B stands for Big. B stands for beautiful. Big is not necessarily beautiful. It might be impressive but it can also be very Boring. Started to watch the final ceremony of the Olympic Games and what can I say about it that I didn’t say about the opening ceremony only this time with knobs on and, after 28 minutes to be exact, we were both of the opinion that this was Boring – note the capital B and we switched off. Maybe it improved after that, who knows? Who cares? Maybe it wasn't boring for those in the stadium but it certainly was watching it on TV

Another week gone. This time last Sunday we were thinking about going to Fanis and Eleni’s wedding at the rather posh Perle Hotel on the Akrotiri. Like the Olympics it must have cost a small fortune. There is a tiny chapel in the hotel grounds that holds nobody so everyone was gathered in front and the priest did drone on for ever and ever amen. Orthodox church services: sometimes I wonder if the pappas is paid by the minute and the longer he drones on the more he makes before he closes his holy book, discards his vestments and heads off into the heavenly sunset. It was a heavenly sunset as well. This was the second wedding we attended at the Perle. The first was a Born Again, happy clappy one and did not take place anywhere near the chapel but in a lengthy side room in side the main building and was just as boring in a different kind of way with the parson, minister, or whatever they call him, a regular young jockey jock such as seen on American TV. In both cases though the brides looked beautiful and the food was simply marvelous. There must have been twenty or more main hot dishes, a dozen salads and a dozen or more desserts plus trimmings like crisps and the honeyed pastries the Greeks are so fond of, and the wine kept a coming. Naturally the meal had to end with tsigouthia (raki) in traditional Cretan fashion after which a lot of people got up to dance, beginning with rock, ending with Greek, or supply themselves with exotic cocktails. Like I said, cost a small fortune, not in the Wayne/her class of course but I should imagine that, like the Olympic ceremonies, their’s might have been a wee bit on the boring side. Big is not necessarily better. I wonder what London might be planning to top both the Greeks and now the Chinese? London will be bankrupt for the rest of the twenty-first century I reckon.

So what with Jannis’ memorial service in the morning and the wedding in the evening, all Douglas needed was a Baptism in the afternoon and he could have had a completely Orthodox day.