Halkidiki Treat

  Our Halkidiki treat with my sister and her husband came just at the right time, giving Z’n’me a welcome respite from the demanding home and garden projects we were involved in. The weather, too, lightened up after a week of regular rain squalls and so we readily enjoyed seeing the Gerakini area in all its glorious verdure. There was also a gloriously gnarled olive tree.

                

   

                               

  There is a real concern that some areas in Greece are being over-fished in terms of tourism. Certainly, it is said that the infrastructures of incredibly popular islands such a Mykonos and Santorini cannot continue to cope with the magnitude of the high season ingress. Thought: will they implode or explode?!In Gerakini there were some signs of this phenomenon. You can see the hotel blocks and lines of recliners and umbrellas stretching a fair distance, though nothing like the claustrophobic extent in some of the Spanish resorts.

             

                   

This was early season so there were few locals and most cars parked around were from Romania or Serbia. And it’s not just Greek resorts that can be inundated now – a couple staying near us had been here for a week in May and now 2 weeks in June – to escape the tourist hordes in their home area of Cornwall.

 Our hotel was the 4* Philoxenia Hotel in the Psakoudia area – a large complex with two pools and lots of recreational facilities and events organized.

                                                

 We particularly enjoyed an evening of music provided by the Thessaloniki band The Beetroots. Their singer had the amazing ability not only to sing the songs well but also to emulate the voice. We could almost believe Elvis and Tom Jones singing to us!

                                             

 We were on a full catering programme so we dutifully staggered to the dining area three times a day – we had completely forgotten what hunger felt like! And the access to booze was unlimited so …… :o

                                                     

 The chef, Marinos Chontrolidis, was exceptional. He produced vast buffets with a great variety of very tasty foods. One evening he even manned a gyro stand that was very popular. Our particular favourites were his moussakas, giant beans in tomato sauce, pasta flora as well as light, not-over-sweet doughnuts. Waiters Aris, Ioanna and Markos were always ready to oblige, smiling and up for a wee chat.

Early  morning a band of cleaners, pool tenders and kitchen staff swept into the hotel keeping the services smoothly efficient. Post-Pilates work-out, I went for a seaside walk in the morning cool on the beach. Sometimes the still slightly sluggish brain was better able to unravel tricky crossword clues there.  After breakfast the pool was only six steps from our room and couldn’t be ignored.

I’ll share with you some of the soothing scenes I recorded to remind me of our great break.

                                                                                        

 

On the radio today they announced that Halkidiki was very busy this year. All the reasonably priced accommodation was booked and all that remained were rooms for rent at 150 euros per night! We were so lucky to go when we did. We’re back refreshed and ready to pick up on home and garden projects.

My final shot –taken through the mosquito screen! – is an early morning one of tranquil time.

                                                   

Doing Democracy.

 In deference to our second round of elections which will take place on June 25^th, I will explore the concept and working of the democratic system.

 When I first came to Greece I remember being confused on being told, ‘Here we don’t have a royal family – we have democracy’ – as if the two were mutually exclusive. On more than one occasion I have heard the term being expressed to mean “I can do what I like’ – only sometimes is it said in fun!

                                               

 We probably are all aware of the definition of democracy rendered by Abraham Lincoln: ‘Democracy is a government of the people, by the people and for the people.’

 A fellow Facebook-user, Pierakis Kimonos, is credited with this description which I really like: ‘Democracy is the freedom to elect your own dictators’.

                                              

 Churchill, too, had a contribution to make on the subject:

Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. 

Ancient Greece clearly must have a say on the matter. Plato states that it was:

 ‘…. a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and un equals alike.’

Quite simply, in a democracy you have the right to vote – you make your mark on some sort of ballot sheet, under a veil of secrecy, and these votes are collected to be counted. But what exactly happens with these statistics for them to be transmuted into a democratically elected government? Are we fully aware of the ins and outs, the complexities of the electoral systems?

There are three main types of electoral system.

1.       Plurality Electoral Systems

This is also known as ‘First Past the Post’.  There is no majority vote required, it is simply that the candidate who receives most votes is considered the winner and gains a seat.  In Great Britain as well in Canada, the United States and India, the ‘First Past the Post’ system is in operation.

 

2.       Proportional Representation Systems

 These are the most widely used in the world. Here the proportion referenced is the percentage of the total votes (the actual number of valid votes cast) that a party receives and    will be equated into the percentage number of seats awarded it in parliament. So if a party wins 40% of the votes cast, then it is awarded 40% of the seats in parliament.

3.       Majority Electoral Systems

This system requires the winner to win over 50% of the votes cast ie 50% +1 vote to win. If this is not achieved in the first round of balloting, then a second election is held with a reduced number of candidates compared to the first electoral round.

Essentially, this is an oversimplified description. In practice, things are much more complex. In Britain different systems are in operation for elections in the two Houses as well as in local elections. Moreover, the age of suffrage in England and Northern Ireland is 18 years, while in Scotland and Wales people of 16 and over are allowed to vote.

 

  In Greece those who have reached their 17^th birthday are allowed to vote. The 300 parliamentary seats were allocated using a ‘reinforced’ proportional representation system from 2004 to 2016. The Syriza government abolished this, thus denying the 50 bonus seats allocated to the first party. The system they introduced was a ‘party-list proportional representation’ which requires a vote share of at least 45% for a party to be declared the winner. This method almost always requires the formation of a coalition government and if this isn’t possible then a second round of elections must be held. This happened in the recent May elections, thus necessitating a second round to be held on June 25^th.

 Since assuming power, the New Democracy Government repealed the Syriza law and a new system will operate on June 25^th. This once again allows for a bonus seat system but on a sliding scale basis: when the first party has a vote share of 25%, 20 seats will be added - up to a maximum of 50 seats for a vote share of 40% and above.                                                                   

 In ancient times, Greek philosophers long contemplated what the ideal state would be. Socrates proposed a totalitarian regime as the ideal one, where the rulers have all been educated in ruling for decades before taking absolute power.

This may sound extreme but he does have a point. It has been said that the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter! It seems that education - for both candidates and voters alike - is a prerequisite for a healthy democracy.

 May we go to the polling station soon as an informed electorate – let’s dignify democracy!

Participating in the Greek Elections.

 And the day came when I could exercise my franchise in the Greek general elections for the first time. Great excitement since it was the first time I was going to vote in years as I had lost my vote in Britain through prolonged absence.

 Here we initially select the party we want and on the selected ballot  sheet, you mark your cross against three of the named candidates there. Now once your ID has been checked against the electoral list for that specific venue, one of the presiding officers hands you a sheaf of papers representing the organisations presenting candidates for selection. There were 36 in all: 27 parties, 8 alliances and 1 independent, so that is one sheaf of paper you’re dealing with! 

 Below you see the proliferation of Communist parties and their respective candidates – just to give you an idea of the political complexity of it all!

                                      

A friend of mine, a Greek lady, said her method of selection was to put a cross against all the lady candidates! Now I must admit to being ready to exercise my selection on similar gender bias criteria, but much to Z’s amusement, I was taking this seriously.  I checked out each candidate’s profile, studying political form, you might say. But two of the lady candidates did not have a readily accessible profile. So that was that – no projection, no selection.

Now at the polling station, I was presented with difficulties: all I had to do at first was select my chosen party, then put a cross against my preferred contenders. But …. I couldn’t find my party paper. :o  One of the crazy options on offer, incidentally, – a Screaming Lord Sutch equivalent – was the KOTES – chickens – party. Their goal is to achieve freedom for smokers!                                               

So there I am, frantically searching among all these papers and I cannot find my party of choice! Just too much of a give-away to go out and ask for the papers for Party X ☹

 On my third shuffle through I find it – at the very end and kind of adhered to the penultimate sheet. So, I speedily place my crosses on it, place it in the envelop and seal it, while jettisoning all the rejected party voting slips into a vast plastic bag. Now they will be recycled, but what a huge waste of paper.

Deed done, I emerge smiling, happy to have done my civic duty. Although the New Democracy party is credited with a ‘landslide victory’ and an ‘earthquake triumph’, it still did not  achieve the majority required to form a government and so on June 25^th we have a second round of elections!

                                  

The 56th IATEFL Conference at Harrogate April '23.

 My last post described our trip to the lovely city of Harrogate and now I’d like to focus on the conference we attended there: that of the International Association of Teachers of English to Foreign Learners. People arrived at the venue from all over the world, often re-establishing contacts from previous such events.                                                   

Two topics I thought interesting were “Practical Critical Thinking Activities for the Language Classroom’ and ‘Motivating Teens to Talk’. Teachers are always grateful for practical tips on methodology and motivation.

The Plenary session on “Workplace English’ shed new light on developments in the domain of language learners within their professional context. The concept of ‘dropping ‘language teachers in to the workplace to deliver a quick language ‘injection’ is no longer considered valid. The language teacher would ideally be a member of a corporate training team of experts and experienced operators responsible for drawing up and presenting an educational program. Trainees are seen as ‘users’ rather than ‘learners’ and their efforts would be assessed by performance outcome rather than isolated indicators. This offered an interesting perspective as to where English for Specific Purposes/ Business English may be heading.

 The next session worthy of note (but not necessarily in a good way! ☹) was entitled ‘Sharing Words and Worlds’ in the context of teaching English to refugees, migrants and asylum seekers. Citing UN statistics showing that in 2022 one hundred million displaced people entered the USA, the speaker  deduced that learning English is vital in establishing place and voice for these learners. She advocated that teachers prepare a Paedagogy of Politics wherein their roles are:

Ally                    to compensate for inequality

Advocate          to stand up for rights

Activist              to be an agent of change.

This did not sit well with me as it echoed the now passe concept of language specialists being ’dropped’ in, this time with an underlying political agenda rather than with a pre-ordained syllabus. Such a case was when at the height of our refugee deluge from Turkey, some NGO personnel in Greece refused to cooperate with government agencies lest their freedom to operate their own policies be curtailed.

                                                     

Now it goes without saying that we want the lot of refugees to be improved, but each country has its own infrastuctures and organisations designed to do that. Surely it’s their prerogative to assess where and to whom the facilities and services that they have available can be best put to use?

The session presenter showed a video clip showing a particular refugee who was describing his personal plight, but he was employing the services of a translator to do that. Later on it transpired that he had been in this English speaking country for ten years! This made me wonder if these resources were being directed to the right person. To be so long in the country and not communicate even at a basic level of English indicated something was not right.  Fellow-delegates near me in the session agreed we were being manipulated into emoting over this individual in a variety of ways and did not join in the standing ovation afforded at session-end. Rather than have our emotional strings pulled, we were ready to consider the many implications that the talk had generated.

Our critical analysis of the talk was confirmed very soon afterwards when we phoned to book a taxi to take us to a local park where we were to meet up with my family. We were told the driver would call us on his arrival at our pick-up point. And so he did. But as we approached the cab, he was reluctant to acknowledge that we were his actual fare. We fast assessed that reasoning with him was well nigh impossible, given his language level was so low. He accepted us only after we suggested calling the client again, and it was the phone ring-tone rather than verbal appeals that saved the day!

                                      

My point? This Bangladeshi man had lived in Yorkshire for 7 years, was a taxi driver whose communicative competence was very low indeed - even with the use of GPS support he was really struggling ….and initially took us to the wrong park. :O AND this was despite the combined efforts of four highly-trained language teaching specialists!!

                                                               

 Yes, we felt heart-sorry for him. But, yes, as clients we could also see that, even after all this time, his conversational abilities did not match the demands of his job.

 I guess it was a case of cabbies for courses.

To Harrogate for the IATEFL Conference.

 Written in very small letters, but a nonetheless genuine greeting: Harrogate Welcomes You.

                                                   

And, indeed, on our first day there, this beautiful city is bathed in warm, morning light as seen from our 7^th floor bedroom window at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.  Ever the linguist : why the 'e' in 'Crowne''??                                                     

Here are the lady buds who have travelled from Greece to attend the IATEFL Conference – an excellent reason for a stomp to Britland. The additional member to the group, standing next to me, is Christina, currently teaching and studying for her doctorate at the University of Central Lancashire. I attended her excellent presentation (more on that later!) and simply had to introduce her into our Greek community!                                                   

Here are Angeliki and I hobnobbing with our Patron, Professor David Crystal. Sadly, this was to be his last IATEFL conference as he’s retiring from these duties. He will be sadly missed – our warm, modest giant of a man and a linguist!                                                     

But we had to take full advantage of the grand weather and we did some sight-seeing. Below you can see some of the beautiful old stone buildings, traditional sweet shops and tea-rooms with vibrant plashes of spring flower-beds – so charming!                                       

It was also a great opportunity to have a family meet-up. Below we see my sister and her husband, along with the lady buds, sampling some delicacies at the Jinnah restaurant with its authentic Kashmiri cuisine. We all agreed their food was excellent and their family-size nan bread, impaled on a sword-like instrument, had us all tearing off large tasty chunks!!                                                                  

                                     
 Here we are: two intrepid orienteerers map-reading at the huge Harlow Carr Royal Horticultural Society Gardens. Here we are to meet up with my brother, his wife, their daughter and her two little ’uns. This was a wonderful place for them to run around to their hearts’ content, while we made more sedate circuits, savouring the flower displays.                                              

Mission accomplished – we all had tea together and posed for a shot for the family album. Callum seems less enthusiastic about the photo shoot – good to capture moments like that😊!                                      

Spider Silk

 A bout of cleaning in December had me consider the spider and the bad press it can have.  Today I’d like to focus more on the web itself. Incidentally, isn’t it strange that what we clean away we call ‘cobwebs’ and is considered kind of creepy and dirty? However, in terms of etymology, the spider web and cobweb are the same: the word ‘coppe’ being an ancient Dutch word for ‘spider’.

                                    

Originally the spider produced silk to protect its own body and its eggs – below you can see a cocoon containing the eggs which are covered by the sticky silk. Then things progressed and silk became a hunting device.                                             

    

In fact, spiders can produce different types of silk: non-sticky for construction purposes, sticky for trapping prey and a finer silk for wrapping it up. Below we see a hapless victim, this time in a non-protective cocoon!                                         

The spider’s padded feet and hairy legs cleverly stop it getting entangled in its own trap.

This all seems to be very efficient, but you can imagine how much of the spider’s energy and protein stores are used up in silk production. In addition, the hunting web has a shelf life as in time it loses its stickiness and, thus, its efficiency in entrapment. To offset these disadvantages, the spider will eat its own web on a daily basis, thereby recycling these proteins!  

The properties of this fine thread have long been admired. In terms of its strength, each fibre, a thousand times thinner than a strand of human hair, is made of thousands of nanostrands. Yet, this substance has more tensile strength than the same weight of steel and is also more elastic.

  The diagram below demonstrates how man learns from and copies its structural design.

                                  

 But its healing properties have also been acknowledged since ancient times.

Greeks and Romans are known to have used spider webs to treat soldiers’ wounds. They would first clean wounds with honey and vinegar, and then cover them with balled-up spider web. Now we know that it is rich in vitamin K, a powerful coagulant.

The medicinal use of spider webs inspired scientists in England to create synthetic silk, which could potentially be used in dressings to treat diabetic wounds, thanks to its antibiotic qualities. Researchers are also studying how spider silk can help treat burns. Other medicinal uses of such synthetic proteins are in the production for dressings and surgical sutures.                                   

Nor does it require a stretch of the imagination to appreciate where the concept of the world wide web originated from. How else could I communicate my thoughts to you out there?

                                  

A Special Week-end!

 Three dear ladybuds did us the great honour of coming up from Athens to see us. Hot tea and warm scones awaited them, as the mountains had been snow—dusted the day before their arrival.  That day the weather was dull, damp and dreich! ☹

 After lunch we headed to paint the city centre whatever colour took our fancy! Our centrally located air b’n’b flat in Mitropoleos welcomed us with a warm wave of heat – wonderful!

 In the evening we wandered around the Ladhadhika area.  Near the port, this area used to be full of oil warehouses …. and red lights. Now it is the epicentre of more modest night life! Our restaurant of choice was Greco Restaurant in that it gained three points over the others: it had no dudes touting for custom outside, had lovely traditional-like decor and was frequented by locals – always a good sign!  We enjoyed speedy service, excellent food and wine and a great group of musicians who played songs of old, well-loved  composers/singers - Tsitsanis, Chiotis, Kouyoumtzi, Papazoglou. At around 3am young people still thronged the streets, ready to dance the night ‘right through’, to borrow a phrase from a Zabetas song!                                               

      

                                                                            

The next morning sunshine awoke us – excellent conditions for sightseeing. Task 1: to seek out a nearby recommended bougatsa shop.  Outside folks were queuing– again a good sign, we thought. Sitting on the sea front  directly opposite a magnificent snow-capped Olympos, sipping our coffee  - best breakfast view ever. Sadly, the bougatsa – we had cheese, meat and cream fillings – did not live up to expectations – the special pastry being really quite oily. ☹

In Aristotle Square, we admired its centre-piece: the recently renovated Electra Palace Hotel.                                                            

We appreciated old buildings too, like the Harara Hamam building in the Loudhadhika area – the flower market. Newly opened, it offers massage services, snacks and drinks – next time!!

                                                       

A lick of brightly coloured paint vamps the appearance of old tenement blocks in Aghia Sophia Square, while the black statue of the Bishop Chrisostomos of Smyrni looks on approvingly.

                                                           

We had to visit the newly-constructed Modiano Market, a huge enclosed area on the old market site. Retaining part of the old spirit, its modern stalls offer the best of Greek produce.

                      

       

                                              

Below a young girl delicately fills the famous syruped, filo pastry horns with crème patisserie. They are a must for tourists to sample or take home as delicious gift:  trigona panoramatos.             

                                                                                   

The store below honours the dear-departed local composer/singer Nikos Papazoglou whose music seems to appeal to every generation of Greeks.                                                              

 All too soon it was time to sit around the table before the ladies set off for the airport.  This time we went to an old haunt of mine: Ta Koumparakia - The Brothers-in Law - on Egnatia, near the Arch of Galerios. Fortunately, as for the Greco, we had booked a table – these popular venues fill up fast. Siblings Vicky and Christos were working flat out to meet the demand and their food was superb. Sitting outdoors beside the sunken church with a tree in full pink blossom, that was a beautiful experience to cherish.

Thank you, ladies, for making the weekend so special!

                                                  

And just in case you were wondering: the colour we painted Thessaloniki was …… tartan!!