'…setting the scene...'

Eggvolk and their party symbol in front of the Hellenic Parliament building

Richard Pine loves Greece, lives in Corfu, and is someone whose friendship is a source of pride. His conversation is sparse, amusing, educated and to the point. This article, one of his regular 'Letters from Greece' to The Irish Times, chills me, piercing through my reflexive optimism about the capacity of Greek democracy and the Greeks to weather this relentless unending crisis. Now the experience of relative tranquillity looks more and more like that eerie peacefulness to be found in the eye of a storm. Comments on his article criticise Richard for lack of balance, for not providing evidence (in a short essay he actually refers to much evidence for his despondency) - but neither do those who comment, failing to offer any robust rebuttal of reflections based on Richard's acute knowledge and direct experience of Greece and its history as well as the sequence of events by which Weimar Germany, one of the most civilised states in Europe, popularly elected the demise of its own democracy…because these things are unthinkable they are not thought about, and for those who do not remember they are unimaginable…

'Many Greeks would prefer stability to democracy'

Under the present regime, the country as a whole is unsustainable

Protesters from the Communist-affiliated trade union PAME shout slogans during a rally yesterday against the government’s plans for cutbacks in medical staff and hospitals in Athens. Photo John Kolesidis/Reuters

I would not be surprised or even shocked to see tanks rolling into Athens to signal the advent of a military junta. Apprehensive, but not surprised. It will almost certainly not reach that point, but citizen apathy at the poverty of political life, and despair at the continuing economic decline, are setting the scene for a potential takeover by forces including the military, police and far- right political parties such as the fascist Golden Dawn (GD).
A coalition of such forces would offer not only stability – a one-party state or even a no-party state – but no-nonsense determination to deal with the conditions of a country which sees no way forward under present dispensations.
A judicial investigator, attempting to assess the culpability of Golden Dawn MPs in relation to a recent murder and membership of what is in effect an illegal organisation, has stated that the party’s aim is “the dissolution of the democratic system of government”. That system has been abused by successive governments to such an extent that its suspension would be welcome to many disillusioned Greeks.
Meanwhile, the call by the union of reserve military personnel, for abolition of the government, repudiation of the bailout programme, the expulsion of illegal immigrants and the establishment of a government of national unity, chimes chillingly with GD’s policies.
A coup in 1967 led to a military junta for seven years. Greece became a police state. One of its leaders declared categorically, “whoever is interested in human rights in Greece is a communist”. So much for democracy. Its anti-democratic behaviour included disappearances and torturings, as reported in gruesome detail by this newspaper’s Peter Murtagh in his book The Rape of Greece.
But that was several years before Greece joined the EU in 1981. If it happened today, the EU would most likely expel Greece, which would certainly exit the euro zone, a step which would upset few Greeks. The bailout was (as the IMF admits) a mistaken panic measure to save the euro rather than saving Greece. Today, the people among whom I live don’t give a damn about the euro, and they look enviously at the likely end to the Irish bailout.
Today, the passivity of citizens, already exhausted by successive waves of austerity and degradation led by Brussels and Berlin, would reduce the likelihood of any meaningful opposition to military rule. Many Greeks, quite apart from the fascists, would agree that the prospect of stability and a dependable vision of the life to come is more important than democracy, and better than the life they currently lead.
It would, nevertheless, be a police state. It is widely believed that the police have been infiltrated by GD (this is under investigation), thus creating a strong ideology and a threatening presence on the streets. A police state would be Europhobe, xenophobic, and brutally harsh on its opponents.
A government spokesman recently said, “We have used up all the fat in the economy” – referring to Greece’s inability to reduce public finances any further to meet troika demands. With the fat has gone the elasticity and resilience of the man in the street in both financial and intellectual terms.
It is unrealistic and unfair to compare Greek statistics with the EU norm, even with the similar Irish financial mess. Unemployment, the banking crisis, tax evasion and corruption are specifically Greek problems. Under the present regime (or lack of it) the country as a whole is unsustainable – politically, economically, socially, culturally and morally. A hardline government could be achieved by the expulsion of the existing middle-of-the-road cosy coalition of New Democracy and Pasok, the so-called socialists. The chief alternative is a coalition of the left (Syriza), the possibility of which has increased the rightist vote.
Public opinion has moved slightly away from GD. Parliament has voted to remove immunity from nine of its 18 members, and suspend state financial support for GD as a political party. But current opinion polls still place GD with 7% of the national vote, down from 12% at its highest. This would still leave it with three more seats in parliament than it already holds.
And it is not only politicians who are decrying the status of Greece. At a London conference in mid-October speakers referred to the risk Greece runs of becoming “a failed state” unless it addresses “ineffective governance and lack of public confidence”. It was argued that “targeted constitutional correction and an internationally-sponsored programme of economic reform” is the only way to save Greece and the euro zone. Whether an attempted, failed coup would give the government a sufficient wake-up call is unlikely. Greece is a tragedy waiting to happen.

A relief by Aristeidis Metallinos, sculptor of Ano Korakiana

Plato said "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors" - an elitist observation unless you subtract any implication of class and insert some gauge of the inclination to treat one's fellows with decency; as germane, the words of George Santayana, 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it'

My good wife with paint in Ano Korakiana

…and see the article by Michael Theødosiadis at Eagainst.com 24/10/2013 The Fascist threat beyond Golden Dawn

The Serpent's Greek Lair by Yanis Varoufakis - In this, the fourth article that vitalspace.org and I have contributed to the Witte Centre for Contemporary Art, I offer a short history of the Greek Nazi party...In this piece on Golden Dawn, I begin with an encounter with an old, poor Peloponnesean farmer, some time in the 1990s, whose life revealed much about Greece’s Dark Side...

...The question now is: Why has contemporary Greece seen a Nazi revival? Spaniards, the Irish, the Portuguese, the Italians have also felt the ill-effects of the Eurozone crisis in their bones. But why is it that only in Greece has a Nazi party, Golden Dawn, managed to enter parliament in large numbers, while its storm troopers are terrorizing the streets? Kapnias’ story offers useful clues. It throws light on the significance of the Nazis’ attempts to create a local SS-like body of marginalized men disaffected by the local bourgeoisie, by the Left, and living under a permanent cloud of collective disgrace brought on by a previous national humiliation....

*** ***
On Tuesday Handsworth Helping Hands (HHH) had a good day's work in Wilson Road…

HHH volunteers enjoy a lunch break of local chips discussing progress with Ward Officer Ken Brown visiting to check progress on our skip-it don't tip it day. There are some typical rubbish collection challenges around Wilson Road. 1. A pile of detritus gathering further rubbish in the alley between New Inns Road and Wilson Road that council workers struggle to keep cleared, [Some say we should copy those countries that serve strict penalties on those who litter but it is almost impossible to collect evidence acceptable to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). You must catch people in the act. That requires street wardens, police, PCSOs. All in shorter and shorter supply as the government erodes commitment to the public domain in favour of privatisation. On the whole citizens are reluctant to take photos and report (less apathy than an aspect of UK culture I quite like) and the police, unhappy about the paperwork involved, will seldom charge someone with littering in what they already view as a rough part of town with more serious policing priorities. The people who contribute most to this are social casualties - in this case from a local hostel for recovering alcoholics. Would the courts be able to change their habits? It's most intractable. This is why we must labour the links between social cohesion and the environment. This kind of thing makes people dislike, have contempt for, and over time even develop hate for particular categories of vulnerable people who are their neighbours. This constantly renewed heap of rubbish erodes social altruism.]

I feel the animosity I refer to in myself.  I question it and wonder what my mirror says. That term of abuse - 'bleeding heart liberals' - coined in the US, is such a clever turn of phrase. Cruel but so effective in drying up civility towards neighbours and even making some feel guilty for caring for their fellows. I'm not saying this problem is not always with us, nor that more government would solve it. I think some challenges are Sisyphean*. A good citizen acknowledges that and goes on rolling the stone up the hill.

2. A broken notice warning of £20K fines for fly-tipping, 

3. The end terrace fly-tip site where we found a dismantled garden shed stuffed in Solihull Council plastic bags, 

4. A fridge, which should have been disposed of separately, dumped in one of the skips while HHH volunteers were clearing rubbish further up the street, 

5. An HHH volunteer chats with a neighbour feeding pigeons showing them a Birchfield Action Group circular asking people not to do this 'because food on the ground causes more rats'. 

All these issues demonstrate the connection between our environment and local social cohesion.

Filling the crusher truck in New Inns Road - HHH working in partnership with Council workers

*** *** ***
On Wednesday afternoon Linda and I were at an awards lunch at Aston Villa Football Ground for people who've given 75 or a 100 blood or platelet donations…

It was enjoyable and I felt proud being officially thanked and having my photo taken and getting an entirely impractical glass trophy.
"You'll fall on that" said Lin "and need a blood donation"
Before lunch we were offered a tour of the Aston Villa stadium, getting a stroll, with spine-tingling sound effects, of coming out of the tunnel to the pitch…

In the tunnel at Aston Villa

After the meal all 175 of us listened as Nadine Simpson, who was to present us with our trophies, spoke, entirely without self-pity, of the pain caused by sickle cell anaemia for which she had been receiving transfusions most of her life. She thanked us all. We applauded and were called up for photos. I found myself next to Adrian who'd remembered me from our 75th donation presentation event at the Hyatt Hotel.

The Gift Relationship

*Sisyphus Σίσυφος was a king in Corinth punished for chronic deceitfulness by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this action forever.

Eleni and Popi - 'A few good men'

...two women are rapidly becoming symbols of a justice system that is seeking to reassert itself and (finally) do its duty, perhaps not righting the wrongs of the past but at least holding those responsible for the ransacking of the state’s coffers accountable - irrespective of their political connections and bank balances. In a country with a deep - and not unwarranted - mistrust of the political and financial elites, long seen as the ‘untouchables’, Ms Raikou and Ms Papandreou are being hailed by some as the ‘incorruptibles’...from The Press Project, 9 Feb 2014

Popi Papandreou

Οι δύο κυρίες που κυνηγούν τους καρχαρίες

 Της Αντωνίας Ξυνού (Eleftherotypia crime correspondent Antonia Xynou)

Πριν από μερικούς μήνες, όταν θεσπίστηκε η Εισαγγελία Διαφθοράς, όλοι γνώριζαν ότι επρόκειτο για ένα πόστο που θα περιελάμβανε πολλή δουλειά και αποφάσεις, οι οποίες αν μη τι άλλο θα ταρακουνούσαν τα νερά. Το όνομα της Ελένης Ράικου, ως εισαγγελέα Διαφθοράς, δεν αποτέλεσε έκπληξη για τους περισσότερους, ούτε όμως και η προσωπική της επιλογή, μεταξύ των επίκουρων εισαγγελέων Πρωτοδικών, να περιλαμβάνεται και η Πόπη Παπανδρέου.Από τον περασμένο Απρίλιο μέχρι και σήμερα, οι δύο εισαγγελικές λειτουργοί έχουν απασχολήσει αρκετές φορές τη δημοσιότητα μέσα από την εργασία τους και την αποτελεσματικότητά τους. Η υπόθεση του Ταχυδρομικού Ταμιευτηρίου είναι χαρακτηριστική, αφού παρά το γεγονός ότι τα ονόματα που ελέγχονταν είναι τρανταχτά, οι εισαγγελείς Διαφθοράς κατάφεραν κάτω από άκρα μυστικότητα να διεξαγάγουν μία σημαντικότατη έρευνα, προχωρώντας σε βάθος την υπόθεση. Οπως άλλωστε φαίνεται από την πορισματική αναφορά που φέρει τις υπογραφές Ράικου και Παπανδρέου, οι ενδείξεις τέλεσης αξιόποινων πράξεων είναι σημαντικές, αφού έχουν ανοιχθεί τραπεζικοί λογαριασμοί και έχουν εντοπιστεί ύποπτες offshore εταιρείες.

Ελένη Ράϊκου, Eleni Raikou

Τον Απρίλιο του 2013 άνθρωποι στο χώρο της Δικαιοσύνης υποστήριζαν πως η Ελένη Ράικου ήταν από τους καταλληλότερους ανθρώπους για να προΐσταται στην Εισαγγελία Διαφθοράς. Ως προϊσταμένη της Εισαγγελίας Πρωτοδικών Αθήνας εμπνεύστηκε και συνέστησε το 2010 το τμήμα Οικονομικού Εγκλήματος, το πρώτο τμήμα στα δικαστικά χρονικά που απασχολούνταν αποκλειστικά με υποθέσεις διασπάθισης δημοσίου χρήματος και διαφθοράς. Ηταν ο προάγγελος των θεσμών του οικονομικού εισαγγελέα και του εισαγγελέα Διαφθοράς, όπως είναι γνωστοί σήμερα.
Οι «πρωτιές» που συνοδεύουν το όνομά της είναι αρκετές. Αλλωστε, εκτός από πρώτη εισαγγελέας Διαφθοράς είναι και η πρώτη γυναίκα προϊσταμένη της Εισαγγελίας Πρωτοδικών της Αθήνας. Γεννήθηκε το 1962 -είναι δηλαδή 52 ετών-, φοίτησε στη Νομική Σχολή Αθηνών και μπήκε στο δικαστικό σώμα το 1993. Υπηρέτησε για χρόνια στο τμήμα Ποινικής Δίωξης, προτού ανέλθει στα εισαγγελικά αξιώματα. Κατά την επαγγελματική της καριέρα έχει «ανοίξει» πολλά μέτωπα. Ηδη ως εισαγγελέας Πρωτοδικών διεκπεραίωσε σειρά σημαντικών δικογραφιών, όπως οι καταγγελίες για οικονομικές ατασθαλίες επί γενικής γραμματείας Χρήστου Ζαχόπουλου στο υπουργείο Πολιτισμού, η επίθεση σε βάρος της Κωνσταντίνας Κούνεβα, ενώ είχε χειριστεί ένα μέρος των ερευνών που αφορούσε την υπόθεση Siemens.
Ως προϊσταμένη της Εισαγγελίας Πρωτοδικών επόπτευε το έργο του αρμόδιου τμήματος για το οικονομικό έγκλημα, γύρω από πολύκροτα σκάνδαλα, όπως το τραπεζικό σκάνδαλο της Proton, η υπόθεση του Ακη Τσοχατζόπουλου, οι «μίζες» για τα εξοπλιστικά προγράμμα (γερμανικά υποβρύχια, Λέοπαρντ 2 κ.τ.λ.) και η υπόθεση Καρούζος.

Πόπη Παπανδρέου, Popi Papandreou

Ανάμεσα στους πρωτοδίκες που ασχολήθηκαν με αυτές τις υποθέσεις ήταν και η Πόπη Παναδρέου, η οποία πρωτοδιορίστηκε στο δικαστικό σώμα το 2008 και «ακολούθησε» στη συνέχεια την Ελένη Ράικου στην Εισαγγελία Διαφθοράς. Την υπογραφή της μέχρι εκείνο το σημείο είχαν διάφορα εισαγγελικά πορίσματα, μεταξύ των οποίων αυτό για το σκάνδαλο Energa-Hellas Power, αλλά και για το ελληνικό ποδόσφαιρο, που μπορεί να προκάλεσε το σχολιασμό του προέδρου του Ολυμπιακού, Βαγγ. Μαρινάκη, έδειξε όμως τις δυνατότητες και τη μαχητικότητα της νεαρής εισαγγελέως. Εκτός από το έργο της, παραμένει γνωστή και για την ημέρα της σύλληψης του Ακη Τσοχατζόπουλου. Η Πόπη Παπανδρέου ήταν η εισαγγελέας που χτύπησε την πόρτα του νεοκλασικού επί της Διονυσίου Αρεοπαγίτου, συνοδεία αστυνομικών, ανακοινώνοντας στον πρώην υπουργό ότι συλλαμβάνεται για ξέπλυμα βρόμικου χρήματος. Ηταν μόνο η αρχή μιας υπόθεσης διασπάθισης δημοσίου χρήματος, που έμελλε να οδηγήσει σε ένα πολιτικό σκάνδαλο μεγατόνων.Από το καλοκαίρι του 2013 είναι μεταξύ των επίκουρων εισαγγελέων Διαφθοράς, αναλαμβάνοντας μερικές από τις σημαντικότερες υποθέσεις, όπως τις συμβάσεις στο πλαίσιο του προγράμματος ηλεκτρονικού πολέμου και το κύκλωμα υπαλλήλων και ασφαλισμένων στο ΤΑΥΠΕΚΩ. Επί της ουσίας, το σκάνδαλο του Ταχυδρομικού Ταμιευτηρίου, που συνταράσσει τραπεζικά και επιχειρηματικά κέντρα, είναι μόλις η κορυφή του «παγόβουνου» των δικογραφιών που εξετάζονται από την εισαγγελική ομάδα Διαφθοράς.

The girls who kicked corruption’s nest ....

Back to the future - 23 March 2014 Golden Dawn: courage of two women stems the rise of Greece's neo-Nazis

....For half a year they have sat in their seventh-floor office, probing the murky depths of Europe's most violent political force. It is not a mission that many would envy. But Ioanna Klapa and Maria Dimitropoulou - Ιωάννα Κλάπα και Μαρια Δημητροπουλου - long-time friends who belong to Greece's first generation of female judges, have gone about the business of dissecting Golden Dawn with the precision of a surgeon.
After trawling though computers confiscated from the far-right party's leaders, examining witnesses and wading through thousands of videos, pictures, speeches, documents and blogs, the court officials have compiled a 15,000-page dossier outlining why they believe Golden Dawn is a criminal organisation.

Under the weight of their inquiry – spurred by the murder of a leftwing musician at the hands of a senior party operative in September last year – the extremist group has begun to crack. Last week one Golden Dawn MP resigned, citing ignorance of the party's activities. Another was expelled after indicating that he, too, was about to leave. "The justice system is one of the few meritocratic institutions in Greece and both of these women are known to be enormously courageous, fiercely independent and non-partisan," said Aliki Mouriki, a sociologist at the National Centre of Social Research. "For a party that is so macho and militaristic, it is an irony of history that two women should now be in this role."

How depressing and incredibly awful...or is it?

The Irish Times, Tue, Aug 13, 2013 by a friend in Corfu - Richard Pine:

Lanziger's Hitler as Teutonic knight 1938

A report in these columns in July that an Italian senator had referred to the black Italian minister for integration as an “orangutan” should not give readers the impression that xenophobia is exclusively Italian. After all, it was the Greeks who, unwittingly perhaps, invented the word, even though up to now foreign guests (xenos) have been honoured and welcomed. But also last month, Nikos Michaloliakos, leader of Golden Dawn (GD), Greece’s neo-fascist party, referred to two Greek citizens, Giannis Antetokounpo and his brother Thanassis (sons of Nigerian immigrants), as 'chimpanzees'. Giannis is a rising star in basketball. Last year a member of the highly successful Greek national basketball team, Sophocles Schortsianitis (Greek father, Cameroon mother), was also denounced by another GD MP for being insufficiently Greek. “Greeks have never been black” the GD leader proclaimed. He should read Martin Bernal’s Black Athena, which argues that ancient Greece, probably including its genetic structure, derived much from Africa and the Middle East...But racism is not GD’s only policy. It also pursues anti-gay, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim policies and activities, encouraging arson attacks on synagogues and mosques in an effort to purify Greece of all non-Greek elements. In doing so it has secured 18 of the 300 seats in parliament – 6% of the total vote, which in Ireland would give a neo-blueshirt party 10 Dáil seats. Golden Dawn is in direct political descent from the military junta of 1967-1974, which it reveres. Its symbol is a version of the swastika, members give the Nazi salute, deny the Holocaust, and at a recent rally they sang the Nazi marching song Horst-Wessel-Lied, which is banned in Germany. Hitleresque harangues against Jews have reached the point where Michaloliakos lays the blame for the world economic crisis at the doors of an alleged international Jewish conspiracy, calling Jews “the absolute evil”. Vigilante groups in the cities pick on immigrants such as Afghans for beatings, to which the police (many of whom are GD supporters) turn a blind eye. At the GD food kitchen for the needy, production of Greek identity papers is required – or a beating is likely to be administered. At a time of austerity, with everyone feeling the economic pinch, it’s not difficult to understand why Greeks should feel some resentment at the huge scale of legal and illegal immigration through Greece’s porous borders. But the idea that you should not be in Greece at all unless you have four Greek grandparents is untenable. Perhaps few in Greece would argue with a “Greece for the Greeks” slogan, but to suggest that all foreigners should be expelled does not sit well with the concepts of democracy or inclusivity, to say nothing of EU laws. If Antetokounpo had been white and of Finnish origin rather than Nigerian he might not have attracted the “chimpanzee” insult but he would, by GD’s standards, be ineligible to represent his country. It’s not all that long ago (1985) that the then bishop of Limerick stated that you could not be Irish unless you were Gaelic, Catholic and nationalist. If a neo-blueshirt party had the power to adopt GD-style policies, it would call for the expulsion of public figures such as Paul McGrath, Simon Zebo, Kevin Sharkey, and Seán Óg Ó hAilpín, while former TD Moosajee Bhamjee and current minister Leo Varadkar would also be on the next boat. Public support Under these rules, Éamon de Valera could not have made the cut for a place in “Irish-Ireland”. In Greece, former prime minister George Papandreou, with an American mother, would be out, despite an impeccable political ancestry. Before the 2012 election, Michaloliakos stated “we are outside the political system”, indicating his disaffection from current democratic processes. GD is no longer “outside the system”. Public support is increasing; the party, according to opinion polls, is on 10 per cent, which would give it 30 seats in parliament. One citizen echoed Michaloliakos when he pointed out that GD is “doing what the politicians should be doing. There’s a hole, and they fill it” – referring to GD’s vigilante presence on the streets. In a small village in Corfu, 44 people voted for GD...

May 2012 and June 2012 General Election poll in Ano Korakiana - the 5.78% for GD in May referred to 44 votes. Across Corfu, as a whole, votes for GD were even higher - 7.27% in May; 6.56% in June (turnout ave. 57%)

...far higher than the national average and an indication of local frustration. Subsequently, an English resident of the village was threatened by a neighbour. The fact that someone whose judgement one respected and whose friendship one cherished could give his support to an out-and-out fascist party is a measure of the disenchantment felt by many Greeks with mainstream politics.

My son was in the centre of Birmingham with his camera on 20 July and took pictures of the English Defence League (EDL) marching.

EDL march in Birmingham ~ 20 July 2013 (photo: Richard Baddeley)

"Most of them seemed to be very angry. Spoiling for a fight." he said
"The same people who get thrills being violent at football matches? England scares them"
"I saw them in their coaches when they were leaving. Fired up. Mouthing through the windows"
"They must see so much to hate. The present is confusing."

This from Democracy Street, September 2012

The news as I already knew is miserable. Samaras interviewed talking in circles about liquidity and Tsipras promising to unite the left against austerity and negotiate a new contract with the EU and the Justice Minister, in a small footnote story, ‘considering’ a tougher line against racism after men in Golden Dawn T-shirts meted out street justice to non-Greek market traders who couldn't or wouldn’t show permits in Rafina and Mesolonghi, posting pictures of themselves smashing stalls on YouTube. We had our own small hint of such futile xenophobia on a walk through Venetia the other evening. A dog snarled and barked at us through a porch gate near the last corner of the village as we strolled by. The owner in a yard opposite and just above hurled curses at us for “threatening my dog with a stick” – mine or Lin’s walking stick. “No” I said “Your dog always barks when people walk by” This produced a stream of invective - ‘ μαλάκα’ or ‘wanker’ being preferred. “So is that the name of your dog?” More cursing “Don’t make me come down” “Come down but how about a bit of filotimo?” “Fuck filotimo. Why don’t you go back where you come from?” “But we’re from here” I said daringly. We strolled on, man and dog snarling. Later in town Richard P observed “Hm. That’s probably identified one of your Chrysi Avgi voters in the village” Bad eggs in villages are everywhere - not just Greece. I used to be bothered by them at other times in other places. Now it's usually water off a duck's back. This is the first example of ill-manners I’ve come across in Ano Korakiana in the five years we’ve been here; less a sign of the times I suspect, than a kind of fixture in any community - like Jud Fry in Oklahoma (or George Crabbe's Peter Grimes in Aldeburgh) the 'lonely misfit in a cast filled with wholesomeness and charm.'

Blokko in Kokkinnia in Athens on 17 August 1944

Walt Disney's WW2 animated propaganda - Education for Death - for the US government on the making of a Nazi...

In the village Lin takes her paintbrush to a swastika and filthy eggvolk icons

Reading about the past is a small antidote to the maxim that those who are ignorant of history are condemned to repeat it. I'm chary about being too extrapolative as to the trajectory of Europe's dark history. I'm not sure that Golden Dawn for all their nostalgic uniforms, ugly songs and salutes and seats in the Hellenic Parliament are more than a despairing and desparate flash in the pan. I've not yet met an intelligent or decent person in Greece who's got time for Χρυσή Αυγή, even as some may casually complain about numbers of immigrants or more particularly, in Corfu, about 'Albanians'. Richard's wrong to write, in his Irish Times piece, that the rude man we encountered one evening in Ano Korakiana is someone whose judgement 'one respected and whose friendship one cherished' The man provokes head touching among our neighbours. We're sorry for his stir-crazy dog - made vicious by circumstance.

No-one knows the history of the present. It's easy to be confused by history written too soon. We're arguing in some quarters about Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian Wars...whatever malign forces coil us - brain-rotting mass media fuelling global consumerism encouraged by modern merchants of doubt under the panoptic gaze of flaking America, counterpoised to the mafia state of Russia and its satellites and the uncontrollable growths of India, Brazil and China....the story of the Third Reich (I'm reading Michael Burleigh's history again and Jan D urges me to start upon Richard Evans mighty trilogy on the same subject) can teach, but only so much. Anyone who wants to try to understand the present is at conceptual risk. It's a start to embrace the fable of those chained men in Plato's Cave, mindful of the strangulation of Laocoön and sons. Burleigh says his book "deals with the progressive, and almost total, moral collapse of an advanced industrial society at the heart of Europe, many of whose citizens abandoned the burden of thinking for themselves, in favour of what George Orwell described as the tom-tom beat of a latter day tribalism"

The most depressing thing about Golden Dawn, but also a measure of the place where  the effects of austerity has had its highest profile, is that the most conspicuous and democratically successful of European neo-fascist groups has found a home in beloved Greece, as have many others on attempted journeys from wrecked war-torn economies further east. I'm well aware of Greece's reputation for corruption in the highest parts of its government and church. Like many who know and study the country where they spend much of their lives, I'm educated in that criticism. Quiz me on the history of modern Greece - on the Ελληνική Επανάσταση - the War of Independence, on the Big Idea - η Μεγάλη Ιδέα, on Ἡ Ἀνταλλαγή - the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1922, on the Great Division - Εθνικός Διχασμός - between Venizelos and King Constantine, on the terrible Greek Civil War - Ελληνικός Εμφύλιος Πόλεμος, the Stone Years - Πέτρινα χρόνια - and, on its own, the modern history of the Ionian islands, and Corfu in particular, during the British Protectorate.

Little can shock me about this land I love; a place whose countenance is part of me...as my g.g.grandfather said "except the blind forces of nature, nothing moves in this world which is not Greek in its origin" and Auden "had Greek civilisation never existed, we would never have become fully conscious" and Bertrand Russell "the legacy of Greece to Western philosophy is Western philosophy"and Shelley "her citizens rule the present from the past"
Yet oddly enough this enveloping legacy, once examined, can place a different light on my philhellenism; on the depth of my feelings for the wondrous land...

Byron wrote to friend in the year before he died in Greece: '...I did not come here to join a faction but a nation, and to deal with honest men and not with speculators or peculators, (charges bandied about daily by the Greeks of each other) it will require much circumspection to avoid the character of a partizan, and I perceive it to be the more difficult as I have already received invitations from more than one of the contending parties, always under the pretext that they are the ‘real Simon Pure’. After all, one should not despair, though all the foreigners that I have hitherto met with from amongst the Greeks are going or gone back disgusted. Whoever goes into Greece at present should do it as Mrs Fry went into Newgate - not in the expectation of meeting with any especial indication of existing probity, but in the hope that time and better treatment will reclaim the present burglarious and larcenous tendencies which have followed this General Gaol delivery..."

My love for Greece is charged with sentimental memories of my own connections, the adventures of a happy traveller who's been visiting the country since arriving there one spring morning as an impressionable 16 year old, but without the talent of a Henry Miller, a Durrell, a Kevin Andrews or Leigh-Fermor - but equally seduced by Greece and the Greeks I met and the places I saw, the sacred Acropolis, Olympia, high Delphi almost free, in 1957, of fellow visitors, Nauplion, Epidavros, Corinth; the things I did, Saturday Easter procession in Athens, meals that ran into hours where I'd normally have been long in bed, and with my cousins and Greek family in Kifissia for my first lamb roast, and five years later, in 1962, sailing from England to Greece...

On Danica in a calm off the southern Peloponnese

 ...via France and Italy, across the Ionian Sea to land at Killini, cruising slowly through the Gulfs of Patras and Corinth, threading the deep gorged Canal into the Saronic Gulf, arriving in sweltering Athens; visiting islands, sailing below the great capes of the Peloponnese - Malea and Tainaro and Akritas - and years later with the passing of the stone years returning to Athens with my closest family...

Amy with her mum in Athens

Richard at Venizelos on the way to Corfu

Amy with Natasha and Anna, her cousins, at Methoni

...to travel on a day long drive from Athens to Pylos crossing the ranges that divide the Peloponnese - Parnosas, Taygetus, and the lower mountains before the coast above Pylos and Navarino. Which islands? Cythera, Zakinthos, Cephalonia, Paxos in the Ionian Sea; in the Aegean, Aegina, Hydra, Kimolos, Mykonos and more...

Kymolos

With my brother George in the Aegean

Civil War - Nikos Engonopoulos 

My good fortune has been that my feelings for Greece have been shared by Linda, who might have decided the place was alright for one holiday but instead lives with me for months of the year on Democracy Street, but why should I juxtapose this rich almost lifelong experience with the contempt I have for the rise of the eggvolk and the shame I feel at this party's success in the assembly of Republic and on the streets of Athens and in too many other settlements across the country? Such a comparison is ridiculous. A proper one would be with the history of Greece, ancient and modern, with its great democracy that excluded women, with an economy driven by slavery, with its endless politicking, its ostracisms, its feuds, and many wars - civil and national - its massacres, murders, assassinations, executions, its betrayals, traitors, demagogues, tyrants and bullies, and that's just ancient Greece. Imagine too the hideous violence and atrocities of the War of Independence from the Turks, still almost impossible to describe to Greek schoolchildren, and the great population exchange and the bloody failure of the 'big idea' to recover Constantinople, capital of Byzantium, and the heartlands of Asia Minor, Cappadocia, Ionia, the Pontus and the former Russian province of Kars in the Caucasus and Bithynia, Nicomedia and Eastern Thrace - events still hardly mentionable. Then the occupation with its collaborators, informers and traitors and then, some say, even worse the Greek civil war of 1946-1949...and the coup of the Junta and their cruelties yet to come...

Picnic on Execution Island

POEM BY NIKOS ENGONOPOULOS 1948
this age
of civil strife
is no age
for poetry
and such like:
when something is about
to
be written
it's
as if
it were being written
on the other side
of death announcements
which is why
my poems
are so bitter
(and when - in any case - were they not?)
and are
- above all -
also
so
few

Being sad and fearful about contemporary Greece is understandable, what's foolish is to be blinded into thinking that what is happening here is out of the ordinary - for Greece. What's short-sighted is to assume that those wonders, with which old Greece illuminates our present, were not forged amid enduring proportions of good and evil.

*** *** ***

Me with Jim

I got a letter - a sort of a slightly dedicated form letter - from the Site Secretary of the Victoria Jubilee Allotments warning me to cultivate my plot...I hoped I'd never get one of these, having known others getting them prior to a council 'notice to quit'. It's a long drawn out process especially as allotment take-up has slowed right down as the urban middle classes (that includes me) collide with the reality of what's involved in running an allotment and growing their own vegetables.

Quick reply:

Dear Gill
I fully accept your ‘wake-up and get gardening' caution dated 12th August 2013 just received.
The state of the plot  on the Victoria Jubilee that I share with my wife has indeed been a cause of concern to us and obviously to the association committee..
It’s an explanation - not an excuse - but we have been preoccupied with the estate of my late mother who died recently.
Things are now becoming less busy on that front so there will be more time to get on with the important business of cultivating Plot 14.
We appreciate the warning and you and your colleagues' work on the site committee.
Kindest regards
Simon

I'm humiliated but rightly so. These sort of complaints run through my life. I first received them at school - reports, summons to the teacher - later it would be a friendly chat or a letter from somewhere; at university it would be a warning to get something published, expand my research or do more fee-earning work. By and large I've found these prods vexing but ultimately useful. I have a procrastinatory rather than a slothful temperament, too easily led away from the proper priorities. It's why I like Jackdaws.

Jackdaws enjoy playing with shiny objects and other small household items, which gives them a reputation as thieves. My impression is that they are actually always checking out whether this or that trifle might be suitable for a nest. Konrad Lorenz' sketches, in 'King Solomon's Ring', where he has a chapter on the birds, capture what I noted in Jim better than any photos I've seen. The Jackdaw mentality in humans refers to a tendency to collect trivia in the fruitless hope that all may come together to explain the meaning of life...24/5/07

So I'm working harder on the maelstrom plot, entangled in couch grass, covered in meadow grass and flowers, things my friend Robin - also served a notice - argues are benign and useful and libelled by those who demand 'cultivation'. He's right of course but talking rubbish.

Fighting on Plot 14

The other evening I was cycling through the allotments in dusk after three hours digging when I was stopped by Vanley on the edge of the beautifulest plot on the whole site. I'd heard sounds, possibly music, and twice clapping, but continued my labours.
"Come Simon" said Vanley leading me through the maze of paths that neatly divide his many vegetables, some burgeoning, some started, some already cropped.
"How do you get such a long stroll onto one plot, Vanley?"
We came to a pressed earth bower protected by a temporary piece of white tenting slung from uprights and part of the hedge, low benches around and a log fire smouldering and the remains of a meal of unleavened bread and cooked vegetables.
"Sit Simon"
"I regard this as a disgrace" I said "sitting round enjoying yourselves"
"Have some elderflower champagne I've made, picked in the Sandwell Valley" said Jeevan offering me a bottle which I prised open to a satisfying hiss
"Share?"
"Hmmmm. Not sure I want to"
The bottle passed around. A delicate fizzy drink, most pleasing after my digging
"Thank you so much for inviting me"
One of the other gardeners showed me a film on his smart phone of one of Scylla's young boys playing the fiddle magically - a little concert I'd missed, tho' catching the applause.
"He'll go far" said one.
As people tidied up I was asked more about the old campaign to save the allotments. I spoke of the country lanes that used to run through the site, with doors off them to people's gardens.
"I tried, we tried, to get the developer and the council to ensure they stayed but they were cleared"

On a path between two hedges on the old Victoria Jubilee Allotments

"So what's happening about the playing fields that are supposed to be laid out by the developer"
"There's a site meeting on 5 September with people from the council and Persimmon Homes. I'm asked to join that, so I'll learn more"
Discussion turned to difficult topsoil on the VJA
"Yes I know, lots of rubbish, plastic, metal, bricks"I said "but if Vanley and others can make plots like this, I can't make excuses"
"But I'm digging a plot over here" one pointed to the neighbouring piece of ground "and a spade's length down I'm hitting building rubble"
"I think the developer flattened the site and then when they'd finished levelling and completed the houses they bulldozed a pile of earth and rubble and all sorts including their works site, which you can see on Google maps, and called it topsoil."
"Don't get me wrong. Some of its good stuff but it needs a lot of work"
I made a pact with myself about more preparing of the earth on Plot 14.
"Do you think I need more manure?"
"Good idea and more compost"
 I was getting encouragement like Mole from Rattie and Badger and other characters circled around me from The Wind in the Willows. 
I cycled home happy in the dark with a bag of chard pressed on me by Vanley.
*** ***
Yesterday was the closing date for bids on the sale of Brin Croft, under a month since Lin and I cleared the house and tidied its grounds. Phiddy, our estate agent phoned to say that, out of several offers, one for both house and lochan was especially worth accepting.

Brin Croft in winter

*** *** ***
And tho' there may be trouble ahead let's face the music and dance...happy news from Jim and Maria Potts of a three day panygiri in Vitsa...and in Ano Korakiana...

"...μέχρι το Τσιρίγο"

Γράφει ο/η Κβκ

18.08.13

Από «το Καποσίδερο μέχρι το Τσιρίγο» μας ταξίδεψε χθες το βράδυ το Χορευτικό τμήμα της Φιλαρμονικής Κορακιάνας, σε μια όμορφη χορευτική παράσταση στην οποία τα τμήματα του χορευτικού εναλλάσσονταν, ταξιδεύοντάς μας από νησί σε νησί του Ιονίου, υπό την άοκνη καθοδήγηση της «δασκάλας» του τμήματος, Νίκης Κεντάρχου και με σημαντική τη βοήθεια, όπως αναφέρθηκε, της Ντίνας Σπίγγου. Από την Κέρκυρα λοιπόν, στη Λευκάδα και από εκεί έως την Κεφαλονιά, τη Ζάκυνθο και τα Κύθηρα, με χαρακτηριστικούς νησιώτικους χορούς και καντάδες, αλλά και μία αναφορά στην επτανησιακή μυθολογία από το παιδικό τμήμα, με φόντο ένα λιτό και όμορφο σκηνικό, που επιμελήθηκε η Κατερίνα Φακιολά. Την εκδήλωση προλόγισαν ο Πρόεδρος της Φιλαρμονικής Σπύρος Σαββανής, η Δώρα Μεταλληνού που αναφέρθηκε στην ιστορία του χορευτικού τμήματος και η υπεύθυνη του τμήματος Ηλέκτρα Μαρτζούκου, που στο τέλος της εκδήλωσης απηύθυνε κάλεσμα για τη διάσωση της παλιάς κορακιανίτικης ενδυμασίας… Σειρά έχει τώρα, την Κυριακή 18 Αυγούστου 2013 το βράδυ η Μπάντα… Υ.Γ. Όμως, από το σαββατόβραδο, δεν έλειψαν και άλλες «εκδηλώσεις», όπως τα γενέθλια της μικρούλας Κωνσταντίνας Μπόγδου και του Βασίλη Τσιριγώτη στις Μουργάδες, που έσβησαν ως είθισται τα κεράκια των χρόνων τους ή το πάρτυ που οργάνωσε για μια ακόμη φορά το «Καφέ Πιάτσα» στην Αρκούδενα, με ωραία «ζωντανή» μουσική, την οποία απήλαυσαν μικροί και μεγάλοι μέχρι τις πρώτες πρωϊνές ώρες (όπως προκύπτει και από τη φωτογραφία)… Στα απρόοπτα της χθεσινής ημέρας καταγράφεται το «χάκινγκ» που υπέστη η ιστοσελίδας μας, από ινδονήσιους χάκερς, σε ανάμνηση της ημέρας της ανεξαρτησίας της χώρας τους από τους Ολλανδούς, στις 17/8/1945!!!

The Egg Volk - ο Εφιάλτης θα φανεί στο τέλος

Blokko in Kokkinnia in Athens on 17 August 1944

From a recent interview with Yanis Varoufakis Γιάνης Βαρουφάκης

What do you know about the rise of right-wing Neo-Nazi groups (in Greece). What impact are they having? What can you tell us about the Golden Dawn Party, Χρυσή Αυγή?

The Golden Dawn Party is not an extreme right wing party. It is not even a neo-Nazi party. It is a fully-fledged Nazi gang. And here lies the great paradox: Greece, along with Yugoslavia, fought the most dogged, bloody, successful resistance against the Nazis during the Second World War, giving the Nazis a serious run for their money, so to speak. The bulk of the population rose up against them with great acts of valour that inspired the Allies at a time when Nazism was almost unopposed in Europe. Yet, there were collaborators – as there always are*. Hooded men that went around the towns and the villages with the SS and the Wehrmacht, pointing out the resistance fighters.

Προδότης της χώρας του

The Golden Dawn gang is their direct descendant. You see, after the Nazis retreated from Greece, quite tragically, their collaborators managed to infiltrate the armed forces (following the Civil War in which the Establishment’s war against the Left, thus giving a chance to the Nazi collaborators to remain ‘useful’ to the state); so much so that in 1967 there was a coup d’etat that put Greece under a neo-fascist dictatorship for seven years. Since the end of that sorry episode, the remnants of that regime have been sidelined by a prospering democracy. However, after the economic and social implosion of the past three years, the worst elements of that rump (who had never really gone away; instead, they were biding their time, reciting Mein Kampf) re-appeared using purposely the tactics of the 1920s German Nazi party and, in particular, of Goebbels. By this I mean that they adopted a narrative on the crisis that is split in two parts: The first part is an utterly sensible critique of crony financialised capitalism (an exact copy of Goebbels’ 1927 critique of the failures of midwar capitalism). Then comes the second part: blaming the foreigner for the crisis (who can be Pakistani just as he can be a Jew) and calling for ethnic cleansing. Add to this mix: (a) offers of personal security services to hungry pensioners too frightened to step into the street, (b) free food and vegetables only for ‘ethnically pure' Greeks, and (c) stormtroopers savagely attacking migrants and Greeks opposing them, and what you get is the ‘total recall’ of the bleakest aspects of the 1920s and 1930s.

Χρυσή Αυγή υποστηρικτές στο λεωφορείο

In Axion Esti Odysseus Elytis Οδυσσέας Ελύτης, describes this Greek struggle

 ...it cannot be they without you nor can it be you without them… and you must face them without fail…those who wear the black shirt...who speak the language of porcupines, raw-eaters, water-brutes, bread-fearers, the leadenfaced and the neocondors.

*Θερμοπύλες  

Τιμή σ’ εκείνους όπου στην ζωή των
ώρισαν και φυλάγουν Θερμοπύλες.
Ποτέ από το χρέος μη κινούντες·
δίκαιοι κ’ ίσιοι σ’ όλες των τες πράξεις,
αλλά με λύπη κιόλας κ’ ευσπλαχνία·
γενναίοι οσάκις είναι πλούσιοι, κι όταν
είναι πτωχοί, πάλ’ εις μικρόν γενναίοι,
πάλι συντρέχοντες όσο μπορούνε·
πάντοτε την αλήθεια ομιλούντες,
πλην χωρίς μίσος για τους ψευδομένους.
Και περισσότερη τιμή τούς πρέπει
όταν προβλέπουν (και πολλοί προβλέπουν)
πως ο Εφιάλτης θα φανεί στο τέλος,
κ’ οι Μήδοι επί τέλους θα διαβούνε.                                                    

Καβάφης

...and some thoughts on our British Egg Volk

*** *** ***
On Wednesday morning Amy left with Oliver to drive south to her home in Birmingham, leaving Lin, I and Liz in Brin Croft. Lin and I have been working through a long list of errands. To my relief I realise I've learned enough plumbing craft to out an end to a problem of several weeks with a tap in the kitchen.
"If you turn it off completely it stops for ever" said Liz
So it has to stay dribbling a stream of cold water "and it won't turn on fast at all"

The dribbling cold tap that won't turn on and won't turn off

I get out a trusty Allen wrench after using a slot screwdriver to ease off the tap cover like a car's hubcap, then a Philips screwdriver to remove the retaining screw in the tap capstan. I take that off and and get down to the spindle. Then a few loosenings of the tap body with the Allen releases the flow but reveals a leak between the tap body and the basin; which is why it was tightened up too much in the first place I guessed. I fiddle with loosening the tap body which increases the leak but improves the flow and tightening it, which reduces the leak etc, until, of a sudden, flow is fine and the leak has stopped. I beat my chest like King Kong.

We've been making an inventory of mum's disability gear - an electric buggy, electric reclining chair, adjustable bed, bath lift, wheel chair, walkers - one all-terrain...

...a Pilates exercise machine and more ingenious gadgets, tricky, (like her unused sealed medications) that ought to go to other countries that need them, to give away, let alone sell second-hand, even though some have been so little used.  I will have to decide what to simply donate to charity and if I receive offers - Lin will use some of the photos I've taken to float these things on ebay.

We've has two more visits by estate agents to get a preliminary assessment of Brin Croft, one pair of colleagues we especially liked as they'd done their homework on the house, including who'd done the original valuation on the house when Mum bought it. We've been discussing whether to include Littlemills Lochan  - our secret loch - as an option in the sale.

The Lochan 

On Thursday Helen Trussell visited from Logie Steading Bookshop. Lin had read a note she'd sent describing what she was looking out for. She sorted out mum's books to meet those criteria - books about the Highlands, maps of the area, especially old canvas backed ones, plus a range of novelists. She  offered us £110 for about 100 books, pamphlets, guide books and maps which seemed a fair price to share with Bay. Helen put  us in touch with Giles Pearson who deals in antiques at Logie Steading.

Giles came over with his van on Friday and made a range of offers but these were in a rather higher price range, so I could not let him buy anything until it had been run by my sister. This process of checking and double-checking things mum willed in her estate, and being assiduous about it is essential, but it creates a problem when negotiating with a potential purchaser of anything in the house. This will become more of an issue when Confirmation (Probate) is completed - probably in early April. Linda and I are constantly pondering the best way to clear the house prior to placing it on the market. There is no auction house in Inverness now. It's moved northward to Dingwall - twenty miles away. I'd had the idea of someone coming over with a van to remove all the items not going to beneficiaries, cataloguing them and paying us the amount raised. It looks trickier. Again we can probably raise larger sums if we are prepared to proceed with DIY selling on the web.
*** *** ***
I walked from Brin Croft on the edge of Inverarnie through the fields towards Inverarnie Cottage where there's a gate onto a forestry track which leads after half a mile to another gate which has a side opening for walkers. This leads south down the strath just above the River Farnack. A mile and a half beyond the gate there's a rough timber extraction track that zig zags...

...about three hundred and fifty feet up the side of the strath to a broad gravel track that runs about five miles between Loch Farr and Mid Lairgs Quarry, close to the A9 below Daviot. I left the ascending path to cut a corner in the zig zag ascent. The terrain as I expected became tricky, made uneven by old forestry trenches and ridges, dotted with pools of still water of unpredictable depth, and criss crossed with a mess of old and torn branches discarded during previous timber harvesting. Half up-rooted stumps, some rotting, lean in different directions offering hard edges upon which to fall. As I climbed I came upon a pocket swamp full of rushes and sphagnum that I skirted until it looked shallow enough to cross without sinking in muddy peat to my knees. "I should have stuck to the path" I muttered to myself.

Old plantation terrain

My thighs ached with the exertion of walking upwards. My shoulders ached with the strain of balancing myself, as I switched my stick from one hand to the other. But I would never have met this boulder - a glacial erratic dropped perhaps a 1000 miles from where the slow glacier picked it up thousands of years ago and, as it melted, dropped it on the side of Strath Nairn.

It was good to arrive on the big smooth forestry track with the steady and agreeable Ben Wyvis - Beinn Uais Hill of Terror - away in Easter Ross marking my horizon, shifting colour and shade with the clouds and setting sun...

...and head three and half miles back to where, in semi-darkness, I could turn off west down a gentle slope towards Wester Lairgs Farm, a couple of lights in the windows and the sound of continuing work in the barn. There are new people there - Jim and Jane. They have a sprightly West Highland terrier bitch who attached herself to Oscar and Cooky last time I passed by, until I shoo'd her home. Past the farm it was less than half a mile to another turn southward above Inverarnie Woods; then a mile to the grassy bank that leads beside a trickle to a small gate. I climb over it and walk up and over the Esker and, with the dogs still as fresh as when we left Brin Croft a few hours earlier, I walked in the dark across the familiar grazing, to the cattle grid next to the gate into my mother's house. Before relaxing with a cup of tea in front of a sturdy wood fire I towelled the dogs and let them indoors ahead of me. Liz had their suppers ready.
*** ***
On 15 Mar 2013, at 16:54, K wrote from America:

I have no idea how you turned up without a search on my iPad -- but it does make me feel connected!  :-)  k 

Hi K, That baby, my grandson Oliver, was born 1 April last year. The same year my mum Barbara died peacefully, I and my sister beside her in her own bed at age 95 and lucid until she fell into a sleep three days before she left us.
Now I’m in chilly Scotland helping handle probate and suffering a dose of man-flu for which Lin has no sympathy at all.  I caught it from the bab of course and this video shows how. Oscar’s here too of course.
Lovely to hear from you. The domestic landscape is good for us, but the state of our economy is another matter. Local government and public space is being whittled relentlessly away to be replaced by an undemocratic untransparent form of modern feudalism - propped up by expensively funded think tanks. X Simon (in the Highlands)

K replied:

Sorry to get Oliver's name wrong.  Grandchildren are so amazing....it is the only thing that ever makes me want to move--but not enough to actually do so -- we love Minneapolis, except at this time of year, when winter seems interminable.  Fortunately, it is also the height of the theater season, so there are great things to do indoors.
D lost his mother a bit over two years...about the same age as yours, and living alone until the end, when he went to Virginia for a weekend and ended up caring for her for a month. She was an amazing woman, but not exactly the cookies-and-milk type mother - like Barbara as I remember her. His grieving process included shingles, an ocular migraine that mimicked a stroke, various muscular issues that are still on-going, etc. The mind-body connection is out-in-the-open at these times in our lives, and you can chalk your flu up to that, I suspect, and not playing with Oliver!
That is the video that popped up, unannounced on my iPad.  The computer genies are at it again, letting me know that I need to spend time keeping in touch with people who have been part of my life in significant ways. 

Dear k. And I thought you’d glanced at a different video of me and dog Oscar (it exists). How funny you got the name wrong because that’s exactly what I do all the time! Calling Oscar Oliver and v.v. - it’s a family joke and I’m an old git! Not you tho’
Thanks for that insight on the mind-body connection. Makes lots of sense when I think back to both my dad’s and stepfather’s deaths - long ago now. Incidentally I’m already feeling better. Lin scoffs at psychology and psychosomatic explanation. Insists I’ve caught Oliver’s cold. This complete dismissal of a way of explaining the world that I cherish is I suspect why we get on, but why? The mysteries of marriage! I recall that Patrick Leigh Fermor in his book A Time to Keep Silence talks of the impossibility of a dialogue between a champion of theology and a champion of psychoanalysis ‘because the terms of reference of the antagonists would be so different and irreconcilable, so incapable of engaging, that the match might turn into a double exhibition of shadow boxing….”.
Hope Midwest winter lessens its grip soon.
This by the way was the video I thought you’d been seeing
I really enjoyed the film Lincoln! What a fascinating story of the messy morality of the great game of hi-politics. You are ever a part of my life. Love to all. Simon (in Scotland, then England then back to Greece)

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We are missing Sunday's Carnival in Ano Korakiana:

Δημοσιοποίήθηκε σήμερα το πρόγραμμα της αυριακής ημέρας (17 Μαρτίου 2013), τελευταίας Κυριακής της Αποκριάς, αλλά και της διοργάνωσης του Κορακιανίτικου Καρναβαλιού.
Σύμφωνα με αυτό, προβλέπονται:
Εκκίνηση της πομπής του Καρναβάλου στις 4,30 το απόγευμα από το Συνερταιρισμό και παρέλαση στον απάνω δρόμο του χωριού μέχρι την Πλατεία, με επιστροφή στην Πλάστιγγα.
Εκεί θα γίνουν οι αποκριάτικοι χοροί και θα διαβαστεί η Διαθήκη
Ακολούθως, στο Συνεταιρισμό (όροφος) θα παρουσιαστούν σκετς.
Η βραδιά θα κλείσει με Αποκριάτικο Χορό (στο ισόγειο του Συνεταιρισμού), με "ζωντανή" μουσική, ποτό και σουβλάκια.