Greece: New Property Tax Approved; Tax System

Kathimerini report

More (and on bank foreclosure parameters and criteria)

More (in Greek)

«Προστατεύει όλους εκείνους τους δανειολήπτες που έχουν ανάγκη, και ταυτόχρονα δίνει κίνητρα σε εκείνους που μπορούν να κάνουν ρύθμιση», τόνισε ο Χρύσανθος Λαζαρίδης. Και πρόσθεσε:

«Είμαστε η μόνη χώρα στην Ευρώπη που προστατεύει τους δανειολήπτες στέγασης. Με την ψήφιση του νομοσχεδίου θα έχει την ισχυρότερη στεγαστική πίστη. Πράγματι γίνεται μια αδικία. Γίνεται όμως σε αυτούς που δεν πήραν ποτέ στεγαστικό δάνειο και πληρώνουν νοίκι», τόνισε ο κ. Λαζαρίδης.

"We are the only country in Europe that protects borrowers' housing" (Google translation)

Tax profiles

Streamlined Tax system in Greece? (update January 2014)

Update from Keep Talking Greece (January 2014)

On H.D. (Hilda Doolittle): Hermes; Helen; Freud; Corfu; Writing-On-The-Wall; Classical Greek Literature

From someLANDSCAPES blog (Plinius aka Andrew Ray)

Helen in Egypt, H.D. reads

H.D. had strange visions (hallucinations,"writing-on-the-wall") in her Corfu hotel room  at the Hotel Angleterre et Belle Venise in March, 1920 (a "series of shadow- or of light-pictures I saw projected on the wall of a hotel bedroom. . . ")

H.D's Analysis with Freud

“My bat-like thought-wings would beat painfully in that sudden searchlight.” See H.D.s Tribute to Freud

H.D.'s Resistance to Freud

H.D.And the translation of classical Greek literature, Doctoral Thesis by Jennifer Varney (pdf)

West Dorset: Joint Local Planning Issues; Exploratory Meeting; Well-Timed Christmas Messages!

Confusing reports, Joint Local Plan, and statements

NB Exploratory Meeting January 22, 2014

"Although open to the public, the meeting is not being held for objections or concerns about content in the plan to be raised but for the councils to address specific issues highlighted by the inspector, including housing targets. People cannot participate in discussion unless specifically invited to do so by the inspector".

Leader of West Dorset District Council Robert Gould said:

“It is extremely frustrating that completion of the joint local plan could be delayed by this intervention.

“We have followed the process properly in a professional manner with our partners at Weymouth & Portland Borough Council

“We have taken the views of local people into account following substantial public consultation and changed the plan accordingly to reflect these views where possible.

“The message we appear to be getting is that the plan is not ambitious enough in terms of housing development, but we have applied nationally recognised figures from the ONS while still respecting the views of local people where possible.”

Exploratory Meeting, 22 January 2014

Working Together, Duty To Cooperate


County Council Savings (Dorset Echo)

Typical, such messages distributed just before Christmas when everybody is too busy to take them all in.

On the timing of announcements (Bridport News on a Dorset County Council Meeting Date)

UTOPIA, John Pilger's Australian Dystopia; Stewart Gaykamangu's Silent Night in East Arnhem Land dialect of Yolngu Matha

Documentary film, register on ITV Player to watch (29 days left)

"Award-winning director John Pilger presents a documentary detailing the plight of the Aboriginal population in Australia's poorest region, Utopia".

Read more: John Pilger's article.

As a documentary, its approach reminded me of Jonathan Dimbleby's film on Ethiopia, "The Unknown Famine" (1973)- or rather of what Ethiopian TV did with it, intercutting shots of starving famine victims with scenes of Imperial Banquets.

Does John Pilger want the world to boycott Palm Beach and Rottnest Island, until such a time as a Treaty is signed?

John Crace, Guardian Review

"There were moments when watching this film felt like being smacked about with a sledgehammer. I got the point early on and the repeated flicking from the wealth and complacency of white Australia to the poverty and degradation of the Indigenous Australians became wearing...bludgeoning may be a natural response on Pilger's part".

Jeremy Eccles on "Utopia"

I suggest we all listen to this wonderful Aboriginal East Arnhem version version of Silent Night

There is hope.

"Stewart Gaykamangu recently recorded a special rendition of the popular Christmas Carol, ‘Silent Night’ in the East Arnhem Land dialect of Yolngu Matha – a language spoken only by about 4600 people.

Originally from the Top End, Stewart now lives in Central Australia, and his career is on the rise with his song ‘Lorrpu’ winning NT Pop Song of the Year and his debut album due for release in 2014.

He has performed at the Mbantua Festival, the National Indigenous Remote Media Festival in Ntaria and the Indigenous Economic Development Forum in Alice Springs, where his piano playing and stirring vocals impressed delegates from all over the country.

Swapping the tropical Top End for the red deserts of Central Australia after a church trip where he met his wife, Samara Burton, Stewart still sings in the church choir of Amata and was pleased to be able to record his favourite noel in his mother tongue.

“It makes me proud to sing this Christmas song in the language of my homeland. I hope people hear it around the world and think of my people,” says Stewart".

Read here.

Also, an article by Kimberley Moulton

Romanians, "Ratcheting Up the Rhetoric" Cartoon; Benefits Street; Immigrants

The Times featured a graphic cartoon by Peter Brookes today (18 December), tweeted here

Order a copy here

Cartoonists galleries

Having worked for many years to establish and nurture closer cultural relations between Eastern and Western Europe, and between the South and the North, I find it truly appalling - the constant negative and hostile rhetoric in the British press and media about immigrants (fellow Europeans) from Romania and Bulgaria.

Am I also part of the "unfashionable minority"? What do Cable and Clegg have to say? and more controversy

Nick Robinson tries to present a balanced documentary (BBC iPlayer)

Benefits Street, Episode 2 (hard working Romanians)

Telegraph Review

Birmingham Mail review

The Economist on Romania and Bulgaria

See earlier blog posting

I was thrilled when a Romanian poet translated some of my work and it was published in a Bucharest literary journal. Here's the introduction.

See also, this blog posting with article by Boyd Tonkin.
First published in the Independent, 27 December 2013.

Polly Toynbee, The Guardian

Divine Sopranos, The Telegraph

Viviane Reding (Huffington Post)

Kathimerini on banned Greek TV (14 February 2014) programme

I pity the poor immigrant (Bob)

Joan Baez version

Joan Collins version

Imagining Alexandria (thanks to Corfu), Poems by Louis De Bernières

"De Bernières was introduced to Greek poetry while in Corfu in 1983, and since then he has always travelled with a book of Cavafy's poetry in his pocket".

Here are some poems from his debut volume of poetry, Imagining Alexandria

How I learned to love Greece again  Louis de Bernières

 The Ionian inspires!