers. In so doing, they have only constrained the Greek elites minimally. The root of the problem is far far deeper. X

Y to X:

Well, that is true - and the average British worker has a far better wage than the average Greek. No doubt Gordon Brown will remind us of our privileges in that regard when people complain about falling working class living standards. At the same time, he will continue to indulge parasitic bankers and ignore rising relative inequality, which is the real source of misery and alienation in so-called developed economies. So, are we arguing for a race to the bottom, which is what the globalizers have wanted all along? In my view, the answer is for Chinese, African and Indonesian wages to rise and militant trade unionism will have an important role to play there. Contrary to what one might think, Chinese workers are becoming quite belligerent in that regard (see Bill Dunn's work), as are South Africans as ANC hegemony slowly starts to weaken. Re: the piece you sent I cannot honestly claim to be an expert in trade union matters - there's an industrial relations group in WBS who are - but I'll take the compliment and hope they don't see it! Best Y

Me to X: So now Y has said you can't have Mrs T who's it going to be? X: Dora... ;)

Me: Well now. That's interesting. She made a good job of being Mayor of Athens and she's got a feel for international politics. The camera likes her. Do you know something I don't – as to why that might be impossible or possible? Best S

X:...and she's as tough as thatcher. it's no secret that she's been groomed to be PM since she could walk. She's now waiting out Karamanlis to become so unpopular that she can step in and save ND from disaster... or so goes the scenario...X:

Me: I was looking back through my blog. DB came on my radar in November 2007 and she’s neither klepht nor diaspora. Simon

(Her speech at Oxford in November 2007 - about strengthening the capacity of the European Union to govern, rather than rule; a shrewd distinction) * * * European government's are faltering in exercising authority reminding me - painfully - of my flailing inadequacy as a father of teenagers in the 1990s. When our children rebelled I had nothing robust nor central to offer but love and frustration. We struggled to set boundaries, arguing furiously, apportioning blame. Our fragile centre just about held despite our inconsistencies. We'd take it in turn to drive around town waiting outside, even wandering into city nightclubs when they’d gone there under age. I’d threaten, uselessly, to sue managers for allowing under-age entry. Drugs were rife. We got the police out once when one child refused to come home. Then they turned 16 and we lost even more control clinging to the tattered moral authority given at the cost of constant endeavour - supported by regular conversations with equally frustrated teachers (who, oddly, liked them both a lot). From age 16 the banks took them with pressing offers of free loans, plastic cards and gifts for starting an account. To our complaints at this soliciting, bank employees, when you could reach them, would repeat “they’re adults now.” In law they were... Cut to 2009; one’s in the police – and good at it; the other designs websites - well. But talk about a rollercoaster ride – for them and us – and we’re a fairly boring respectable family of means. An unlikely authority on these shenanigans - a gay French intellectual of global fame - Michel Foucault - explored the links between government of self, household and state. He referred to governmentality. I've written about this. Thought about it. But writing and doing can be so separate - and certainly are for me. Foucault's thinking is often used as a way of analysing ingenious mechanisms of state control, but I would have loved to have sought that man's advice on parenting. "Cher Michel. Pouvez-vous m'aider avec un problème..." I like the subversion of seeking guidance from Foucault on family rule. It's too late now. We lost him in 1984. Now I hear my adult children playing piano when they drop round and my heart turns over (treat these revelations with discretion says the bourgeois in me – for their sakes. They never read my blog which is fine). So I suppose this was what I'm on about when I wrote ‘parents of Greece could stop this’. I suspect the Greek education system lacks the openness needed to even begin to deal with the ugly rebellious transition to modernity that is now the ordeal of growing up. For every enfuriatingly childish action by immature adolescents there's a counter reaction in the soulless world of turbo-capitalism (see Luttwak). How do you arm a young person with the personal and authoritative capacity for judgement that will enable them to navigate the moral wasteland that surrounds them, undermining them, undermining parents, schools and all those delicate linkages that make up Foucault's ideal of a robust connection between self, household and state? I'm not seeking scapegoats - they're everywhere. I'm searching for ways to hold the centre. Self-improvement is not of itself enough. There needs to be a domus - a household. And that household needs a firm link to the idea of a state. Each levers the other. Each can weaken the other. But what is the state today? From whence comes it's legitimacy and its contract with its citizens, and what do citizens do to confer that legitimacy when they struggle to exercise authority over their children? For me, for us, this is a storm part weathered - but at no small cost in wear and tear, and the horizon's got a cold sharp edge to it.

'I would now like to start looking at that dimension which I have called by that rather nasty word "governmentality". Let us suppose that "governing" is not the same thing as "reigning", that it is not the same thing as "commanding" or "making the law", let us suppose that governing is not the same thing as being a sovereign, a suzerain, being lord, being judge, being a general, owner, master, professor. Let us suppose that there is a specificity to what it is to govern and we must now find out a little what type of power is covered by this notion.' Michel Foucault. (2004). Sécurité, Territoire, Population. Cours au Collège de France. 1977-1978. Paris: Gallimard, 2004. p. 119

Walking the dogs in the frost

Towards dusk I put on my thick tweed jacket, neck warmer and gloves and strolled southwards down the dirt road then wound east up the lower slopes of Mealle Beage until I came to the forest road that returned west below the forestry's serried lines of trees running dark and deep beyond my sight. The terriers romped every which way but obedient to my call never wandered far from sight. The sun reddened a contrail streaming across the southern sky. After a mile and a half on slightly slippery gravel I turned west scrambling across a rutted meadow of frozen rushes two years cleared of trees, between the woods and frozen lake, treading gingerly over patches of ice, until I came to the road south again, and walked homeward, watching for cars, heeling the dogs when they approached, strolling towards Inverarnie and the lane up to Brin Croft where tea and crumpets were ready, after I'd towelled the dogs. Later we went for supper with friends across the strath, finishing by candlelight when the power cut out from Inverness to south of Tomatin. Outside the ground sparkled. No city loom dimmed the stars. Once home, leading my mother gently over the icy hearth by the greeting dogs, we were preparing the house to keep its warmth through a night below freezing, when lights and heating came on again and we turned off our gas lamps and blew out the candles.

The Moray Firth

Yesterday I drove my mother and the dogs down to the Moray shore where an abandoned road runs a mile beside the firth towards Inverness. It was chilly and calm; easy to hear the cries of waders, quieter at high tide. We recalled things that happened, especially Christmas 1952 at my aunt's home, Fasnakyle, far up Glen Affric, Cannich children laughing fit to die at the Chaplin films she'd shown on a specially hired projector, and the head gillie come as Father Christmas with presents in a great sack for everyone, and snow on snow, overflowing the banks of the Beauly, running black and deep beside the house.

"the horror" - how corruption works

...the principle of 'anti-kinship' present in the ‘theoretical’ contrast between 'universalistic' (that is rational) and particularistic (non-rational) systems reflects the horror of nepotism that once held together a part of the British flag of empire. It is still held by some industrial observers to distinguish between ‘developed’ and ‘underdeveloped’ countries. (Leyton,E.(ed) (1974) 'The Compact: Selected Dimensions of Friendship', Newfoundland Social and Economic Papers No.3, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Memorial University of Newfoundland (University of Toronto) p.111, 112) quoted in a paper I wrote on trust in government in 1996.

Horror will do. It's my view. Though he didn't call it that, I was taught about corruption by my Philhellene dad on my first visit to Greece when I was 16. After he'd explained the differences between Greek and Turkish coffee - one's called 'Greek' and the other 'Turkish' and "while your here, don't ever forget which is which". "Here's some local wine fermented in pine barrels. Try a sip. You'll love it or hate it." He explained that what makes the music so so so... is that you can't tell whether it's eastern or western; Islamic or Christian..."and it was often forbidden." "Greece has been enriched by being uncertain whether it's east or west for centuries." He respected the ruins and sent me on a week's minibus tour I'll never forget, but it was modern Greece that held his heart and mind. "You'll be at the custom house to get a parcel from abroad. An amiable man at the steps outside will ask if he can help with 'paperwork' and as you hesitate offers to have your parcel with you in 20 minutes - for a small fee. This is easily and openly paid by a foreigner, unsure of the local bureaucracy and the language. You depart with your parcel - after a grateful handshake and relaxed wait in the foyer, well apart from the milling crowd. Corruption is so nice and easy. Some would call it "ethnic" now. You can fool yourself it's a win-win situation. It's really queue jumping. (See Annex 5: Case Study - Greece)

[Back to the future 12/01/09: I just came across an op-ed (now disappeared) by Mark Dragoumis in Athens News of Friday 5th December 08 which led me to the famous blog of the late Amalia Kalyvinou - probably the most influential agent for potential good in the Hellenic health 'system - English version. (see also and also) Writes Dragoumis: 'Ruling without rules should, at long last, be ruled out' ~ Many Greeks do know from experience that there is no better fuel to make the state run smoothly than the 'fakellaki' (Φακελάκι fakelaki = little envelope, or bag, containing the requisite bribe). What this columnist has found to his amazement, though, is that this situation has led to the emergence of informal 'networks of honesty and efficiency' in Greece - profound irony. See also. Note on 31 May 2010 - some of these links have been deleted or restricted at source - Search for Amalia Kalyvinou and/or Αμαλία Καλυβίνου. Example of how the web can be made indelible despite efforts]

I recall a first mate on an oil tanker, on which I studied, saying that by the time you realise you are getting bribed you've already been long paid. It usually happens when you dock. Customs and immigration complete their paperwork on board. You repair for a drink with the skipper. The conversation lingers as you enjoy the refills, instead of doing what the first officer should be doing, after docking, which is keeping an eagle eye on the deck as your crew and shore workers merge at the quay. "Do you have any idea of the value of a 10 metres of cable or the other stuff that lies loose on a ship's deck? It's better now with off-shore loading and roll-on roll-off and container cargoes. There's less access. Now the crime's inside the boxes. In those day's you'd depart and then open a drawer in your cabin and find an envelope. To whom do you give it back? The skipper will say 'what the hell are you doing with that you idiot?' No giving it back, no convincing explanation. You're at sea. So so easy and no-one seems to be getting hurt." On our second visit to Corfu in November 2006 we stayed overnight at the welcoming Carpe Diem hostel in Brindisi - a good point of transit for many British travellers going regularly to Corfu by train, plane and ferry. We met an English Corfu hotellier heading home, who told us she was selling up. "You'll love Corfu" she said. "People will be good, welcoming, generous - all the things you could hope for on top of the beautiful landscape. You're harvest. But if ever, like me, you decide to have a go at harvesting, you'll see a whole other side of things in Paradise." She listed the ways officials could and had made her life difficult - an exhausting escalation of obfuscation; of laws enforced that weren't enforced on others, and laws not enforced in her case while being used to protect others. "My problem is simple. I won't pay to make my life easier. I've struggled for ten years and done quite well but I'm giving up now and my daughter needs me in England. It's not a Greek-English thing, don't get me wrong. It's who pays and who doesn't. Greeks are as much victims as foreigners." My closest encounter with this kind of crime was the Birmingham vote-rigging scandal, in which I seemed to know a great number of those involved, both those like Raghib Ahsan who helped initiate the enquiry that led to the electoral court, and my neighbour, two houses up, Mohammed Afzal, who was implicated by the electoral court and cleared on appeal. Apart from attending sessions at Richard Mawrey's electoral court, I watched this rot filtering through the area's labour party and felt rather useless. You can do so much door to door leafleting, sending letters to the press, signing petitions, supporting your beleagured friends - but its worse than wading through chilled treacle to pin down the attitude of mind that doesn't feel the shame or 'the horror'. For me corruption is on a par with crimes that attract greater attention - akin to rape, child abuse, theft with violence, especially as it's not disconnected from these loathsome acts. So there, I've moved from a cheery memory of my dad telling me about speeding up procedures at the Athens custom house to Marcellus' words on the ramparts at Helsingor "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. What Shakespeare does incomparably in Hamlet - most famously - is to show corruption begun in the domestic polity and metastasising to the state. Hamlet's despair and passion is directed evenly at what's happened in his family as well as in his country. It astonishes me that he should be seen as gloomy rather than justifiably angry - almost incoherently so - at the havoc wrought by the corruption whose full range only emerges as the play proceeds. Shakespeare knew. So did Pinter whose choler at political crime, Private Eye so enjoyed mocking.

Scroll down this link to see Political culture and corruption in Greece: A synergistic relationship by Chronis Polychroniou professor and head of Academic Affairs at Mediterranean University College, University of Teesside (UK) in Athens (see back in the blog; see 13th International Anti-Corruption conference in Athens in November 2008) (See also several reflections on the Greek phenomenon of yearning-burning-earning)

Reading the Barber Institute description of that Nativity scene by Jan de Beer I learn something else about the angel...

... in the foreground with a golden brocade cloak has peacock wings which stand out against his striking auburn hair. The peacock is a traditional symbol of immortality and may point to Christ’s reign on earth. Alternatively, this angel, different to the others, could represent Lucifer, who was at times depicted in the form of an angel with peacock wings...the Devil bears witness to the birth of the child that will bring his downfall.

I've recognised the view in Christian theology that the devil doesn't waste time with those doing evil, but gets close to those most righteous. Does Islam have this view of the intimacy of good and evil? I've asked Dhiaa. It's taken for granted in atheism - no need of a Fall. Corruption and probity in government - far from being in opposition are proximate. I've seen it in an inability - or refusal - to see the importance of distinguishing between being friendly and having a friendship. Codes of conduct in constitutions are written in language too blunt to mark the subtle distinctions between right and wrong where a significant proportion of what passes is wordless. Formal language falters in trying to describe the judgement needed to navigate the moral danger zone where politics and administration overlap, sometimes falling back on that weasel word 'appropriate' or setting rules that may keep a lawyer safe but ignore the art in government. * * * E-mail from home:

Yes - I was at Jill's. Didn't get back till 2.45. Rich. Alice & R's friend came in at about 4.00. They're not up yet! I'm watching Arabian Nights - repeat of the one we saw before. Just got into it and Jo came over for a coffee and a chat. She's not long gone, so I've missed most of it. It's freezing here. I'm keeping the heating on all day - spending your winter fuel allowance. However, I've at last managed to find out rules for home office claim, so that'll save you £40 income tax. L x

* * *
From the Greek eco-forum blog - "In 2009 please fight decadence" - which I take to be another term for corruption...

Society's moral defences are being tested in Greece and in other countries in the world by many ways but mainly through media coverage. Historically and physicaly the biggest defences are in the young minds, which are not yet amalgamated through the modern society mechanisms and finally being passive to accept the destiny that has been imposed to by others. In many periods of the human history, people had revolted or at least protested against the implicit order to accept the destiny as it is. Many religions has exploited that feeling and tried to find good grounds to make their dogma respectable. Metaphysics and human norms are constantly interchanging sources of belief that in the end reflects to the human behaviour. However, morality remained constant as an idea and as a social movement by adapting social and economic changes. Moral issues are correlated with the social cohesion and the society's resistance in change. Some would argue that young people are more ethical than the older ones and that argument is supported by the fact that young ones are adopting the ideal view of how society should exist and operate and not with what means - the means are left for the more experienced ones. With that in mind, the recent protests in France and in Greece, have common characteristics, both are trying to express the older generation that something in the society is not working properly, there is a big problem and they are desperate to see their voices heard. Justice, Respect and Equality are ideas of the older French revolution and centuries ago of Greek Culture but it is the only way to bridge the gap between the generations and work out together a way out of this social crisis. The state of the environment is the reflection of how important society thinks the next generation is. The current situation is the Ultimum Bottom Line. There is only one way up by working hard all of us together...I wish 2009 will be the start of the new era in the global society with a lot of understanding, cooperation and applying solutions.

* * *
Iason Athanasiades writes more - date 2 January 2009 - sour at his generation's spinelessness: 'Democracy is a Greek word. And so too is apathy…and chaos and tragedy: rather more fitting epithets for the instability churning Greece' (Max Andersson cartoon) but he quotes Jonathan Davies' view that strikes across Greece 'seemingly confound the received wisdom that class struggle is dead.' JD, who I've quoted earlier, sees what's been filmed as the least significant dimension of what's happening, and Athens as a cinematic riot zone has indeed slipped into the past tense, displaced by the shift of media attention to Gaza - the baited bear (CSM Sara Roy 2/01/09)
 * * *
See especially Fouskas:

The future generations that will build the Fourth Hellenic Republic should remember that the Third did not suffer from authoritarianism, but from a lack of institutional norms and rules that are the requisites of every modern polity.

* * *
Back to the future - 10/01/2009: Example of corruption in Norwich City Council. A senior housing officer involved in evicting frail elderly from the their homes allegedly went with other staff to live at preferential rents in accomodation she'd emptied.
* * *
Quote from comments on deviousdiva's blog This is not my Country - 21 November 2007: Greek laws are incomplete and have holes in them so that the authorities can be bribed and so that the politicians can do what is known as “rousfeti”. (The word comes from turkish “rüsvet” and means “favor”, especially favor by a politician in return for a promise to vote them.) And the entire public sector is organized in such a way that anything can be accomplished by “rousfeti”: If something in the law is unclear, it can be made clear by an “order from above”. If an order “from above” violates the law or the regulations, it is the “order from above” which always takes precedence. If the cogs of the bureaucratic machine are rusty, an order “from above” will always oil them and get them to move on. This is, by the way, how the greek term “Λάδωμα” (ladoma) meaning “oiling” was coined to mean “bribery”. So, the politicians see no reason to fix the laws when any deficiencies can be taken care of at any time by means of “rousfeti”. Ha! You thought you knew how a corrupt state works? You really know nothing until you begin to understand how the government and the public sector works in Greece! [Back to the future - 26 March 2009: Corruption uncovered in Brussels by German reporter Hans-Martin Tillack, see 9 Jan '09 story appearing in First Post]

[YouTube clip from July 2009 Leandros Rakintzis, (Λέανδρος Ρακιντζής ) Greece's general inspector of public administration, has identified town-planning offices and state hospitals, followed by municipalities, as the areas of the public sector where corruption is most rife. “The fight against corruption is long, hard and has many obstacles such as the bureaucratic attitude of public servants, various petty interests and the lack of know-how in thwarting techniques used to cover up corrupt practices."

Ο Γενικός Επιθεωρητής Δημόσιας Διοίκησης Λέανδρος Ρακιντζής μιλάει για περιπτώσεις διαφθοράς

[Back to the future: Piece in the Washington Times on 4 January 2010 about the farce playing in Athens called Mother Greece co-written by Giannis Sarakatsanis

"We're lazy, nouveau riche and constantly complaining. Everyone is looking for someone to blame just in order to get it over with, whereas I see a vicious circle that only ends with us."

[Back to the future 31 May 2010: Kathimerini's editorial 'In Corruption's Labyrinth' - a confession to a Parliamentary Select Committee by ex-Transport Minister Tasos Mantelis that he took money from Siemens as a bribe - formally described as election sponsorship - to award them a major IT contract in 1997 while a member of Costas Simitis’s PASOK government, in part to fund his son's studies at Columbia University]

[Back to the future 20 July 2010: Story in The Telegraph 8 July 2010 about Sotirios Hatzigakis, ex-Minister of Justice of the Hellenic Republic]

[10 August 2010: A miscellany of synonyms in the New York Times for 'creative accounting' ]
[7 Nov'11: A Channel 4 programme called Go Greek: Three British families try out the tax, pensions and work practices that caused Greece's economic crisis and brought on the austerity measures aimed at cutting the deficit and qualifying for EU bailouts. A 54-year-old British hairdresser discovers the generosity of the Greek pensions system, which still allows hairdressers, pastry chefs, radio continuity announcers and people in almost 600 other jobs to retire aged 53 at 90% of their final salary because their jobs are defined as hazardous. A bus driver reaps the rewards of the Greek approach to state-run services, where bus drivers could be paid up to almost double the national average salary and receive extra bonuses for arriving at work early and for checking bus tickets. And a British surgeon is delighted to discover how paying income tax the Greek way will transform his disposable income. The personal experiences of the three main characters are supported by expert interviews that establish the patterns of tax evasion, corruption and mismanagement that have helped to sink the Greek economy.]
[Back to the future - 1 Jan 2012: 'Debt-pushing' to a whole nation via the corruption of its upper echelons]

By the river Farnack

The Farnack runs below my mother's home in Strathnairn, between the leafless elder and birch which hides it from her house in summer. A neighbour's made a path that runs a mile beside the stream with two bridges allowing an hour's circuit that suits me and the dogs who tear happily up and down the banks and over the frosted fields below Meall Beage, strewn with frozen mole hills. The sounds of the river are changed by the cold - vibrant ripples going abruptly silent as the water flows under sheets of ice, small pockets of air expanding and contracting beneath it, reflected in the winter light.

I collected Sharon  - my mother's carer from the station - after lunch. She'd flown from summer in Durban to Paris in winter - "bumpy all the way" - then Paris to Aberdeen, then train to Inverness. After chatting to mum about her holiday she went to bed. Christine and James and their daughter and son-in-law and new son came round with two bottles of champagne. Happiness emanated from them, infectiously. Two hours before our midnight Mark and Sally texted me 'Happy Greek New Year' from Ano Korakiana and I texted back 'Same to you from both of us' tho' I'm hesitant about chasing Lin at Jill's - she being so uninterested in ceremonies. I phoned Richard; heard the sounds of a party - "Happy New Year to you Dad, must go." Amy phones just after midnight from the cottage in Gloucester, sending love and greetings from Guy, Liz and Matt -= and the cats they've taken down with them. "We found a pipistrelle. What should we do with it?" "You must have woken it from hibernation when you warmed the place up. Put it back in the roof and hope for the best. It won't survive outside." "I think it ate the big spider" she says.

Brin Croft

* * * I caught a bus to New Street Station on Monday afternoon and caught the Edinburgh train with minutes to spare. On the long journey north from Birmingham Oscar behaved impeccably - meeting and greeting fellow passengers including dogs on the same route. I read my Obama biography and watched the DVD of Beowulf - quite fun, though, as ever, seeing an image of monsters detracts from rather than adds to the terror evoked by Grendel and his mother when I first read and imagined the epic. Isn't that one of the reasons for art? Trying to get a hold on horror. At Edinburgh, where we had an hour to our connection, the dog and I climbed Waverley Steps to Princes Street, where a torch-lit parade with drums and pipes was passing; then back to our platform to join the 1933 to Inverness, where we'd arrive just after 11pm and I'd be met by Petra, standing in for Sharon as my mother's carer, and driven out to Inverarnie. * * * To JD:

I saw the Schatz piece in the LRB. I think we are all looking for 'the story' - an intuition that this is  something our assumptions about the world might prevent us seeing, or because there is a missing piece in a composite hiding the picture. Iason wants it to be something more than adolescent frustration vented against modernisation and globalisation. I'm not sure what I want but that I want to see a light at the end of the tunnel for a country I love. I want the centre to hold - but I'm not sure what constitutes a centre at the moment. Happy New Year. Simon

From JD:

Well, I'd like to think it is about the fight for an alternative modernity/ modernisation to the dominant one, which is about the commodification of everything and the insistence that people behave 'responsibly' and 'respectfully' in spite of casino capitalism and the havoc it causes. In my view we are still closer to the beginning of the crisis than the end, so there may be a possibility for real alternatives to emerge here, in Greece and elsewhere. My Marxist instincts tell me that new worlds are only ever forged in struggle and can never be delivered on a plate fresh from a philosopher's mind. So, for all the teargas and smoke we should hope that the turmoil in Greece is a nursery for something vibrant and new. Time will tell, but my Greek friends, mainly academics and government advisers, all know that something needs to change there. Best JD