There has been a short Blog hiatus as I have been in Athens for most of this last week. Athens has been in deep trouble for the past fortnight and I doubt the trouble is over yet; perhaps the whole of Greece, like the rest of the world, is in deep trouble. I was involved in a trifling spot of bother myself. There is an old saying, once bitten twice shy, but I have now been bitten twice on the Metro and this time I can blame no one but myself. To put it bluntly – I wuz robbed. Itchy little fingers found their way into the most vulnerable trouser pocket and I have the distinct feeling I was targeted from the beginning, evidently by a gang of four. It was stupidity on my part that my plastic wallet containing a fifty euro note, the loss of which we can ill afford, my driving licence and my resident’s permit, was in that particular pocket. Having been done once on the underground I really did believe I would never let it happen again and the previous day when in town I made absolutely sure my wallet was in an inside breast pocket and out of reach the entire time, so how come yesterday it was back in the wrong pocket and just asking to be lifted?
We were travelling back to Crete, a journey which starts at Victoria station. On the escalator going down Douglas asked me which pocket my money was in and I told him and then, quite incredibly forget all about it because the platform was crowded; there had obviously not been any trains through for some time due to a fault in the system and, because I was worried about getting to Piraeus to catch the boat, I never gave the transference of the wallet to a safer place another thought particularly as the train, when it eventually arrived, was packed, and with one hand holding my bastoonie (walking stick) and the other clinging on to the safety pole for support the wallet was still in the wrong pocket, but not for long. By the time we reached Ommonia, only one station further on, it had gone, and so had the four boys. It was only then that Douglas asked me again where my wallet was and, when I felt the empty pocket … upset is too insipid a word for it, how do you describe a mixture of disbelief, anger, frustration, despair even and a sense of being stupidly careless and a desire in consequence to lash out, but at what? Curses on those thieving bastards. It really is, I’m only too aware, such a small thing, compared to the losses suffered by so many Greeks during the troubles but it still stabs hard. If Gilbert and Sullivan are right and the punishment should fit the crime, all discovered pickpockets should have their fingers removed. Sharia law?
More about Athens next time.