Onlooker

ON a dung-heap somewhere in Western Europe, a colony of bacteria was holding its annual congress.

At about the same time as the trireme Olympias was being commissioned into to the Greek Navy, a meeting took place at an office in the Turkish defense ministry in Ankara.

THE time has come to review the events of the past few months in our continuing saga of the Freaks and the Jerks, the people of two beautiful countries separated by a shimmering blue sea.

You may remember the story of Taki the microbophobe who was so scared of germs and bugs that he lived a completely sterilized life in Athens until, fearing the pollution here, he moved to Switzerland, took a walk in the pure air of the Jura mountains, slipped on a cow pat, hit the back of his head on a rock and expired, uttering his final words, “the colobacilli got me in the end.”

When PASOK was swept into power five years ago, its most attractive slogan was the call for allagi, or change. The Greek scene has certainly changed since 1981, but perhaps not in the ways the socialists had in mind.

With the end of summer, the National Tourist Organization began taking stock of the results of this year’s tourist season, trying with one hand to keep cruise ship owners and the proprietors of luxury hotels from throwing themselves off the tops of high buildings and, with the other, to add up the figures for ‘arrivals, foreign currency , and all the other entries on the credit side of the tourist ledger.

IT was the year 2002 and it was a beautiful spring day in Psychico when the old man came out of his house, took a wistful look at the ancient Renault 20TL that had sat in his garage for the last three years, immobile for the lack of a vital spare part, and trudged down the hill to Leoforos Kifissias to wait for the bus.

THE elderly man who sat in the seat next to mine on a flight from Athens to Larissa, with his wide-brimmed fedora, a monstrous tie and large, elastic-sided shoes was so obviously a Greek-American that I studiously avoided his gaze.

ONE of the more intriguing of the PASOK government’s plans to improve the quality of Greek life was the promise to set up a Ministry of the New Generation.

Four Kolonaki ladies, Mimica, Fiifica, Titica and Lilica, met for their customary Sunday afternoon card game a week after the elections.