Hilary's Corfu Walks and the Corfu Trail; Walking the Corfu Trail (John Waller)

Here's a well-deserved endorsement I just found online.

The Corfu Trail, Hilary's website

Real Corfu

John Waller, kind comments from Walking the Corfu Trail (2010):

Sample Chapters from Walking the Corfu Trail

See list of characters, page 7

See also, Corfu Sunset, Sample Chapters

See also: Greek Walls, Sample Chapters

Hollande's Rejection of Austerity, and Tsipras too

Sky News report

Keep Talking Greece, on Tsipras's rejection of coalition with New Democracy

Greece, Election Results

Greeks are in a state of shock at the outcome of the elections. The markets and investors have been spooked. Better not to have a government? (New York Times).

Antonis Samaras and New Democracy seem to have a big mistake in pushing so hard for early elections. New Democracy secured only 18.9% of the vote (108 MPs), far less than the 25%-30% to which Samaras aspired.

PASOK fared even worse, with only 13.2% of the vote (41 MPs).

The surprises were the performance of Alexis Tsipras, with his Radical Left Coalition Party (Syriza), which won 16.8% of the vote (52 MPs) and Nikos Michaloliakos' Golden Dawn party (Chrysi Avgi), which won 7% of the vote (21 MPs). Panos Kammenos, leader of Independent Greeks (Anexartitoi Ellines) won 10.6% (33 MPs).

What does all this mean? A new round of elections in June? Coalition talks begin (Wall Street Journal)

Athens News produced a useful guide to the parties in its 4 May issue.

Tsipras was quoted as saying his Syriza party will offer a "government of the left, a government of cooperation between the left and Green, progressive anti-memorandum powers", which plans "to suspend the servicing of the debt, negotiate to erase a large portion of the public debt, to tax the wealthy, reduce armaments, combat corruption, grant travel documents to immigrants wishing to move to another country..."


BBC update on Tsipras' position

The leader of Golden Dawn (Chrysi Avgi) stated "I am not a fascist. I am a nationalist. Hitler was a great personality". The party denounces the memorandum, refuses to pay "the odious public debt" and wants to lay landmines along the Greek borders, and arrest and deport all undocumented immigrants (Athens News). News conference here.
Wikipedia entry here. The Telegraph on the ultra nationalists.

Today's International Herald Tribune has on its front page "Greek voters give boost to far left and neo-Nazis".

Eurointelligence calls it "The Greek Insurrection".


Commentary from The New Athenian

Mark Lowen, BBC

My Corfiot hairdresser (an important source of political opinion) said that the country had committed collective suicide and was already dead and buried. I think he may have PASOK sympathies. For Corfu election results, go to the Corfu Channel (in Greek)

We'll wait and see.

Greek Elections, Round One, May 6, 2012

The Greeks reply, with a tit-for-tat tasteless magazine cover:

See the German Focus magazine cover which caused such offence in Greece in February 2010

It all reminds me of The Sun's front page headline, "Up Yours, Delors" 

(1 November, 1990)

Perhaps the Leveson Inquiry should be invited to widen its remit across Europe.

One brave blogger makes his predictions for the Greek elections result

On Burns and Barnes

I missed this article on Burns and Barnes when first published.

Dr Alan Chedzoy responded with a letter to The Guardian.

Is it time to consider a national Barnes Night, and not just a local event?

Too late now for the Cultural Olympiad.

On Government in Greece

One of the first books I ever bought to help me understand Greek culture was a UNESCO manual, "Cultural Patterns and Technical Change", edited by Margaret Mead (UNESCO, 1955). An anthropological study of whole cultures, Greece is one of five cultures presented "as an integrated whole"; the Greek section was written by a Greek, by birth and upbringing (I assume the author is Dorothy Demetracopoulou Lee, one of the members of the editorial staff), and is based on work carried out in 1950-1951.

The section contains an extensive discussion of  the importance of philotimo, but here is a brief quotation from the publication, to consider at election time:

"Government is not personal, and the law is external to the organic, structured whole. It is not the voice of Greece. There is therefore no obligation to obey the law; the guide to conduct here is expediency, and the ability to circumvent."

True or False?

Corruption Blues (Reform Watch Greece)