Posts
Tuesday, 30 September 2014
EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region Adopted; Greek Statement
Important EU regional plan
Maritime Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Seas
The EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region
Stakeholder Conference website
Conference Report
EC Brochure "For a Prosperous and Integrated Adriatic and Ionian Region"
Greek Foreign Ministry Statement on the Adoption of the Strategy
Deputy Foreign Minister Kourkoulas Full Statement
“Today the EU General Affairs Council adopted the EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region (EUSAIR). This is the result of long months of cooperation, with the ultimate goal of putting the Adriatic and Ionian Region onto the European map of Macroregions, along with those of the Danube and the Baltic. We worked intensively for this Strategy, together with Italy, the presidency following ours, Slovenia and Croatia, with the assistance of the European Commission, as well as with Albania, Montenegro, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
This new Strategy is designed to capitalize on and link the horizontal and individual EU policies in the sectors of blue growth, maritime security, protection of the environment, and promotion of tourism. More specifically, it is aimed at utilizing the advantages provided by the EU’s horizontal and sectoral policies to improve the region’s competitiveness and flexibility, safeguard the natural environment, and boost employment through the creation of new jobs.
To achieve this goal, we have funding in the amount of €50 billion at our disposal for the years 2014-2020, as was announced at the high-level Conference on EUSAIR, which we hosted in Athens, as the Presidency of the Council of the EU, in February 2014, together with the European Commission. The Athens Conference substantially promoted the adoption of the EUSAIR and brought us a step closer to today’s decision. We will soon begin implementation of the Strategy, to which – in addition to the governments of the participating countries – Regions, local administration and other public, private and social agencies are called up to contribute.”
Dannie Abse (Dr. Dannie Abse, CBE)
Very saddened by the news of the death of Dannie Abse, one of Britain's greatest poets. A marvelous man. I spent a lot of time with him in Greece, Czechoslovakia and Sweden, and visited him at his home in North London on many happy and memorable occasions.
Dannie Abse in Stockholm
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Reading in my Strandvägen (Stockholm) apartment
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A poem Dannie wrote after his visit to Sweden:
Blond Boys
In Stockholm
I saw my first shy love hobble by
hand in hand with her small blond grandson.
Eva Jones, remember me?
My acne. Your dimples.
When you rode your important Raleigh
bike
to school, your skirt high,
I held my breath.
With heroic intensity of a 15 year old,
dared by you, I climbed the glass-crowned wall
and stole Mrs Humphreys' summer apples.
Oh the forever of an August Sunday evening
when near the back door's delinquent scent
of honeysuckle, forehead to forehead
I searched your searching eyes.
All the next week similitudes of love,
the jailer of reason,
until plain as the prose of a synopsis,
you bluntly said (with impressive sighs)
'You have a beautiful classy mind
but I find you physically unattractive -
and I prefer, um, blond boys besides.'
Monday, 29 September 2014
International Media and Broadcasting; Designers
Some of the cover designs from my time as editor of Educational Broadcasting International. I still admire such talented designers.
Jari Singers of Bangladesh; Jarigan, Lamentation Songs
This is the cover of a 1979 issue of the international broadcasting periodical (EBI, or Educational Broadcasting International) which I edited for three years in the 1970s:
Cover Design by Bob Herbert,
from a photograph of Jari singers in Bangladesh (1 March 1979).
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Photo by Jane Duran, Comilla, Bangladesh
Dorset Dialect Project; William Barnes
Here's a Charminster blog worth exploring.
"This blog has been created to try and highlight the last remnants of the Dorset dialect which has been on the wane since the Victorian period."
Sunday, 28 September 2014
Alamire, David Skinner, The Spy's Choirbook
A new discovery
About Alamire
The Spy's Choirbook
I heard Alamire's recording of Jean Mouton's Celeste beneficium and Antoine de Févin's Adiutorium nostrum on BBC Radio 3 The Choir today. Deeply relaxing, beautiful early choral music. Both from The Spy's Choirbook CD: OBSIDIAN CCL CD712.
Saturday, 27 September 2014
Friday, 26 September 2014
Thursday, 25 September 2014
Lost in the Dorset Jungle, Jubilee Trail Near Mt. Pleasant
We lost our way here: Bill, Bob, Graham and Felicity study the maps
Parts of the Jubilee Trail beyond Mt Pleasant were densely overgrown:
the Dorset Jungle!
No photos to prove it: busy fighting our way through
The Ionian Islands, Aspects of Their History and Culture: New Book, Just Published!
Delighted to receive my contributor's copy today
Hardback
ISBN-13:978-1-4438-5825-0
ISBN-10:1-4438-5825-0
This book (with over thirty illustrations) explores the history, archaeology, languages, customs and culture of the Ionian Islands. Without venturing far from the islands, readers will learn much about this distinctive part of the Mediterranean and Greek world. The chapters range from the mythology of the Bronze Age (Homer’s Scheria, where Odysseus startled Nausicaa as she bathed) to today, concentrating particularly on the British Protectorate (1815–1864). One, illustrated by contemporary maps, deals with descriptions of the islands by a fourteenth-century Venetian writing in Latin. The roles of Jews, Souliot refugees, Greek revolutionaries, rebel peasants in Cephalonia, and workers in Corfu’s port suburb of Mandouki are examined in detail. There are contributions on religion and philosophy, as well as literature, music, painting, and the folk-art of carved walking-canes.
Wednesday, 24 September 2014
The Vitsa Panigyri and the Music of Epirus; Amanda Petrusich, New York Times Magazine; Kind of Blue
"Hunting for the Source of the World’s Most Beguiling Folk Music".
Here's the wonderful, long-awaited feature by Amanda Petrusich, the NYT online version. The print version published Sunday 28 September in the Voyages issue of the magazine.
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Also, Amanda Petrusich interview with Tom Waits
UK: Victorian Photographic Oddities
From the BBC
"Curator Chris Wild offers a fascinating snapshot of family life that reveals the Victorians were often more modern than we think. Chris Wild - otherwise known as the Retronaut - has spent the past year mining the photographic collection of the Woodhorn Museum and Northumberland Archives".
Tuesday, 23 September 2014
Scotland: Lord Smith Speaks
From The Herald
"The peer tasked with building a consensus around new powers for Scotland has advised his work will not be easy and he cannot force an agreement between the political parties".
Dorset: The Future of the County Hospital
From the Dorset Echo - An interview with the new CEO.
"The hospital has come under fire in recent weeks from campaigners unhappy with its review of pathology services. A decision on the future of the service is due next month, with protestors fearful that the laboratory could be relocated to a private firm in Taunton. Mrs Miller said that the hospital was looking at the issue very carefully and would make sure that any decision taken was in the best interests of the hospital".
Greece, EC Market Reforms Report
Market Reforms at Work
EUROPEAN ECONOMY 5|2014
Economic and Financial Affairs
ISSN 1725-3217 (online)
ISSN 0379-0991 (print)
Scotland: Betting on the Referendum
A brave man or a very clever one?
'An anonymous man bet £900,000 on a "No" vote in the Scottish independence referendum. He won. Here he talks through his thought process'.
Monday, 22 September 2014
Pindus Mountains, Epirus, Greece; William Haygarth, Greece, A Poem, 1814 - and a View
"The Summit of Mt. Pindus"
From William Haygarth, Greece, A Poem, 1814
More information
"With what impatience do I spring to thee,
Eternal Nature:
O let me seek thy haunts upon the brow
Of Pindus, where thou dwell'st midst solitude
Of stern sublimity: with slow, slow step,
Painfully press'd upon th' unyielding rock,
I scale its rugged steeps...
She calls the sons
Of Virtue, those whose spirits soar beyond
The narrow prison of their earthly frame
To scenes more glorious..."
From Haygarth's Notes:
"The passage of Pindus presents some of the grandest scenery that is to be met with in Greece...The general style of its scenery is sublimity; it does not descend even to the beautiful, but impresses on the mind of the traveller the ideas of wildness and solitude, which are so favourable to the cultivation of poetic genius. The savage grandeur of mountain districts appears to have been always selected by the Greeks for the residence of those deities which preside over the powers of their imagination...I have already remarked that the prominent features of that district of Epirus in which entrance to the infernal regions was placed, are particularly calculated to overwhelm the imagination with the terrors which it was necessary to excite".
"With what impatience do I spring to thee,
Eternal Nature:
O let me seek thy haunts upon the brow
Of Pindus, where thou dwell'st midst solitude
Of stern sublimity: with slow, slow step,
Painfully press'd upon th' unyielding rock,
I scale its rugged steeps...
She calls the sons
Of Virtue, those whose spirits soar beyond
The narrow prison of their earthly frame
To scenes more glorious..."
From Haygarth's Notes:
"The passage of Pindus presents some of the grandest scenery that is to be met with in Greece...The general style of its scenery is sublimity; it does not descend even to the beautiful, but impresses on the mind of the traveller the ideas of wildness and solitude, which are so favourable to the cultivation of poetic genius. The savage grandeur of mountain districts appears to have been always selected by the Greeks for the residence of those deities which preside over the powers of their imagination...I have already remarked that the prominent features of that district of Epirus in which entrance to the infernal regions was placed, are particularly calculated to overwhelm the imagination with the terrors which it was necessary to excite".
Greece: Property Tax (ENFIA) Corrected Statements
Link tip thanks to Corfu Forum
See Greek source
20/9/2014 ΝΕΑ ΑΝΑΚΟΙΝΩΣΗ ΣΧΕΤΙΚΑ ΜΕ ΤΟΝ ΕΝ.Φ.Ι.Α
Η Γενική Γραμματεία Δημοσίων Εσόδων ανακοινώνει την ολοκλήρωση της νέας εκκαθάρισης Εν.Φ.Ι.Α. που περιλαμβάνει: (α) περιπτώσεις οικοπέδων που βρίσκονται σε περιοχές που δεν ισχύει ο αντικειμενικός προσδιορισμός αξίας ακινήτων λαμβάνοντας υπόψη την ευνοϊκότερη φορολογητέα αξία μεταξύ Φ.Α.Π. 2013 και Εν.Φ.Ι.Α., (β) εξαίρεση από το φόρο ακινήτων που βρίσκονται στη νήσο Κεφαλληνία, (γ) την απαλλαγή από τον κύριο φόρο του υπολοίπου οικοπέδου ιστορικών διατηρητέων μνημείων ή έργων τέχνης και (δ) τη μείωση του συντελεστή συμπληρωματικού φόρου μη ιδιοχρησιμοποιούμενων ακινήτων των Ν.Π.Δ.Δ. που δεν εντάσσονται στους φορείς της Γενικής Κυβέρνησης.
11/9/2014 ΑΝΑΚΟΙΝΩΣΗ ΣΧΕΤΙΚΑ ΜΕ ΤΟΝ ΕΝ.Φ.Ι.Α
Greece: Civil Service Evaluation Dispute
From Kathimerini
"Administrative Reform Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis suggested on Monday that he might call on the help of prosecutors to ensure that civil servants comply with the evaluation process in the public sector. 'The fraudsters who used fake certificates to secure their jobs have to be sent home,' Mitsotakis told Skai TV on Monday".
Greece: The Amphipolis Tomb
Sketch: Greek Ministry of Culture
Could it be the tomb of Olympias, the Epirote mother of Alexander the Great? Is it Greek or Roman?
Christides:
"Archaeologists agree that the magnificence of the tomb means it was built for a prominent person - perhaps a member of Alexander's immediate family; maybe his mother, Olympias, or his wife, Roxana -or some noble Macedonian. Others say it could be a cenotaph".
Greek or Roman, More speculation
Could it be the tomb of Olympias, the Epirote mother of Alexander the Great? Is it Greek or Roman?
Christides:
"Archaeologists agree that the magnificence of the tomb means it was built for a prominent person - perhaps a member of Alexander's immediate family; maybe his mother, Olympias, or his wife, Roxana -or some noble Macedonian. Others say it could be a cenotaph".
Greek or Roman, More speculation
Sunday, 21 September 2014
Jung Chang Interview, Talking Books
BBC iPlayer (for 6 days only)
Razia Iqbal interviews Jung Chang at the Hay Festival about her latest work
Saturday, 20 September 2014
Scotland's Vote and the UK Power Balance (PBS, USA: Louise Richardson and David Rennie)
From PBS Newshour, USA
"Since Scots decided to stay with the United Kingdom, British Prime Minister David Cameron has promised more powers for Scotland. Louise Richardson of the University of St. Andrews and David Rennie of The Economist speak with Judy Woodruff about the significance of the vote and what’s in store for the future of the U.K".
Weymouth Sea Level, Properties at Risk - over the next 100 Years
From BBC Dorset
"More than 4,000 properties in Weymouth could be at risk of future rising sea levels if flood defence schemes are not put in place, engineers have said. A six-week study in the Dorset seaside town will see what is needed to protect properties over the next 100 years. The council's engineering team said options included raising the harbour walls and constructing a sea wall along the esplanade.
A longer term solution could be a tidal barrier across the harbour".
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My Old 'Ud (Outi, Oud); Chorly, Tuareg 'Ud
Old Turkish 'ud from Istanbul
'Ud music
One of my favourite 'Ud albums, Chorly, Touareg, Vol 5
Chorly, born 1967, Northern Section of Djanet Oasis, Algeria
Chorly
Tuareg Oud (photograph by Patrick Howe)
Another Patrick Howe photo from Tamanghasset
(C) Patrick Howe
Tuareg Nomads (Wikipedia)
Israeli Oud, Yair Dalal, Samai Lami
Iraqi 'Ud, Ahmed Mukhtar
Iraqi Cafe
One of my favourite 'Ud albums, Chorly, Touareg, Vol 5
Chorly, born 1967, Northern Section of Djanet Oasis, Algeria
Tuareg Oud (photograph by Patrick Howe)
Another Patrick Howe photo from Tamanghasset
Israeli Oud, Yair Dalal, Samai Lami
Iraqi 'Ud, Ahmed Mukhtar
Iraqi Cafe
Friday, 19 September 2014
Thursday, 18 September 2014
Scotland, the Polls and the Democratic Verdict: 55% Reject Independence
What, I wonder, would Henry have voted?
The Midlothian outcome.
Final Results (from Robin Brant)
I listened all night, as the results came in.
Henry would certainly have felt proud to be both Scottish and British,
and he would surely have voted in the interests of Scotland and the United Kingdom.
The incredible 84% turn-out gives a resounding answer to Hugh MacDiarmid's rhetorical question:
"When will Scots people begin to know
As much about Scotland as ghosts in a fog
And not care far less?"
(from Scotland, 1934)
The Scots people have demonstrated how much they do care about the future of the country.
The Prime Minister speaks
First Minister of Scotland to step down (FT)
The Midlothian outcome.
Final Results (from Robin Brant)
I listened all night, as the results came in.
Henry would certainly have felt proud to be both Scottish and British,
and he would surely have voted in the interests of Scotland and the United Kingdom.
The incredible 84% turn-out gives a resounding answer to Hugh MacDiarmid's rhetorical question:
"When will Scots people begin to know
As much about Scotland as ghosts in a fog
And not care far less?"
(from Scotland, 1934)
The Scots people have demonstrated how much they do care about the future of the country.
The Prime Minister speaks
First Minister of Scotland to step down (FT)
Kostas Balafas, Photographer of Epirus
A reminder of Balafas' wonderful black and white photographs of Epirus (248 images)
The book:
"Epirus is Balafas’ photographic portrait of his birthplace, the mountainous region in the North West of Greece, and its people. Taken from 1945 to 1970, the 300 photographs in the collection make up a narrative of local history through the lens of landscape and tradition. At the same time, as Angelos Delivorias points out in his introduction, history is but the reality of life. Each of Balafas’ photographs is a unique testimony to the passage of time in one place, and to the artist’s experience of it. In this respect, the photographer becomes a poet and his work a mythmaking narrative. Kostas Balafas was born in 1920 of peasant parents in a mountain village of Epirus. He took part in the Resistance (1941-44), fighting against the German occupiers, and recording it in an album of photographs entitled "The Rebel Army in Epirus". From 1951 he was an employee at the Greek Public Electricity Company, devoting his spare time to photography. His photographic style and subjects are greatly influenced by the hard conditions of his childhood and the struggles of the Greek people for independence, which he witnessed: Balafas portrays the toil and sufferings of the poor; young workers, old women and small children on their way to earn the day’s bread; and the rough landscape surrounding them."
Rebetika Music at King's College, London, 18 October 2014
One for the diary 18 October:
"The popular musics of Greece, Turkey, Egypt and the Levant shaped an affective underground across the region for much of the twentieth century, the popular styles of one country spilling over into the next thanks to radio, film and recordings. Post war migration made them a subterranean presence in London’s soundscape, too, from Green Lanes to the Edgware Road and beyond. What imbued these hybrid, cosmopolitan musical practices with such power, persuasion and resilience? What did the authorities, from place to place, from era to era, fear in them, exactly? How did the musical underground of one country become that of another? What cultural and political labor do these genres still perform? What charge do they still carry?
Roderick Beaton, Director of the Centre for Hellenic Studies and Koraes Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine Language and Literature, and Martin Stokes, King Edward Professor of Music, will give two short, illustrated talks, exploring the idea and the allure of a musical underground, focusing on rebetika and broader Eastern Mediterranean soundscapes, respectively.
The performance element will connect King’s College London research with some prominent voices in the Greek, Turkish and Arab communities of the city.Cigdem Aslan and Friends explore Smyrnaic and Piraeus rembetika, in both Greek and Turkish. Oxford Maqam represent the underground of the early Egyptian sound recording era, from Sheikh Salah Abd al-Hayy Hilmi to Sayyid Darwish, from Sami Shawwa to the famous Cairo dance orchestras of the era".
Tuesday, 16 September 2014
Raw Music: Christopher King, Vinyl Asides; Alexis Zoumbas
Featuring Christopher King (Vinyl Asides, Episode 8).
On Alexis Zoumbas, "Blues All Kinds" from Magic Jukebox blog.
Christopher King on Zoumbas, Paris Review
Donal Dineen’s Sunken Treasure: Alexis Zoumbas’s ‘A Lament for Epirus 1926-1928’, Irish Times -This rare collision of tradition and modernity is one of the most beguiling records you will ever hear
Scotland: The Unfair 'Barnett Formula' Public Funding Bribe- Inequitable in Perpetuity?
The Barnett formula was discussed in this 2004 publication, which resulted from seminars in Uppsala in 2002. "In Scotland the fiscal issue remains up for grabs- especially as the Barnett formula is increasingly seen as politically unsustainable in the longer term. It discriminates against the English regions and favours Scotland. In any future negotiations Scottish elected officials may well prefer a trade off that gives them increased control over (almost certainly higher) local taxation in exchange for reduced centrally distributed largesse. Given the much stronger social democratic ethos that exists in the Scottish Labour Party, this is a possibility." (page 31).
This Telegraph article by Dan Hodges makes a fair point: "not at any price".
The Times has a related front page story on 17 September.
"Mr. Cameron's pledge to maintain the Barnett formula, which ensures that the Scots receive annual funding of £1,600 per head per year more than the English, triggered a revolt in the party..."
Gordon Brown has argued on TV (eg "Scotland Decides, The Dimbleby Interviews") that the Barnett formula continues to be justified "on the basis of need" (see especially the interview section from the 20'56 mark until 21'50). Gordon Brown made some very persuasive and convincing points overall, but some might justly object that the Barnett formula is not a good example of "sharing the same economic rights", of "equity between the regions", or of a process of "sharing and allocating resources equitably and fairly, according to need". Does Scotland really have much greater needs because of its rural areas and greater number of pensioners?
Gary Gibbon, Channel 4 News, wrote that Gordon Brown is "trying to get the Tories to sign up to the current funding arrangements for Scotland – the Barnett formula – in perpetuity".
Brown's call for "Three Guarantees" (BBC News)
What is "the Barnett Formula"? (Wikipedia)
"Barnett viewed the formula that he devised as unfair. In The Scotsman in January 2004 he wrote, "It was never meant to last this long, but it has gone on and on and it has become increasingly unfair to the regions of England. I didn't create this formula to give Scotland an advantage over the rest of the country when it comes to public funding."
See Barnett's original article in The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday, 11 January 2004
See Lord Barnett's latest "terrible mistake" admission
Can it really be that the three main UK political party leaders have made a vow amongst themselves to have the Barnett formula "set in stone"?
Dan Hodges has returned to the topic (17 September):
"The people of Scotland have been given a guarantee that whatever people in the rest of the Union might decide, they will be insulated from their political choices...Nor, as we saw yesterday, are the people of Scotland being asked to sign up for economic union. Yesterday we had the “Vow” – brokered by Gordon Brown and endorsed by the leaders of the three main parties – that the Barnett Formula will be retained if independence is rejected. That’s the mechanism whereby Scotland gets 20 per cent more in annual public spending than England, and which was described by its architect Joel Barnett yesterday as "unfair and should be stopped, it is a mistake. This way is terrible and can never be sustainable, it is a national embarrassment.” It is this unsustainable national embarrassment that is supposedly the bedrock of our Union".
Update from Sky News "The Barnett Formula Explained"
A disagreement about the Barnett formula Andrew Fallon talks to Andrew Neill
Lord Barnett on the Barnett Formula: Latest -Talking to Peter Stanford (Telegraph) IMPORTANT!
Update: Gordon Brown, in his Fife speech on 20 September, confirmed that the Barnett formula will be maintained. Does Michael Gove agree?
The Guardian Q and A, Alan Travis and Tom Clark:
"What does it actually amount to?"
"A close reading of the language on public spending amounts more to a hedge than a pledge. The UK parties were already committed to keeping the so-called Barnett formula, which determines Scotland's relatively generous UK funding for health, education, law and order and other devolved domestic services. But the convoluted wording on the promise to keep the 35-year-old Barnett formula meant the commitment was not quite clear. This confusion was compounded by William Hague saying on Friday that with increased devolution the formula would be 'less relevant' over time".
"What does the rest of the United Kingdom want to happen to the Barnett formula?
"The Barnett formula, named after the 1970s Labour chief secretary to the Treasury at the time, Joel Barnett, is used to calculate how public spending on devolved matters is allocated by the Treasury between the four British nations. English MPs from all parties, and the Welsh government, are demanding that it be revised. The formula is based on the population of each country, with England originally allocated 85% and Scotland 10%, but it has since been updated. Lord Barnett has made clear that it was not based on a needs assessment of each nation. In per capita terms, based on the 2011-12 allocations, it was estimated that per head England gets £8,529 per person under the formula, Scotland £10,152, Wales £9,709 and Northern Ireland £10,876. One way to address the different levels of public spending could be to base the formula on a needs-based assessment, rather than solely population, as Barnett, now 90, has suggested. This week he proclaimed it a "national embarrassment" and said he was ashamed his name was still associated with it".
Lord Barnett on the Subsidy, Mail Online
Final update on this topic: Tim Shipman, from his front page story on the Scotland deal, Sunday Times, 21 September:
"With Tory MPs poised to revolt if Cameron, as promised, keeps the Barnett formula, which guarantees Scots £1,600 a head more than the English, Paterson added: 'The English will not tolerate another lop-sided settlement designed to appease nationalist sentiment paid for by English taxpayers'".
Dorset: Roman Villa and Mosaics, Druce Farm, Puddletown
The Roman Villa was featured on the BBC Regional News today (view here).
"The project is due to finish next year, when the site will be covered up".
An article from June in Dorset Life
Directions to the Roman Villa, Druce Farm, Puddletown, from a previous Open Day online announcement (NB probably NOT open to visitors now - need to find out when it will next be open to visitors):
Instructions on how to get to Druce Farm from Dorchester
"Follow the A35 East towards Bere Regis/ Poole/Bournemouth
for about 3.9 miles,
Take the exit signposted A354/B3142 to Blandford/Milborne St.
Andrew/Piddlehinton,
At the roundabout take the 1st exit on to the B3142,
From Poole follow the A35
West towards Bere Regis/ Puddletown/Dorchester for 1.1 miles,
Continue on through one roundabout on the A35 for about 9.3
miles,
At next roundabout take 2nd exit and continue along the A35
for 6 miles,
Take the exit signposted A354/B3142 to Blandford,
Piddlehinton, Puddletown,
At the roundabout take the 3rd exit on to the A354,
At the next roundabout take the 1st exit on to the B3142,
After about 1 mile turn right just before a sharp left bend
(there is a triangle of grass at junction, be aware that there is also a lane
which you have to cross before entering farms driveway) and Druce Farm is
ahead.
Drive through the gateway (Druce Farmhouse is on your
right), then some large Victorian cottages, pass the cart shed on your left,
follow the farm track with a modern cottage on your right.
The track forks - take the left hand track and you will see
several cars in the field".
European Union: Social Justice Report, A Cross-National Comparison; Greece
Thanks to A Gael in Greece blog for bringing this Bertelsmann Foundation report to my attention.
See the full report (pdf)
Greece in Music and Song, James McNeish
About the recordings made in 1961 by James McNeish
I was in contact with James McNeish for a period (now Sir James McNeish), when he was writing his book "Dance of the Peacocks" , in which I am quoted, in connection with Czechoslovakia. I had no idea at the time about his recording activities in Greece.
About "Dance of the Peacocks":
"The true story of five talented young men in exile in the time of Hitler and Mao Tse-Tung.
'Altogether they knew five wars, three revolutions and - in the case of Ian Milner, accused in the Cold War of being a spy - a slander.'
Regarded by one critic as 'the best book published in New Zealand in the last twenty years', this is a fascinating story based on letters, diaries and interviews in several countries. It is the story of a group of Rhodes scholars, five young men - James Bertram, Geoffrey Cox, Dan Davin, Ian Milner, John Mulgan - caught up in the turmoil of their times: Spain, Hitler's Germany, Greece and North Africa, Eastern Europe, China. They left New Zealand in the thirties for 'the dreaming spires' of Oxford. War intervened. Only one returned".
Monday, 15 September 2014
Joao Magueijo on the "unrestrained" English
As others see us!
"Unrestrained wild beasts, totally out of control".
The Sunday Times (14 September) carried an article on the Portuguese professor's new book on the English, British culture, society and lifestyle. Not flattering.
So did the Mail:
"A best-selling book written by a Portuguese academic has offered a dismal portrayal of English people, calling them 'unrestrained wild beasts who eat food so greasy it needs detergent'.
Joao Magueijo, 47, a physics professor at Imperial College London, has seen his book, Bifes Mal Passados (Undercooked Beef) sell more than 20,000 copies in his native country".
Update, The Guardian
Reminds me of what the Corfiot Nicander Nucius observed back in the mid sixteenth century.
Nucius (Nikandros Noukios), the Corfiot traveller, visited England in 1545 and 1546.
“The race of men indeed is fair, inclining to a light colour; in their persons they are tall and erect; the hair of their beard and head is of a golden hue; their eyes blue, for the most part, and their cheeks are ruddy; they are martial and valorous, and generally tall; flesh-eaters, and insatiable of animal food; sottish and unrestrained in their appetites; full of suspicion.”
Poundbury (Dorchester, Dorset): Poundbury Reaches The Half Way Mark; The Big Issue on Poundbury
Only half way?
From Premier Construction
The Big Issue verdict on Poundbury
"There are no streets or avenues that scream ‘social housing sector’, no homes that announce any kind of second-class status. And when I meet the Duchy of Cornwall’s estate director Simon Conibear to walk around, even he appears to have difficulty pointing out the Guinness-run dwellings from those sold on the private market".
Lagarde: Greece, Tax Evasion, Death Threats
From Greek Reporter
"When asked about Greece, she appeared hasty to move to other subjects. Lagarde only commented on taxation in Greece and raised the burning issue of tax evasion. When asked about past comments regarding tax evasion by the wealthy Greeks, she said: “I better not say too much because, you know, when I have talked about Greece and its taxes before, I got death threats and we had to increase security,” adding, “but is the shipping industry really paying its taxes? Are others? I don’t think so".
Developments, Kathimerini:
"A Supreme Court prosecutor has ordered a probe into claims by International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde and SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras that they received death threats for speaking out on tax evasion, Kathimerini understands".
Developments, Kathimerini:
"A Supreme Court prosecutor has ordered a probe into claims by International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde and SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras that they received death threats for speaking out on tax evasion, Kathimerini understands".
Sunday, 14 September 2014
Paul Nash, War Artist; Swanage, Dorset
Paul Nash: The Ghosts of War BBC 4 iPlayer, presented by Andrew Graham-Dixon
Swanage, Dorset, sequence begins at the 33.40 minute mark
"In the years preceding 1914, David Bomberg, Walter Sickert and Paul Nash set out to paint a new world, but, as the century unfolded, found themselves working in the rubble.
On 25th May 1917, war artist Paul Nash climbed out of his trench to sketch the battlefields of Flanders near Ypres. So focused was he on his work he tripped and fell back into the trench, breaking his ribs. Stretchered back to England, Nash missed his regiment going over the top at the Battle of Passchendaele. His regiment was wiped out.
Nash was scarred by the war and the ghosts of those experiences haunted his work throughout his life. A lover of nature, Nash became one of Britain's most original landscape artists, embracing modern Surrealism and ancient British history, though always tainted by his experiences during two world wars. A private yet charismatic man, he brought British landscape painting into the 20th century with his mixture of the personal and visionary, the beautiful and the shocking. An artist who saw the landscape as not just a world to paint, but a way into his heart and mind".
Ioannina, Greece, 1913-2013, Photography
From the exhibition (Protagon.gr)
Βαρκάρης στη λίμνη των Ιωαννίνων Iωάννινα, δεκαετία του 1940
Φωτ. Βούλα Παπαιωάννου Αρχείο Μουσείου Μπενάκη
Photograph, Boatman on the Lake of Ioannina, Voula Papaioannou, 1940s; Benaki Museum
Two Monuments in Ioannina:
Liberation 1913
Two Monuments in Ioannina:
Liberation 1913
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