Summer Song's engine

Dave with his mate 'Quad' Dave had Summer Song’s old engine out on Tuesday and were starting to tailor the engine bed for its reconditioned replacement on Wednesday...

...more powerful and in far better condition than the engine it replaces, it’s also smaller and lighter.
“The engine bed will have to be adjusted. A cross piece welded on the engine so it can sit on new blocks on your hull” said Dave "There'll be some tailoring, lifting the engine in and out. Then there's the propeller"

I'm grateful to Dave for suggesting, before Christmas, that given the complications that might arise it'd be better to lift Summer Song from the water and rest her on the shore nearby instead of paying to have her hauled out at Vangelis at Potamos and having the engine changed there. I'd have been building up a hefty bill just for keeping her in his yard. The shore at Ipsos is free and closer to home.

Summer Song ashore at Ipsos

"The plate that lies next to the flywheel on the new engine had been attached the wrong way round. Luckily I found it before we started it or there'd have been a mess" Dave told  me "and your new control panel. It's fine but the loom's wrong" I could see the connections were incompatible "Don't worry I'll dig out another"
"What about the prop?"
"You've got a more powerful engine. It may mean a new propeller, Try to apply that extra power to the existing prop..."
"There'll be cavitation?"
The old engine was 9hp. This one is about 16hp.
"You can't fit a larger propeller. There's no room for it between the blades and the hull"
"So you might need one with the same diameter but a different pitch?"

"I know a few people"
"And what about the gear lever in the cockpit?"
"That'll need rejigging"
I'd anticipated these fine details. I can't imagine a better team of helpers - Mark who found us the reconditioned engine and stored it for us and Dave and his mate who are installing it, and the various people they know - part of the island's year round yachting economy. It was on a day in May 2011 we first set about working on getting a replacement engine. I never expected it'd be straightforward to get this problem solved while avoiding spending a lot. That's why this is taking so long; waiting for the right opportunities; being helped by friends when they have time.
*** ***
An exchange with my friend Jan Didrichsen in York:

Dear Jan. Yes indeed. Name some dates for a day trip to York.
We stopped in Naples on the way to Corfu. What a lesson in consequences of cutting public services and occluding the public domain, so that local government of a highly calculative kind has ended up being provided to its followers by organised crime - the Camorrah.
I note the strengthening link in UK between local deprivation and the scale of central government funding reductions - poor areas in the north, midlands, and inner London getting the greatest cuts despite Whitehall rhetoric to the contrary. Things fall apart but nastier forms of 'service' thrive amid what is blighted.
Yes I'd like to read more about the deteriorating relationship between the Civil Service and Government. Can you send it to me as a link or attachment?
There are so many resonances from Naples with our experiences of the inner suburb of Handsworth in Birmingham, though at the moment our gangs – Johnson Crew and Burger Bar Boys - aren't yet as far as I know offering alternative public services. My nightmare is when I first hear that some intelligent local criminals have taken up providing social care for vulnerable people and collecting rubbish. Then we are in trouble. All the best, Simon 

Simon. Send me an e-mail when you are back. I'll keep the articles from the Times for you. I am not as computer savvy as you! Have read your blog on your visit to Naples. Fascinating and frightening and regrettably not impossible even in parts of Britain if we take our eye off the ball. I agree Once 'intelligent' criminals start to offer alternative services to fill the gap left by diminishing public services we are on a hiding to nowhere. In fact it is happening on a small scale in some communities. Then it is only a small step before these 'new' criminal  organisations start to field candidates in elections. In my worst nightmare I can see alliances between 'intelligent' criminals and the top 1% wealthiest people who, as we know, are both criminal and corrupt already, as we have seen in media empires, the banks, chemical firms, police etc. This is not a happy prospect. I am beginning to think we are creating a new form of feudalism where democracy is shrinking, even disappearing, and most if not all activities will be beyond democratic control or influence and run by a new and small feudal clique Transparency will then will be non-existent. This is a gloomy forecast I know and I 'd like to think there is still time for a more positive future but the dismantling of the public sector is progressing at a frightening speed, and where there is vacuum it will be filled by something. The growth of moneylending to the most vulnerable people at exorbitant interest rates is a good example. They even advertise on TV and openly, almost proudly, charge the equivalent of between 1500 and 2000% per annum interest rates, and this is perfectly legal!  I hear that pawnbroking is one the few growth industries at the moment. Looking at developments in the NHS it is difficult not be gloomy and frightened about the future, especially our own old age. I cannot see the NHS surviving in any meaningful way once the current changes have been fully implemented. The NHS is one of the greatest creations of this country and it is disappearing quickly. It is easy to be sentimental about it I know, and there is considerable scope for improvement and change but this is not it. The only light on the horizon is that Labour's shadow minister said that they would give all health responsibilities except specialist nationwide services to local authorities. Don't know the details or how real this is, but at least it sounds promising, but by 2015 it may be difficult to reverse or overturn the current changes. At least it offers some alternative, if it is serious and not just a political stunt. We will no doubt have a lot to chew over when we meet. Enjoy Greece, did you hear Cameron's speech on the EU ?  Best, Jan D

Dear Jan. A date's is in my diary and barring blizzards and strikes I’ll see you around 11.00 at York station. I’ll let you know train times closer to that date.
Thanks for your thoughts and for that news item on Burnham’s plans for local council’s to have health service responsibilities.
I recall colleagues writing in the mid 1990s ago about ’the new magistracy’ as non-governmental agencies proliferated. I like your image of a new feudalism - which for many provided both a prison but also a sense of place and security (as indeed is the case with what we call ‘organised crime’)
For so many years we have heard talk of people - some people - becoming over dependent on the state. In that light the move towards greater voluntarism and self-help can be seen as positive. As I get peripherally involved in local voluntary activity I become aware of how complex and time consuming is such activity.
Care, street cleaning, grounds maintenance - just to select a few examples are covered by volumes of legislation, technologies requiring training and retraining and qualifications, and commensurate wages for practitioners. A watershed for me was when I first got a glimpse, some 15 years ago now, of the 600 pages grounds maintenance contract for our local park. The idea that we - the local friends of the park - might take over responsibility for overseeing and implementing this was unrealistic - 26 different ways to mow grass of different kinds at different times of the year in varying weathers!
Seeing the professional care received by my mother - which was wonderful, and which was private as she was well off, I got an inkling of what level of training and competence is required to enable a frail older person remain - as my mother did - lucid and pretty comfortable in her own bed (specially adapted) in her own home until her death.
Linda and I and several neighbours long involved in community activity took over a moribund and grant-aided handyperson service two years ago. It hired two full time workers on the grant money then available at ward level and had three vans and loads of power tools but by the time we were approached via a local councillor to help it was £20K in debt as a result of drastic grant cutbacks and accumulated overheads. We sold off two of the vehicles, a very expensive chipper and allowed the employees - who’d seen the writing on the wall and had already been making up unpaid wages by doing grey jobs for unreceipted cash - to go their way. We now have secure parking for one vehicle in the Handsworth Park compound courtesy of my long association with the city’s Park’s Service and storage for our power tools. The debt is cleared and we have, as a result of successful sales of the two other vehicles and chipper, got a healthy balance in the bank, augmented by a small local community chest grant. We - the running committee - are doing street clean-ups and a variety of local jobs for vulnerable people in our area. But Jan, we are all over 60 and I’m nearly 71. This work is rewarding but it’s tiring. We do it, of course, for free but claim expenses for fuel and so on and we still have a free charity pass to the local tip, and now and then we work with the local refuse manager who, while we pick up lighter litter, sends a truck round to collect fly-tipped furniture and mattresses. And here’s an additional problem. None of us is accredited to use our cache of power tools (mowers, strimmers, drills, angle grinder, chain-saws). If any of us even pick up a chain saw for an 'official' job, we are in breach of health and safety and uninsured. Training is very costly and time consuming. The previous workers just broke the law; didn’t have ear muffs, gloves, boots etc. That might be OK but if anyone has an injury or worse the uninsured liabilities are horrendous - financial and legal. We also have a to have a vulnerable persons policy with proof of how we and anyone employed by us will observe this when inside the homes or in the gardens of the people we are tasked with assisting. On top of that we must also have CRB (now the DBS) checks on ourselves and anyone we employ. All this makes sense but it is also something of an obstacle to getting stuck in to local voluntary work along the lines the government is encouraging as a substitute for public services. We are in part middle class professionals and so can weave our way through all the paper work required; in fact feel quite a sense of achievement at where we have arrived, but I see this sort of thing presenting big problems as larger agencies who used to pay our group to do various maintenance jobs for their social housing customers tighten up to EU standards on their procurement and commissioning of handyperson services. Bluntly we are put right out of the running by sets of rules that are more suitable for commissioning work over £100,000. OK so we find a niche being sub-contracted by the larger contractors. Feudalism? Best Simon 

*** ***
Our work continues on the upstairs bedroom floor. We ought to have the whole lot up and replaced with floor-grade chipboard at least but we'll compromise by removing the worst unevenesses and creaks.
"If this was an old beamed hardwood floor" said Lin "we'd probably quite enjoy the squeaks and bumps. It's the shoddy workmanship that gets to you."

We plan to recover pine strips from various palettes in our apothiki and top them with beading to give the room decent skirting. Then we can start to build a wardrobe with shelves from recovered wood.
"It'll start to look quite good"
*** ***
Stamatis' new café Piazza - converted from his shop - is coming along a treat, with a chandelier from Christopher Wray installed and lots of good quality fittings - workmanship courtesy of Dimitri...

*** ***
...and some elaboration from Jan D:

Jan 29/1/13: Simon…I am wary of becoming, as you say, a grumpy ol' git. I have become aware that the journey from being a ‘Young Turk’ to ‘An Old Fart’ is very short indeed. However, I can't help having a sense of foreboding and dread about the future which is not entirely due to my advanced age (I think!).
If the first casualty  of war is the truth, then the casualties  of current policy directions will be altruism and idealism. A great loss I think but not very fashionable at the moment and very difficult to quantify on a balance sheet. I am mindful of Oscar Wilde's saying that they "they know the price of everything and the value of nothing." I remain fearful that a new feudal class is quickly being established; this ‘economic aristocracy" which will be financially hereditary, will increasingly operate outside civic and democratic spheres. It will make no difference to them who is in power. They will see themselves as having more in common with their equivalents in other parts of the world than their fellow citizens where they reside. They may also become very nomadic and hence have no loyalty, or sense of belonging, to any society or community.
I think we can already see plenty of evidence that government is trying to bend the nation to the interests  of the few rather than promoting the overall national interest. The current economic policy of the madhouse is a good example. The significant transfer of resources from the poorest section to the richest (accompanied by cheering backbenchers) is a sorry sight and I fear will reap a terrible price at some future date.
Those who govern, certainly at national level, are so closely integrated with the top 1% that they are totally disconnected from the day to day life of most ordinary people and try to persuade us that the interest of the 1%  is the equal to the national interest. We have a situation where those who earn over £1 mill per year receive an additional £50000, for each million, in tax benefits, whereas those on benefits will now have a real reduction in their income and we talking about some very vulnerable people. They are not all skivers and shirkers (although I am prepared to accept some are) which is what politicians and tabloids would have us believe. You will know that a new system for assessing disabled people's ability to work has been introduced and contracted out. We now learn that a few thousand disabled people died within weeks of being declared fit for work (it beggars belief).
Figures were released recently which showed that in Sheffield people's income in real terms had reduced by almost 20% but strangely (or perhaps not!) unemployment has dropped. The starting pay for new police officers has dropped by £4000 and there has in effect been a pay freeze for almost everyone since 2008, so no wonder we are heading for a triple recession.
I never understood the logic of getting growth by reducing the economy. You will laugh at the fact that the small consultancy run by my wife and me paid more in corporation tax than Starbucks who paid nothing!! Alongside this I have seen some extraordinary facts and figures, for example the 20 richest people in the world are now worth £750 billion which would almost entirely wipe out the EU debt. The top 40 companies in the world are worth more than all governments in the world put together (that is staggering). British companies have £750 billion on their balance sheets which they are not investing (so much for being hard up) and it is almost impossible to trace where ‘quantitative easing’ monies have gone. Seems they are stuck in banks rather than invested in the real economy. To top it all we discover that despite Leveson and the reprehensible conduct of Murdoch’s media empire, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (yes, that’s right George Osborne) attended a private party at the Murdoch's last week. Is the this the right way to behave in public office? Can you imagine what the outcry would have been if it had been a civil servant or, worse still, a local government officer or member.
Incidentally I read today that two thirds of top civil servants have expressed a wish to leave the service. In the midst of all of this Local Authorities are doing everything to balance the books and cope with the dramatic changes - almost too compliant and loyal - they are taking the biggest proportion of cut backs in the public sector whilst at the same time suffering constant abuse from Eric Pickles. I am amazed and quite proud of the good will and commitment displayed by local authorities but can't help feeling we are heading for the minimalist state and only residual local authorities which I fear will only be a last resort for the poorest section of society - in effect a new form of the ‘poor laws’; a breeding ground for ‘intelligent’ and entrepreneurial criminals to flourish. I would like to think that none of this will happen and I think there are realistic alternatives but it would be foolish to think that the unthinkable can't happen. Tomorrow it is 80 years to the day – 30 January 1933 - since Hitler became Chancellor of Germany through democratic elections; not that long ago in historical terms. The unthinkable can happen but is not inevitable.
On a happier note you will be pleased to learn that the government has approved a new high speed rail link between London, Birmingham and Manchester and second one to Leeds and Newcastle. I can at least agree with them on this one! Sorry to rant on. Too much time on my hands....Jan

Bacon and eggs

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

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

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

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

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

Χαρδιακή προσβολή στο πιάτο 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Capital of happiness

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

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

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

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

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

Back to England

So now our veranda should stay dry

Thursday morning, there was a sombre mood in 'the Bear' - our part of Ano Korakiana. Natasha as she said goodbye to us until early next year told me that it was the funeral of her friend and neighbour Maria that afternoon. "She was 62". Lefteris told me that Vasiliki goes again to Agrinio on Friday to comfort her sister, whose husband died only a month ago. We look forward to being home in Birmingham with many things waiting in our in-tray there, but I dislike departures - in proportion to my delight in arrivals.  Over Wednesday Lin and I were tidying the house, working through a check-list to keep things in order in our absence, rolling up carpets, locking up and securing my bicycle, closing shutters, distributing the last of our cat food, and of course, putting finishing touches to our attempt to ensure the safety of our wooden balcony. Lin has painted Chromolac - a waterproofing product around the edge where we can expect the weather to work its worst over winter.

"We'll just have to see what happens".

Paul, Cinty's husband, said "Just be careful when you step out of those French windows next time"
The implication was that rot will set in under our covering of waterproof paint, roofing felt, polythene sheet and fibreglass building membrane.

The day before our departure I checked Summersong. She was as dry as a bone - no leaks above or below. Mark has been keeping an eye on her, while she sits unused on her mooring awaiting a new or reconditioned engine. How I hope one turns up.

Summersong's ageing 9hp Yanmar

Our cases were almost empty compared to the journey out, so room for cigarettes bought by Lin at the airport. Richard collected the car to take us down to Kapodistria. Lefteris and Fortis both warned us there were no flights because of the national strike across Greece.

As we waited for the car, bags at the top of the steps to Democracy Street, I phoned Yianni from whom we hire our car. "Airport's open" he said.

Waiting at the steps on Democracy Street

We'd left the kolokithia from our garden to neighbours and now, morose, we head to the airport. The weather's crisp, small white clouds, the coast of Epirus clear to the east. At Kapodistria checking in is straightforward. We wait in the sun before going through security. A thing I so like here is the way big old dogs hang about Departures, friendly and relaxed. Can you imagine them allowed at Gatwick or Heathrow or Eleftherios Venizelos in Athens?

Waiting for departure at Kapodistri

Our plane arrived soundlessly it seemed. In little time we were sat on board with room to spread, thinking more about our next arrival than our departure. Our Captain, Phil Shaw, cheered us with a happy chat, persuading us to pay attention to his crew's safety guidance, earning a clap from passengers.

** ** **
Last Tuesday I had a cycle ride to the west coast, turning off the main road at Skripero - three kilometres west of Ano Korakiana - and heading down a much narrower and quieter road through Doukades...

Δουκάδες - how ill at ease is that sole villa top right

...to where it joined the main road between Corfu Town and Paleokastritsa.

From there I cycled a kilometre to the junction with the Lefkimmi Road heading south east. I'd had a mind to visit the beach at the head of Liapades Bay but, having taken a right turn off the Lefkimmi Road, then followed a sign to Liapades beach where the constructions of commodified guesthood began to crowd the approaching shore - buildings and signs which over my life have marked the economic history of the southern Mediterranean. A greening pool appeared beside the road - premises that do for consumers what a combine harvester does for the land.

Thinking of old pictures of this place before the era of concrete came to Greece I turned my bicycle back up the hill and, on lowest gear, retraced my route until I could turn right...

The turn to the centre of Liapades

 ...and ascend upwards into the village of Liapades, where place yet resides in the jumble of houses fronting narrow passages, public and private space indistinct - the enduring architecture of neighbourhood. My route became steeper. I dismounted and walked on up between small houses. I know my thoughts on this contrast between old and new on Corfu are as impractical as a wooden boat in an age of glass reinforced plastic. Unlike GRP a wooden boat cannot be left to its own devices, it must be attended to, worked on, cared for - the saw about the relation of eggs and bacon - the chickens involved but the pig's committed. I emerged into the top of the village on a path that a car could only access with difficulty, and entered the countryside high above Cape Iliodorus, the October sun dazzling ranks of olives, where people were working, a dog appeared round a bend ahead of followed by three women, two on donkeys. "Greetings - herete"...

... they chatted round the bend as I headed on west parallel with the coast until I saw a vineyard beside a grassy margin, sprung since the last week's rain. I stopped for a picnic, sat on a low wall, just able to see the monastery at Paleokastritsa in the distance, the rest hidden by the woods between. Tap water and chunks of fresh bread from the bakery in Ano Korakiana, cheese and dried Corfu sausage and a chocolate biscuit.

I returned via the main road between the blighted coast and Corfu town, but a kilometre before the turn we're used to taking when coming northward to Ano Korakiana, I took a narrow winding road heading three kilometres north back to Skripero - a lovely route, little used - representing no short cut. Flat at first, through hedged meadows and allotments, it slopes gently up to Skripero through banks and trees...

...winding up through the village, from where I returned to the main Sidari road and thence to the small road I'd taken at the start of my ride back to Ano Korakiana.

England

**** ****

Guy gave us a lift home from Digbeth Coach Station. Amy was waiting for us at home having swept a thick coat of leaves from our drive. We chatted, sifted mail, learned that our grandchild expected in early April is a boy, tried out names, hugged dog Oscar and greeted cat Flea, and sent out for a Chinese takeaway and, once again drenched in multimedia news, easier to filter in Greece, we watched a programme in which Joanna Lumley visits Corfu, interspersed with shake pics of captured Gadaffi, blood speckled just before he was killed (Libya)

** ** **
This paragraph appears partly in brackets in the leaked EURO SUMMIT STATEMENT DRAFT issued on 19 Oct:

[pm strengthening of the monitoring of the Greek program] [We welcome the decision by the Eurogroup on the disbursement of the 6th tranche of the EU-IMF support programme subject to the adoption of the prior actions agreed with the Greek government. We look forward to the conclusion of a sustainable and credible new EU-IMF multiannual programme by the end of November]
[ pm: PSI to be prepared by the Eurogroup] We reaffirm clearly our unequivocal commitment that private sector involvement is and will continue to be an exceptional solution applying only to Greece, as its unique condition requires a unique solution.

Richard Pine's Op-ed in The Irish Times (19 Oct'11) begins:

The 19th-century American writer Henry David Thoreau observed that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”. That is certainly not the case in Greece, where desperation is becoming increasingly unquiet as life, and the country itself, collapses under the burden of new austerity measures. The unrest is not only in the “mass of men” but within the system itself. Riot police recently dispelled a protest outside parliament by their off-duty colleagues; civil servants in the finance ministry have blocked access to the building for incoming EU inspectors...

and ends

...The glue that holds any society together is consensus, but what makes it vibrant is dissent. Greece is on the brink of collapse – some say civil war. As normal society grinds to a halt exemplified by the 48-hour national strike that starts this morning, the implosion will necessitate intervention to ensure distribution of essential goods and services. It is not unthinkable that the army might undertake those, and other more far-reaching, roles, at which point we should all be reading Thoreau’s short essay On the Duty of Civil Disobedience . But does the army necessarily support this, or any other, government? A military – or quasi-military – regime in Greece would be far more damaging to the EU than a Greek default. It seems that in making everyone – except perhaps the super-rich – pay for Greece’s financial mistakes, the government is completely insensitive not only to public opinion but also to the hurt this will inflict on those who simply cannot afford it. For example, the removal of the subsidy on home heating oil will effectively double the price to the householder; in 2012 the price of electricity will increase by 30 per cent. Thoreau wrote: “When I meet a government which says to me ‘Your money or your life’, why should I be in haste to give it my money?” A referendum is to be held to test the waters on this issue: how the Greeks will answer Thoreau’s question will be crucial to the survival of the state.

France and Germany disagree about how to handle the Eurozone crisis, how to maintain fiscal union, how to handle the stability fund, the EFSM - especially as it effects Greece. My friend John Martin, in Australia, in a recent email, wrote:

...I watch with interest with what is happening with world financial markets and am annoyed that there is no apparent control, just blind faith is a system that on all accounts does not work. I am sure the UK Government will manage things at home but other countries I am not so sure...

The debate opposes 'fiscal raptors' who say we're in such deep debt we must scrape, save, cutback, reject further credit, reduce leverage and abhor its use solely for greater consumption, embrace austerity and advocates of Keynesian remedies who refer to their opponents as makers of an 'austerity death trap' preventing recovery by destroying the jobs, businesses and incomes that might redeem the debt. The latter say that only governments can now save the situation by injecting enough kickstart cash to revive growth and jobs. Where do environmental policies enter this debate? On the side of cash injection by government - but in ways that will move the world from an economic model driven by the exploitation of earth's resources to one that embraces sustainability based on conservation and renewable resources. Amid the crisis it is difficult to distinguish the hawks, from those who oppose them - since the changes required to create sustainability are quite as demanding as those that require austerity. No-one whatever solutions they advocate really expects anything nice to happen inside the next decade. The whole situation is made more frightening and depressing because the language used to talk about the crisis is on the edge of most people's comprehension. There are times when economic journalists, economists, financial experts, are carrying on an argument that passes over our heads, talking and arguing with each other rather than communicating and debating with non-economists - who worry about theirs, their friends' and their relatives' circumstances. I think I understand 'credit default', 'sub-prime mortgages' and 'frozen credit markets'  but I'm struggling with 'collaterized debt obligations', 'repurchase agreements'. the different kinds of 'quantitative easing - QE1, QE2, QE3', the details of 'leverage', 'sovereign debt' and the workings of the 'bond market' from which derives so much of the problem. Yet when you do come across a layman's explanation, or something approaching, it can annoy. See the comments attached to this YouTube piece in which two vexingly smart American siblings, John and Hank Green, the Vlogbrothers, claim to explain the Greek Debt Crisis 'in four minutes'.

***
...and opinion of the former chairman of the Federal Reserve - Alan Greenspan - quoted in Kathimerini:

“Greece should never have been accepted as a member of the euro zone." The debt restructuring being faced by many European countries was the “only discernible solution" for them to emerge from the crisis. As for the euro zone crisis in general, Greenspan said the situation was “extremely critical,” noting that no one could predict what will happen in the future. As long as there are countries in Europe with a large public debt “Europe will have no future,” he said, adding that what is needed is a stronger political union which will curb the divergent behavior of other member states. He called for an “essential fiscal unification of Europe” stressing that the threat posed by an unstable Europe to the American economy was “extremely dangerous”; that those who overlook this are not being realistic.

... and Sarkozy says the same. Greece has only been in the Eurozone since 2001, The crisis began to emerge just three years ago - so could be said too have arisen in under 9 years. See this BBC story from January 2001:

Greece has become the twelfth country to join the European single currency, ditching its own currency, the drachma. The Greek Finance Minister, Ioannis Papandoniou, described it has an historic day that would place Greece firmly at the heart of Europe. "Our inclusion in EMU ensures for us greater stability and opens up new horizons" - Costas Simitis.  But the president of the European Central Bank, Wim Duisenberg, warned that Greece still had a lot of work to do to improve its economy and bring inflation under control. In 1999, Greece was left out of the eurozone for failing to meet the EU's economic criteria. To qualify for euro membership, the Greek Government had to adopt a tough austerity programme, making deep cuts in public spending. Despite the budget cuts, euro membership is hugely popular in Greece, with polls suggesting that nearly two-thirds of the population are in favour of the move. In a televised New Year message, Prime Minister Costas Simitis said Greece "is already experiencing euro conditions. We all know that our inclusion in EMU (European Monetary Union) ensures for us greater stability and opens up new horizons," he said. The eurozone now consists of Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.