Hotel Oceanis, Palaiokastritsa, Corfu

I was delighted to be taken on a boat trip today, around the beautiful bays and sea-caves of Palaiokastritsa. It was the first time I've ever done it. I'm sorry I didn't take my camera.

The decaying eyesore of the closed and abandoned Hotel Oceanis came as a shock, as did the sight of several unfinished villas (apparently confiscated by banks) seen all too clearly from a boat.

Can't they be demolished?

For those who care to search them out, there are several photographs by Thomas Hinterleitner, taken last June, that can be seen on Google Maps. Look for Hotel Oceanis (Closed).

To see it as it once was: http://www.corfutoday.com/oceanis-hotel/

"A balcony over Paleokastritsa with endless view to Ionian Sea ... The Oceanis Hotel is superbly situated overlooking one of Paleokastritsa`s most beautiful bays in Corfu".

Ethiopian Amharic Poetry. Songs We Learn from Trees

Songs We Learn from Trees (Paperback)

An Anthology of Ethiopian Amharic Poetry
By Chris Beckett (Translated by), Alemu Tebeje (Translated by)


Carcanet Classics, 9781784109479, 304pp.

Publication Date: July 30, 2020
List Price: 25.99*
* Individual store prices may vary.


Description

This is the very first anthology of Ethiopian poetry in English, packed with all the energy, wit, and heartache of a beautiful country and language. From folk and religious poems, warrior boasts, praises of women and kings and modern plumbing; through a flowering of literary poets in the twentieth century; right up to thirty of the most exciting contemporary Amharic poets working both inside and outside the country. These poems ask what it means to be Ethiopian today, part of a young, fast-growing economy, heirs to the one African state which was never colonised, but beset by deep political, ethnic, and moral problems.



About the Author

Chris Beckett was born in London but grew up in Ethiopia. His second collection of poems, Ethiopia Boy, was published by Carcanet/Oxford Poets in 2013. Sketches from the Poem Road, a collaboration with Japanese artist Isao Miura, was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award 2015. Alemu Tebeje is an Ethiopian journalist, poet, lyric writer, and human rights campaigner who left Ethiopia in the early 1990s and now lives next to Grenfell Tower in London. He runs the website www.debteraw.com and his poems have been published in Amharic, Chinese, and English.

Unmasked Pirates Invade Shores of Corfu

No quarantine?

Rena Vlachopoulou: Villa Ren, Dassia, Corfu, The Countess of Corfu

A really impressive transformation!

Όλη η αλήθεια για την θρυλική βίλα της Ρένας Βλαχοπούλου στην Κέρκυρα – Έτσι είναι σήμερα

https://www.newsit.gr/topikes-eidhseis/oli-i-alitheia-gia-tin-thryliki-vila-tis-renas-vlaxopoulou-stin-kerkyra-etsi-einai-simera-pics/3077010/

Rena Vlachopoulou, "The Countess of Corfu".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Countess_of_Corfu

Villa Ren, the best place to sing "Keryra, Kerkyra" around the pool!

About the song (scroll down):

https://books.google.gr/books?id=AsC_BAAAQBAJ&pg=PT74&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

UK: The language of power and inequality in education and leadership

From BBC Sounds, Word of Mouth

"Teacher and writer Jeffrey Boakye, sitting in for Michael Rosen, talks with charity strategist, writer and educator Iesha Small. They explore the language of power and inequality in modern education and leadership, and whether they've both learned to speak 'straight white male'. They also look at the ways in which words that are seemingly innocuous and commonly used in schools conceal deep social inequities, such as the word 'disadvantaged'."

Quarantine- A Poetry Film Experiment - A poem by Linnet Drury.

8 video interpretations

https://vimeo.com/showcase/7368780


Kate Clanchy

@KateClanchy1

"This is AMAZING. 8 films of Linnet’s poem Quarantine from Bauhaus, all of them incredible. Twitter is incredible sometimes. Pls share"

Corfu Images - Not many Brits in sight

Highly recommended house in Kato Korakiana, Corfu. Apothiki House, details here:

https://www.booking.com/hotel/gr/apothiki-house.en-gb.html

Adjoining this house is the Olive Press, with its impressive preservation
 of the old olive press and related equipment. This olive press, driven by a single horse, operated until 1960, when electrification came to the village and a larger olive press was introduced to serve the needs of the villagers (source, Michaelis Kandaros).

Aristeidis Metallinos, Ano Korakiana

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristeidis_Metallinos

http://democracystreet.blogspot.com/2013/10/ano-korakiana-in-relief.html

https://www.facebook.com/Mouseioglyptikistexnis/

Peaceful Palaiokastritsa

(fewer than a hundred people on the beach)

Dorchester Town Council News - Never have they needed our business (?); Dorchester News; Dorsetet

Look closely...

"Never have the retailers, coffee shops and other service providers in the town centre, on Poundbury and across the wider town, needed your business".

Typo, poor proof-reading, missing word at the end ("more")?

 A lesson for us all.

West Bay, Dorset - the generational divide

The generational divide:

Michael Rosen on Good Morning Britain (video)

Watch on YouTube

Author Michael Rosen Says He Was Hours from Death with COVID-19 | Good Morning Britain:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6wQa6PzYS0

Viral verse, Pandemic poems and images. Just published, Colenso Books, London, June 2020

Viral Verse, Pandemic poems and images

In aid of NHS CHARITIES TOGETHER

"Contributions from sixteen people whose ages range from just under eight (at the time of writing) to over eighty".

"It is becoming increasingly clear that Covid-19 will be a factor in our lives for a very long time to come; and no one can predict when life will return to normal. There are reasons to hope that we will not return to the old normal, with the inequalities and injustices which have been embedded in our societies and which the pandemic has thrown into such sharp relief, but to a new normal that will, in vital aspects, be something better than the old".

From Editor's Personal Note and Invitation, Anthony Hirst, May 20, 2020.

To order, please email colensobooks@gmail.com

Price £9.50. 

For each copy of this book sold the publisher will donate £3.50 to

NHS Charities Together, Registered Charity No. 1186569 

Detail

Old Harry Rocks, Dorset

 

 

 

Mark and Sue

Jim and Sue

Two last photos by Mark Allen

Zagori Small Ad

Seen on Facebook

Bruton, Somerset: Trendy!

"Bruton was selected by The Times in 2015 as the most fashionable place in Britain. It has been described by Country Life as the “new Notting Hill”, after the area in west London".

"How did Bruton, a small town in Somerset, go from a cider-producing community to one of England’s most fashionable addresses?"


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-bruton-made-a-name-for-itself-x3zgn9bh2


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/george-osborne-goes-west-to-1-6m-somerset-bolthole-v38sw9b8k

An old folk-song, collected by Cecil Sharp, 1904:

Portland (Dorset) on Film

A magical location!


The Island of Stone (1934)


1971 Look Stranger, Skylark Durston. Heart of Stone, Portland

"Portland, Story of an Island" 1998