Reading a revue of Tony Curtis’s autobiography “American Prince” I am amazed to see he says being Jewish was a constant barrier to his success. What? With the number of films he has made including at least two forever classics, “Spartacus” and “Some Like It Hot” he is not a success? Do me a favour. And I certainly cannot believe that being Jewish contributed to barriers being put up. You have only to read the credits for any Hollywood movie, any American TV show, any theatre event to know that the majority of names you see are Jewish. American show business is dominated by Jews so come on, Bernie Schwarz, what are you talking about? The few friends I have in NY are in show bizz and all are Jewish. Yes, I know, some of my best friends are Jewish. Am I anti-Semitic making that crack? Not at all. I don’t go for Judaism but then I don’t go for any religion but that is an entirely different kettle of gefilte fish. My sister has sent me an e-mail attachment regarding an eight year old boy in Iran caught stealing bread in a market whose Islamic punishment has been to have his left arm rendered totally useless for the rest of his life by being run over with a car. I presume under Sharia law he should have had his hand chopped off and this was a judge’s way of showing mercy. Could it be that? Whatever, the sentence was barbaric, the photographs are horrible. The world is full of shitty people, we know that, and religious bigots and fanatics are the shittiest of the lot.
Global warming with a vengeance. Here we are moving into November and daytime temperatures are back to summer time at 30 degrees so it’s sweatsville or back to summer clothing. But winter can’t be that far off. Spotted my first robin today, a really handsome fellow, perched on the bougainvillea outside my study.
Finished the third Reginald Hill. He was at it again – amongst others, moraine, stylite, neither word did I know and had to look them up. (My spell check doesn’t even give stylite, I’ve had to add it to dictionary.)The first is geological referring if memory serves me to a craggy cliff fall (I’m not going to look it up again) and, as for the second, why on earth should I know about 5th century hermits in Syria and like places? The other thing I forget to mention last time is that in “Arms And The Women” he quotes ‘Needs must when the devil drives.’ Now I had always heard it as ‘Needs must when the devil rides,’ so who is right? Anyway, my film script on William Palmer (the recent rejection) is ‘When The Devil Rides.’ I think it sounds better and I ain’t changing it.

Noticed a few typos in the last Blog so in future had better be a bit more careful with my proof reading. Don’t know why the spell-checker didn’t pick up the obvious. When I spot typos in published works now, instead of being all censorious I tend to be a bit ‘what the hell’ about it as I have discovered through experience that spotting mistakes is a difficult business. You can go over a passage half a dozen times and still miss the obvious. Proof reading is an art. Well a discipline anyway that requires not only a keen eye but infinite patience. Having read NO OFFICIAL UMBRELLA and sent Douglas a list of all the mistakes I found he has already spotted one I missed in the first sixty pages. No doubt there will be more.
Sweeny for just over a week has been at death’s door. She wouldn’t eat, if she lay or fell down she could hardly get up, her back legs were almost useless and it really seemed as if doggie heaven’s portals were opening for her. One evening while I was watering the garden she somehow slipped out of the house and I eventually found her sitting right at the bottom of the garden, a long way for a virtual cripple to travel, and all I saw was this little black figure with her back to me sitting beside the hole we had already dug some weeks ago just in case. It brought to mind the little old bread seller in Genoa who saved up her pennies to pay for a marble monument carved in her likeness, bread and all, and the story has it she would visit the cemetery to sit and look at it, presumably on her days off when she wasn’t still selling her bread. It really broke me up to see her sitting there and she wouldn’t move. A bit too heavy for me to carry the length of the garden in my old age I took a coupe of blankets out and some plastic in case it rained and put her to bed, snug as a bug in a rug as my mother used to say, fully expecting next morning to find her gone. She had, but only a few yards off to sit somewhere else. I made a fuss of her and left her sitting there. Later in the day she returned to the house. Having put me through a week of tearful expectation now she has rallied like one wouldn’t believe: eating again and the back legs seemingly regaining some of their strength, walking fairly steadily instead of wobbling and weaving all over the place. She still spends her time going from one sleeping place to another but it seems she is also not quite so doolally.
Have finished two of the three Reginald Hill books. Problem is, once I get my nose into one, it’s very difficult to get it out again. The last one was ARMS AND THE WOMEN (with apologies to GBS?) and did I think he went just a teensy-weensy-weensy-weensy bit over the top with this one? He himself referred at one point to it being a bit Tarantino cum Ken Russell and we know how over the top he got. Also, now I take just a tiny cudgellette to Mr Hill without diminishing my admiration for his writing but, dear Mr Hill, it is pretty obvious that you are (a) an extremely intelligent man, (b) a highly educated one both classical and modern and (c) you have a great sense of humour and you are a truly terrific writer so there is really no need to use words that require the likes of myself to reach for the dictionary to prove all the above. In fact it detracts slightly from (c). For example, was it necessary to use the word ‘cetacean,’ a word I had never come across, when you could just as easily have written ‘whale like’ and my reading would not have been interrupted. ‘Oenophilic’ didn’t bother me because I just happen to know that oenos is the ancient Greek for wine but to use it in reference to a couple of dogs sniffing each other’s backsides, was that really a good choice do you think? There, I said it would be a tiny cudgellette because once again Mr Hill provided me with a great read. I look forward now to dipping my snout into number three. Hope theer arfe no typos in this one.

So the Poles, having migrated to the UK to find that crock of gold, are leaving in droves, things being financially that much better in Poland. There’s a turn up for the books. I don’t suppose one can blame every disaster on New Labour but one can certainly think of a few they’ve been responsible for in the last ten years. Is it ten? Something like that. I’m sure there are many more who would like to migrate but now if their homes are in negative equity and the housing market has slumped, they can no longer contemplate living the dream as all the Cretan estate agents say in their blurb. I hate that. For a lot of people conned into buying a jerry built house because it was cheap and not being able to sell it, the dream has turned into a nightmare. Even some who bought a beautiful house in a quiet village have had to run from the mass of housing estate building that has gone up around them, have found their house unsaleable and their dream in ruins. So much of the Apokoronas (this area of Crete) has been ruined in the last five years by greedy speculators but at last, hopefully the bubble has burst before they can ruin anymore. Or is that wishful thinking? It’s not been a good year for the holiday industry and next year I fear is going to be worse. Everyone, hoteliers taxi drivers, restaurants, have been complaining about the situation. Greece unfortunately is no longer el cheapo. It was getting more expensive even before th4e priced of oil shot through the roof and it has accelerated since then. Have just had a new bottle of gas delivered. When we first ordered this it was 12 euro. At the last delivery it had gone up to 15. This evening it was
17.
You can still eat out fairly reasonably though. A tatty old bar in Kalyves has been upgraded to a number one looking restaurant, proper linen tablecloths, serviettes, the lot. No keeping your cutlery for the next course and everything served beautifully. The food was excellent (though the service was a little on the slow side, the Greeks believing one waiter can handle forty tables) and they must have spent a small fortune on the transformation. The meal for three with wine came to 25euro.There was only one problem with the evening. Greeks don’t usually eat until well on in the evening but we were eating early the restaurant was being quite well patronised but unfortunately by Brits at their worst; loud, brash, demanding, arrogant ignorant and ugly. These are the people who have been buying the dream. I really am surprised there hasn’t been some sort of backlash from the Cretans. Maybe while they’re still making money out of the Brits that would seem like biting off noses to spoil faces, a pointless exercise.

When I started on these Blogs some months back I thought I would run out of ideas within a couple of weeks at the latest but there are still some things I wanted to write about months ago, weeks ago, days ago that remain in the outbox, as new ideas and new events like queue jumpers slip in instead.
It says a great deal for someone’s writing when you reach the end of a book with a sigh of disappointment, a regret that that is it, there is nothing more to come. I finished The Archivist’s Story some days ago (there you are, have only just got around to mentioning it) and that was exactly the feeling I had as I realised I was on the last page. How do you express your feelings about a story which can hardly be called enjoyable yet which you thoroughly enjoyed? It’s like saying you enjoy going to a funeral. Well, it’s a remarkable novel and whoever left it here I’m glad they did. Now I’m back to enjoying Dalzeil and Pascoe.
Started to watch yet another movie and gave up. This one was called Premonition and starred Sandra Bullock. After twenty minutes or so of not knowing what was real and what was unreal, what was supposed to be a dream and what wasn’t, it was such a mess (or am I as thick as two planks?) I thought there was simply no point in staying with it so switched to Vouli and watched a documentary on Bernard Montgomery.
Yet another rejection slip – No, rejection slips are passé, now it’s electronic rejection, rejection by e-mail. This one was from Evan Leighton Davis regarding DEAD ON TIME and WHEN THE DEVIL RIDES submitted to Barnaby Thomson at Ealing Studios “While there is undoubted potential in both projects, I’m afraid we didn’t fall in love with either enough for us to be taking them further. Thanks for sending them to us though and good luck in finding a home for them.” I wonder if we ever shall. Who’s interested in the civil war as the film mogul said when presented with Gone With The Wind. I had the same reaction many years ago from Granada TV when I submitted my play THE RIVER OF SAND. Who’s interested in South Africa? It wasn’t too long after that the whole world was interested in South Africa. Were I ten years younger I would give my eye teeth (as the saying goes) to direct WHEN THE DEVIL RIDES, but there you are, I’m not ten years younger and a terrific script, even though I am forced to say it myself, is going begging.
Why is it that every year at this time the house is suddenly inundated with flies? Is it the falling pomegranates, nature’s grenades, that explode on contact with hard concrete, scattering seed and juice everywhere and creating the stickiest ever mess? Oranges are dropping now as well, too small and too early, and the quinces need to be picked before the bugs get to them.. They are enormous and again it’s a big crop.That single tree has really done us proud but, like the walnuts, we put them aside, eventually they go off and then they’re wasted.

Forgot to say last time that before I went out I had to get our dogs back in from the garden. Merrill came around the corner with a sort of knowing smile on her face and, when I went around tofind out why, there was Sweeny pinned down beneath the stranger who was trying to have his wicked way with her. Sweeny certainly wasn’t resisting but I don’t believe she would have had the strength anyway. I wonder what was going through her mind. Was this the experience of her life? Were all her fourteen birthdays being repeated and coming at once? Whatever, she was taking no chances and her twat was placed firmly on the ground. I tried to get him off her with a singular lack of success and eventually managed it by thrusting the end of my bastoonie into his throat and pushing him off. Now he did show his teeth for the first time but anyone being so rudely objected to coitus interruptus would be bound to get a bit narky. Eventually a sharp rap on the head saw him off and Sweeney was rescued from a fate worth than death and swept into the house.
The big question is not where this hound might have come from. Greece is full of stray dogs. The big question is how on earth did he manage to get into our garden? It is surrounded by a high stone wall topped with cast iron railings. We had it erected at E-Nor-Mous expense to keep our own animals in. There is a spot right next to the house where my bedroom roof is quite close to the road. Perhaps that was his means of entry. (He couldn’t get out that way though when he attempted it). Anyway, I decided I would go and have my siesta and if he was still around when I got up I would turn the hose on him. The agricultural water has quite a strong jet. He was there. I opened the garden gate, opened the hose and directed it straight at him as he sat by the garden door. He fled around the corner, I followed, He leapt a six foot high embankment, ran along beside the wall and out the gate. I shut it and also the doors to the wood shed so that he couldn’t get back into the courtyard if he should return, though I thought that was the last I would see of him. Wro-ong! I posted off yesterday’s blog and was reading it to see if was okay when I happened to glance over my shoulder and who should be sitting right outside my study door, not four feet away and gazing at me with mournful eyes but that damned dog It is now coming up to five o’clock and, shower or no shower, he was determined this was going to be his home. Now how on earth did he get into the courtyard when both woodshed doors were firmly closed? This dog was an escapologist. There was only one thing for it, give him another dose of the same medicine. I didn’t enjoy what I had to do. I hate to see any animal cringing but there is no room in this house for a fully mature male dog and he had to be made certain in no uncertain terms that he was not wanted. In England I would probably have called the RSPCA and had him removed but Crete is not England. So out into the courtyard I go and turn on that hose. The first jet hit him and he was off, down into the lower garden and cowering against the far wall. I kept the hose on him until, in desperation, (he held out for quite a while) he jumped onto a huge boulder that lies there and was up and over another six foot high wall. Not only an escapologist but an Olympic athlete yet. Maybe that was the way he got in. He hasn’t been seen to-day and hopefully that is the end of this shaggy dog story or, as the Princess Spitzkaya would have said, shabby dog story. Shame, he looked pretty shabby too, soaked to the skin but, as the Greeks say, ti na kanoume?

Have you ever had one of those days? Yes? No? Well today was probably it, at least the first half but let me deal with yesterday first. It didn’t rain. Once again by midday the sky was an endless blue and today it appears is to be the same. So I watered half the garden and will do the rest today (that which hasn’t been done after having hosed down the dog!). At last I’ve broken through the 50000 word barrier with the new work. It’s only taken about five months or more which is tortoise pace really but maybe it will quicken up now. Considering I already have a template for it there is really no excuse for being such a slug. So had an evening of telly starting with Mr Attenborough’s programme on snakes which was terrifying and, although I didn’t get to see that venomous bugger the tiger snake whilst I was in Australia I now know what he looks like, and why he’s called a tiger snake when there doesn’t seem to be a stripe on his body is beyond me. He just looks a dirty brown. Maybe this one had been rolling in mud. Then came a movie with Gene Hackman – The Heist which was fun - another gold bullion story with a double cross and a double double cross and a double double double cross and a double double double double cross and may be even a fifth double cross but I lost count and lovable Gene baby being the biggest double crosser of them all ended up with all the gold. This was followed immediately by a film called Fracture with Anthony Hopkins doing his full Hannibal the cannibal acting and doing it very well. I have to admit in the first few minutes I was tempted to switch off but I’m glad I stayed with it because in the end it turned out to be a pretty good movie. So it wasn’t to bed till two and today I wanted to drive down to Souda to send Douglas the book via the ferry. So, today … First of all I woke up with the screaming slithering squitters! Now what have I eaten that could have caused that? Nothing I can think of so maybe it’s a follow on to the sore throat that only lasted a day. It is that time of the year I suppose with the change in the weather. You know it’s getting colder when the cats don’t want to stay out all night. Okay, so I am going to chance driving to Souda and, having fed the animals, I disappear into my bedroom to get ready. Merrill is suddenly kicking up the most fearful racket barking non-stop so eventually I decide I had better go and find out what all the fuss was about. I walk into the breakfast room and stop dead when confronted by a rather large ginger dog at which Merrill was doing all her barking and virtually hopping up and down with excitement. The dog seemed placid enough (though you never can tell) and for a while we just stood looking at each other, then I gave it a pat. It didn’t seem to mind that, in fact might even have hoped for it, but no encouragement was going to get it to move so I wrapped a large towel around it and carried it to the garden door. It weighed a ton but I deposited it on the doorstep and slammed the door before it could re-enter, hoping it would just go away. No way. Back in the breakfast room I saw Roussell the cat outside, her back arched, every hair standing on end and hissing for all she was worth. No way was she going to have this stranger in her garden. I tried to call her in but she hared off around the corner in hot pursuit of the interloper. I later found her on a garden wall still doing her best in persuading the stranger to leave. Keppel on the other hand nearly had the screaming squitters as well and disappeared down the stairs into the library because that damned dog was back and now in the courtyard, paws up on the doors, looking through the glass. Of Betty there was no sign. Anyway, I couldn’t hang around. I wanted to go to the bank before moving on to Souda. The dog was back at the garden door and sitting there waiting to be let in. Fat chance. I gathered my bits and pieces and set off. Clipped the offside mirror against the wall but otherwise reached Kalyves without further mishap only to see a dozen cars outside the bank and knowing it would be crowded I moved on. But wait, could something else have gone wrong with the morning? It had. I felt in my trouser pocket. Empty. I hadn’t picked up my plastic wallet with taftotita, (resident’s permit) driving licence and, most important, money, in it. I couldn’t send the parcel if I couldn’t pay for it. There was nothing for it but to either (a) go home and pick it up (it was so stupid in the first place because the car key was on top of it) or go back to the bank so back to the bank I went. The cashiers had reached number 69 (a goodly number) and my ticket was 84 so it was sit and wait time. Although there were two cashiers only one was attending to the waiting customers, the other was catching up on whatever business she thought or felt needed catching up with and no matter how many entered the bank to be served she was not going to be distracted come hell or high water. Typically Greek. Anyway, eventually number 84 was lit up and I got my 200 euro at a good exchange rate. It cost only £160.28. So on to Souda. More cars than ten municipal car parks so eventually I parked in the supermarket car park. I was going to shop there for animal food anyway. Walked back to the Anek office and my left hip started to hurt like hell, something it hasn’t done since I can’t remember. Then down to the ship, the latest in the line. She is HUmungeous! With her car deck empty you could really appreciate her size, as long as a football pitch I warrant. Back to the supermarket. Man strimming the verge on the harbour side of the road creating a huge dust cloud so I walk on the other side and he decides that’s where he will now strim. Move on covered in dust. At the supermarket not a trolley to be found. Goodness only knows where they were because there certainly weren’t enough customers to be using them all. So it was a hand basket which anyway was probably just as well as I would have to carry it when I got home and I didn’t want it to be too heavy (as it was it nearly killed me walking up the steno!) Attendant at the cheese counter doing a similar trick to the cashier in the bank. She had much more important business to attend to than take care of customers. At the checkout another long long queue. Bought a Snickers to give me a sugar high and some instant energy before I faded out. Driving home clipped someone’s car with offside mirror and fled at 120 k’s. He didn’t follow me. Either he wasn’t prepared to drive at that speed or the damage was so negligible it really didn’t matter. No sooner got in when, luck this time, the deadly squitteroodys struck again. And had the doggie gone? Had it hell! It was still sitting at the courtyard door waiting patiently to be let in. And I think I had better finish this blog on that very minor cliff hanger.

Watched an episode of Mr Bean and found it both pathetic and, despite the studio audience’s laughter, or was it canned? desperately unfunny. It has not worn well and all Mister Atkinson’s gurning hardly raised a smile, not from me anyway. Some of it was just too downright silly for words. Am I getting too old for this sort of thing? I wonder whether, if I see it again, Black Adder will prove as wonderful as when I first saw it. Also watched the film Diehard 3 starring Bruce Willis who is always worth watching and Jeremy Irons, also always worth watching. The film itself was the most ridiculous, over the top, unbelievable, impossible piece of nonsense ever scripted and shot but a billion dollars worth of production value from the opening explosion to the explosion in the subway and so on right to the end by which time Mr Willis should really have been dead but was covered in blood just to show what he had been through. He should also have broken every bone in his body but of course you don’t see that. Unfortunately there was an enormous hole right at the beginning when his character was ordered by our baddy (Mr Irons with the faintest of German accents) to go to Harlem like a sandwich board man with I HATE NIGGERS scrawled on his board. And he was saved from certain death by a local black shop keeper who then became his sidekick for the rest of the film. Now the whole object of Mr Irons making this particular policeman do this was to start a chain of events leading up to the threat of his having placed a bomb in one of New York’s 1400 schools so that every policeman in the place was sent searching. With no police around this left Mr Irons and his army of mercenaries with a clear passage to bulldoze and tunnel their way into the vault of a bank that stored gold bullion from every country who wants gold bullion stored, billions of dollars worth which gives Mr irons the cue to say something about them being an army without a country now what country should they buy? Of course in the end they are thwarted by our hero but the hole at the beginning is this – had he been killed by a gang of irate African-Americans in Harlem, which evidently is what Mr Irons thought might or could or would happen, what happens to the rest of the well laid plan? Down the old tubes, baby, no story, no film. I did enjoy it for the hokum it was including the most amazing action sequences.
It’s been threatening to rain all week. At the moment the skies are grey again but still no rain and, if it doesn’t happen,. I’ll have to get the old hosepipe out and do a spot of watering. Glad the weather was so good for Beryl’s one week break but she leaves to day so rain, please rain, and save me having to water.