ONE OF the prerequisites for summer chic is an even, golden tan attained by spending many dedicated hours in the scorching sun. Unfortunately, these efforts are sometimes rewarded by tomato-hued sunburns, low in aesthetic rating and extremely painful.
It has become something of a habit in the last generation to present Carmen as if it were an opera written in the verismo style -a sort of debased Franco-Spanish spin-off to Cavelleria Rusticana- that is a hot-blooded and sensational tale of Mediterranean lust.
NOT FAR from the National Archaeological Museum, on the edge of the park of the Pedion Areos, the Champ de Mars of Athens, stands the Military Academy designed by that great eclectic embellisher of late-nineteenth-century-Athens, Ernst Ziller.
THE long-threatened strike by the Association of Tourist Guides began on May 6 and reached its climax the following Sunday as guides marched across the Acropolis and Philopappos Hill under placards and banners spelling out their grievances in half a dozen languages.
THE first Mediterranean Consumers’ Conference, which was held in Athens in March, drew considerable attention. In contrast to other countries, the average Athenian consumer is often rather naive and not given to comparison shopping — in spite of continuing inflation.
LEAFING through our first issue to see what was happening back in April, 1974, we saw that continuous shop hours had just made their first, hesitant debut.
THERE are few men who remain calm in the face of the advancing forces of women’s liberation. The movements throw terror into the hearts of the timid, undermine the convictions of progressive-minded individuals and set outright chauvinists to gnashing their teeth.
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.
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.
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.
