A final word on changing street names: if the money were used to combat poverty and crime instead of this infantile gesture it would help lay the foundation for future prosperity but closed minds won’t consider that.

On Star news last night a feature on British yoof on holiday in Greece. Don’t know which island it was as I didn’t catch the beginning, Mykonos? Rhodes? Wherever, it was jaw-dropping in its ugliness, so ugly it was practically obscene. Where do these moronic creatures come from that obviously between the whole crowd of them there was less brain than in a cockroach? From Great Britain of course. Yobbishness wasn’t in it, both from the boys and the girls; it was beyond yobbishness though maybe it was the inebriation that made them so tongue-tied. Ya …well … ya… you know… ya … now waggle your arse and do a bit of mooning for the cameraman. If this is the new generation of Brits god help that poor muddy little island as one of my nephews once called it. Ugly ugly ugly and shame making, which brings me back to crime. The yoof of Britain from what I can gather, not only from the newspapers but from friends who live in high crime areas (are there any that aren’t these days?) seem hell-bent on stabbing and shooting each other and, by accident sometimes, killing innocent bystanders while the older generation howl about knife culture and what can be done about it. Looking at the pictures on Star last night I would venture not much. Now Crete is a knife and gun culture. There is a whole street in Xania dedicated to the manufacture and sale of knives of every description from tiny blades to practically machete size There are probably more guns on Crete than in the whole of Greece and, it is true, they are sometimes used on a human target but, surprisingly, not that much and wounding or death by stabbing grabs headlines. Now how come the difference I wonder. Is it drugs? Drugs are a problem everywhere. Maybe on Crete the lack of violent crime (except for drug induced or sheep-stealing!) is because gang culture isn’t a part of society, not that I am aware of anyway. The Cretans on the whole are a very honest lot. When we first moved here nearly eleven years ago the only time the Cretans were said to lock their doors was during the olive season when the Albanians were here. I remember once in Xania going into a chemist for something and finding the shop empty. I called and called and no one came. I could have taken drugs, I could have robbed the till (she was next door having coffee with a friend) but instead I just walked out and went elsewhere. There are no shortages of chemists in Crete. Since those days, with the huge influx of foreigners, not just British, crime has increased tenfold including break-ins which is a great shame, and now doors are locked at night though, even with that increase, it is still a relatively peaceful and low-crime place in which to live.