Things Theatrical

After all the weeks of house changes that created enough turmoil and of which there is still plenty of evidence; all last week the house was in even bigger chaos with the addition of putting together and rehearsing “Champagne Charlie” for last Sunday evening at the old school – a sort of dress rehearsal before the whole kit and caboodle is packed up this week and shipped to the UK to be ready for the performance on September 27^th at Wilson’s Music Hall, and there’s a lot to ship out. It’s hard to credit now but when the show was first performed everything could be transported in a Mini. I was asked how many musical numbers there are and the answer is 22 with 15 changes and part changes of costume. Each costume is an exact replica of one that Leybourne would have worn when performing, as illustrated on the covers of his sheet music. I see Stuart Yeomans and Judy North have put some photos on Facebook. The performance of course was without lighting or any specials effects and before it started Douglas delivered a little speech in Greek informing our Cretan friends as to what it was all about. We also had some old programmes from previous productions and a note in Greek was slipped inside. This didn’t stop the Greeks from yapping, especially one woman whose voice really carried. But that’s the Cretans for you. They simply can’t stop nattering. They’re at it the whole time even in church. Maybe, as happened in Germany with the kids talking now and again through “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” they were telling each other what was going on. We’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

The only scenery is a large ornate screen behind which the costume changes take place. The shortest is 8 seconds, the longest 1.43.

My original credit was “Written & Directed by” and the changes are covered by interjections from the pianist with various bits of information pushing the story along; letters, newspaper articles, announcements, etcetera. The band at Wilton’s, as with previous performances, will consist of pianist, trombone and cornet to give that plaintiff Victorian brass band sound. But Sunday of course there was no pianist so I stepped in to perform his bits. The music was recorded.

Some friends had indicated they would like to see it, or in Victorian parlance, “hear it,” so we let the word spread and were delighted to have an audience of over fifty, Cretan and Ex-pats, with many faces we had never seen before.

Every window was wide open but despite the midsummer heat everyone gave all the appearance of enjoying themselves, joining with gusto in singing the chorus when invited. Easy peasy with famous and well-known songs like “The Man On The Flying Trapeze,”  “Champagne Charlie,” and “Daddy Wouldn’t Buy Me A Bow-wow,” but even the less familiar ones or even totally unknown went down with enthusiasm and the show was a great success. How Chris managed to keep up the energy in that sweltering heat amazed me and I was delighted to find he was in such good voice. I was always of the impression that the voice degenerates with advancing age but his singing was stronger than ever. It was all very well doing a two hour one-man show back in ’84 but almost thirty years on it seemed a bit rash to take it out of mothballs. So Wilton’s will be the very last performance and if you happen to be in London on the 27^th September with the evening free, think about it. I promise you, it’s great fun. And while I’m talking theatre I am still looking for a composer to work on an opera.

Still on matters theatrical I read with sadness on Facebook that the Wayside Theatre in Middletown, Virginia is to close after 52 years. Why the sadness? Well I did one summer season at The Wayside – 1985 – and still have the fondest memories of what was one of the happiest theatre experiences of a long life with a wonderful company. As I commented on Facebook, the highlight was probably playing the slave Pseudolus in “A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To The Forum,” But the last production of the season also carries happy memories; the privilege and sheer joy playing opposite Anne Lyndrup, a beautiful and consummate actress, in Coward’s “Private Lives.” To quote from Champagne Charlie, “Oh, they were good days, good days, how could they last?” Only in memory. Some photographs, some programmes, some newspaper reviews, some friends still in touch, and memories.

Plastic

I do believe I made the remark once before (maybe more than once) that when the end of the world comes with the four horsemen galloping furiously into view, thanks to the ever increasing population, we won’t go out with a bang but the world will be drowned in a tsunami of shit. But now, thanks to science and man’s ingenuity, that fateful day may be postponed if not put off forever and the horsemen can go back to the stables. A company in Sacramento, California, has started to put tons of the natural but filthy stuff to good use - they have discovered a means of turning it into plastic. This is really good news. Firstly it gets rid of what is euphemistically known as human waste, secondly the plastic takes the place of that manufactured from oil, a commodity that’s going to get more and more scarce if not more and more expensive, and the faeces version degrades quite fast as opposed to the oil variety that takes a hundred years. Well, Sacramento is just one city among thousands. Will others take it up and discover more practical uses for it?

I must have spent a good three weeks sorting stamps and sticking them in albums. I hadn’t realised just how large the collection is. Some countries produce the most beautiful and fascinating stamps, others are just plain dull, Portugal for instance, Switzerland not far behind. The collection isn’t worth much but then that is not why I took up the hobby, collecting over the years. There are some stamps I thought might be worth a bob or two but Douglas has looked up their value online and the result is diddlysquat. There are three green Victorian one and a half penny which, if they had been unused would have been worth about £75 each but used are worth only about 90p. There is an early Natal, a Cape of Good Hope, a New South Wales, a Southern Australia and a Crete before union with Greece, Fascinating but as I say, not worth anything. Complete set of George V1 commemorative £6.25. Wow! Taken as a whole sheer volume makes the collection worth anything from five to ten grand and there are any number of doubles, triples, quadruples even but it’s all just theory as I don’t intend to do anything with them and the market anyway always fancies the buyer rather than the seller. Looking it up online it is fantastic just how many stamps are being offered. It really is very big business.

When I was a kid my parents had bought a complete set of Edward Vlll and I destroyed them. I thought they looked untidy so I cut off the perforations and landed myself in extremely hot water. Ten quid I had destroyed, so I was informed, I wonder if they would be worth anything today, more than seventy years later, Must look that  up merely out of curiosity.

Some time ago a friend of his informed Chris that an auction house was selling a stamped envelope on which was a drawing of Champagne Charlie so naturally he bid for it and got it fairly cheap. Evidently it was made by a fellow artiste shortly after Leybourne’s death. After that simple purchase the auction house regularly sent me their glossy brochure of sales. Oh, what a feast! What eye-candy! What fascination! Unfortunately, though there were most definitely stamps I would love to have made a bid for; even the least expensive was outside my range so eventually they stopped sending the brochure.

Talking of Mr. Beeching I have just watched him rinse out a small paint pot and brush under a running tap. He must have used something like two litres of water. I have tried in vain time after time to get him to appreciate water is not an infinite commodity. Okay, so there is no shortage here but it is the lack of respect that gets my goat. It always irritates me when I see him wasting it. Ah well, old habits die hard and some things I suppose are destined never to change. Douglas’s little foible (there’s no one to point out mine) is to use three sheets of  kitchen paper where one will suffice and, funnily enough, I have just read on Facebook that  if Americans used one sheet less a day 571,230,000 tons of paper would be spared in the course of a year. I don’t know who worked out this figure but I’ll take his/her/their word for it

I have just looked up the value of the ten pounds Edward Vlll stamps I destroyed and to-day’s value for a complete set of four is – wait for it – 80p!!! Eina! (That’s Afrikaans for “ouch”.) Evidently a great many people bought and hoarded them thinking their value would increase in consequence of which they’re actually as common as muck. Sorry dad, sorry mom.

Champagne Charlie

So Robert Mugabe’s Zanu party won the Zimbabwe elections by a handsome majority. Golly gosh! Whoever would have thought it? There’s a turn-up for the books. It’s just as well foreign monitors were banned and the election was monitored only by Africans. I wonder if the results would have been different if it had been the other way around. At his age (89) will he be able to see out what is obviously his last term of office? And when he’s dead and gone and only the memories of over thirty years of misrule are left what’s the bet there will be mass mourning and he will receive the accolade of being “Father of the Nation.”

There’s a dove that at daybreak starts his cooing and keeps it up intermittently for an hour or more and does the same thing in the evening. He really is a persistent little bugger and I can’t work out which of the many trees that surround us he’s sitting in. It’s a lovely sound. Reminds me of my boyhood in Natal. I have a mental picture of wattle trees, a farmhouse and an ethereal winter’s mist. He doesn’t wake me up at sparrowfart or the first cooing. It’s my bladder that does that, but I can go back to sleep listening to him. Haven’t heard much from the cicadas this summer but maybe that’s because I’ve grown even harder of hearing.

It’s the fig season again and there’s a glut of them and they are delicious. Unfortunately with everything that’s going on here, the building changes to the house, rehearsals for CHAMPAGNE CHARLIE, meaning the breakfast room has become a temporary stage replete with scenery, props, and costume rail, the house is in chaos and there is certainly no time for something like preserving them. This Sunday in the old school we are going to do a rehearsal of the show before an invited audience. It will be sans musicians and the pianist, music apart, is an integral part of the show (so I will be reading his bits and pieces), and recorded music which is not easy to work to. After that it will be time for Chris and Douglas to pack everything up ready to be shipped to England although it is quite a few weeks before the show goes on at Wilton’s

Despite the plump green figs creating something of an illusion I don’t believe the olive crop will be much cop this year. We’re desperately in need of rain. Haven’t seen leaden skies or a drop of rain for months. The jungle that was our garden is parched and showing distinct signs of withering. Even the walnut trees are drooping and they, like the tamarisk and the oleander, normally manage the summer with no problem. Watering is needed, it would also cool things down a bit, but, again because of all the work involved with the changes; in particular the MI from the lane down to the garden door, Douglas has not had time to rearrange the watering system which means any watering has to be done by hand and that again takes time. August of course is not the time for rain though we have had it a couple of times over the years. One year Douglas took the roof off the old part of the house in order to renew it and he hadn’t removed the last tile before the heavens opened and flooded everyth8ing. And it wasn’t a sort sharp deluge, it went on and on and on…

I love the story of the holiday maker who in July asks a local shepherd if it was going to rain and the shepherd looks up at the sky and says, “Yes, in September.” It’s like the Irish who, when asked for directions to some place, point and say “It’s just down the road,” which means anything from a hundred yards to a hundred miles. I look out the window up at the sky and it’s a clear blue with not one wispy cloud to be seen.

Homosexyality

The many manifestations of human sexuality can cause great anxiety so I have decided to write an essay, or at least put down my thoughts on the subject of homosexuality, something I have never previously attempted. Not being a woman I would not presume to speak for lesbianism but as far as males are concerned these are my thoughts with my experience at 82 years.

One of the arguments constantly put forward is that homosexuality is abnormal (whatever normality is deemed to be) and unnatural but, as Goethe said, “How can you call anything in nature unnatural?” and homosexuality has been observed in any number of species other than human. It has always been with us, it will always be with us and no amount of hatred, disgust, disapproval, religious hostility and worse is going to have the slightest effect. It never has. A few thousand years ago a series of Hebrew scrolls was to eventually become what we now know as the Bible. To call these Bronze Age sheep-herders ignorant is not an overstatement but according to Leviticus God considers homosexuality an abomination and on the basis of this all the horrors inflicted on gays over the years have been legitimised and mankind is not exactly slow in invention when it comes to torture. For example in the middle ages there was a device known as a pineapple which consists of an iron core surrounded by movable iron leaves. This was thrust into the rectum when closed and then, with the turn of a screw, the leaves expanded and opened out creating the most excruciating pain. Men convicted of sodomy by Holy Mother Church had their tongues cut out so that as they were dying they would not be able to mumble prayers and so would not enter heaven. Obviously homosexuality in ancient Israel was causing a great deal of alarm. If allowed to flourish what would happen to the tribe? And so God laid his injunction on it. But every society has had to deal with it in one or another, usually by inhumane methods. There are still countries today where prison can be the result, sometimes with lengthy term sentences, or the death sentence can be imposed, and no matter how young you might be, (See Iran.) yet it was in this country, then Persia, that the poets wrote the most exquisite poetry in favour of boys’ beauty. In Afghanistan today boys are dressed as girls and made to dance in front of an all male audience and later used sexually. In the Far East we have girlie-boys who make no bones about their occupation. China has dealt with homosexuality one way or another including incest for thousands of years before Europeans became worried by it. There have been societies where homosexuality was not stigmatised. Before the advent of the white man there were American tribes who believed a gay person was special and was treated as such and the Samurai of Japan believed in boy love as it was wrong to love someone weaker than your warrior self. Of course everyone knows about the Greeks; that an older man was suppose to take a youth under his wing and act as his mentor and the youth when a man did the same. Then of course there was the Sacred Band of Thebes that consisted of picked troops, 150 pairs of male lovers, an elite force of the Theban army. I can’t vouch for the veracity of what I am about to say but what I learned was the theory being that one of the pair would descend into battle and fight heroically while his lover watched. Then, if killed, the lover went into battle to avenge him.

There is no law against homosexuality in Greece today but Greek boys (like Italians) tend to be very secretive about their orientation, families being so important in Greece and homophobia never too far down the line. For example, it is a historical fact that Alexander the Great, despite ordering a mass straight marriage of his men, was bi-sexual, hardly unknown and perfectly acceptable in his world, but when this was more or less revealed in a film a group of Athenian lawyers took great exception to it, almost to the point of wanting to sue the film company. Just how ridiculous can you get?

There have been a number of films with a gay theme (it seems every actor who would once have shied away from it as it would have destroyed his career, now wants to play a gay part) but Hollywood can still be squeamish about the subject. For example Brad Pitt playing Achilles goes totally apeshit when his “cousin,” Patrokles is killed. You go apeshit over the death of a lover; you do not go apeshit for a “cousin” unless you are more than just cousins but this was never even hinted at.’

Greece has mythical gays like Zeus and his Ganymede, Achilles and Patrokles already mentioned, Apollo and Hyacinth and even Narcissus must be considered gay as he falls in love with his reflection, a not unknown complex.

So what other ant-gay arguments are promulgated? Well one of course is that homosexuals are notoriously promiscuous haunting the baths, bars, gay cinemas etcetera hence HIV and are addicted to pornography but in this are they any different from a great many straights? I hardly think so.

So what are we left with? A case of nature or nurture? As far a nature is concerned the jury is still out on this one but for nurture, well from the moment a lad can stand on his tubby little legs his compass is pointed in one direction and one direction only – heterosexuality. From the moment adults say things like “Have you got a nice girl-friend yet?’ he is encouraged to believe in it. Until recently he would never have seen a gay advertisement for example. Always ads featured either straight couples or mixed gatherings, or luscious sexy girls on their own. Thank goodness there are parts of the world, until recently violently homophobic, where acceptance and common sense are now becoming the norm. No more being beaten up with baseball bats or worse, called a fucking faggot, no more being jeered and scoffed at, made to feel ashamed of who you are. As an outcast from mainstream society why is it that there are people who still believe homosexuality is a choice? Does a straight choose to be straight? And who in their right mind would choose to grow up knowing you are different, knowing you are attracted romantically to boys rather than girls which is what you’re supposed to be doing to be “normal” to be like your peers, and wondering what is wrong with you, why you are such a mess, why your life is so painful? This is supposed to be a choice?

The homosexuality (a word invented in he nineteenth century, before then there was no single word for it) of the great and famous: Emperors, Kings Princes, Popes,  generals, philosophers, playwrights, novelists, poets, painters, sculptors, composers, musicians, entertainers, doctors, scientists is always a deep dark secret. The straight world was shocked to discover Rock Hudson; a figure of apparent hetero normality was gay, though the gay world had known about it for ages. For many a year the English schoolboy was supposed to admire the figure of Richard the Lionheart whose statue astride his horse stands outside the Houses of Parliament. But Richard, to use an expression, was as queer as a coot, and his lover was the Dauphin of France. That didn’t stop him playing the field however and members of the church begged him to give up sodomy and evil practices before he brought the wrath of God down on the kingdom. He was particularly partial to sailors evidently. But even the non famous, the ordinary, the butcher, the baker and candlestick maker are deserving of love and not have that love ridiculed. Do Christians ridicule David and Jonathan? The gay world is as full of variety as is the straight. To examine the gay with wife and family, whether or not the wife is aware of her husband’s proclivities and whether she accepts it or not, or to talk about the hellfire breathing pastors, prelates, and politicians with smoke coming out of their ears is yet another aspect that sometimes ends up with them being caught in flagrante delicto with a rent boy in some seedy hotel to everyone’s surprise. Another reason given for the hatred of gays is the fact that they can’t breed, but considering the population of the earth and the fact that it is forever expanding I wouldn’t have thought that much of an argument.

 The fact is the norm is bisexuality, though many gays hate this idea as they feel it is a cop-out. The hundred percent straight male is as abnormal, as the hundred percent gay. It is all a matter of degrees as to which way the scale tips and when one talks of homophobia what one is really talking about is fear; fear that some of what you are so against is also inside you. The Russian Duma recently passed a bill banning homosexual propaganda by 436 votes to 0. Do you honestly believe that in those 436 there was not a single gay who would have the courage to stand up and vote against it?

There are not that many males between the ages of seven and seventy who haven’t wanted it at sometime or other or who haven’t been attracted to another male; not necessarily resulting in sex, but a romantic liaison nevertheless and the emotions involved can be very beautiful.

“The soul of Jonathon was knit to the soul of David and Jonathon loved him as his own soul. I am distressed for you my brother Jonathon, very pleasant have you been to me, your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women.” There you have it. That’s what the Bible says.

Zinbabwe

Because of the Zimbabwe elections this Blog sent earlier.

The monster of Zimbabwe, one Robert Mugabe, said at a rally that if you cast your vote for him in the next election he promises to behead all homosexuals! As though that poor country hasn’t suffered enough under his brutal dictatorship. “US President Barrack Obama says if you want aid, you should accept the homosexuality practice. Aah, we will never do that.” He describes homosexuals as worse than pigs, dogs, and birds. How the hell did birds enter into it? The man is a maniac, totally off his head. While people of his ilk still exist there is no hope for humanity. When I read something like this I momentarily wish, like a good ole southern Baptist, that I believed in the afterlife and heaven and hell. If anyone deserved to go into the flames for all eternity it is this totally immoral mobster. Alas, it is not to be. He will just die like everyone else, every other dictator who has ever been, and all that will be left is the memory of the atrocities committed under his dictatorship. Was this really what Zimbabweans threw off the colonial yoke for? He has been president for more than three decades why on earth does he want it again at his age? Much better if the scumbag just died. It would make the world a cleaner place. Unfortunately he will win the election hands down. It’s amazing what effect a bit of thuggish browbeating can achieve. The man’s idea of government is to send his wife and entourage off to Paris to do a bit of shopping and build himself a billion dollar palatial mansion while his people are starving, deprived of basic amenities, and the country’s infra-structure is crumbling by the day. His palace, in the worst possible taste, a sort of Baroque/Rococo/Sun King structure in the heart of Africa is a fitting tribute to the absolute corruption of power. I remember a school friend so many years ago saying, when he and his mother (father killed at El Alamein in World War 11) were about to emigrate to Rhodesia as it then was, “That’s the country of the future.” Some future. His name was Peter Lasker. I wonder what ever happened to him.

“So keep your clean drinking water and food rations, United States!” the imbecile goes on to say, “Zimbabwe has everything they need in the world’s largest collection of severed gay heads.” In this day and age this is totally appalling and we thought the recent legislation in Russia was bad enough.

So what is happening elsewhere? In Uganda ultra rich fundamentalist preachers from the US, losing the battle in their own country, have been having a field day, all in the name of God, as they rage against homosexuality, preaching hatred and even going to the extent of showing gay pornography, with what result? The damage they cause is incalculable as all they have done is set in motion a wave of hysterical homophobia and as though Uganda doesn’t already have criminal sanctions against homosexuality even to the extent of, like Mugabe, threatening a death sentence and is a country where women and children on suspicion of being witches are imprisoned in a camp. In South Africa however that marvelous man the Rev. Desmond Tutu has said he will not worship a homophobic god but he, in turn, is fighting a losing battle against ignorance and stupidity though he does now have some sort of backing from the Pope who has said more or less that gays cannot help their orientation and should not be marginalized though homosexuality was still a sin. In other words hate the sin love the sinner. “If a person is gay and seeks the Lord and is of goodwill who am I to judge him?”

The same cannot be said for the splenetic right wingers in the US: the Republicans, the Baptists, the Fundamentalists, the Evangelists who, since the passing of the same marriage act in many places have come out with the most ridiculous and malevolent propaganda – i.e. pictures of humans kissing their horse, their dog, their cat. In other words implying the floodgates have opened and who knows where it will end?

Another good ole boy from the Deep South, Mississippi I shouldn’t wonder, a state that, like Texas, enacts the strangest laws ever devised, some while ago came up with the brilliant scheme of putting all lesbians in one field surrounded by an electrified fence and gays in another. Unable to breed they would automatically die out. Let us get down on our knees and thank the Lord God with all our hearts and a thousand hallelujahs of praise that he sends such servants among us to illuminate our sinful lives. The good ole Pastor forgets the Nazis did this, killing off thousands of gays in their concentration camps and I am glad to report Germany is today completely free of these wretched sinful ungodly creatures. Also the question arises as to where he is going to find fields big enough? Perhaps he should nominate a couple of states (obviously not Mississippi or Texas) maybe Arkansan and California. Everyone knows that California is simply ridded with gays, there they swarm like termites. Neither has he taken into account that gays are born from heterosexual couplings and that each new generation will produce more because it has always been with us and always will be. If God hates fags as the W’boro Baptists believe I am amazed He has allowed it to flourish universally.

It never ceases to amaze me that in the year 2013 so many have their mindsets in the year 913 or thereabouts with their ghastly vision of heaven and hell and sinners burning and tormented for ever. How you burn forever without a corporeal body beats me and a flesh and bone body wouldn't last five minutes let alone being tortured for eternity. All very well for Prometheus on the order of Zeus to suffer everlasting torment having an eagle peck out his liver every day, but he was a Titan, a mythical figure of Greece, so the question I would like to ask every fundamentalist believer in heaven and hell is where the hell in fact are they? I suppose with a violent stretch of the imagination hell could be located in the steaming white hot bowels of the earth but where precisely is heaven? It is stated unequivocally that Christ in full view of his audience “ascended into heaven” which means quite literally that defying the law of gravity he rose bodily up into the sky, and don’t forget his mother followed shortly after in the same fashion, but to where did they actually go? Apart from succumbing from the lack of oxygen or freezing temperatures, since these words were written man has travelled to the moon and explored some of the vast expanses of space but there has been no sign of any heaven where Jesus and his mama could have ended up. But heaven is a noun, it is a place, it must exist somewhere, but where? Maybe there is a theologian who can give an answer or maybe even a good ole Southern Republican Baptist boy or gal who believes implicitly in its existence. No more than 10000 words on a postcard please. 

Xania

Cars, cars, cars, cars! Friday evening we went into Xania to meet our friend, the actress Katia Sperelaki for drinks and a meal. It was my first visit in goodness knows how long. Parking has always been a problem in Xania, but seeing it for the first time in well over a year at least, the number of cars seems to have multiplied out of all proportion; parked nose to tail and sometimes double parked up and down every street. Fortunately there were spaces in a municipal car park just a very short walk to the old harbour where we had drinks watching the sun go down, and then moved on to the nearest Taverna for a very pleasant meal. Midnight saw Cinderella making for the coach but for Katia, being Greek, the night was still early and we left her as she headed back to the bar for a nightcap. I had never been to this particular bar before. It has been established in one of those enormous Venetian warehouses, or maybe it was an arsenal. Being summer though we took our drinks outside of course.

It was the last night of Diane’s holiday. Impossible to believe she was here for three weeks. It was like only yesterday that she arrived but Saturday morning saw her on the plane heading back to the UK. Gone are the halcyon days of childhood when summers went on and on and never seemed to end. Now, as one grows ever older and feebler, time passes at ever increasing speed. Maybe it’s to get one used to the fact that we are heading for that big blackout. I’ve spent most of the past week putting my stamp collection in order. Even I didn’t know how extensive it is and I have a feeling (if ever I get the job finished) I will need a couple more albums at least. There are boxes of stamps still to go through. When I talk about growing feebler, my hands are so trembly now; doing the stamps is a performance in itself as, apart from the trembling, I find it more and more difficult to hold onto anything so imagine trying to hold a pair of tweezers in one hand and a delicate stamp in the other when your hands are wobbling all over the place. Pouring liquids or holding a cup or glass and it’s possible a certain amount will spill over the edge and don’t even mention trying to fasten buttons.

 It would make a great comedy if it weren’t such a pain in the arse. Needing to take a pee when at the restaurant, Douglas assisted me to the front door and asked for the toilets. The toilets for patrons are upstairs on the first floor but in order to save me having to struggle up them the waiters suggested the papoose (grandfather) would prefer to use the staff toilet on the ground floor. Wasn’t that considerate of them?

‘A DOG’S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.’

Before humans die they write their last will and testament, give their home and all they have to those they leave behind. If, with my paws I could do the same, this is what I’d ask…

To a poor and lonely stray I’d give my happy home, my bowl, and cosy bed, soft pillow, and all my toys; the lap which I loved so much; the hand that stroked my fur; and the sweet voice that spoke my name.

I’d will to the sad scared shelter dog the place I had in my human’s loving heart, of which there seemed no bounds.

So when I die please do not say “I will never have a pet again, for the loss and pain is more than I can stand.”

Instead, go find an unloved dog, one whose life has held no joy or hope, and give my place to him.

This is the only thing I can give…

Author Unknown.

I read this on Facebook and was truly moved by it. We said when Merrill died last year that that was it; no more dogs. But I am so glad we got Wagner. In the short few months we have had her she has given us so much joy. The house just wasn’t the same without a dog and she has added an extra dimension to our lives.

It would seem every large city now as a problem with stray dogs and this was brought to mind seeing a half dozen loping around the old harbour. None of them looked as if they were starving so obviously someone is feeding them but they are street dogs nevertheless. The Athens ones too, of which there are many, all seem well fed. In some countries though their treatment is terrible and doesn’t bear thinking about.

Something else on Facebook that caught my eye: a seal pup with red fur, enormous pink flippers, strange pale blue eyes and almost blind. A Russian photographer took pictures of the poor outcast. It was sitting all alone miles away from its peers who obviously wanted nothing to do with it and was waiting for its mother to come and feed it, but she would never come. The photographer rescued him and he is now safe in a dolphinarium. Happy ending. Somehow I can’t help but feel there is a moral to this story but for the life of me I can’t actually think what it could be.

As usual in Xania, the restaurants, cafes and bars were seething. You wouldn’t believe there is a financial crisis until you learn that since the beginning of the year more than 200 families are receiving aid from Helping Hand and there have been 71 suicides on Crete. How many in all of Greece I wonder and I bet not a single politician among them.

Royal Baby

So the Duchess of Cambridge has given birth to her brand new royal sprog and the whole world would appear to have gone totally doolally. Pardon me for being a party pooper but I really cannot see what all the fuss is about. By the time the poor little bugger is likely to be crowned king the world would most likely have ended anyway. (See Attenborough). The Daily Mail kow-towing with the best of them has of course published a “Royal Baby Souvenir Special,” filled with pages of all the guff their journalists can come up with. One headline reads “487 million take to Twitter to share in the baby frenzy” and frenzy is obviously the most apt word for it. The child’s horoscope has been cast by Jonathan Cainer and bets are being taken on as to what its name is going to be. It seems James was the two to one favourite but lost out to George, so he will be the seventh of that name. Evidently Kate is not only the Duchess of Cambridge but her full title is Her Royal Highness Princess William, Duchess of Cambridge, Countess of Strathearn, Baroness Carrickfergus and the question I would like to ask is this; as she is a commoner how come she is suddenly Her Royal Highness when this accolade was repeatedly denied the Duchess of Windsor?

So on to David Attenborough. I know have flogged this a number of times I know but I am pleased that someone who can speak with the voice of authority has made his belief public. According to him, and these are his words, “humans are a plague on the Earth that need to be controlled by limiting population growth.”

The television presenter said that humans are threatening their own existence and that of other species by using up the world’s resources.

He said the only way to save the planet from famine and species extinction is to limit human population growth.

“We are a plague on the Earth. It’s coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It’s not just climate change; it’s sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now,” he told the Radio Times.

Sir David has spoken out before about the “frightening explosion in human numbers” and the need for investment in sex education and other voluntary means of limiting population in developing countries.

“We keep putting on programmes about famine in Ethiopia; that’s what’s happening. Too many people there; they can’t support themselves — and it’s not an inhuman thing to say. It’s the case. Until humanity manages to sort itself out and get a coordinated view about the planet it’s going to get worse and worse.”

And, while on the subject of food, I do wish parents would teach their kids some table manners. Nothing is more off-putting at dinner than to see a wide-open chomping mouth full of masticated squishy food. Well don’t look I hear you say, but if it’s directly in your eyeline sometimes you can’t help it. At dinner the other evening our table was next to one occupied by a Scandinavian family. Despite not speaking Norwegian, Swedish or Danish, we presumed they were Scandinavian by the little bit of dialogue we overheard which was definitely herbe-nerbe. (“Hobnob” in English. You say herbe-nerbe with a rising inflexion at the end.) Anyway, the family consisted of grandparents (smokers), parents (non-smokers) and three boys, all so blonde their hair was virtually snow white. The two younger ones sat with their backs to us but the eldest, fourteen or so I would say, sat opposite and at first I thought he had a deformed mouth until I realized it was surrounded by tsatstiki. If you don’t know what that is it’s grated cucumber and garlic in yoghurt. He was slapping it on bread, opening his mouth as wide as it would go, taking far too big a bite and consequently having to chew with his mouth open. You would have thought food was going out of existence on the spot. I learnt to eat with closed mouth at boarding school when I was eight years old. Eating with an open mouth was derisively called alligateing and you were quickly brought to heel if seen doing it. People in the West eat far too much anyway. Greeks have gargantuan appetites and the herbe-nerbes could match them as more and more dishes arrived at their table. When I was in America I could hardly believe the amount of food consumed. It’s no wonder obesity is such a problem. Half the world eats and gets fat, half the world starves, that’s the way it goes.