Looking back, looking forward.

 Well, the season has not been completely jolly for everyone, all things considered, but it is the time for reflection and prediction.  We have busied ourselves with home and garden matters, done a lot of reading, eating and drinking. I suppose a good resume would be books ‘n’ booze by the fire!

I’ve enjoyed making new recipes and dealing with the last of the seasonal fruit. Our neighbours kindly supplied lots of quince which are excellent roasted. But I did keep some back to make jelly which is great on bread or oatcakes for breakfast and is also a good accompaniment for roast pork with its delicious rich fragrance and amber tones. 

                                                   

Of course, I was riveted by the American elections on November 4^th – it seems that the world was holding its breath and praying that the present incumbent’s term of office was not extended. Happily prayers can be answered and to celebrate the outcome I made a specially designed pasta flora!                                             

 One recipe I’ve always wanted to try out is red velvet cake. Now I’m not a great lover of sponge cake, but if it’s doused with alcohol and layered with creamy filling, then a gateau goes down a treat! The red food dye  had little effect so it was a brown velvet one with cream cheese filling and topping.           

                                 

In hot weather it’s lovely to have a creamy, refreshing cheese-cake but as it got cooler, I yearned to try out the cooked New York cheesecake with its more robust, richer texture.  The sultanas, which have been soaked in home-made liqueur, are cooked with the filling, then once cooled, honey is drizzled over the cake. The recipe calls for a good helping of thick yoghurt so the flavours are quite Greek, despite the name.

                                               

We don’t go out much so lounging clothes are the daily garb. On Christmas Eve, as we dressed for dinner, Z was aghast to find he was having difficulty in doing up his trousers. Just des/serts?!

Gripe alert! A group who have thoroughly annoyed me are the ‘mask debaters’, the covid conspiracy theory purveyors, the anti-vaccers. They generally share the characteristics of not being professionals or experts in the relevant field, of paying scant attention to those who are, yet they preach their position as if they hold the key to hidden knowledge and those who oppose them are ‘sheep’ who cannot see through the master plan that the unidentified ‘they’ are plotting against us. They claim to have more insight and awareness for having discovered these evil plots to deprive them of their rights, freedoms, etc. For me the anomaly is that despite their assumed superiority, they are more than ready to adopt the victim role and accept the fact that they are actually projecting themselves in a weak, defenceless position rather than an omniscient one!!

 And, yes, I do feel a little guilty about slamming them – they know not what they think. But I have a ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card, courtesy of a dear friend who put Z’n’me on Santa’s Nice List ! Isn’t that special? 

                                        

Finally, let me end my last post of the year by wishing you all the best for the coming year.

     May we face it with hope and good cheer!

    

 
                             

Aristotle in Macedonia.

And so, here is a further post on Aristotle – I did soooo much research on him. :o I had planned a trip to his school in Macedonia but, sadly, the pandemic put paid to that. I will, however, show you the site which lies about 2 miles from Naoussa, a famous wine-producing and fruit-growing area. In this green, well-watered area, three caves, the remains of walls and columns can be seen. There are even ancient stone benches – imagine what great conversations went on there!                                          

 

As I’ve already mentioned, Aristotle was called to the court of Philip II of Macedon, to teach his son, Alexander. Others on his school ‘register’ at the time were Ptolemy I and Cassander.

Ptolemy (367-283 BC) was one of Alexander the Great’s generals, known to be very ambitious and was also known as Soter, The Saviour. After Alexander’s death, Ptolemy  ruled Egypt, which had been part of Alexander’s empire, from 305-283. He was, in fact, the founder and first Pharaoh of the Ptolemaic Dynasty. During his reign, he turned the country into a Hellenistic kingdom, and the city of Alexandria into a significant center of Greek culture.

                                                      

Cassander (358-297 BC) was another of Alexander the Great’s generals and was, himself, King of Macedon from 305 – 297 BC. He was married to Thessaloniki, Alexander’s half-sister, the synonymous city which he founded and named in her honour in 315BC. He also founded the city of Cassandreia, near today’s Potidea, in 316 BC and consequently that prong, Kassandra, of the Halkidiki peninsula subsequently took its name from this great military man and ruler. Below the images show both sides of a coin minted during his reign which shows his likeness and the image of a lion.                                               

Now that is one impressive student roll call that Aristotle had!                     

From the writings of Plutarch we learn that the subjects Aristotle taught there were philosophy, politics, literature, mathematics and war strategies.  If that latter subject seems incongruous, bear in mind that the Athenian Lyceum, where Aristotle had previously taught, was also a place where military exercises were carried out so there was some kind of relatedness.      

 I was fascinated to learn that Alexander, aware of his teacher’s great interest in nature, would regularly send him specimens of flora and fauna which he’d found on his offensives.                                     

The above image, entitled Alexander the Great and Aristotle, was painted by Jean L G Ferris in 1754.

 

 In time, Alexander the Great was to spread the Macedonian kingdom and the Hellenic culture to Asia and Egypt. Aristotle attempted to classify and make sense of the world around him and was to shape man’s mode of thinking. Clearly these two men left their marks indelibly on the world during their lifetimes and on Western civilization for centuries to come.   

                            

 

Lockdown.

 Lockdown: the final lexeme says it all. It is horrendous to know someone who is suffering from covid-19 - perhaps even fighting for life itself. But though we may have been spared that, daily bulletins reporting rising cases, deaths and the hardships experienced by front-line workers cannot fail to produce despondency.

                                             

From our reduced vistas, our focus is more on restrictions being imposed on us, their repercussions and our responses to them. The initial lexeme, ‘lock’ – in its plural form - is an issue for many of us ladies. It does make a difference to get out of trackies for a change, and a fresh manicure feels better. But, oh, how I long for a trip to the hairdresser and in that I know I am not alone!

In the early 90s the British Council sent me to Belgrade to inspect a state-school  which was setting up an English teacher training course as part of an aid program. It was spring and the arrival of fresh greens in the market was a source of great joy for people who were slowly emerging from the deprivations caused by the Balkan Wars. When I remarked how well-groomed and chic the lady teachers were, I was told that was a survival strategy: to go about one’s life as if the horror wasn’t happening around you.  

                                              

 Of late, Thessaloniki has become a red zone, with soaring numbers of new cases and deaths recorded. The other day, a local radio station played the 1988 Dusty Springfield and Pet Shop Boys’ recording with the repeating line in the chorus: ‘How am I gonna get through?’.  

                                                  

 Good question, I thought, and resolved to run a straw poll among some of the members of the select  group I call my Lady Buds to see what they do to try and get through this dreadful state of affairs.  Though some did own to going through periods of negativity, they were happy to share their strategies, a distillation of which can be seen below.

 Many friends felt privileged to be living in the country-side and for them it seemed business as usual since walking and gardening figured largely in their daily lives, weather permitting. One was relatively unaffected, as she lives in New Zealand, while a city-dweller admitted that somehow my question had saddened her a little as she realized how much she enjoyed her lockdown freedom from non-preferred social interaction obligations!  

 Some talked of deriving joy from spending more time with their children – others were looking forward to that. Pets were also a source of pleasure, though the lady who takes the biscuit in that category could claim to have 2 cows, 17 sheep, 4 horses, 2 ponies and 2 chickens. And, yes, her husband is a vet!  

Reading, listening to music, watching videos, film clips, etc. are regular distractions. One stated that she often used the library facilities, but it is closed to the public. So the procedure is she makes a request, then does a curbside (sp.? – she lives in Santa Barbara :) )  pick-up which she feels is very-self-indulgent.   

Language learning featured as did cooking, baking along with  consequent weight-gain and there was even a 20-year-old cross-stitch resuscitation! Coffee, chocolate, wine and g’n’ts have all seen an increase in consumption. :o

One, interestingly, made a comparison: in Lockdown 1 she was more dynamic, planning several projects, while in Lockdown 2, her energy had dissipated.

Two responses tugged at my heart: one, England-based, said she felt lucky to be ‘trying to get through this’ , given that thousands haven’t been so lucky. The other, from Sweden, simply stated that she was suffering from covid-19 but was upbeat about it and confident she would pull through.  Amen to that!

                                                 

One valuable piece of advice was that we should appreciate what we have and not bother about what we don’t have. And the one common factor was how much we value communication between our family members and our closest pals.

The local radio show ended with the number made famous by Sheffield crooner, Joe Cocker: With A Little Help From My Friends. Now that’s an apposite note to end on.

Stay well, stay safe, stay in contact!

 

Aristotle's Lyceum

 My account of Aristotle is not quite in chronological order: we looked at his birthplace and where his ashes were buried – now it’s time to fill in some of the in-between times.  We know Aristotle was educated by Plato at his Academy in Athens. This was a place of worship, a place for military exercise as well as a centre of education.

Aristotle followed in his teacher’s dialectic mode of interaction with his students but his thinking was to diverge greatly from that of Plato and for that reason, he founded his Lyceum in 335 BC. This was set in a lush, green area and was also called the Peripatetic School since Aristotle and his students often carried out their instruction while walking in these peaceful grounds.  Following the same schedules as Plato’s Academy, at the Lyceum, philosophy was taught in the morning, rhetoric in the early evening.

                    In 1996, as excavation was going on to clear a space for the new Museum of Contemporary Art, the original site of The Lyceum was uncovered. The excavation was carried out by archaeologist, Effie Lygouri and the site was opened to the public in June 2014. Right is an artist’s impression of what the construction would have been like.

  Beautifully landscaped, it covers a large area of over 11,000 square metres and is an ideal place to explore this rich historical find, the area where Plato and Aristotle strolled in the groves in bygone days, as well as to enjoy a charming oasis in the city centre.          

Plato was exceptionally interested in establishing what was understood by Truth and the Ideal; he searched for the immutable in terms of morals in society and in nature. His understanding was that there were two worlds: the Material World of substances which is temporal, and the World of Ideas which is eternal, containing the concepts, or moulds, if you like, of all contained in the Material World.  He believed that man, being of substance, with no direct access to the World of Ideas, can only have partial understanding. Similarly, he concluded that man cannot aspire to having an ideal political state, but that the Constitutional State is the next best thing.

We must appreciate that Aristotle was very interested in nature, in fact, he can be said to be Europe’s first great biologist, intent on classifying living objects around him. He felt that Plato, with his World of the Material and his World of Ideas, was unnecessarily doubling things!  Aristotle believed that the concept of ‘horse’, for example, was not in another world, but was in our consciousness - a product of what we had heard and seen around us. As a biologist, he classified objects according to their characteristics. In the same way, man constructs the concept ‘horse’ by classifying similar characteristics as common to one set of things.

Quite a complexity of thinking there! Just as it never fails to astound me that toddlers can see many different types of dogs, yet readily accept that quite different characteristics still belong to the same animal set. So this little person, with limited life experience and undeveloped reasoning faculty, can see a poodle and a Great Dane together and have no difficulty in assigning them to the same taxonomy of animal, have no doubts in comprehending their shared concept of ‘dogness’! And there they were, then, these philosophers, struggling over how to explain that phenomenon of sameness but difference at the same time! Man’s mind is a wonderful thing!

I end on a relevant, artistic note.  Below we see a part of the oil painting entitled ‘The School of Athens’, created by the Italian Renaissance artist, Raphael, between 1509 and 1511, now decorating a palace wall in the Vatican. You can see Plato making a point, while Aristotle and the other students listen intently.

                    

Next  painted on a shop shutter in central Athens, is an amazing piece of graffiti of the two main characters.  The Banksy-type artist has helpfully written the name of each philosopher below, and rather irreverently now has Plato effortlessly balancing a football on his index finger! Respect!!

 

Autumn Poem

 Autumn is a time for contemplation as the darkness lengthens. It’s a time marked by the three-day Hallowtide observance. It is when we honour all souls – as I remember our father’s untimely passing in a long-gone October. We also appreciate the great generosity of nature.  It is a bitter-sweet time and I wanted to market by this poem.

 

 Abundance all around

Understated in its bountiful beauty

Tingeing leaves in roans and russets, rich and replete.

Undulating mists evoke

Memories of such seasons

Nebulous notions of soulful spirits, of pastness and peace.

     

This is a recent watercolour of mine and the wonderfully atmospheric picture of Tarbert harbour is by Jamie Comyn in “All things Tarbert”.

Jamie kindly gave me permission to use her photograph.

 

 

 

 

Aristotle 2 : His Birthplace and Resting Place.

                                                     

                            

 And so we continue on our Aristotelian trip: we make our visit to Ancient Stageira on the east coast of the Halkidiki peninsula. Clearly built on a bluff as protection from plundering seafarers, it is quite a climb on a day when temperatures reached the upper 30s.  However, on the way up, you can take time out to enjoy the magnificent surrounding seascape.

 

 The original city of Stageira was founded in 655BC by people from the island of Andros. It is difficult now to imagine the strategic significance of what seems a remote area. But it was actually occupied by Xerxes of Persia 480 BC. The area had mixed history, with on-off pacts with Athens. Such bonds, however, were severed in 494BC and she was to side with the Spartans against the Athenians in the Peloponnesian Wars in 431-404BC.

 

An interesting point is that on the wall below can be seen what looks like a rope snaking along the wall horizontally. Apparently that marks the point below which lies the original stonework.                                       

 

  Certainly the walls look beautiful – the stones themselves, their placing and patterning demonstrate master masonry. In this area were the workshops.                                         

 

 Under the cover, are ceramic shards from the royal pottery. Coins from the reign of Alexander of Macedon have also been found here.

 

                                     

The great Macedonia king, Philip 11, occupied and destroyed the city in 348 BC but he relented and rebuilt the city, restoring the enslaved inhabitants to their rightful place and status. This generosity was said to be in return for Aristotle tutoring his son, Alexander.

 

 The large area below is the site of the ancient agora, or market.

 

 

  The walled area shows the walls of particular shops there.

                         

 

 

 Now this staircase was a daunting one to climb but it was worth it.

 

 At the top, in the area excavated in 1996 by Kostas Sismanidis, is the tomb said to be the resting place of Aristotle. He actually died in Chalkis but it is said his ashes were returned to be interred in his birthplace.

                                              

And here am I, standing before one of these wonderful walls, smiling, but really, really worse for the wear of all that pounding the dust and stairs in extreme heat.

 

 

 Is there no end to what I’ll do to collect information for my blog posts?!

                             

 

Thankfully, we had made arrangements for a late lunch. Former colleague and friend, Chrissie, and her husband, Giorgios, had kindly invited us to their lovely home nearby. Their generous spread of meze accompanying iced ouzo, was more than welcome. 

  In fact, it was our second sanctuary of the day!