For those who think Greece ‘operates’ behind the times — take note — there are twenty-seven plastic surgeons in this country, daily transforming women into Venuses, men into Adonises, women into men and men into women. Cosmetic or aesthetic surgery — the latter term is preferred — has become an important aspect of Greek life. Furthermore, it remains comparatively inexpensive so that many visitors come to Greece for surgery and a bonus vacation in the sun…
GAMBLING is a universal phenomenon, carried on here with that particular local enthusiasm which is found in the cultivation of other pastimes. In the last few years it has gone beyond the bounds of enthusiasm and reached epidemic proportions.
‘Six lessons from Madame Lazonga, and you will learn how to do the conga…’ goes the old song. Alec Kitroeff, however, settled for one lesson…
My love for antiques is not a recent development. As a young student, I spent hour upon hour in the basement of our old, two-storied summer house in the Peloponnisos. It was a dusty, dimly-lit world in which the oddest things imaginable lived together in peace and isolation, separated by the walls from the noise and activity of the seaside town.
IT WAS Aristotle who first made the observation that one swallow does not make a spring. He might well have added that in Athens one snow flurry does make a winter, and a chaotic one at that.
Last January I wrote a piece -with my predictions of 1976. Looking back over the last twelve months I am glad to say they all came true.
It was late December, 1963. Dimitri Tselos and his young nephew were approaching Syntagma Square, when the boy suddenly called out, ‘Themis the big tree and Saint Basil!’ The tree was a tall and magnificent Scandinavian fir, fully decorated with ornaments and lights. Near it stood a man, dressed in a red fur-trimmed suit and cap, resembling a Salvation Army Santa Claus.
WHEN the Three Wise Men following the star of Bethlehem arrived at the lowly manger, they brought with them gold, frankincense and myrrh to present to the newborn Christ. Eighteen hundred odd years later, on Christmas Eve, there arrived in Greece Three Wise Men from the West, whose adventures have become the basis of a popular folk legend.
In this case, a bottle of whisky is shared in an igloo on top of the world by our intrepid reporter, Alec Kitroeff, with none other than Santa Ciaus himself!
GREEK archaeology, and particularly that of the Bronze Age has been one of the great popular romances of the last century, but its story, without the story of La Belle Helene, a small inn at Mycenae, cannot be quite complete.
