What Riles Me, Sartorial Style, Smelly Thursday and Staying Warm.

Someone who riles me is the TV news presenter on Sky channel, Konstantinos Bogdanos. His style of presentation is over-ebullient : he constantly buzzes and hops about on-screen, waving sheaves of paper, interrupting his own colleagues, his exuberance detracting from the topic under discussion. He just has to put in his pennyworth – so much for objective reportage – as if we, the audience, are incapable of arriving at our own positions under our own steam. Clearly no one wants members of the press to be vulnerable to violence, but when I heard he had been attacked in the street, I kind of understood what may partly have led to negative emotions running that high.

Talking of interrupting, someone else who irked me was the BBC interviewer, Emily Maitlis. When interacting – could we call it interviewing? – with Yianis Varoufakis, she clearly showed she belonged to the Jeremy Paxman stable of aggressive, intimidating and condescending behaviour. Is that supposed to be seen as ‘good television’?  But he was up to dealing with her – YES!!

Incidentally, Varoufakis seemed to cause quite a sensation with his outfit at Number 10. Okay, perhaps he was a little laid back, given the circumstances, but as our niece, Jenny, said – she’s our Sheffield correspondent -  instead of hearing all about his demeanour, how about hearing more about what he actually had to say? That is much more of moment. Certainly it may come as some consolation when Yianis inevitably does the Oliver Twist and has to take his hands out of his pockets…….. to ask for more !

 Two things I would like to see are:

Tsipras wearing a tie – as that will mean if not a haircut to our debts, that there has been a wee trim  

 and Schaeuble smile – they’re not going to happen at the same time, are they? 

Greek/German positions have become entrenched and their current intransigence makes a successfully negotiated outcome ever more remote. Here all we can do is watch and wait with bated breath. Whatever happens, we are the ones who need to blink, given our parlous circumstances – and if we don’t? – OMG – what then? 

On to more positive topics.  The National Geographic program Eat : The Story of Food is fascinating – a topic close to my heart , as is, of course, language. This week the focus was on grains and bread-making. What I loved was that they said traditionally the base of the loaf was charred and didn’t taste so nice so that was reserved for those consumers of less importance; while the golden top of the loaf was reserved for those of higher status; that is, this part actually was and was given to ….the upper crust. Oh, I do love language! Of course, another dining metaphor is derived from where one of the most valuable commodities – the salt – was placed on the table. Those deemed of social significance were said to be those seated above the salt.

Continuing the topic of food, tonight in Greece we celebrate ‘Smelly Thursday’ when traditionally people go out in fancy dress to enjoy the smells – and flavours- of roasted meat as we are now in the run up to Lent when, strictly speaking, people of the faith are expected to fast for 40 days. The Apokreas, or Carnival, is a marvellous, crazy time for young people. We oldies  tend to avoid going out to restaurants on such a night as it entails lots of noise, and poor quality food at higher prices. So we have made some salads and oven baked chips, got ourselves sausages and souvlakia – to ensure the smelly part of the evening! -and the nice thing is that our neighbours are coming to be silly along with us …but quietly.

Below are the pork souvlakia, nestling in a marinade of oil, mustard, honey, garlic, onion, oregano and beer – H’s recipe  – and we will top that off with this  chocolate orange tart, served  hot with vanilla ice-cream. Kali orexi!

 

                                          

We have been having a very cold spell and although this picture will be risibly pathetic for those of you in Northern Europe and North America, to say nothing of Russia and even Athens, this is evidence our recent snow fall – if you look really closely you can see the snow-flakes.

   

And the snowfall got me thinking of a little poem we learned as kids that I’d like to share with you:

The North Wind doth blow and we shall have snow

And what will poor robin do then, poor thing?

He’ll sit in a barn and keep himself warm,

And hide his head under his wing, poor thing.

 

    

Now we think it is possibly not a robin, but for the last few years in winter this little birdie has come to roost in the rafters of our balcony upstairs.   The interesting thing is he used to fly in around sundown until we fitted transparent roller blinds there as a wind-break.  Our resourceful little chappie found a space between the pieces of roofing and walks through that little corridor. You can hear his approach quite distinctly. Above you can see him having just arrived on his perch. In a few moments he will become a little grey ball as he really does hide his head under his wing. Initially if we had guests upstairs, he would fly off, startled by the noise and lights. Now he has become a little more courageous. He stays when we have company – he seems to know we mean him no harm, bless!

That north wind is still blowing but at least there is a little sunshine. So if you slip into a large plant pot, you can get shelter from the wind and catch the sun at the same time.  Never mind the basil plant, Mr Mao is very comfortable, indeed, thank you….. and thankfully he remains unaware of our night-time visitor upstairs!

A New Political Dawn and GR.acronyms

And it’s quite intentional that I repeat an image similar to that in my previous post. 

 

                                                                                       

January 26^th saw a beautifully bright, early morning – a golden dawn, really – to herald in our new political era – and the shameful situation of having a 3rd-position party, the neo-fascist Golden Dawn, more than half of whose members have currently served sixteen months in prison without being charged.

 In that, the previous coalition government really played their hand badly, believing this threat could be quietly left on the back burner – out of sight, out of mind. Under the radar, however, the party members proved to be excellent strategists and greatly upped their profile in the elections – oops!

 The full party name is a real mouthful: Synaspismos tis Rizospastikis Aristeras, or the Coalition of the Radical Left. Syriza, lacking two seats for a majority, has formed a coalition government with the strange bed-fellows of the right-wing Independent Greeks, the common ground being their resolute stand against the austerity program. Earlier on, Syriza made many bold pronouncements, some of which put the fear of death in some of the populace. A friend, a bank employee, said there was such a run on large cash withdrawals last Friday that one customer insisted on taking home 40,000 euros .... in twenties – as the bank had no large notes left!

Which got us thinking:

a) How on earth did he manage to lug that load home?

b) To what extent will house break-ins increase over the next few days??

 This time around there has been less panic-mongering before the nation went to the polls and the party policy conveyed seems to have been reined in somewhat from the earlier extreme statements, so people have decided it’s time for a change. This is further underlined by the fact that for the first time in over 90 years – repeat over 90 years! – the name Papandreou does not feature in the government – gasp!

 Tsipras was sworn in as Prime Minister in an open-neck shirt since he has vowed not to wear a tie until a new economic deal for Greece has been negotiated. He took a civil oath of office rather than the usual religious one normally officiated by the Archbishop – well, we have to allow him the odd act of iconoclasm!

What team Tsipras is going to be able to negotiate with the EU and how it can bring the banks to some kind of cooperative line remain to be seen. But in his inaugural speech our new Prime Minister sounded surprisingly like Andreas Papandreou of 1981: he even claimed he would bring the sun back to Greece – interesting image, given that was PASOK’s emblem!

One of the first posts known to be filled was by fellow-blogger, Yanis Varoufakis, now Minister of Finance.  He has adopted a pragmatic approach and made reassurances that Greece will not leave the euro-zone. He describes himself as an ‘accidental economist’, is willing to pick up the Herculean task of trying to save our economy, quotes lyrics from the Eagles’ song and the poetry of Dylan Thomas – so from me he gets nothing but :respect!

Another recent event, though not so globally relevant, was that our great-nephew celebrated his second birthday. Petros is a wonderful little guy - mad about trains - and it was good to see him now of the age where he can enjoy his wee celebration. Question: how many people can you see in the picture going ‘phoo’ to help extinguish his candles??

  

    

This week I’ve missed my regular spa and art classes where it was I’m sure that I contracted the mild cold that has inevitably developed into my usual full-blown sinusitis. Thanks to that I missed celebrating Burns’ Day ( as I did two years ago for the same reason) ‘celebrating with a few morsels of spinach pancake and gallons of tea with honey and lemon – hardly appropriate fare. I called a pal who had also been smitten- only with her it’s her asthma that flares up. This time her bout is so bad she’s on corticosteroids. Our vocal tones were so impaired it was like participating in a two-way obscene phone-call. What was worse we were trying to make light of our plight and were killing ourselves laughing - or that was what it sounded like.

Anyway, I’ve been mooching around the house retching and wretching, depriving myself and H of hours of uninterrupted sleep, going through tissues by the boxful. Doesn’t look as if I will be in a rush to get out and about as snow is being forecast in the next few days so I will continue being relatively inert  – there is something enjoyably indulgent about having free days – no obligation, whatsoever.

Moving on to matters of a more linguistic nature, but still with a sliver of civics: a new term has been coined for the mooted departure of Greece from the euro-zone:Grexit. So without anything really pressing to do, and being a crossword addict, I began to think of words I could coin from words with the initial GR consonant cluster, using it in the sense of the country to generate semantically-enhanced lexis. 

  

 So far I like : 

Grailing : that’s a noun-turned-adjective, a purloined part of speech, describing our economy.  

 

Grattitude: the in-yer-face brio of some of our new politicians – I’m thinking particularly of the new Parliamentary Speaker (good job!!), Zoe Konstantopoulou, a lady lawyer who will certainly keep order in the House. Her predecessor welcomed her to her new post with a bouquet of flowers. Lovely gesture, but I don’t think the lady is for softening!

 Incidentally, since her lawyer father was a politician, perhaps we’re seeing a new political dynasty in the making??

Grappling : the autumn activity of collecting fruit.

Grateful : the state of having fallen victim to the globally renowned  over-generosity that is Hellenic hospitality.

Grapefruit : this one, rather paradoxically, refers to  bananas from Crete, our main production area.   

 Any more ideas gratefully received!!

So as Billy Connolly once said – though not of the Greek political situation - ‘Here we are – where are we??’

 Once the politico-sleb fuss has abated, we will eagerly await to see how far Zoe’s party will carry out promises made :

• To crack down on the influential oligarchs
• To root out corruption
• To reform our problematic state.

It’s time we had the chance to feel some hope and, if they begin to make inroads, we’ll be fully behind them. We congratulate them on their success and wish them the very best of luck.          

 In the meantime, till we recover fully and regain our strength, to use another political term, we’re going to hunker down, keep warm and snug, and  .........sssnnoooooozzzzeee!

 

Welcome 2015 : Happy New Year!

In my last post I talked about our neighbor, Marina, being unwell. I am happy to say she recovered enough to come and sing the Kalanta for us. Like the three ships in the carol, she, her sister and their dad came sailing by on Christmas Day in the morning. Thankfully she had the energy to beat it out on that drum with Maria accompanying her on the triangle.

                              

Now this year I can say something that Kim Kardashian cannot say: I am a little behind – at least as far as putting up tree and decorations were concerned! It was a skin-of-the-teeth affair, with tree not lit until Christmas Eve. Actually some Greek friends say that for them this was the traditional time to set out the decorations which were then taken down after Epiphany. In contrast, friends in America regret the local habit of throwing out their trees on December 26^th.

       

                       

On Christmas Day Maria’s and Marina’s family kindly invited us to share their generous board of wild boar and turkey. Above you see our Boxing Day lunch of venison stew, cranberry sauce made from dried fruit, potato cake with cheese and carrot and broccoli. We were lucky enough to be eating upstairs on the sunny balcony. 

 It did make one feel guilty to be at home tucking into festive fare in comfort, safety and warmth when on December 28^th we saw the tragedy of the Italian car-ferry, the Norman Atlantic, and thought about what those passengers must have gone through. Imagine setting off on holiday and then facing the hideous fate of death by burning or by drowning in the freezing Adriatic Sea. May the lucky survivors recover rapidly from their horrendous experience; our hearts go out to those families whose members were lost or are still missing.

 Another tragic situation is our political one which increasingly seems to emulate a sinking ship. Now I don’t follow the logic of this but after a recent election failing to vote in the sole candidate as president, it means we now face a general election on January 25^th. The country needs this like it needs a hole in the head. Once again we see party political interests and the desire to retain power being priorities set way ahead of those of constructing a healthy, respectable viable system that might win confidence and badly-needed  investment in a country that has been brought to its knees. The outlook is nothing but bleak.

After what has been a very mild autumn, we had snow on the hills and our poor little pear tree in its confusion had just begun to bear some fruit. Our north wind, known as the Vardharis, clears the atmosphere but chills the bones. Instead of drinking his water, Leondaris found chunks of ice – clearly more interesting to play with than even his favourite hamburger toy.

 

 

   

                                                  

In this cold we don’t move far from the balcony, in fact, given half a chance we would all stay indoors all of the time! We just have to draw lots for settee space.

     

 

                                               

                       

New Year comes and is traditionally opened with the cutting of the Vasilopitta – a bread baked in honour of Aghios Vasilis or Saint Basil whose name day is celebrated on January 1^st. H was the lucky one in our household this year, you can just see the lucky coin secreted within his slice. 

 

   

                                     

 Today, January 6^th, is the feast of the Epiphany, or Manifestation. Some believe this day marks the day when the holy child was visited by the Magi, others say it is related to the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan.  For those of the Orthodox Church it entails, for the brave few, diving into the freezing cold sea to retrieve the wooden cross symbolically thrown into the water by the priest, thereby ensuring being blessed with good fortune will be with the finder for the whole year.

I think I’ll just stick with the coin in the Vassilopitta. 

Anyway, this day, being Epiphany, brings the Twelve Day festive period to a close. It is a public holiday and, inevitably, brings us to the table once more.  Some time ago a friend from H’s home area brought us a hare as a gift. Anna, our neighbor, was not only kind enough to offer freezer space for it, but also offered to cook it for us today  - now, don’t you just wish you had good neighbours like that?

Family members were also invited and rabbit was added to the menu. Below you can see both dishes (rabbit to the left) and between them a contribution of mine: leek, bacon and feta in filo pastry, or – as Antonis christened them - winter rolls, rather than spring ones.

                                         

Thank goodness that brings Yuletide officially to an end – it’s all been too, too exhausting.

         

And at the outset of our new year, let me share this dramatic daybreak with you.

May it herald in warmth and hope for a new beginning, not just for the new day but for the entire year. May 2015 bring you health, peace and joy. 

                                                         Happy New Year !