At dawn three hundred and fifty-young women passed through the main gates of the camp. They were the first contingent of women ever to take academic and physical examinations preliminary to induction into the country’s armed forces, which will occur in- mid-February for those who pass. The protests threatened by women’s lib groups never materialized and only the applicants’ families were present outside the walls to wish them well. The women’s quadrangle which is ready for its future recruits was in spit-and-polish condition to receive the new applicants.
The complicated protocol included some innovation: each woman was addressed in the formal plural rather than in the familiar singular usual among officers in speaking to the male rank-and-file. The candidates swept through the initial I.Q. test with ninety-six percent passing, and then proceeded to examinations in mathematics and languages, and finally physicals.
At the midday break, refreshments were served by members of the Entertainment Unit wearing maroon jackets and black bow ties. Interviews during the recess revealed that the military hopefuls came from many different backgrounds and their reasons for applying were equally various. Though some admitted that they “couldn’t think of anything else to do”, most had plans for an active career. While several confessed that their main objective was to get away from home, others said that they were encouraged to enlist by their families.
One candidate declared that it was a historic day for Greek womanhood. Coming from a military family, she wants to continue the tradition.. Another woman, who failed University entrance by one point on three different attempts, plans to make a military career as a meteorologist. A third who has had training as a microbiologist wants to be a hospital assistant. “If I succeed,” she said, “all my dreams will have come true.”
The subject of marriage may become a controversial one. As all the recruits are single, it remains to be seen, if any apply for permission to marry during their fourteen-month service, whether they will be required, like their brethren-in-arms, to produce affidavits regarding their fiances political convictions.
Although the clear preference for the army and the air force over the navy has put certain nautical noses out of joint, most candidates said that they were only afraid of seasickness. All of them, however, expressed a fearless desire to serve their country. Their countrymen (and countrywomen) should be proud of them.
February Rip-Off
FITTINGLY (or perhaps better, unfittingly), February sales, which start on the first of this month and end on the twentieth, roughly coincide with the celebration of Carnival. This is appropriate as one may consider the sales as part of Carnival, or Carnival as a much needed release after the storm and stress of a day in the shops.
There are many opportunities to take advantage of at this time but they should be approached with caution. During sales, many shops hide away their good items and bring out old stock. Normal sizes also have a way of vanishing, leaving the field free to Amazons, Titans and Lilliputians. Nor is it any secret that there is a flourishing business with factories which turn out goods of poor quality especially for sales. And in most cases shops do not accept returns.
The psychology of salesmanship at this time is to get everyone to buy unthinkingly and in a hurry, and to lure clients who have no clear idea of what they want. Some believe that to be forewarned is to be forearmed. But this works both ways. Clever buyers visit shops about a week before the sales start and jot down the prices that they see. Even cleverer shop owners, however, may raise their prices two weeks before the sales and then advertise a spectacular discount at sale time which is in fact what the goods can be bought for during the rest of the year.
On the other hand, the February sales have their virtues. Knowing clearly what one wants from the start is a great advantage. Most stores are reputable and display good values. And if there are family needs to be got at a bargain, this is the time to find them.
Since buying things one doesn’t need is a cornerstone of modern consumer societies, you must not be depressed if you return home with a load of plastic bags full of things that no one can fit into and that nobody wants. You can still feel that you have stimulated the economy. And, who knows, what looks hopeless on second thought may be just the thing to wear at a Carnival masquerade.
National Graffiti
WHATEVER one may think of using public walls for private or partisan expression, graffiti is proliferating throughout the country. A generation ago boldly painted advertisments for certain brands of refrigerators, rice, coffee and so on painted cheerfully on whitewashed rubble walls were already a feature of the countryside. Political slogans seem to be the chief form of expression today and there is hardly a wall in the country free of them. Perhaps this is a reaction to Junta days when graffiti were confined to official slogans generally seen around military compounds. The latest political graffiti may read spiritedly, but they don’t amount to much as an art form. KK red, Fascist black, Nea Dimokratia blue and PASOK green exhibit a bit of colour variation, but as design, the genre is still undeveloped.
Although ‘freedom for graffiti* is not one of the proposed amendments to children’s rights in 1979—The Year of the Child—it might be well for the grown-up to put away his spray can for awhile and let the child have his say on the nation’s walls.
This is already being put into effect by schools in certain neighborhoods of Athens and Piraeus, with the encouragement of local officials who would like to see already defaced walls around public buildings painted over with children’s art. The movement which began in January will hopefully spread. Aesthetically speaking it is bound to be an improvement on the wordy status quo — and morally speaking too.
Sports d’Hiver
OPPOSITION members in Parliament have voiced objection to the large amount of public funds being delegated by the National Tourist Organization for the development of ski resorts. While the critics are all in favour of stimulating tourism, they protest that such development caters only to those who can afford luxury sports.
Whatever justice there may be in these objections, there luckily exists an alternative winter sport which costs nothing, which is highly stimulating, and which is growing so popular that it is becoming something of a fad: this is winter swimming.
The origins of this noble sport go back a long way and most likely are connected with Epiphany when boys jumped into the sea to retrieve the cross. For many years, however, stalwart enthusiasts from Piraeus to Sounion have been plunging into the water all year round. While the Neo Faliron Club of Winter Swimmers always receives much publicity on New Year’s Day and Epiphany, and members cut their vassilopitta on the beach, there are swimmers — some of them septuagenarians — all along the Apollo Coast who claim not to have missed for decades a day in the sea — come rain, snow or sleet.
Parenthetically, a word should be said for that alternative activity, winter jogging. While it is no longer looked upon with hilarity on the part of passers-by, jogging has had a chequered career in this country. Although there is a brisk business in fancy Adidas outfits, these are usually used as lounging suits and roadside jogging is rarely observed. This may be due to local motorists being unused to driving on ice and snow, which can make the sport hazardous. Although devotees may be found along the back streets of our more fashionable suburbs, jogging is still in its infancy and there are no jogging groups cutting vassilopittas yet. As one man devoted to both sports explained, “That level of ecstasy which comes after an hour’s jogging can be reached in seconds by splashing into the mid-winter Saronic.”Unexpectedly, on January sixth, winter swimmers received a new convert. A priest, presiding over Epiphany ceremonies near Nafplion, tossed a cross which was tied to a cord around his waist into the water. In an excess of zeal, the youth who retrieved the cross tugged on the cord and the priest plunged into the sea.
The Bald Facts
LITIGATION is a favourite national pastime which means that much of the country spends a great deal of time in court. This is what accounts for so many thousands of students applying for entry into law schools every year.
The most unusual trial to capture national attention in some time, and now entering its second significant stage, involves the Hairdresser and the Hairless Lady. In November 1975 a forty-eight-year-old housewife visited a coiffure establishment in Kallithea for a decapage. The chemicals used for stripping the colour from her hair before dyeing were left on for an hour instead of ten minutes, leaving the client quite bald within a few days.
The housewife sued the hairdresser and a petty sessions court handed down the decision that the defendant be given an eight-month prison sentence and the plaintiff be awarded ten thousand drachmas’ compensation. The hairdresser appealed the case and a second trial began. The results of the opening session were truly hair-raising. At a dramatic moment the plaintiff removed her peruke revealing a head smooth as a billiard ball. At this point her brother jumped up in court and shouted, “You have ruined my sister!” The pandemonium that followed caused an adjournment of the proceedings. The next installment is anyone’s guess. In the old days, such a state of affairs might have provoked a vendetta. While this is unlikely today the final outcome of the case may create a legal precedent which hopefully will not have to be cited often.
A Volta in Search of Travolta
ALTHOUGH the film Saturday Night Fever was dismissed as unworthy of serious attention by intellectual cinema reviewers (of which Athens has a great many), the city’s weekend temperature noticeably rose in December and January. The reason for this is easy to explain. To exorcize the week’s routine in an orgy of weekend dancing is something that Athenians can empathize with. Saturday Night Fever was a common local complaint long before the Italians discovered Brooklyn. Indeed, the cheerful crash of breaking plates to the accompaniment of the tsifteteli could be heard in the bouzouki joints of Byzantine Athens when North Americans were still living in wigwams.
Since it is obviously the duty of any vibrant, international city to pursue ephemeral fashions, the search for a native Travolta last month took on the dimensions of an interurban quest. The discovery was finally made at the end of a dance competition at the discotheque Retro. With great eclat the Travolta crown was laid on the balding head of a forty-year-old, slightly paunchy taxi cab driver who had won his first dance prize at the Aigli Nightclub in the Zappion Gardens twenty-three years ago. Any non-terpsichorian resemblance to the original Travolta being purely coincidental, we can only repeat what Athenians are tirelessly trying to explain to their bewildered foreign friends, “we are not like other people”.
