DURING a cosy moment in the two-day talks between Harold Wilson and Constantine Karamanlis, the British Prime Minister referred to a predecessor of his, George Canning, as a proof of the long duration of Anglo-Hellenic friendship.
FRENCH President Giscard d’Estaing’s four-day official visit to Greece last month was the first state visit since the reestablishment of democracy over a year ago.
BEGINNING on July 21 and continuing throughout August, Greeks could be seen queueing up at kiosks all over the country.
IT WAS not so long ago that at least twice a day traffic along Leoforos Kifissias and Vassilissis Sofias between Psychiko and Constitution Square would be brought to a halt.
WE were interested to see the ‘For Sale’ sign go down in front of the house of a determinedly royalist family in Kifissia a few weeks ago, imagining that the real estate slump was over and that some democracy-loving shipowner had actually paid the asking price of 10,000,000 drachmas a stremma (a quarter of an acre).
THERE IS a saying amongst Greeks that in June the swallows return — and by swallows they mean the foreign tourists. Indeed they come punctually each year in great flocks, clustering on beaches, perching on crumbling old columns, pecking at the local specialties and fluttering through museums in great droves.
ON the night of April 21 we left our offices on the corner of Alopekis and Loukianou in downtown Athens and headed for home. The demonstration, organized by the youth branches of all the political parties, was in progress a few blocks below on Vasilisis Sofias.
WITH the first boom of the cannon up on Lycabettus we were out of bed in a second and hastily dressing. At intervals bands could be heard strutting by with flurries as they marched to their appointed places. We answered several hysterical phone calls from visitors to our fair city, and explained that we were not having a revolution and that the cannon was merely saluting the occasion of our Independence Day.
THE Council of Europe has declared 1975 The Year of European Architectural Heritage.
A representative of the telephone company complained the other day that local service is poor
