Tag: Greece

A Second Chance

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Lockdown 2.0 is coming. France and German signed up last week. Athens will this week. England will be joining the club in the coming days. Scotland is persevering with it’s tier system instead with no regions currently in tier four and lockdown but it’s likely a watch this space thing. Politically if Scotland’s approach doesn’t work it will have a lasting effect on the Scottish elections in May next year but equally that is a long time in politics. As this most remarkable of years has shown; a lot of the unexpected can happen in a short space of time. Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish First Minister, met with Micheal Gove the other day, along with the leaders of Wales and Northern Ireland to discuss the differing approaches and the potential financial aid necessary. He suggesting the government were listening and would give it some thought. Gove the ultimate in parodies, giving the perfect non-committal politician response. Issues have started to arise as it appears funding to prop up jobs UK-wide only seems to be on offer when the English in the south-east start to find themselves in need. The Tory government propping up their heartlands. It is an easy accusation to make but equally a very believable one on which they have form.

How then are people planning on experiencing these lockdowns. Boris Johnson says it’ll be only for four weeks but the previous one was only supposed to be three weeks and it ended up being three months. If people living in the Arctic circle can not just endure but actively enjoy a few months of winter darkness then surely we in the UK can survive some bleak skies for a bit. Apparently one method they have for remaining happy in these long winters is to find excitement in the things they can do instead which they can’t in summer months. They ski, they make fires, they go for night walks, they do indoor things. In Scotland because the weather can be so volatile it has always felt necessary to make the most of good weather and complete outdoor tasks, or even just enjoy the outdoors. When it’s raining and cold we do the jobs we have put off inside the house. It may not be the most exciting prospect but it creates a wealth of opportunities. With many having already experienced one lockdown in Spring they will be either daunted and fatigued by the prospect of a second or excited at being even better at their second attempt. What didn’t we get to learn in the first one, what didn’t we manage to watch on Netflix, what books didn’t we manage to get through and so on. Modern life has meant people rarely get to spend lengthy periods of time with themselves but it is crucial in our self-development as people. Aren’t we lucky we get a second roll of the dice. A hard six perhaps? What a glorious opportunity we have.

Dare To Dream Naysayer

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Here is something to amuse you on this cold November morning while you suffer from your Full Moon Halloween induced hangover. It turns out there is such a thing as linesman watch. That probably makes no sense to you, and for those who don’t know, a linesman is the person who runs along the touchline in either football, rugby or such thing and indicates whether the ball is out. Bizarrely it turns out one has become a celebrity for all the right reason recently, or at least the amusing reasons. Scottish football team Inverness Caledonian Thistle decided to replace human operated cameras with AI ones but it backfired when the AI system mistook the linesman’s bald head for the football. Only in Scotland.

https://youtu.be/9zoJP2FkpgU

While AI may stoke the fear of Terminator in you we discover the more amusing realities of a technology evidently still in it’s infancy. It is clear though how much technology is going to affect the way we work and the jobs we have. I’m no luddite, although I am cautious, but I do believe technology has the potential to set us free. It’s not work that’ll do this, it’s quite the opposite. Mass employment is not the answer but neither is capitalism’s quest for infinite profit. It offers up the possibility that we will likely in the next ten years either have to create an entire new sector of work, likely more than one, or find a way to allow people to work less and yet keep this standard of living.

It’s not impossible for people for work four or five hours a day, sharing what jobs remain. It would mean the entire redrawing of society as it would be impossible for people to continue to hoard the wealth. It would likely mean the unthinkable that things would need to be shared at little, less profits would have to be made. Maybe the concept of a profit driven society would be replaced with a people centre one. Perhaps I’m some kind of utopian idealist dreamer but we need dreams to make anything previously thought impossible possible. Throughout history the previously impossible has been made possible. Humans have proved in the past they are capable of compassion, they don’t only want to screw each over. No extreme one way or another is either desirable or realistic but perhaps a redrawing of the balance is about due. We are very capable. Don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise, it’s likely not in their benefit or they simply have no imagination. Let’s start imagining.

Scuba Diving

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Thirteen years ago when I was but a twenty-one year old child, in a fit of decisive madness I did my PADI Open Water scuba diving course. This was during a six week trip through Thailand with a friend on the island of Koh Tao. It was good fun but despite getting the certificate the truth is we were probably too drunk when not doing the diving to have the mental capacity to remember anything. What I took from it though was that I was far happier below the surface of the water than I am on top of it. There is a vulnerability perhaps that disappears when you have a tank of air but more so you can see around you and the unknown becomes slightly less so.

There are still dangers, a rather aggressive and territorial triggerfish threateningly swam between my friends legs and when the instructor pointed this out, much to his consternation us idiots thought he was suggesting we go take a look at the lovely fishy. A few years later when I lived in Ibiza my boss was also a dive instructor and he took me out on a refresher dive. I enjoyed diving generally but having spent a majority of the last ten years as a barefoot traveller climbing in supermarket bins for food, diving has simply been cost prohibitive. Today though, for the first time in ten years I’m going diving.

…nine hours later…

I wouldn’t go as far as saying that was fun but I enjoyed it. Sometimes endured it but on the whole enjoyed it. I still struggle a little with equalising and getting my buoyancy right was a continual losing battle but it’s just something that needs a little practise. Ultimately with diving it’s one of those things that you can get better at but the secret is that if or when something happens you just need to avoid panicking. Admittedly making all these statements in four metres of water is one thing and thirty metres deep as you suddenly realise you’ve got a problem with your air and you stuck inside the wreck of some Spanish galleon would be an entirely different thing.

I don’t totally get off on diving but that’s partly because I’m still not very good at it and I do struggle to enjoy the sensation of salt water in my nose and mouth. Being Scottish I always like to believe sea water is to be appreciated from something I can stand on, and not the seabed. Saying that you do feel good after you’ve spent a bit of time in it and the longer around it, the more you want to get in. I imagine living beside the sea for a year and swimming everyday would have a dramatic affect on your outlook in that sense. Anyway, it appears I went and agreed to do my Advanced Open Water this coming week before I return to Scotland so I must have got something out of today.

A Day Off

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I had one of those days today. In a good way. I know that sentence has connotations but I actually enjoyed myself. Last night I discovered a trip I had half planned wasn’t going to happen. I had been speaking with someone about helping them sail from Greece to the Canary Islands but he changed his route and is already in Italy. It’s not the end of the world but I had invested a certain amount of energy in this as something to do and it was disappointing for it not to happen. In this day and age of Covid-19, being able to do many things is a bit of a struggle so I was pretty pleased to have found myself on such an interesting trip to a place I had yet to visit.

One thing that really excited me was that I planned on writing these and having them revolve around the sailing trip. I’m not exactly sure how but I know when I do eventually cross the Atlantic at some point I would like to keep a log of sorts on the psychological affects of being at sea for so long. That is a rough idea and I doubt it would be exactly like that as I go off on a tangent or find myself with so little to talk about I end up writing a whole piece on a game of cards or a dolphin. That would be a psychological thing I guess but still, sailing across an ocean is from what I hear a far less exciting thing than people imagine it would be. From here to Spain could have been a test run on that to a degree but alas.

Today then I woke up and decided it would be a good day to have a holiday. I did no boat work and went for a drive. I stopped, I drove, I got a coffee, I got a beer, I swam a little, I sat by the sea. I basically enjoyed myself. Despite being in Greece for a month I have been on slight work mode most of the time and I realised today I need to know when to just have a complete day off. It also means when I have days on I need to be a little more disciplined and efficient as allowing jobs to just drag on is enough to make anyone mad.

What next then. Well I don’t really know. I’m not sure I’m ready to step away from the beach and the sun but it’s seemingly the worst time ever to be travelling around, it’s also probably the worst time ever to be in the UK though so that doesn’t help. Come January I may need to start saving my visa days in the EU too so it looks like I may just have to return to the UK. I know nobody has any sympathy for me and I don’t blame you. We all find things to be frustrated about but in truth I know I’ll just do something else. It’s not what you’re doing but whether you’re making the most out of what you’re doing I guess. I’m sure there’s some wisdom in there somewhere.

BR#12 – The Fratricides

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The is something about literature that allows us to understand in a way our eyes cannot always. Perhaps it simply allows us to first see what is possible to understand, doing the hard work for the eyes and mind to follow. When in foreign lands I enjoy reading books by native authors or sometimes those by foreigners set in such places. The foreigners can frustrate as they show they have learnt another version of a place to you but this can be important to realise there are more versions than your own. Natives of the land you are in though will always understand their own people in a way you simply cannot. You only have a formative childhood once, an adult visitor will never be able to truly replicate such a learning experience and understand a people as their own. As I am in Greece then I shall read something Greek. While it is easy to fall for the classics, two thousand years later the Greeks are a very different people and with that comes a necessity to understand now and not then.

Nikos Kazantzakis is probably most famous for Zorba The Greek and The Last Temptation Of Christ, at least with non-Greek readers and likely because films were made of the two in English. The Fratricides deals with the Greek Civil War which took place almost directly after the Second World War between the Communists and the Fascists – the Redhoods and the Blackhoods. It follows the fighting over a small miserable village in the mountains of Epirus and revolves around the local Priest Father Yanaros stuck in the middle. He chooses to be neither red nor black and instead laments the killing of all. In his eyes we are all brothers. It is an indictment of both sides as they destroy Greece in the name of Greece and for Greece, as well as an indictment of the Greek Orthodox Church for the role they played and their heartless corruption.

Nobody is a winner in a war which is being fought for an illusion, fought for someone else’s power. It is ultimately an intense and sad story in which unsurprisingly everyone loses and everyone, including Father Yanaros, is broken and fallible in someway or another. He may be incorruptible but he too makes mistakes. Kazantzakis exposes the grim realities of war and especially civil war, the utterly pointless and divisive nature of such beasts. He deals with the real social and religious problems of the time with a deep understanding of both. Importantly while this may be set seventy years ago, if such issues are resolved through violence and hate, he makes it clear they are never resolved. Something modern generations could learn from and continue not to. It may not be from ancient times but like those it continues in what feels like another chapter in the archetype Greek story, that of the never-ending tragedy of life.

Procrastinating, Corruption, Meritocracy and Showering In The Rain

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Yesterday I had a little ramble about nothing at all and tonight may just evolve into similar. There are times when I can’t think of anything and they turn into some of my favourite pieces and other times when well, they don’t. I contemplated procrastinating a little more but it’s already after nine o’clock at night and this thing can’t be allowed to drag itself out too late. That and I had a quick moment of trying to be present and realising life is about one task at a time. I think I had been watching something random or a few random things which involved beautiful people or successful people and realised they probably don’t procrastinate. Or maybe they do they’re just really good at what they do in between. One day at a time though and one step at a time. We won’t achieve these anxiety inducing dreams any other way.

Politics is always an easy one to bring up, which I’ve said already I imagine. It appears a few MPs and The Good Law Project have decided to take legal action on the Government over their awarding of contracts during the Covid-19 crisis. Anyone who simply watches the mainstream media news cycle will be completely unaware of this but it turns out they’ve been spaffing a lot of tax payers money up against the wall awarding contracts to their mates, or companies with links to their mates. Quite often these companies have little expertise in the area they get the contract and in most cases they’ve completely messed up whatever it was they were supposed to be doing. For an obvious example think of the test and trace app which in itself would result in people going to jail if we didn’t live in such a corrupt society.

Talking of meritocracy I was listen to a podcast tonight called The Partially Examined Life which I’ve only recently discovered and haven’t listened to enough to give too much of an opinion. It was their discussion on The Graduate which led me to watch it the other day. I never got through the whole podcast tonight as I finished cooking my dinner and preferred to watch an episode of something crap instead but they were discussing and interviewing the author of On The Tyranny Of Merit: What’s Become Of The Common Good – Micheal Sandel. It was reasonably interesting but I had heard some of the ideas before; namely that it can result in those at the top lacking empathy as they believe they have achieved what they achieve purely through their own ability which is rarely ever the case and that it can lead to a disconnection between them and those deemed unsuccessful. It is idealistic in that it is not cohesive with modern society. He discussed about in relation to our polarised politics, or more precisely America’s but it relates to the Brits too. Basically as the title suggests he’s totally against it. I missed bits as I was distracted by cooking and also didn’t listen to it all but as I said it’s not the first time I’ve heard this and it’s an idea I have sympathy for.

Where I am in Greece is currently enduring what is apparently day one of five days worth of storms. I just had a rain shower which is always a pleasure and not one I get to experience enough. I remember dancing around in monsoon rains in India, the locals thought I was completely mad. I’m right in front of the yard security cameras with the boat so decided against taking my undies off although I doubt anyone would ever be watching. I was a little concerned about the lightning tonight as it only seems to be a couple of miles away but I’m banking on all the boat masts getting it before me. Just in case I’m unlucky though it’s also a good reason to keep the undies on, it seems to be a slightly more dignified way to go out for some reason. Isn’t human conditioning an interesting barrels of intricacies.

A Covid Ramble

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Well it appears with winter on the horizon the world is settling for a miserable one. If we thought enduring lockdown while Britain basked in what was likely the warmest April and May on record was hard just wait until we hit January and the recently lifted Christmas restrictions are firmly smashed back into place. Thankfully I’m not in the UK now, in Greece you wouldn’t even imagine there was a virus, not where I am anyway. They’re handling it the most Greek way possible and just getting on with things. Saying that despite my ridiculously ignorant attempt at national stereotypes when they did have a lockdown it was a hard one apparently. It allowed them to open up for the summer and despite a few flair ups wherever the Brits like to holiday, the country has remained reasonably virus free. Last weekend in Thessaloniki the guy working in the hostel told me Thessaloniki had about five cases a day and Athens had two hundred. I think I may have mentioned that at the time but looking at the rest of the rates around Europe, well into the thousands, that is quite remarkable.

In that knowledge leaving this country, which I’m likely to do, seems a little silly. It’s like seeing prison and deciding you would like to go spend some time there. I never fully experienced lockdown the last time because I was working delivering bread and being clapped every Thursday like a hero. This time I would be going full power and disappearing for a couple of months. At least I may find the time to read those books I had for so long complained I was too busy for. Sounds quite exciting. I might study something too. There is so much to study. Look at me getting all excited about something everyone else is dreading. In truth I am too I’m just not sure what I’ll be experiencing enough to dread it.

I can’t wait to read the literature that people put out in a few years about this time. There will likely by films or television series in 2021. Perhaps the aftermath will be more of an interesting topic. Stories set during lockdown would likely focus on the psychological elements of the experience, but events after would likely be either on human versions of flowers opening up in Spring or will be about system change as Brexit flounders, the economy crashes and people overthrow the government and create peoples assemblies.

Either that or I’ll just be gloating about how I finally put in that application for Irish citizenship. Twelve to eighteen months and then probably another one or two for me to get off my arse and apply for the passport. That’ll be it. I give up on the Scots for being the only country in history suffering from Stockholm Syndrome bad enough to reject independence and the Brits for being a typical version of a people incapable of accepting their glorious history of domination and empire is now nothing but an illusion. If it were ever anything else. Fuck it the Irish seem like they’re having fun, I’ll go see what they have to say for themselves. Apparently too Covid rates below the border in the Republic are a fraction of those in the British controlled North. Well that’s telling. Handling it well are you Boris. I hope history is harsh on you.

An Ancient Foe

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The humble mosquito. What a remarkable creature. I once made a deal with them on an infested coach journey in Thailand that if they left me alone I would them. It wasn’t until three years later when I was in Spain that I broke the terms they had stuck to. Ten years later and the war has become one of attrition, both sides too caught up in their base instinct for survival.

I find them fascinating creatures. They have brains and they can sense, smell and see. They are attracted to the carbon dioxide we emit as well as the heat of our bodies. I discovered a long time ago that having a cold shower stops them coming so much. Them coming being hunting of course. We are hunted. They may be small but they hunt us. I wonder if they hunt other animals. I assume so, they can’t just be after us even though we do have such easily accessible and soft skin. Yet they keep coming even after we have killed them and I imagine other animals would be far worse at swatting them. They may have brains but they must be small. Saying that they’re sneaky and they can get places you can’t imagine possible. Tonight like the last few nights, despite closing everything there always seems to be more. I wonder if they come in during the day and just wait.

When I lived in Athens I had a net around my bed. I couldn’t have survived without it and wondered how my flatmates who didn’t could sleep while also having their window open because of the heat. My wall was splattered with dead mosquitoes. It was my trophy wall I like to believe was a warning to others. It didn’t seem to work. That old familiar buzzing in the ear. Yet there’s never anything there when you turn around or turn on the light. Was I imagining it? Am I going mad? Yet we eventually see them and those ancient instincts rise to the surface as our eyes lock on the target and the battle begins. The traditional hand clap or if patient enough a wall slap.

When I lived in Lesvos the ceiling to my room was so high they worked out they could just hide up there and they would be safe. Eventually my old school changing room training kicked in and I realised I could whip the ceiling with my towel. When in Nepal I would pull my sheet up to my head and when I could hear them close would slap the side of my head to get them. While this was ridiculous for the obvious reasons it wasn’t until one day I forced one deep into my ear by the force of the air. The beating of it’s tiny wings like a marching band on my ear drum. The only solution being to pour water in and drown it. The next day in the lake it finally washed free.

The real moment of truth comes when they land on you. Do you quickly go for the kill or do you play the long game. The mosquito lands on your arm, it’s still looking around unsure whether it is safe to proceed. Rubbing it’s back legs together in delight as it eyes up it’s meal. So you wait. It tentatively tests the surface, look close enough and you can see it jabbing around with it’s microscopic needle for the perfect spot. You watch and you wait. Even once it has found where it will eat and has made it’s incision you still wait. Let it get those first mouthfuls of your blood. Let it relax. But still wait. Only once it has had it’s second taste, only once it has become docile and drunk on you do you reclaim what is yours with ease.

Yet I respect them. They keep coming. They’re like the ultimate predator, or they would be if you viewed them all in their entirety as one sentient being. Because they seem that way sometimes. It seems sometimes like all those years ago I broke a deal with that one sentient being and am destined to spend eternity paying off the reparations for my treachery. Well so be it. Let the war go on. We have nothing left to us now anyway but our base instincts. Why not let them play out.

The Mountaintop Party

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Well Thessaloniki was fun. I met up with my mate, met his family and reconnected which makes the trip worth it alone. It was touch and go for a bit as someone at his work tested positive for this virus but he was tested that same day I arrived and came back negative. It still seems bizarre to not be able to see people without worrying about this illness. We can add that to the long list of things Covid has affected. As well as that, as yesterdays post made clear, I went partying on Saturday night with two people from the hostel.

It was a small party at the top of a hill somewhere outside of Thessaloniki. We were so high that we could see the clouds below us in the morning. We got there in a taxi by following a guy we met in a bar. These types of parties are notoriously difficult to find and I felt a little sorry for the driver as he wasn’t expecting a trip on dirt roads up a mountain. He was also not keen on leaving us randomly in the middle of nowhere up there at two o’clock at night. We danced and had fun, and everything that is involved in such events. In the morning as the sun rose I saw the scene around me and the most remarkable set of people. It was like everyone who couldn’t normally be free had turned up and danced away in the dark. There was no one set type of person and probably about two hundred people so it was small. I’ve avoided too much detail but I spent as much time fascinatingly people watching once the sky was lit up as I did dancing and running around. These were not your average colourful trance festival people but it seemed more like the hardcore inner circle.

As the light came, the water ran out. With our dry mouths we attempted to get down the mountain before it got too hot. One of my new friends needed considerable convincing we were real but eventually we persuaded her to come with us and down the mountain. If we had waited much longer and without any liquid in that heat we would have missed all the potential lifts down and suffered under the Greek sun. Genuinely it felt quite serious at one point but we found someone who got us back. An accident on the small roads back made us follow a farmer over the most random series of dirt track back roads but eventually we reached Thessaloniki and our beds. It was intense and utterly memorable. I had fancied a party like that for a while especially after such a long time in lockdown and any real excitement. If you’re going to do it then do it properly it would seem.

Thessaloniki

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Ah Greece how much I enjoy your company. It turns out my hermit life at the edge of a boat yard in Preveza is not representative of my usual time here. When with friends it wouldn’t be a crazy statement to suggest there is nowhere better. I’m probably thinking all this at this level of joy because I’ve just been off for ‘lunch’ and that means eating and drinking and beginning at 4pm. While there may be elements of Greek life I struggle with – usually anything outside of the pleasure factor – this is one of my favourite things in the world. The food is usually simple but good quality and that really is the secret. The beer doesn’t have the depth that we have back home but it’s usually hot and the beer refreshes so it is perfect. The wine would be the same. It really is good to catch up with old friends. It makes it hard to leave but maybe being able to leave and then come back is the secret I’ve missed all this time.

It’s a nice place Thessaloniki. Greece’s second city with a population a fifth of the capital and equal the Birmingham’s, it doesn’t feel like a city in the way either of those do. More relaxed, and while there are hectic spots you can escape them. Athens always felt constant, although maybe I just didn’t look hard enough. Last night I wandered around the streets a little, had a beer on the street and realised I was still doing the same thing I was doing when I was twenty-four. Ten years later drinking on the street still has its pleasures but there are moments I feel a little old for it. That is probably because I am a little old for it. Still it’s always good to know I can.

I’m going out for a beer now with some folk from my hostel. I am still twenty-four staying in youth hostel dorms yes. My friend who acts his age has gone back with the family to do father things. There are elements I envy about such a life but there are still many I enjoy about mine. Being able to go out for a beer is certainly one of them. So that’s what I shall do.