Farewell, Leondaris!

 We have just said goodbye to our well-loved Leondaris. He has kept us company, entertained us and, above all, he has been a member of our family for nine full years. He was a strong character and his presence is hugely missed.

A local couple had found him abandoned by the roadside and, although they took him in, having a very small garden, they could not keep a puppy that was clearly going to become a big dog.  Z saw their electronic post and went to see him. Adorable though the puppy was, it was that he got on so well with the couple’s cats that won Z’s heart.   

                                                  

And so Leondaris came to stay. He immediately made himself at home and was a really cheeky wee pup with initial inability to control his ears – often in a one-up, one-down state!

And, as Z predicted, he got on well with our cats. Below he’s bidding Prunella a good morning in the garden.

                                            

In this next shot he’s reclining in the sun with Mr Mao – both instinctively able to suss out the sunniest spots and shady arbours as day develops.                                            

                                        

He was a great guard dog: the slightest sound would have him thundering down the path, throwing his weight against the outside gate to inspect instantly. A local tradesman, unaware we had a dog, once rang the outer bell. As we answered we heard him shriek – he was suddenly face-to-face with our canine constable!

 

Leon thoroughly enjoyed gardening with us and I always took a wee break from the weeding for puppy-cuddle-time. He welcomed guests and Konstantina, a regular visitor while she studied at the university here, was a firm favourite. His soft eyes could melt hearts – Chrissie said he was The Most Beautiful Dog. Ever. David had to stand – or try to stand - his exuberance as Leon rushed to embrace him, both paws of David’s shoulder. High impact! Margaret, sunning poolside on the recliner, watched in dismay as the naughtie proudly disappeared at high speed with her new sundress trailing from his mouth – eugh!

                                                

Here is one of my favourite shots of him. He was too intrigued by the snow to stay out of it. Mind you, his thick coat meant he was impervious to the cold.                                           

 Our doggie enjoyed his food and one of his real favourites was watermelon flesh and juice. In that preference he greatly resembled his master.                                   

With very heavy hearts we paid the vet/ferryman to help him more speedily on his way.     We hope he finds a puppy paradise where he can run free once more, chasing birds and butterfly shadows to his heart’s content.

 Dog  speed  - kalo tou taxidi!

Greek Bicentennial Celebrations.

 Our bicentennial celebrations went off very well and, although there was a biting wind, the sun shone brightly on guests and participants.

 Around the world countries honoured this special event by projecting related images onto their well-known buildings and landmarks. Below can be seen the San Francisco City Hall, Sydney Opera House, the Empire State Building, and the San Francisco suspension bridge.                                  

The Niagara Falls made an even more spectacular sight shaded in blue.

                                                

 

 

 

For me one of the most impressive lightshows came from Sao Paolo: their series of images included one of the national flag along with the Parthenon, images of an athlete and tumbler on a background of the Olympic Laurel wreath and, finally, with a touch of humour, the ubiquitous Greek talisman- the evil eye.

 

 Another country that merits mention is Haiti, being the first to recognize Greece as an independent state. This was a poor country formed by a slave uprising which defeated the French in 1804. The then Haitian President expressed his regret that they had no funds to donate, but arranged for a huge shipment of  25 tons of coffee to be sent, to be sold to buy weapons for the revolutionaries. What a wonderful example of support and solidarity!  

Of course, throughout Greece statues have long commemorated the freedom fighters of 1821 on whom the very existence of the current Hellenic Republic firmly rests. One that made an impression on me is that of Theodoros Kolokotronis on Stadiou Street just before it merges with Syntagma Square.  

                                        

He is easily identifiable by his kilted tunic, flowing locks, voluptuous moustache and unique helmet which he obtained when he served in the British army. This stood near the trolley stop I used every working day to get home to Paleon Phaliron. Invariably there was no trolley there and I had to wait for the next one. The statue proudly shows this great general leading his men into combat, but to me he invariably seemed to be saying,  'You just missed the number 30 – it went off in that direction 5 minutes ago!’

                                                   
Another famous character is the Lady Captain Laskarina Bouboulina who personifies the significant role played by women in the national struggle. She was a ship-owner from Spetses who not only donated her ships to the national fleet but personally fought on board. Not so well-known, but equally intrepid, was Domna Visvizi, the widow of a Thracian shipowner, who similarly donated to and fought for the war effort. 

 The celebration is not over, however, as lots of exhibitions and special events have been organized throughout the year which we look forward to enjoying.

And on March 25^th we shared one experience with the rest of Greece: at midday we sat down to the traditional meal of battered cod and garlic sauce. Everyone eats the sauce so no one can complain about what one waiter in Paleon Phaliron used to call ‘the garlic perfume’ of the others!                                           

Zito I Hellas - long live Greece!                 

Celebrations!

 March is a busy month this year! We’ve just celebrated Tsiknopempti (Smelly Thursday) where mouth-watering smells of roasting meat on outside spits mark the last meat-eating day before Orthodox Lent begins. 

 Last week we celebrated Clean Monday,  the beginning of the 40-day Orthodox Fast. Though religious festivals, essentially both entail sitting with family and friends round a groaning board, one full of a variety of meats, the other of seafood, vegetables and pulses.                                               

But next week we will have a very special celebration. 25^th March is always observed as the day Greece gained her independence from the Ottoman Empire. And, of course, there is food associated with that day: cod fried in batter. Most houses will proudly bear the national flag on their flagstaff.  But this year is the Bicentennial and, though Covid-19 restrictions will undoubtedly put a damper on things, there WILL be a celebration. The lady in charge of the organizing Greece 2021 Committee, Gianna Daskalaki, trained lawyer, and former MP, was also President of the 2004 Olympic Games committee. That event was undeniably a huge success so we are expecting great things from her once more.

Here she is at one of the celebratory events recently. She is well known for her impeccable dress-sense, as demonstrated by her outfit of a traditional-style waist coat and sash, but it was her handbag, specially designed for the Bicentennial celebrations, which had Greece all a-Twitter. It was a limited-edition piece, in the style of a purse which was clearly inspired by the foustanella, or kilted skirt, worn by the national guard. I love her style!

                                              

 For those of us who had to mug up on Greek culture and history as part of our naturalization process, the struggle for independence is a topic we are fairly familiar with. During the 400 years of Turkish occupation, the Greek language and culture still obtained, but there were always little pockets of resistance against the occupying force. There were, within and outside the country, sympathetic groups and secret organizations – some inspired by the French Revolution – who supported such resistance in a variety of ways. The real concerted effort, however, began in 1821 in the Peloponnese. This wave of resistance, powered by politicians, military personnel, clerics and ordinary Greeks, spread throughout the mainland. Despite a series of defeats, the Greek forces continued to fight bravely. As they gained ground, they went so far as to draw up a constitution and vote in a government, yet the Great Powers refused to acknowledge it since it was revolutionary in nature.

The odds were really stacked against the establishment of the Hellenic state, especially when the forces of the Turkish Sultan, Mahmud II, were supported by those of the Egyptian Leader, Mehmet Ali, and his nephew, Ibrahim. However, when the Western forces decided to come to the assistance of the Greeks, they sent a united fleet to join the Greek fleet, defeating the Turko-Egyptian forces and ending the war in the Peloponnese at the decisive Battle of Navarinou  in October 1827. The European powers, especially Britain, decided to give their support to a free, independent Hellenic state as provided by the Treaty of London on 3^rd February 1830, ratified by Britain, France and the Russian Empire. Ioannis Kapodistrias a diplomat, became its first Governor, with its capital at Nauplion.

                                                     

 It is a very sobering thought that back then, the Greek borders extended only to about Arta-Lamia, in Central Greece, and did not contain many of its islands. In 1912-1913, the land area doubled, but it was not until 1947, when the Treaty of Paris allowed for the transfer of the Dodecanese islands from Italy, that the Greek borders came to constitute Greece as we know it today. In addition since she gained her independence, she has known much turmoil: she endured WW1 then the Nazi Occupation from 1941-1944, she suffered internal unrest during the Civil War form December 1944 to October 1949,she bore the hardships of the military dictatorship from 1967 to 1974.

I mention these facts not to detract from the celebrations but to acknowledge that this state is a relatively young one who has encountered much in her short life.                                    

She has every reason to celebrate her hard-earned independent identity. Below we see the symbol of the Bicentennial – 200 years after the Uprising, Greece 2021.Special guests at the celebrations are: Mikhail Mishustin, Russian Prime Minister, French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, as well as our very own Prince Charles and Camilla. They represent the Western Powers who helped Greece gain her free status.

 I am looking forward to the events and our flag will definitely be unfurled for the occasion!

March, the Martis and the Eleusinian Mysteries.

 We’ve just welcomed in March and the traditional greeting in any new month is ‘Kalo mina’ - ‘May you have a good month’.  Folklore says if March comes in like a lion, she will go out like a lamb …. and vice-versa!

 In Greek there is a saying: Martis, gdhartis kai kaloupokaftis literally translated as ‘March the skin flayer and fence-post burner’. This makes reference to the unpredictable weather: the hot sun can burn your skin, yet the cold can force you to burn the fence stobs when fuel is used up at winter’s end.

It is a month of hope – and good cheer, we all need that! We look forward to longer, milder days, trees in blossom, the equinox will happen shortly and spring proper is not far away.                                                 

For this month in Greece people traditionally wear the marti: a simple bracelet made of woven red and white threads. This tradition is said to date back to the Eleusinian Mysteries, or secret rites, which took place annually at Eleusini, situated between Athens and the Peloponnese.  The rites performed there are in three phases and reenact the abduction, the search for and the return of Persephone. 

                                                       

 Persephone the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of agriculture and fertility, had the delightful task of painting all the flowers of the earth, thus she can be said to personify spring.

According to the myth, before completing her task, she was abducted by Hades, the god of the Underworld. The distressed Demeter caused a dreadful drought and, to ease the suffering of gods and men alike, Zeus intervened and allowed Penelope to return to her mother.

 There was, however, a rule in the Underworld, that whoever ate or drank there was doomed to stay forever. Since Hades had tricked Persephone into eating 4-6 pomegranate seeds, her penalty was to return to the Underworld for 4 to 6 months every year. During her daughter’s annual absence, Demeter neglected her duties of cultivation.

It is interesting to see how inclusive these events were since women and slaves were allowed to attend. There were two requirements that allowed attendance:

1) being free from ‘blood guilt’ i.e. not having committed murder……. and

2) not being a ‘barbarian’ i.e. being able to speak Greek !!

 During initiation ceremonies, participants, who were obliged to swear an oath of secrecy, wore red thread called the kroki tied round their right wrists and left ankles. And this is what we continue when we wear the Marti.                                      

 It is a tradition that has spread and the bracelet is now worn in other Balkan countries, though its significance and related practices may vary a little. In North Macedonia it is called the martinka, Albanians refer to the verore, while Bulgarians wear the martenitsa.

Jewellers, of course, offer more up-market pieces of adornment, which may be made of gold or silver, and have precious stones – often the blue-eye talisman - woven into the design.

                                                         

Traditionally, however, this is a very simple bracelet made of hand-woven red and white strands which may have little trinkets threaded onto them. The red and white threads are said to represent health and fertility, strength and purity, respectively. The martis was believed to confer health, good luck and protection in general on the wearer. It was even said to protect from the strengthening sun rays and prevent sunburn. 

                                              
Some wear it till it disintegrates, some take it off at the end of the month, while others do so only once they have seen the first swallow of the season. Then it may be hung on a branch of a tree in the hope the swallow might use it to build her nest.

So there we have it: a beautiful tale designed as an explanation of our seasonal changes.     And a tradition that we share with Greek culture from days long gone to the present time.

 Kalo mas mina – may the month be kind to us!

Aristotle's Legacy

 My research on Aristotle took us on several trips, historical and geographic, though one remains to be undertaken: I have promised myself a visit to the site of his Macedonian school once normal travel is resumed.

 I mentioned in my first related post on 16.09.2020, how I had studied Logic and Metaphysics at Aberdeen University. I was interested in the analysis of truth tables – related to Plato’s search for what was true. I was even more intrigued in the study of syllogisms – premises built up to form an argument to derive a conclusion.                                                 

An observation to be made is that the typical image of a philosopher is that of a rather stern, pipe-smoking individual – Bertrand Russell, for example.   Incidentally I liked one of his quotes : ‘Roughly speaking, Aristotle’s metaphysics may be described as Plato diluted by common sense.’                                            

The teaching staff in Aberdeen’s Department of Philosophy seemed to share the academic uniform of corduroy trews and elbow-patched, tweed jackets.  There was often a scarf slung nonchalantly around the neck. So that was what the dons donned. But another feature they shared was an other-worldly look, their focus not fixed on anything in particular, but a hazy, sort of glazed gaze, as though involved in a higher level of thinking, but not really aware of their immediate, physical surroundings. Academia was their natural habitat.

                                                      

 One friend really took advantage of the terminology he learned in our Logic and Metaphysics classes. In the pub he would deliberately adopt a provocative stand on a controversial subject and allow his ‘victim’ to roll out his opinion. Then came the attack: You cannot possibly support that argument because your conclusion cannot be derived from these premises! It takes a strong – and sober – interlocutor not to concede the point where the use of logical lexes seemed to confer cognitive credibility!

Apart from winning the academic equivalent of a bar brawl, I wondered what role philosophy and philosophers played in our world.

 Researching this made me revisit Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder, focusing more on the philosophers rather than the Sophie/Hilde storyline. What I came away with was that through the ages we have a philosopers’ pendulum, gently swinging between 2 axes. We have that of the Rationalists (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz) who follow the belief of Plato that reason is of prime importance. Then we have those who follow more closely the Aristotelian school of thought that most significant  was the experience derived from our senses. They were the Empiricists and numbered Locke, Berkeley and Hume among their ranks.

Imagine removing time barriers and setting up these two sides to argue together – what a wonderful debate that would make! And this brings me to my final phase- keeping logic alive : the art of using argumentation in formal debate. In the private high school I taught in here, I founded and ran the Debate Club. There we prepared teams for the annual Forensics Tournament, an inter-school public speaking competition. The method used in competitive debating was the British Parliamentary Style.

                                   

 This consists of two 3-member teams, The Government or Proposition, who support the Motion, or subject under debate; the other team is the Opposition and their task is to argue against the Motion. The teams always sit opposite each other and take turns to present their case, expand it and attack their opposing team’s argumentation,  and finally summarize the debate and outline one’s team’s strengths. Below we see a team in action, the speaker at the podium, a member of the opposing team requesting to make Point of Information – i.e. to pose a question. Debating may be a nerdy-type activity, but It is decidedly not for wimps!

                                 

I was fortunate to be working with committed colleagues and some of the finest student minds I have ever come across – they even reached the level of World School Debating.

So to answer my question: what role does philosophy play in today’s world?  I got in touch with some of our Debate Club stars, asking what relevance their experience had for them. I want to focus on two respondents who live in different geographic and professional worlds. Vasso Is a Harvard graduate and practises law in London. Here is what she has to say:

‘I definitely think debate helped me professionally. Debating allowed me to train my mind to think of the various aspects of an issue or argument, to anticipate opposing arguments and adapt my strategy accordingly. I think as a litigator today, a big part of my job is evaluating a client’s position, understanding its strengths and weaknesses and assessing the optimal strategy to achieve the best possible result. Debating definitely helped me in that regard!’

Our next star is Evgenia who studied Law at the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki and currently works at the EU Delegation to Mongolia. Here is her opinion:

To be honest, the more I advance in my professional career, the more I realise the value of the skills I learned during the debating years at school. What helps me a lot now is that back then I learned how to logically structure an argument, how to be diplomatic, represent opinions that may not always reflect my personal one, not be nervous when I talk in public, pose the right questions at the right time. All these elements I use now extensively in my everyday work (which involves diplomacy, negotiating, drafting policy content, etc.) . And in the past years when I realized more fully the value of debate, I tried to encourage younger people to join debate clubs if they have them at school. I have already sent to many online materials on how to debate.

I am indebted to these young Hellenic ladies for responding so fully, honestly and graciously.  

I am also so immensely proud of their playing such significant professional roles far from home. They follow in the footsteps of their predecessors, the ancient philosophers, who sought the truth, tried to make sense of the world around them, while greatly contributing to it. Logic lives on!

In my final act of homage to Aristotle, I made a sketch of him which I would like to share with you. The good thing about drawing a non-contemporary is that it’s harder for others to judge whether it is a true likeness or not!                                                

From Doom and Gloom to Beauty and Humour.

 Grounded as most of us are to a certain extent, we really miss meeting up with friends and family, and in that the media in general can play a significant role. On a fairly regular basis I hook up with family in Britain, New Zealand and Sweden, as well as with friends in Brazil, Canada, the USA and Russia – and I feel so much the better of it.

However, no matter how useful the social/media is, there is a lot of rubbish out there. And unkind though this may sound, people who wouldn’t otherwise have access to a platform often confidently spout poorly-expressed, garbled messages or unfounded claims. Only yesterday our local radio station was fielding questions from listeners related to the Covid-19 vaccination in Greece.                                                     

One questions staggered me: she asked whether, if she had tested positive but was asymptomatic, she needed to be vaccinated.

The irony is that there is so much information out there, yet there are so many who remain ill-informed.

 On the same subject, in a closed Facebook group for British residents in Greece, someone began complaining about the authorities suspending vaccination for the 66-74 age group and skipping to the 60-65 group. There followed a string of comments from others denigrating ‘the system’.     

                                                 

The truth is that those in charge are working very hard, continually responding to the ongoing changes caused by the virus. In actual fact, Pfizer vaccines are currently being administered to the 75+ age group while, informed by recent research, they are currently vaccinating only the under-65 group with AstraZeneca. Relevant data is being presented widely on a regular basis. People really need to ensure they are adequately informed before entering into a public diatribe!                                                        

Friends in Moscow told us they had readings of -20oC. Just a touch extreme, but there has been a lot of snow falling recently and we have lots forecast for tonight and tomorrow.

                                              

 So, given the lock-down, white-out, etc. I’ve come up with two antidotes.

1) Beauty 

In our garden yesterday, spring was trying to poke its nose through.      

             

 Prunus is the first plant to offer blooms while an early daffodil makes her shy debut. I chose those two shots as, if you look closely, you can see our neighbour’s fairly recently-acquired bees, busy collecting some pollen. Not much of it or them around these days so a great opportunity before the big freeze hits.

Imagine searching out beauty professionally! That’s exactly what the Romanian photographer, Mihaela Noroc, has done in compiling her Atlas of Beauty. I hope this travels through to reach you. We’ve had quite enough division and denigration these days – let’s go for the superlative!

 

 {Well, it seems my system has uploaded  the visual link but you an access it on : theatlasofbeauty.com             if anything goes wrong - it's well worth the search.}                                         

2) Humour.

 Humour is another factor that can get us through the day unharmed – or unharming!   A British lady Facebooker posted something about having an English passport. This stuck in my craw all day as I paused and considered. Well, you just can’t let that go, can you? So my response had a wee edge to it: I repeated her ‘English passport’ phrase and asked if that meant we Scots had actually been granted independence. And let that be a lesson!!

Finally, this is the response of a German new dad, tired of his wife constantly checking that the baby is okay under his supervision.  It’s classic. By the way, he is a graphic artist! 

                           {This time, no success in uploading, so here's the link :

 https://www.facebook.com/1282180258/posts/10219408834673202/            sorry about that :( } 

 

Sincerely hope these links follow through and that you enjoy them.                      

Stay well, warm and happy!

Researching the Bard's Background : First Degree Burns?

This year, as Burns’ Day approaches, I got to thinking what his work means to me. It covers a wide range of topics and I put some beloved pieces into groupings that made sense to me.

First of all, he was a romantic. Some of his love songs/poems are the most poignant of all. ‘My Love Is Like A Red, Red Rose’ is very well known. Here in Greece it was even incorporated into a whisky advert.

                                              

For me some of the sweetest lines he penned are in Ae Fond Kiss:

Had we never lou’d sae kindly

Had we never lou’d sae blindly

Never lou’d nor never parted

We had ne’er been broken hearted.

Being a country lad, he makes frequent references to nature. In To A Mouse he addresses a wee field mouse, having accidentally ploughed up its nest. He rues this unplanned action and its consequences. His memorable words,

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men  

Gang aft agley

An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain

For promised joy!

are resonant to us since John Steinbeck used them as the title of his novel Of Mice and Men.                                             

Burns was very well-read and was greatly affected by writers and thinkers of his age, in the latter part of the Scottish Renaissance, characterized by great intellectual and scientific accomplishments. Two people who inspired him, and whom he described as ‘two sage philosophers’, were Adam Smith and Thomas Reid. Smith, known for his work The Wealth of Nations on politics and economics, was also a moral philosopher. Smith believed we could fully exercise moral judgment on our own actions only by ‘endeavouring to view them with the eyes of other people.’

Always one to poke fun at the airs and graces adopted by the ‘upper crust’, the bard  has fun in To A Louse describing the cheek of the wee insect climbing among the ribbons, ‘On seeing a louse on a lady’s bonnet in church’. In this stanza the notion expressed is redolent of Smith’s moral stance:

O wad some Power the giftie gie us,

To see oursels as ithers see us!

It wad frae mony a  blunder free us,

An’ foolish notion;

What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us

An’ ev’n devotion!

Burns was aware of John Locke’s liberal ideas as he spoke out for intellectual liberty and tolerance. We can also see the influence of Thomas Reid, philosopher and founder of the Scottish School of Common Sense, for Burns’ spoke the language of the common man. He spoke, too, on behalf of his fellow-man, sometimes in a climate of potential danger.

Burns was clearly putting himself at risk when he wrote the following poem, a clear call to arms against England. In 1792 Thomas Muir, a Glasgow lawyer, was charged with inciting the Scottish people to oppose the government. He was sentenced to be transported to Botany Bay colony in Australia for a 14-year stay.

Despite that, in 1793 Burns wrote Scots Wa Hae, inspired by Robert the Bruce who, at Bannockburn in 1314, fought and maintained Scottish sovereignty from England.

Scots, wha hae wi Wallace bled,

Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,

Welcome tae yer gory bed,

Or tae victorie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lay the proud usurpers low,

Tyrants fall in every foe,

Liberty's in every blow! –

Let us do or dee.

 

To this day, this song speaks to the Scottish soul and has been adopted as anthem of the Scottish National Party.

 Perhaps it’s at social gatherings that the memory of Burns is held most dear. At Burns’ Suppers, held globally in his honour, the Selkirk Grace is said before the traditional haggis dish is sampled. Its words of simplicity, and humanity never fail to move me.                                         

And now for the most universal acknowledgement made to him – though sometimes  people are unaware that he was its creator.  Burns sometimes collected traditional songs, regularized their metre and set them to music. This was the case with "Auld Lang Syne", a poem written by Robert Burns in 1788 and set to the tune of a traditional folk song. A different melodic version is well known in many countries. Traditionally sung at Hogmanay, it is also sung at funerals, graduations, and as a farewell or ending to other occasions. It praises the value of friendship – something our current  climate has made us very aware of.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And days of auld lang syne?

 

For auld lang syne, my dear    (Chorus)
For auld lang syne
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
For days of auld lang syne

 

And there's a hand, my trusty friend
And gie's a hand o' thine
And we'll tak a right gude-willy waught
For auld lang syne

                                      

Burns has always been dear  to my heart.  But while researching who influenced and inspired him, the context in which he wrote, I feel I have more insight into the man and his work. I do hope you have enjoyed this trip as much as I have!

 Happy Burns’ Day to one and all.