The company will install a special metre free of charge and, for 200 drachmas, a mechanism that will switch you off the regular metre on to the lower rate one at the appointed hour and switch you back on to the higher rate in the morning. Thus you need not keep your eye on the clock and race to the metres twice a day flipping one on and the other off. You can relax in the knowledge that the little robot is dutifully clicking you back and forth, spring you countless fractions of drachmas every night.
This is a service to be strongly recommended to those who use a great deal of electricity and a large number of appliances. It is a must for all those who keep the fashionably late dinner hour, for those who enjoy an early morning bath, and, of course, for insomniacs in general.
We must, however, offer a few words of warning. The low-rate hours correspond to the ‘quiet’ hours enforced by the police who discourage during those intervals the loud playing of radios and phonographs, singing under the shower at the crack of dawn, or any activity that will disturb the neighborhood. Furthermore, if you have a maid she may not want to work the night shift and if she must, may charge you accordingly. Finally, the electric light you will use while performing your nocturnal chores may cancel out all your gains. On the other hand, we recommend that you not vacuum in the dark as it may lead to serious injury to both your furniture and yourself.
Another thought has crossed our minds and caused us some concern. Did DEI consult any social scientists before introducing this new measure? The government has initiated various tax and other incentives to those producing large families in an attempt to encourage a higher birth rate. We all know, of course, what happened to New York’s birth rate during the famous blackout. Will this new scheme have the opposite effect here? Will DEI be inadvertently short-circuiting the economists’, statisticians’, and tax experts’ well laid plans to stimulate the birth rate?
The Ways We Go
RECENTLY we have given a great deal of thought to the subject of urban over-crowding but were nonetheless shocked to hear that the dead are involved as well.
The fifty-odd cemeteries in the greater Athens area, we are told, are filled to capacity and no longer suitable for dignified funerals. Since cremation is forbidden because of religious and sentimental reasons, the situation is, to say the least, awkward.
Many solutions have been proposed but two are of particular interest. We will call them the ‘Alimos Way’ and the ‘Brahami Way’ in the manner of Jessica Mitford’s popular book, The American Way of Death.
The former plan, suggested by the Mayor of Alimos, involves the construction of catacombs for which, it must be granted, there is considerable historical precedent. The mayor’s plan calls for a series of underground drawers to contain the deceased. The drawers will run along both sides of spacious corridors, and the ground above will be turned into parks covered with ‘beautifying trees.’
The second plan has been proferred and, to some extent, applied by the mayor of Brahami who is clearly an upward looking gentleman. He has already had several high-rise, multiple tombs built into the outer walls of the town cemetery. As with all such futuristic plans, however, a number of unforeseen problems have arisen — among them the authorities from the Ministry of Health. It seems that the walls of the multiple-dwellings at the Brahami cemetery have been constructed like those of most polikatoikies from hollow bricks which are then plastered and, as in most polikatoikies, they tend to leak. Climbing plants and ivy growing up the walls have failed to conceal the dreadful thing that is happening. Inhabitants of the area have been driven to unexpectedly early summer vacations. Others have taken the matter to the courts. Undaunted, the mayor, who has been ordered to pay a 10,000 drachma fine, continues to build his skyscrapers.
Urban decentralization does seem to be the best answer here as elsewhere. The state is studying a recommendation that five or six large areas be staked out for burial grounds outside the city. We approve. Where the dead go, the living are sure to follow.
Hyperpoliteleias at the Delta
AS warnings of imminent depression mount, and the effects of inflation already surround us, economic cautiousness has entered many facets of our lives. We avoid taking our cars to work, think twice before hailing a taxi, switch off lights when we leave a room and refuse to buy frosted lightbulbs. Vacuum cleaner filters are used and re-used and old socks that used to be thrown away are now darned.
All this is bound to lead to mean-spiritedness and it is refreshing to hear that in our midst some people are still thinking big. We refer to the Great Delta Project at the foot of Syngrou Avenue in Phaleron.
It is by far the greatest tourist project in the country, promising a degree of luxuriouness never before hazarded here about. The project will consist, among other things, of three monoblock hotels, 20 stories each and a fourth in two sections (each hotel with 1000 to 1200 beds); a building for conferences; a swimming and athletic center; and a marina for luxurious yachts. There will be no facilities, it seems, for unluxurious yachts.
‘Grand luxe,’ ‘supertourist luxury,’ ‘hyperpoliteleias,’ — no language can quite rise to so sublime an occasion. In reception and recreation areas, in the furnishing of rooms and suites, we are assured there will be no sparing of cost, no stinting on opulence. Huge garages, a bowling alley, a shopping center, many and various restaurants, places of entertainment — in short, 400 stremmata of the purest grandeur.
The cost will run from 15 to 20 million dollars per hotel, or, if you prefer, two and a half billion drachmas for all four. Breaking the sums down into smaller, more comprehensible units that can be grasped by the average citizen, we calculated it comes to a mere 600,000 drachmas per bed.
Like the Concorde project before it, the concept has increased in nobility with the passing of time. Two and a half years ago, when the concessions were given out, each hotel was to be 45 meters in height and contain 700 rooms.
A note of pusillanimity was struck last February when the Ministry of Public Works vetoed the whole thing. There were petty aesthetic complaints, such as that the inhabitants of Phaleron would have their view of the sea blocked. Others fussed over the inappropriateness that an avenue which started at the Arch of Hadrian should end in such a welter of skyscrapers.
We disagree with these arguments, however. The Temple of Olympian Zeus is very much in the spirit of the Delta complex and the Emperor Hadrian, we feel, would very much approve of the whole thing. In any case, optimism and opulence have won the day and the unbuilt hotels have been declared ‘immovable.’ The Ministry of Public Works has given in.
We wish to call attention all the same to a small footnote at the conclusion of all this magnificence: at the far west end of the project where the River Kifissos cascades into the bay, there will be a bit of beach with modest facilities, open to the public. The entrance fee will be five drachmas.
Save the Seaside
THE last thing we would want to do is quarrel with our friend Kyria Elsie, but the other day she told us flatly that she took a dim view of the Delta Project. We cannot accuse her of pettiness. Her memory goes back farther than ours, to other days. This is the way she put it:
Years ago after a quick drive down Syngrou and a short drive along Phaleron, the sea awaited us. The beaches were comparatively empty then, the sands clean, the water crystal clear. Three organized beaches existed, the Astir at Glyfada and the two beaches at Vouliagmeni — the popular beach and the ‘Lemos’. The latter was the most beautiful and the entrance fee was 12 drachmas. For this price a chair, an umbrella and a shared cabin were provided. Walking through a garden of flowers to reach the sandy bay with its backdrop of spectacular mountains was paradise. There was no canned music at Lemos in those days and the chairs and umbrellas were comfortably spaced, not as they are today, cheek by jowl.
If one did not like organized beaches there were dozens of little bays between Phaleron and Sounion, or one could cross over to the east coast facing Evia. There a ring of small seaside villages provided pretty beaches and clean water. My favorite was near Porto Rafti where we discovered a little bay with caves to shelter us from the strong sun. We called this bay Madame Suisse, because the lady who was lucky enough to own a house overlooking it came from Switzerland. When one swam out to sea one could see the Swiss flag flying with the Greek. The road out to this spot was very difficult to negotiate, so we usually had the bay to ourselves. On the other side of Port Rafti was Avlaki, a huge sandy beach with high rocks all around. Then there was Skinia (almost unknown before the Boy Scout Jamboree) which offered miles of sand and an adjacent pine forest.
It is fitting that today the beaches are open to all and the motor car has made them accessible to a great many people. Of course it is not the people but what they leave behind that ruins beaches. Litter of every kind spoils Madame Suisse Bay today. The shaded sands behind Skinia are covered by picnic remains. Quantities of paper bags fill the nooks and crannies along the Sounion road. The authorities do provide large dustbins and no doubt many tidy people use them, but the majority do not. When the bins are used, they are not emptied frequently enough. Last year Madame Suisse bins, filled to overflowing, toppled over spilling their contents on the beach. The wind did the rest, lifting the refuse and blowing it in all directions. Madame Suisse Bay became a giant dustbin.
Kyria Elsie sighed but did not give in to despair. She rose with an air of resolution.
Is this what people want a car for? To drive in a procession and then sit and swim amongst refuse? I cannot believe this and I offer a remedy. Since the adults obviously cannot or will not take pride in our beautiful country, children must be taught to keep Greece tidy and clean. Let the schools teach the children how to clear up after a picnic. Let the Scouts and Guides point the way to a tidier coast, instil in the young a sense of pride in their heritage so that in the future, at any rate, a new generation and their visitors will be able to rediscover what an older generation was lucky enough to enjoy.
A Family Affair
Acharming voice over the phone identified itself as belonging to Marlene Dixon, in charge of publicity for the Journey Into Fear production, and invited us to join the cast for cocktails. The thought of drinks with a famous Hollywood director, a famous young actor and a famous British thespian was irresistible and so we wandered over to the Hilton to catch a closer glimpse of the famous and the glamorous.
Remembering all the things we have read about movie actors’ use of make-up and other equipment to transform themselves into their public images we were prepared for the worst (We have been told, for example, that a famous French sex queen has a pock-marked complexion and that one of the incidents that added to the cost of filming Cleopatra was the fact that a certain actor’s biceps kept coming loose and shifting during the filming).
We were greeted by the producer of the film, a Canadian by the name of Trevor B. Wallace and in a few moments Sam Waterston arrived looking fresh and youthful. We calculated that he should be all of 25 and were surprised to read in his biographical notes that he is 34. Another reporter noted that Waterston was wearing ‘cowboy boots’ and decided he was from Montana but a brief chat with Mr. Waterston produced the information that he attended a famous prep school in Massachusetts and Yale University. He plays Graham in the film, a ‘scholarly looking man in his mid-thirties and perhaps naive.’
Director Daniel Mann and actor Donald Pleasance arrived looking like the Bobbsey twins in identical homespun shirts their wives had bought that afternoon in the Plaka. We chatted with Donald Pleasance and discovered that one of his ambitions is to play King Lear and that he returns regularly to the stage. Stanley Mann, one of Hollywood’s best known directors who has a formidable list of films and a bevy of oscars to his credit, was new to Greece but not things Greek. He directed Irene Pappas in Dream of Kings, based on the bestseller about Greeks in America.
We examined the group carefully and were pleased to see that not only were the complexions smooth and the muscles firmly in place, but they all looked healthy, happy, and normal surrounded by their respective spouses and the cozy dimension added by producer Wallace’s two daughters.
