slenderbeak: The Good Shepherd and the Bad Shepherd - A Little ...

slenderbeak: The Good Shepherd and the Bad Shepherd - A Little ...: On a fine, balmy late September evening I was sitting on the veranda with two friends when a shepherd appeared silently at the garden railin...

The Good Shepherd and the Bad Shepherd - A Little Tale from Kefalonia

On a fine, balmy late September evening I was sitting on the veranda with two friends when a shepherd appeared silently at the garden railings. His flock were milling around under the big olive tree across the road, some straying onto the road in different directions. He didn't seem to care about gathering them in. He asked for coffee twice. We said no twice but offered water. He grudgingly accepted. After drinking the water he handed the glass back through the railings without saying thank-you and turned. What I heard come out of his mouth I can only describe as a gurgling sound like coffee percolating from his lips - a private language spoken only between shepherd and sheep. He swiped his staff down on one of his flock and they started crowding away down the hill.

On the day of the big storm here I had seen the same shepherd herding his sheep up the hill outside my house. The road was a running river. I heard their little clinking bells and looking out my window, saw them trotting ankle deep in the water. I jumped in surprise when I noticed the shepherd standing still under a large umbrella on the opposite side of the road. I had never associated shepherds with having things like umbrellas. It unnerved me because his gaze was so focussed on my house

When I told Vangelis about him he explained that there were two shepherds in our village, one good, (καλος) and one bad (κακος). The bad one is the one I have described; the good one is Albanian. This good shepherd has a very old car without number plates. He is very poor and lives with his family in one of the semi-derelict buildings that were built many years ago to house the school teachers in a nearby village. He never bothers anyone or asks for anything. He just looks after his sheep and his family, in that order.

To Vangelis this is all black and white but for me? It has haunted me. Our village is populated with Siemens cookers and Samsung televisions, Fiat cars and wifi but we only have two types of shepherd.

slenderbeak: Greece - Primal Fear

slenderbeak: Greece - Primal Fear: IN case you have been hibernating or in some remote part of the world where there is no internet or newspapers you will have heard that the...

Greece - Primal Fear

IN case you have been hibernating or in some remote part of the world where there is no internet or newspapers you will have heard that there is a very important referendum in Greece on Sunday.
Talking to people here over the last few days it emerges that the Samaras, New Democracy camp claim they have 70% of the Yes vote in Sunday's referendum. The Syriza Left predict a 54% No vote and around 40% Yes. The people I have spoken to are a cross section of plumbers, electricians, bus drivers, retired seaman, shopkeepers, fire engine driver, housewife, holiday apartment owners, students.

When Tsipras spoke to the country recently he said something that stayed in my head. His words were to the effect that the only thing Greeks have to fear is fear itself. This will be tested on Sunday. I sense there are plenty of Greeks who will vote Yes out of fear of the unknown. They may not really believe in their Yes vote but they will cross their ballot paper that way because they believe there is some safety being within Europe. Fear of the unknown, fear of what is foreign is called xenophobia, a Greek word of course. Sometimes we are our own worst enemies.

The No vote encompasses a myriad of voices who disagree on many issues but they understand that a No vote will send a clear message to the creditors, bankers, eurogroup but also to their supporters in other southern European countries such as Spain that they will not stand idle to be humiliated and dictated to by the Eurogroup bullies. Even the German parliament has Hellenophiles who urge an end to the punishment of the Greek people because they had the audacity to elect a Left wing government and say no to further austerity.

Whatever you think of the Syriza government now is not the time to cut them down in their prime. What a short chance, what impatience it is to suggest their time is up. For what? To elect another Party of grey suited men (with ties) who will do the bidding of any eurogroup as long as they are 'allowed' to 'stay' in Europe. As if Greece was going to be uprooted and replanted in some other part of the world.

Having said this I admit to a fear. It is the fear that the vote will be Yes and it will open the way for more hardship, more suicides, less available medicines and quite likely a return of Samaras. That's what he is planning. That's why he is courting favour with the likes of Junker.

Fear is primal. We must scream it away.

slenderbeak: What Is To Be Done About English Politics?

slenderbeak: What Is To Be Done About English Politics?: People keep adding more information to the overflowing pot. We read avidly, to understand more. But do we? Is our search for greater unders...

What Is To Be Done About English Politics?

People keep adding more information to the overflowing pot. We read avidly, to understand more. But do we? Is our search for greater understanding just a disaffection that infects us all sooner or later? I'm on the Left politically, have been since I was fifteen. Why have we just chosen to punish ourselves with another five years of Tory government?

Yes, we can argue that the three Party, first past the post system is unfair and explain some of it that way but what about those who voted Tory who are not Tory bigots, who didn't go to Eton, who work in ordinary jobs with average wages that don't allow them to get a mortgage or even pay the rent? Or those without jobs at all? Maybe they are just 'aspirational.' They want better things for themselves and their children and they believe they have more chance of getting these if they vote Tory rather than Labour or Lib Dem. Maybe they want to be like David and Samantha.

It's difficult for people who have a comfortable life (not luxurious, forget them), just comfortable, to believe, let alone understand how impoverished some of the UK population has become, how food banks are necessary for a growing number of people. If you live in a leafy suburb or a village it can be like hearing about a completely different world and certainly if your circle of friends doesn't include anyone who is struggling then you may have cast your vote for the bigots. Others will have voted UKIP but let's leave those aside because they're not in government and Farage didn't even get elected in South Thanet. I'm from South East Kent, near Dover. I get embarrassed every time UKIP and immigration is on Southern news. I know not everyone in my home area is a UKIP voter but still...

So, the Tory vote. Another thought that comes to mind is that the English, on the whole, don't particularly embrace change. We are still too deferential towards the political establishment. Some people voted Tory because they believed a change in government would be worse than staying with the devil they knew. (In saying this I'm in no way writing off the English working classes. I'm one of them). But we need to get rid of our timidity when faced with laws that don't serve our interests or when a government threatens to take away such laws that do protect our interests. We allowed the Thatcher government to take away one of the most important trade union rights with the 1982 Trade Union Reform Act. We went from standing on the picket lines in solidarity with other workers to standing in police stations because we had contravened the new law. Without solidarity across industries workers are ripe pickings for an anti trade union government like this one. Laws present a huge barrier to the English. We respect the law even when we know deep down it's a rotten one and has been introduced to disable us in our opposition. Trade union leaders have a lot to answer for here. Why aren't they more apparent, outspoken, obviously going all out to defend their members and to recruit new ones? Where are the Arthur Scargills of today?

Here, in Greece people have a less deferential attitude. You may say 'and look where that's got them.' but that would be missing the point big time. There is a courageous spirit here that goes all the way. A passion that drives. A people who were brave enough to take a conscious risk by voting for SYRIZA. And don't imagine for a moment that all those voters believe that SYRIZA alone can solve the Greek monetary crisis (which isn't of their making anyway). Many of them have huge reservations about the government and what it's trying to do. Among those who voted for this coalition, some of whom are MPs, are people who believe Greece should never have entered the Euro. Despite this they said οχι to the Samaras devil.

Even if we had voted in a Labour government (I did vote Labour without illusions) that would not have been a government of the Left. Miliband is not a radical. A shame he didn't continue in the footsteps of his late father. So, some people will have refused to vote Labour because they knew that they would not get a Left government if they did. Others were afraid of the opposite. For some weird reason they believed Miliband represented Left-wing scary. He hadn't convinced the Left of his credentials and he hadn't convinced the Middle and Right that he was harmless. So in the end he achieved nothing and Labour is in a wilderness.

We could try entrism again. In the 1970s some people joined the Labour Party to radicalise it from within. If we believe power comes from the bottom up then this is one way of doing it. More recently we tried forming alternative Parties that would appeal to a wide electorate. For a while it looked like Respect was getting somewhere but then the inevitable cracks started appearing and now even George Galloway has lost his seat. In the words of Lenin: 'What is to be Done?'

slenderbeak: A Writer's Lament

slenderbeak: A Writer's Lament: What's the point in writing when it's all been said before? My short story has failed to even make the short list for a recent com...

A Writer's Lament

What's the point in writing when it's all been said before? My short story has failed to even make the short list for a recent competition. Apparently short stories are different from what I wrote. The judge's feedback on how to write a successful short story includes the following: 'All short stories are about change and transformation', 'need to kick into life immediately with a strong, vivid and involving first paragraph.' Well, what about the reader persevering a little?  I have read short stories that I didn't get into until the second page let alone the first paragraph and they were fine examples of writing.

 I really do question whether it's worth subjecting myself to all this. I am to blame of course, for putting myself up for this form of external evaluation. My internal evaluation likes my writing but it never feels this is enough. I wish it did. I feel like all I have to look forward to is more rejections which in turn reinforce my sense of failure. Writing is a form of masochism. Well, not the writing itself but what the writer does with her writing, that's the masochistic part. We are constantly bombarded with messages to enter this or that competition, to pay a mentor to guide and edit our work, how to write a best seller, to attend workshops that will inspire our imagination. Then there are the marketeers who follow you in order to make money by offering to get your book published. A whole noisy industry has grown up around what was once the quiet world of the writer. It's hard to ignore it especially when writing is and has to be such a solitary occupation. The need to get out and mingle, the curiosity for some feedback on the hours you've spent pounding the keyboard or getting cramp from holding the pen are surely common to all of us writers. And then we retreat into our caves again and mull over what we have heard and somewhere among all this tangled web we have to retrieve our own voice again, not that of others, however well meaning.

So it seems to me that the Twenty First Century writing industry has got us over a barrel. Before the Twentieth Century writers didn't have these distractions but their lives would have been harsher in other ways. Yes, I know stamina is a vital ingredient of any writer's recipe but I wonder if  Dickens felt he could add nothing to the world because it had all been said before? Did George Elliot doubt she was writing something revolutionary about her sex? Answers anyone?

The Greek Kerbside Weed

"Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say and say it hot" (D.H. Lawrence)

Weeds are things we tend to pay attention to in England when we see they're taking over the garden and strangling flowers and shrubs. Here in Greece they wave and bend at the kerbside, some tall, others brightly flowered. Sometimes they completely block the pavement forcing pedestrians to step out into the road for lengthy stretches, a hazardous decision in a country where the car is king.

You might not expect people to get hot under the collar about the 'weed issue' when the
Greek economy is so battered and fragile but it's the smallest things that are a often a sign of decay in society. They are noticed and felt, dignity is dented and people are ashamed that local councils don't have the money to keep their environment tidy. Last night my lovely landlady rescued a kitten someone had dumped in the weeds on the main road and the kitten was struggling to climb out to its probable death. She already feeds two cats but her heart would not allow her to leave the mewing kitten. She called the person who had dumped the kitten a murderer. 'Just like the bankers', she added.

slenderbeak: The Comfort of Myths

slenderbeak: The Comfort of Myths: 'Alcyone...found herself flying, beating the air with wings newly-formed. Changed into a sorrowing bird, she skimmed the surface of th...

The Comfort of Myths

'Alcyone...found herself flying, beating the air with wings newly-formed. Changed into a sorrowing bird, she skimmed the surface of the waves. As she flew, a plaintive sound, like the lament of someone stricken with grief, came harshly from the slender beak that was her mouth.'

(Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book XI Ceyx & Alcyone Transformed, 1955 Penguin

Alcyone and Ceyx were Greek mythological figures transformed into Kingfishers. The myth has it that because the pair disrespected the gods by calling themselves respectively Zeus and Hera, Zeus sent a thunderbolt to the ship carrying Cecyx. Then Morpheus (god of dreams) appeared before Alcyone and told her of Cecyx's fate. She threw herself into the sea in grief. But the gods took pity on the pair and transformed them into Kingfishers.

Alcyone was the daughter of Aeolus, god of the wind. He is said to have restrained the winds at this time and calmed the waves so that his daughter could lay her eggs in safety on the beach. These
'Halcyon Days' are seven days either side of 21st December when storms never occur.

In Greece today there is still a kind of reverence paid to this period and people look forward to the 'Alkionades' period of calm and peace in the midst of adversity.

On the Subject of Wars, Reflection and Plots

At our next Classics meeting we are discussing and reading from Euripides' play The Women of Troy. This play is about what happened to the women and children of Troy after the famous battle. Euripides wanted to show the Athenian audiences what had been done in their name to the people of the island of Melos when they tried to stay neutral in the war between Sparta and Athens. In 416 BC the Athens fleet, 'diplomats' on board, was sent to sort out the Melians. Their idea of diplomacy was to tell the islanders to join Athens or die. They refused. All the men were executed, the women and children sold as slaves and Melos was colonised by Athenians. The Athenian state was established.

Through the words of Cassandra, Women of Troy issues a warning against the futility of aggression and war and like most of the plays of the Ancient Greeks it asked society to reflect. I think reflection is a very underrated human capacity. If  we allow ourselves to reflect we have at least a chance of avoiding aggression and other actions we may come to regret afterwards.

Apparently Euripides didn't have a plot for The Women of Troy and this freed him up to develop a reflective theme without recourse to suspense, surprise or cliffhangers at the end of scenes. For some reason I feel encouraged by this thought.

The Cheek of the Greek

Friday 27/02/15

According to today's Guradian Varoufakis was talking about the Nazis when he was in Berlin. It also states that the Germans (Schauble et al, not the average German citizen) are suspicious of the Greeks and think they are 'cheeky' and 'greedy'.
 "No reward for cheek" according to the Bildzeitung which ran the headline 'Nein'. Apparently they also expect the Greeks to be grateful. Now I do think there is a time and place for gratitude but saying this about the nation you have previously occupied and driven to starvation and worse is a bit rich in my opinion.
Tell 'grateful' to the queues of Athenians (both Greek and immigrant) for the soup kitchen near Omonia Square. Grateful for having to queue for a bowl of soup and a lump of bread and then obliged to eat it on the pavement. How impertinent. How greedy. The scene looks like a photo from the 1941 German occupation of Greece except this time it includes veiled women balancing babies on their hips while trying to spoon soup into their mouths.
So if the Greeks need to be grateful then shouldn't the Germans be a tad more sensitive with the language they use?

Jacqueline Paizis

Greece - A Compromise Too Far

February 21st

There are a lot of heavy hearts in Greece and elsewhere today. What does SYRIZA's compromise say about democracy? To me it says that the peoples' vote doesn't count. In case we were in any doubt the 'eurozone', this amorphous block, is more important than the Greek electorate. Why didn't SYRIZA refuse this compromise? It's not as if the Greek people didn't show their backing for their new government one hundred percent of the way.

I believe there are many people today who cannot quite swallow the idea that this new left radical party has caved in so quickly, putting the demands of the Euro rulers above those of the people who have just elected them. SYRIZA has accepted that the Troika (still the sane people whatever name you use) will continue to be their masters 'overseeing' what the new government does with its reforms. For reforms read cuts, more austerity etc.

What will Tsipras do? How can he face his electorate with this deal?

If I wasn't convinced before, I am convinced now that Greece should break with the Euro, call the Euro leaders bluff when they say they could contain a Greek exit. This is what the left in SYRIZA has been arguing. Wolfgang Schauble, the German finance minister wanted to make an example of Greece and now he has had his wish fulfilled.

Dear February 16th

Allow the sun to shine for an hour and the birds in my garden to stretch out their vocal chords. Away with this grey slate start to a Monday. Bring in the herald of spring.