Sight still not fully restored; small grey patch being obstinate. Our lovely neighbour, Varna from across the way who works for IKA has very kindly put in a plea on our behalf for some compensation towards this week’s costs. Let’s see now (I keep using that word “see” don’t I? It’s like the old Chinese proverb saying we will always talk about feet in front of a cripple. These days of political correctness though, that word cripple is strictly off limits – what would it be? Peripatetically challenged maybe). Back to the subject – this is all in Euro of course – Doctor 35 … Ophthalmologist 210 … Brain scan 71 … Medicines 29 … Total not counting such trifles as petrol 345euro. It would be nice to get some of that back.
There is a young Portuguese soccer player whose salary is £200000 a week and who has an advertising contract for another six million. What does he do with all this money? Well, it would seem he does no more than what any other young ultra-rich soccer player does; buys houses, buys cars, lots of cars, none of them cheap. I wonder, he is a Christian as is proved by the crucifix he wears on a chain round his neck, if it ever occurs to him to thank his god for all these millions of little blessings by giving a small proportion away to the less fortunate of this world, a very small percentage of his millions that would make an enormous difference to their world. Maybe, maybe not. I am not privy to this knowledge. I doubt all those politicians who have been rooting in the trough think of it either, or all the mega-rich Arabs and mega-rich Indians, all the millionaire Patels, or the new generation of multi-millionaire young film stars, hardly out of their teens and worth fortunes. Charities have to beg for crumbs and it is always the not so rich who dig into their pockets to try and make life a little easier for the less fortunate. I often wonder, if ever I were to make any money worth talking about, would I be like that Portuguese footballer and his ilk? I hope not. The Daily Mail have headlined him the £80000000 Lily Savage of football though heaven only knows what that’s supposed to mean? And I’m sure Lily isn’t impressed. Is it because he flounces a bit? A bit! There is no denying he’s a good-looker, so much so that evidently he is the new gay icon. Does that mean David Beckham is past his prime? Truly a footballers’ life is a short one. But interesting? Whatever happened to Mister Rooney’s memoirs for which he was reputedly paid £5000000 up front? Or was that just publicity?
Now that Colleen’s expecting you can expect a lot more loot will be floating in the Rooney direction with the exploitation of baby Rooney to the tabloids and celebrity magazines. Hey ho! It’s a mad mad world, my masters. Evidently they did try to do something for charity with that awful tasteless wedding in Italy but it was their millionaire football associates who let them down by not contributing. Maybe they needed to buy a few more cars.
Just a thought – what stupendous premiums do the football clubs have to pay out to insure their stars? Add that to the stratospheric salaries and it’s no wonder tickets cost the poor punter what they do.

Blog 7


Crete might be in some ways still a third world country but there are two aspects where it is bang up to date – dentistry and opthalmics. The equipment in surgery and clinic could not be bettered. Not that the ophthalmologist, trained in the good ole US of A could do anything for the eye other than examine it and it would seem the black covering cloud is gradually diminishing. However, as it is still difficult to focus properly and the eyes tire quickly so that I spend minutes with them shut, nothing of interest, consequence or import has been done for the last three days and consequently there is nothing for me to write about so to-day’s blog ends with the hope that in a couple of days time the eye well have cleared completely. If not then I have lost some sight in the right eye. The brain scan was quite interesting come to think of it. Evidently, according to Doctor Elizabeth, I have the brain of a young man (if that is the case why words escape me so often I cant imagine) but some slight calcification at the spot where the ophthalmic nerve starts is most likely the cause of the blindness. I now have a drug to hopefully disperse that. We shall see – no pun intended.

I guess some days are meant to take one by surprise, turning out to be totally unexpected, knocking routine for six, and yesterday was such a day. Everything seemed hunky-dory when I woke up although I was still wheezing from the bronchitis but it wasn’t until I was sitting on my bed and starting to dress that it suddenly happened – I went virtually blind in my right eye! Having missed the good Doctor Elizabeth the day before due to it being All Saints Day and everyone praying for the dead and neglecting the living, within minutes Douglas had driven me to the surgery and, after a short wait, we were ushered in to spend a long while there, firstly on the oxygen machine, then being roundly ticked off for not taking prescribed medication for high blood pressure, then a whole load of new prescriptions written out in a doctor’s usual illegible handwriting to be sorted out at the Health Centre today. One good thing came out of the waiting. While I was imbibing oxygen, Douglass thought of a better title for ENTER ANTHONY. It is now called THE JOURNEYS WE MAKE. He is so much better than I at coming up with stuff like that. Ever since then he has been worrying about what kind of cover the book should have. It will have to make sure stupid people don’t imagine it’s a travel book. Anyway, from there it was into Xania for a brain scan Doctor Elizabeth insisted on in case a thrombosis was present causing the eye damage, and from there to the ophthalmologist and all of that took us well into the afternoon by which time, having had a thin slice of cake earlier on and nothing else, we were both starving so stopped at an obelisterio for a souvlaki and salad and came home to drop onto my bed exhausted. The eye had started to clear slightly but by late evening there was still a black patch over one section. I might add all this has given the bank account a knock as well, not being done under IKA.
My study these days is full of butterflies but they were joined this evening by a very large orange striped winged creature almost two inches long that looked rather nasty. It was behind the window curtain making a noise like a jet passing over so I sprayed it, went to dinner and, when I came back later, found it on my desk struggling like mad. The convulsions were awful and I felt really terrible that I was the cause of this little creature’s suffering. I should have just tried, as I often do with bees and wasps and the like, to help it on its way through the open window. At this point I did, so didn’t have to watch its final agony. I cannot understand how human beings can lay poison down for dogs and cats and feel nothing. Notice I don't mention rats but, when we have caught one in a trap I invariably wish it could have been otherwise because in fact these country rats are very pretty little creatures. Unfortunately they’re also very destructive.
This morning the eye has partly cleared up so let’s hope that continues.

JUST IN CASE is out there taking its chances in the big wide world but on reading it again there are still some mistakes. Quite obviously no matter how hard we try Douglas and I are simply inadequate when it comes to proof-reading. With me it is most probably impatience in that, after going carefully over a passage, I will want to actually start reading again rather than take note of every word, every single bit of punctuation.
ENTER ANTHONY has now been read by three “guinea pigs” and all have given it the equivalent of five stars so we really will have to do something with it. Admittedly three is hardly a number anyone would consider as being a reliable sample but each was different in age and background and all were told to trash it if that was the way they felt. They needn’t have picked up the manuscript to begin with or they could have stopped reading at any point if they felt they didn’t want to go on. Probably the most interesting comment was from William (school teacher) who said “It’s not the kind of book I would go out of my way to buy but I certainly enjoyed it.”
Now it is off to see Doctor Elizabeth as I am still having chest problems; have had all year ever since that visit to Britain when I picked up that wretched infection, followed by hay fever, something I’ve never had in my life before, with itchy runny nose and itchy runny eyes, followed by this, I can only think of as bronchitis. I’m fine sitting still but the minute I move to do anything only slightly energetic I’m totally out of breath which prevents me from doing anything physical. So it is a short blog today. Did I hear someone say thank goodness? I’m thinking of taking a summer break anyway, recharge my batteries.

Blog 4

I read in the paper that two more musicals are to be revived in London: ANNIE GET YOUR GUN and SWEET CHARITY. So how many musicals will be running and how many of them are revivals? Let’s take a look at the “Official London Theatre Guide”. First on the list at The Victoria Palace is BILLY ELLIOT. This Is followed by BLOOD BROTHERS (been running for ever and when I saw the very first performance in Liverpool all those years ago I thought it was not very good, in fact quite unbelievable and wouldn’t be going anywhere. I didn’t take Mister Bill Kenwright into account. How wrong can you be considering the length of its run?). LA CAGE AUX FOLLES (Revival), CAROUSEL (Revival), is CALENDER GIRLS a musical? I don’t know. Then there is CHICAGO, (another revival), DIRTY DANCING, GREASE (Revival) and HAIRSPRAY, JERSEY BOYS, THE LION KING and A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC (Revival), MAMMA MAI, something called MARILYN but I don’t know about that one, whether or not it’s a musical and LES MISERABLES (Been running forever). OLIVER(Revival), PETER PAN (Revival), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (Been running forever), PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT, SISTER ACT, STOMP, THRILLER-LIVE, WE WILL ROCK YOU and finally WICKED. If all these are still running then, with the two newcomers, that makes 25 musicals in all of which nine are revivals. Once upon a time managements were extremely loathe to even contemplate a musical because of the costs involved so what changed that? Of course, if you analyse the titles you realise these are all bound to be sure-fire winners and with the cost of tickets in the West End these days, managements are, to coin a phrase, coining it!
The BBC was part of this morning’s discussion at the breakfast table, the fact that it seems to be employing schoolchildren and is Jonathan Ross worth six million? To which the answer was a resounding no.
One of the big three Greek television companies is to film THE ISLAND here over a period of ten months and Douglas put forward a proposal to the Beeb to cover the making of the series as a documentary to which the answer was no thanks because it wouldn’t be of interest to English audiences. A book that has sold millions and been translated into something like twenty languages and a heart-rending story set in the beautiful Med and it wouldn’t be of interest to English audiences? But English audiences switch on in droves I presume to watch RUSSIA by David Dimbleby. Like I said, the BBC is run by schoolchildren these days.

So this week sees the elections for a new European parliament and evidently the big worry is the turnout. Last time it was 47%. This time the question being asked is will it even reach that? Considering what has been happening in the UK recently and what people know about MEPs it’s a wonder anyone bothers to vote at all – why put your cross next to the name of someone who is going to turn out to be a crooked, thieving, cheating, greedy, corrupt hog? None of this applies to us as living in Greece we don’t have the vote in anything other than local elections but it will be most interesting to see how the Labour party does in the UK considering Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and all their cronies have virtually brought the country to its knees, or so it would appear. Will the Brits continue to vote for them? People have very short memories and can also be very stupid.
So the great Britain Has Talent contest is over and the favourite was knocked into second place which must have had the bookies rushing in glee to their respective banks as there were evidently some pretty hefty bets on her winning. She, poor lass, (last I heard) is in a clinic recovering from nervous exhaustion. Not surprising considering what a world wide phenomenon she turned out to be, and not the only one to suffer nerves. Poor little Holly breaking down and unable to finish her song and then not knowing whether she would get a second chance and howling her eyes out and all the while the audience making the most horrendous noise. I would have thought a civilised sympathetic hush would have been more the order of the day but no, there had to be a lot of hissing and groaning (meaning what?) and did I even hear some boos? Poor child.
As for Miss Boyle coming second, that didn’t surprise me. Her first appearance was so magical (I do believe were I to play it again now I would once more burst into tears and sob my heart out so I’m not going to put it to the test) causing that universal response that, from then on it just had to be downhill. Her rendering of “Memories” was not as good and her final not as good as her “Memories”. Nothing she did could touch that first moment of absolute magic.
I have no idea what the winners were like as I haven’t yet seen their act. I will no doubt catch up with it on YouTube. Talking of which, one does come across all sorts of weird and wonderful things on YouTube and some information one would rather not have. When I wrote the other day about the state Durban is in I could have added Johannesburg is even worse. It is no wonder my nephew Evan chose to take his family to Singapore rather than be transferred form the Cape to Johannesburg. I truly wonder if two showers Zuma can pull that country together. I do hope so but it will be a Herculean task to say the least.

Into June already! Where has almost half the year gone to? Where have eleven and a half years gone to? That’s the time since we bought the house in Crete and what a lot of changes we have seen since that first move, especially with the influx of Brits in the last few years after that dreadful television programme A PLACE IN THE SUN that sold them “the dream!” Unfortunately for a number of them the dream turned into a nightmare, mainly due to that old human failing – greed. Having sold their properties in the UK at stratospheric prices they bought cheap on Crete, believing the sales pitch and that what cash was left over would give them enough to live on for the rest of their lives. True to a point, especially as the cost of living in Greece at that time was a fraction of that in the UK and Greek banks held interest rates way above anybody else’s. But the EU soon put a stop to that and Greece isn’t so inexpensive anymore. Add to that the buy cheap philosophy and you gets what you pays for and some expats have been paying ever since with cold, damp, leaking, badly finished houses they would dearly love to sell and for which there is now no market. And it wasn’t just greedy Greeks who were at fault. At least two of the big developers were English and so much of the area has been literally spoilt by them. In the old days before the modern world hit Crete, if a man was cold or his bed was damp all he did was put on another sweater and wait for summer when everything would dry out anyway. But expats, buying their houses in the summer, sometimes didn’t take into account that Crete isn’t a place in the sun all year round but can get cold winters (short fortunately) and heavy rains; that houses get damp and even flooded and stupid expats have even been heard to cry in all seriousness “Nobody told us it rains in Crete!” Can you credit that? What they also were not aware of is that everyone in Greece is used to the little envelope that helps change the rules and eases things along. For example, you can’t build here because this is forestry land. No it’s not, another couple of hundred in the back pocket and it will cease to be forestry land, so go ahead and build. Or, on a plot of a certain size the builder is allowed to build one or two houses so he goes right ahead and builds four and he sells them to foreigners eager for the dream but now comes the nightmare when one decides to sell and finds he cannot because he doesn’t own the land on which his house is built. Oh, yes, he owns the house, as do his three neighbours own theirs but without their consent he cannot sell. None of them own the land on which their houses are built. There are many traps for the unwary and only recently we heard of an elderly couple who bought a house via the internet not even knowing where it is and it has been standing empty for five years. When they finally got around to looking at it all the woman could say was, “It’s dirty.” And burst into tears. After standing empty for five years would you be surprised?
The unprecedented level of prices for UK property has led to ramifications elsewhere that were never expected. Cretans had never experienced so much money floating around and, when asked why they were prepared to sell their land to developers, to give up their heritage in fact (how many ancient olives have been ripped up to make way for little boxes?) they invariably replied it was to give their children the chance to go to university and become doctors and dentists and lawyers and never have to reap olives or work hard on a farm again. It was inevitable one supposes but rather sad to suddenly see so many expensive BMWs, Porsches, Mercs proliferating at the rate of knots. I wonder how many junior members of the family actually made it to become doctors, dentists, or lawyers, but at least the German car manufacturers were happy.