The Athenian

For the fourth year in a row now – and ever since they entered the Common Market in 1980 – the Greeks are the most optimistic people in the EC.

Just a year ago there was uneasi-ness in the air about the new year, led by the warnings of George Orwell and the prophesies of Nostradamus. The latter is popular among Athenians who lose heavily at cards during the holidays. It’s then they’re certain that Santorini will pop off again and Crete will land up on top of Mount Olympus.

There have been rumors of friction lately between President Kaamanlis and the Prime Minister.

Former Minister of Environment, Antonis Tritsis, was commended for “knowledge, daring and courage” when he was dismissed from his post by the Prime Minster in late September.

It’s the opening of schools which usually gets Athenians back to the city and the winter season off to a start – no matter that half the textbooks haven’t been issued yet and that the pullman buses go on a strike three days after matriculation. Both help disperse Cycladic raptures and get the natives back in stride.

Facing the painful realities of modern life, The Bank of Greece is finally issuing a 5,000-drachma note.

“Athenians!” the foreigner exclaims, his voice an unstable chord of exasperation and admiration. “Whatever makes you people tick?”

This month marks the tenth anniversary of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and the fall of the military junta in Greece.

On receiving an honorary degree from the faculty of philosophy at the University of Crete in Rethymnon on May 12, Jorge Luis Borges said that in so far as all western poetry was rooted in the Greek tradition, he could be either thought of as a South American who had come to Greece, or as a Greek who had lived here all his life.

For those who want culture and rest (and who happen to be of the people) there is, as the tourism pamphlets say, no place like Greece.