Monkey Pox, covid, Ukraine, Russia, Iraq, university entrance by race and class, tax cuts. You are being lied to and nobody seems to care. I do.
The Mrs decided that we should take our guests (Joshua’s pal T and her parents) to Kardamili. As you may recall I hate Kardamili with a passion. At this time of year there are far too many ghastly Islingtonians packing its streets, browsing its shops selling hugely overpriced clothes, jewellery and other items which are about as authentically Greek as a Big Mac and fries. The restaurants serve nice food but at London prices. It is Islington on the Med. I loathe it. Its only redeeming feature is the one sandy beach, which is out of town by Paddy Leigh Fermor’s old house, which having no toilet or bar is relatively deserted and quiet.
Don’t get me wrong but this is a glorious day. The Mrs, the kids, Joshual’s pal T and her parents who are visiting us have all been packed off to the seaside. It is expensive and crowded so they are welcome to it and, better still, they cannot get back until late tonight. So I have a day of solitude, of writing and of swimming and it is heavenly. It is what this place was built for!
My late father wrote a learned article on this monument using another photo by his son. It is an interesting war memorial, erected after the two Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913. Not a lot of perople are aware of how much of what is Northern Greece today was still, in 1911, in Turkish hands. That ended after the first Balkan War. In the second war, Bulgaria – which had been part of the 1912 alliance against the Turks – declared war on its ertswhile allies, Greece and Serbia, and lost territory as a result. Modern Greece is very largely a result of those wars.
The Met Office and the BBC and the rest of the liberal intelligentsia really are creaming themselves over the two day heatwave back in Airstrip One. Okay there were not quite 10,000 excess deaths in fact there were sod all excess deaths but that was probably down to mask wearing and the mass rollout of untested vaccines. So when did global warming start in the UK?
The noise the cicadas make from dawn to dusk is almost deafening. Although right now, at 11.48 PM it is loud music from my nearest neighbour a mile across the valley up higher into the mountains, that is keeping me awake. Charon, my neighbour, is no beauty. The little cicada below, sitting on my knee, and to give you an idea of its size, on my boot, is stunning.
It is situated on the main road about 300 yards from the main square opposite the olive press and it has drawn some custom from the main square if only because it allows smoking inside which is, of course, illegal. That, and a report that it had the best loos of any watering hole in town persuaded me to take the family.
Once upon a time Stonewall was a great charity fighting the good fight for equality for the LGB community. But that battle is now won. So in order to justify the fat cat salaries its staffers enjoy it needs to find new battles and, I am afraid to say, that seems to mean bad ones. The tweet below can only be described as child abuse.
I hear that there was a near biblical deluge yesterday and it looks like there is plenty of rain ahead back at the Welsh hovel. And I have a couple of assistants going in to water both the garden and the big lawn so I hope I shall return to something in good shape. As long promised, here is what I have turned the jungle into. The project is far from finished but its no longer a jungle.
Almost the first thing Joshua and I did as we approached Kambos nine day ago was to check out a fig tree as my son just loves figs. Sadly none were ripe but, much to the annoyance of the Mrs , as we drive around the area, anytime we spot a fig tree somewhere where it is not too dangerous to pull over, I stop and check out its fruit.
With a hat tip to James Melville consider the screenshots below from German TV five years apart discussing summer weather. Then pen a short essay on how the MSM conspires to fan the flames of the false climate emergency narrative, or if you want to pass Geography GCSE at St Greta’s academy, say what brilliant journalism the Krauts are serving up.
The day before Joshua and I started the drive to Greece was the Christening of my daughter Jaya in the small Methodist chapel where the Mrs and Joshua worship every Sunday. With my cousin Alex Booker among the three Godparents, alongside my wife’s oldest friend and local earth mum C, it was a splendid day as 40 folks packed into the chapel. Afterwards we headed back to the hovel for Indian main courses prepared by “chef Vijay” who also catered for our wedding nine years ago. And thereafter a selection of my ice creams which received rave reviews.
It touched 40 yesterday in Kalamata, here in Greece and it will be hotter for days and days as we get into August. Nobody panics, life goes on, there are no meetings of Greece’s equivalent of COBRA but back in Blighty it seems as if the country is collapsing thanks to its two day heatwave. Thanks to the Daily Star I bring advice from a medic for my female readers on how NOT to react. A doctor has warned…
45 years ago I was pushed back into that freezing outdoor pool at Warwick School behind the “new gym” as I tried to haul myself out. There was no real malice by the three boys who did it (Petley R, Townsend & Moffatt A) but what happened was part of a culture of bullying which teachers just overlooked. Moffat A was, in particular, a real bully in my years in the junior school. Both his parents taught there and so that was just part of life, part of what made Warwick such an appalling place. On this occassion, my ankle caught between the iron bar that went around the pool and the edge of the pool. As I struggled for breath the ankle became horribly twisted. I could not walk for many weeks. It has never fully recovered.
After an early evening swim with Joshua I sat on the balcony at the front of the house and this is the view as the sun went down. Beat that…
