The 200th anniversary of the birth of Lord Byron was celebrated in Athens on January 22 with the opening of the “Lord Byron in Greece” exhibition and a dinner party at the British Embassy where much Samian wine was dashed down the throats of eminent philhellenes.
Imagine a spare figure in a cape of wool homespun, a nose that a Roman emperor would have envied, jet-black hair often jammed into a turban, flashing wide-apart eyes, a long and loping gait, a contralto voice that got a bit scratchy with age, like an old much-loved phonograph record.
In wishing one another the best for the New Year, Athenians, like most people, have a lot of good things in mind: peace, prosperity, more basketball and football victories, cheaper cars, the return of the Parthenon (alias Elgin) marbles, fewer forest fires, more housing for university students, lots of well-heeled tourists, free radio stations and early elections. Above all, they wish each other good health.
There is an interesting new amendment to a law on crime prevention being discussed in parliament these days. It states that insulting certain ‘persons of authority’ in this country should be liable to more stringent punishment.
Returning recently from a conference in Berlin, opposition leader Constantine Mitsotakis warned that Greece’s international position has weakened and that it no longer inspires trust abroad.
The idea that Greeks are a simple, fun-loving, cicada-like folk singing “Never on a Sunday” and dancing on Aegean sands at all hours amid a welter of smashed plates, Doric columns and gyro-joints may have been an attractive image once but it is superficial and obsolete.
It is ironic when the government is trying so hard to get its independent, multi-dimensional foreign policy heard in the international press that Athens only made the front pages this summer because of the temperature.
When a navy ship called Poseidon dredged up a stone in the shape of a gigantic fist out of the harbor at Rhodes on July 3, it was not only antiquarians who hoped it might have some connection with the celebrated Colossus of Rhodes.
When things are merely probable in Greece they usually don’t happen. But when the outcome appears impossible, the ethnic spirit is sometimes aroused and it is achieved.
All agree that Greece is a fine place to live in so long as one’s in good health. But if one is stricken with anything more serious than a retsina hangover, received wisdom says get on the next plane for Zurich.
