Evictions in Athens? Golden Visa incentive to AirBnB investors

From Yannis-Orestis Papadimitriou, The Telegraph

The Sunday Telegraph has apparently learned that, "a Greek government scheme that grants visas to non-EU citizens in exchange for €250,000 (£219,000) property investments is leading to mass evictions, with renters removed from their homes to make way for AirBnB properties... In an echo of the AirBnB ‘epidemic’ in cities such as Barcelona, homes are increasingly being bought and converted into AirBnB properties, primarily by Chinese investors, under the Golden Visa scheme being actively promoted by the Greek government".


Residents of Athens suburb claim that Airbnb is "pricing them out", Euronews


Gov’t planning restrictions on owners of short-term rentals, eKathimerini

Corfu: A Nightmarish Summer to Come, Dionisis Mamalos; «Εφιαλτικό το καλοκαίρι που έρχεται…». Waste Management Problems

From Corfu TV News  (ΔΙΟΝΥΣΗΣ ΜΑΜΑΛΟΣ | 17 ΦΕΒ, 2019)


«Εφιαλτικό το καλοκαίρι που έρχεται…», γράφει ο Διονύσης Μάμαλος...«Και μην βιαστεί κάποιος να απαντήσει για μεταφορά σκουπιδιών εκτός νησιού. Αυτό ξεχάστε το. Έτσι έχουν τα πράγματα και νομίζω ότι μας περιμένει ένα άκρως «καυτό» καλοκαίρι»

Heart-breaking, nightmarish...efialtikó...the coming summer on Corfu, with continuing or worsening waste management and garbage problems?

Such a terrible shame, if this turns out to be the case for yet another year.



What the Mayor will say about the waste, Enimerosi


European 4.7m Euro ΄bill΄ for Lefkimmi landfill has arrived

The Cove House Inn, Chiswell, Portland, Dorset

An eighteenth-century public house. 

A great place for a drink, a meal or a stroll!

Part of the old stone wall inside

A short stroll in the direction of Quiddles and on the coastal path:

Looking back at the Valentine's Day storms of 2014, Dorset Echo, Rachel Stretton

Elsewhere on Portland: 

Campaigners join hands to save hospital in Dorset, BBC News

Anglo-Saxons: Immigrants in a diverse Postcolonial Society; Beowulf as Diaspora Storytelling; Decolonising the Curriculum

An interesting article by Mark Bridge in The Times, February 16, 2019; "Anglo-Saxons rebranded as migrant success story"

"The Anglo-Saxons are often thought of as brutish invaders who put native Brits to the sword and shunned Roman-style civilisation in favour of mead binges and brawls in drafty wooden huts. However, according to a popular historian, the forebears of the English should be viewed more kindly — as immigrants who forged new identities in a diverse postcolonial society".

Some tweets:

Prof Catherine Clarke @CathAMClarke

Indeed, @holland_tom, this is how I always introduced the #AngloSaxons to my first-year UGs: as recent #immigrants in a #postcolonial space, and considering texts such as #Beowulf as #diaspora storytelling, etc. Of course, this is of interest to all, not just #BAME students 

Tom Holland @holland_tom

It should not be beyond the wit of competent teachers to render the Anglo-Saxons - immigrants who, living amid a post-imperial order, fashioned new cultural, political and religious identities for themselves - a topic of interest to BAME students …


These tweets do not appear to be in response to calls to "decolonize the curriculum" (a campaign supported by Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex), but they do contribute to that debate. See also an opposing view.


Refugees and migrants who have risked their lives crossing the channel might well have a deep understanding of  "The Seafarer"


Another translation of The Seafarer, alongside the original Anglo-Saxon


Previous posting on Anglo-Saxon poetry


The Exeter Book at Exeter Cathedral


Poems and Riddles in the Exeter Book


Images of sections from Beowulf

Weymouth's Seaside Heritage; Amusement Arcades; Penny-in-the-Slot and Coin Push Machines; Claw Cranes

When I was a kid on a school-holiday day-trip from Castle Cary, I used to love playing the penny slot machines and the coin push machines in the Weymouth amusement arcades, trying to make all the piles of pennies and other shiny coppers cascade down into the tray, but seldom succeeding, even though so many coins seemed to be piled up precariously, layer upon layer, overhanging and just ready to fall and overflow into my lap!

Even more frustrating (and a complete waste of time) were the tantalizing claw-crane grab-and-win machines: the grabber-claws were always so loosely adjusted and ineffective that the crane, even if skilfully positioned and manipulated, could never lift a prize more than a few inches before it slipped through the three claws or prongs and fell back down again.

The grooming-grounds of no-brain gamblers. My friends preferred to go down the road apiece to play the pin-ball machines, which involved a little more skill. Pinball wizards!

Maybe I'll write a short story about the amusement arcades.

We live and learn, especially when the desired prize seems within our grasp!

I wasn't thinking about Brexit, on this occasion. Are people really so nostalgic that they yearn to return to the claw-crane  and coin-push machines of their youth?

What I really miss are the old jukeboxes... and this oldie.


Weymouth's Seaside Heritage, English Heritage, 2008 - Pdf file, 91 pages,


Related: Penny Arcade - The Coin Operated Machine Information Site


Twilight of the seaside amusement arcade


The ‘heritagisation’ of the British seaside resort: The rise of the ‘old penny arcade’Anya Chapman and Duncan Light


Melvyn Wright's World of Vintage Slot Machines


Discovering Brighton’s Vintage Amusement Arcade, Ellie and Co


AN AMUSEMENT arcade manager fears his seafront business could soon fold, Dorset Echo.

Red Cross Store; Food Banks

A song I was listening to on my iPod when out walking just now. It made me think of food banks, of Fred McDowell and Amber Rudd...a strange combination..


Mississippi Fred McDowell


Fred's live version


Eric Burdon version


Amber Rudd links universal credit to rise in food bank use, BBC News