Sports Fans

Continuing thoughts about sport, as the football season is almost upon us and tribal clashes will soon be the order of the day. I think I mentioned once before (maybe even more than once) the graffiti on road signs all along the ethnic highway and even all over signs on smaller roads, and some of it totally obscuring the sign, most of it meaningless though I am told, something cryptic like G13, also found as graffiti on once pristine walls, is the gate number at a stadium and is used by that particular tribe who feel they have to broadcast the fact to the whole world, senseless as it may seem. But then I doubt collectively they have much sense anyway. Certainly their behaviour indicates as much. I haven’t seen or heard much in the news for a while about football hooliganism in the UK but Greek football fans are prepared to go to quite a length to create merry mayhem, even so far as to letting off flares, throwing Molotov cocktails, setting fire to stadium seats and attacking anyone including police who try to stop them but at least, as far as I remember the last couple of seasons, there has only been one death, unlike Turkey where a football riot resulted in any number as did one in Egypt.

The Americans seem to have come up with a neat idea in an attempt to stop unruly behaviour. American football fans in the United States have been told they must take a four-hour online course costing $75 (£47) if they are kicked out of a game for unruly behaviour. The rules, which apply to most NFL teams, see those who fail to take the course, or achieve the 70% pass mark, arrested for trespassing if they are found at another game. One of the 14 topics of the course is entitled "skills for becoming less impulsive and improving judgment" and another five deal with alcohol. Dr Ari Novick, who developed the course and also runs one for Major League Soccer, has said “We're not trying to squash anyone's passion. We're just trying to say don't be violent.” Novick takes $55 (£35) for each test taken, with charities receiving the remainder. Daniel DeLorenzi, security chief of MetLife Stadium - the shared home of the New York Giants and Jets - also demands a letter of apology before allowing re-entry. He said: “Most of the time, they apologise for their behaviour.” Sample questions
Behaving badly towards other fans, such as fighting, swearing or threatening them, is OK as long as they deserve it. (Answer: False)
Every fan has a right to like any team they wish. Using abuse language towards fans who support teams you don't like will not be tolerated. (Answer: True)
I wonder if it would work in Greece.
I remember going to sports matches as a boy and never experiencing such bad behaviour among fans. Why has it changed so radically I wonder? There must be a psychological reason somewhere.
P.S. A couple more examples of Shakespeare’s dealing in business and real estate: ‘Bought from Walter Getley the copyhold of a cottage and about a quarter of an acre of land in Walker Street, Stratford.’ Sept. 28^th 1602.’
‘1605 July 24 Conveyance to Shakespeare from Ralph Huband of Ippesley of the moiety of an unexpired lease of the corn and hay tithes of Old Stratford, Welcombe and Bishopton, together with a moiety of the wool, lamb, and other small tithes of the whole parish of Stratford-on-Avon, for £440.’
Willy was certainly worth a bob or two. How much would £440 be in today’s money do you suppose? £90000? Or more?

The 88

It is not just a mad mad world, my masters, nor a bad bad world, nor a sad sad world; though it is in my opinion at times all of these things, but it is an amazingly small world. A very large house at the bottom of our lane, across from the main road, was started all of fifteen years ago by a man named Manolis. A year or so into the building Manolis died and his son took over but the house remained an empty shell for all those fifteen years and we never expected to see it finished, especially recently with finances being what they are. But lo and behold! The house is finished and habitable because it was been bought by two Israeli brothers who have spent a small fortune on it. The walled swimming pool alone must have set them back fifty grand if not more. Anyway, a few nights back (ago?) they threw a housewarming party and there I met a Greek who started to talk about the Connaught Rangers mutiny in India in 1922, a subject on which I wrote a play, so you can imagine my surprise that he knew anything about it. It turns out however he was in London in 1979 and saw my play ‘The 88’ at The Old Vic. Not only that but, when it was published, he actually bought the script. It seemed that what intrigued him enough to go and see the play in the first place was the, with one notable exception, universal slamming it received at the hands of the London critics. Why, he wondered, did such a good play (his words) receive this absolutely vitriolic criticism? He was full of praise for the play, had a great evening in the theatre, and simply couldn’t understand what the critics were on about. So I told him it really was quite simple and (1) It is an Irish subject that does not reflect well on the British and the English it would seem only like Irish plays if they’re written by Irishmen about Irishmen leaving the Brits out of it and (2) It was a matter of the most unfortunate timing in that it opened very shortly after the murder by the IRA of Louis Mountbatten. It wasn’t just the critics who were up in arms about it. A company called Trident Television sponsored the play and the bigwigs of the company accompanied by their wives were at the first night and stormed out at the end kicking up merry hell and the following morning demanding the company name as sponsors be removed. This of course upset the applecart as far as the theatre was concerned; one of the Old Vic directors, by the name of Benham was heard to say ‘How dare they put on this play in my theatre?’ Note that will you? My theatre. The Vic being his personal fiefdom of course. And, instead of braving the storm, the powers that be weakly caved in and the play came off in a few days.

Now what I will never understand is how it got to a first night anyway if that was the general feeling; after all the script was available for months before rehearsals even started so surely the directors of Trident and the directors of The Vic must have known what the play was about. Or did they not read the script? Or did they not understand the script?

I can only say the audiences’ reactions belied the critics’ opinions. ‘The 88’ opened at the same time as ‘Amadeus’ which went on to be critically acclaimed and a huge success whereas ‘The 88’ died an ignominious death. But I am here to tell you, and I don’t care who knows it, I know which is actually the better play. I would dearly love to see it revived and given its proper appreciation without, as one audience member put it, my undoubtedly being made the subject of a hatchets job but, alas, I doubt very much that will ever be in my lifetime. But how gratifying to meet in Vamos of all places and 33 years after the event a Greek who not only went to see the play but who appreciated it for what it was worth: small small world.

www.glynjones.net

Cross Words and Olympics

Crossword Puzzles – There is no way I could attempt to solve one from say The Times, The Sunday Times, or papers of that ilk. The clues in these are, as far as my limited imagination is concerned, pure gobbledygook. Even the Daily Mail on a Friday is beyond me. We get The Mail on a Friday for the film, theatre, and book reviews.  No, The Athens News is about my standard. Well, not even that actually as I share it with Douglas and, between us, we usually manage to finish it though lately there have been some clues so obscure we have had to wait for the following week to find the answer and even then we don’t understand it and cannot make the connection. Compilers of crosswords must have very devious minds.

Well, the 2012 Olympic Games are long time over. I have to admit to not taking very much interest in them. Lasted about fifteen minutes of the opening ceremony, same for the concluding ceremony and watched some of the diving; otherwise London 2012 came and went without a splash. So what happens now? The games practically if not altogether helped to bankrupt Greece and what is the legacy apart from that? Poor Greece managed two bronze medals in London and that is so sad.

In 2004, Greece quite magnificently hosted the summer Olympics, its athletes soaring, but today, the country is choked by the worst financial crisis in its modern history - and sport, too, has been hit hard. There is no longer the money to fix the air-conditioning inside the main track-and-field training facility in Athens. So Greece's athletes are left to swelter. The crash mats are torn - the stuffing bursting out - and the cushions on the equipment are fraying. The facilities have crumbled - all in the space of eight years. As the gloss of 2004 has worn off, reality has set in, the sporting legacy remains elusive and, for some, pride at hosting the Games has begun to fade. Many of the venues from the Athens games lie idle, locked up and empty, simply rusting under a baking summer sun. Attempts to sell the former Olympic buildings have failed. They're seen as representative of the short-term vision that got Greece into its financial mess in the first place. The hoped-for privatisation of many of the sites has been thwarted by a mix of bureaucracy and mismanagement.
"We have these facilities. What do you suggest we do? We try to rent them and we cannot", says Spiro Pollalis, who heads the company charged with selling the largest Olympic area - the Hellinikon complex south of Athens, containing the old city airport and many of the sports venues. He insists they should have been torn down immediately after the Games, leaving the six million square metre site free for possible private investors. Therein lies the problem, spending millions of euros for three weeks of sport before dismantling the buildings might not be the best use of a country’smoney.
Some estimates put the overall cost of the Athens Olympics at 10 billion euros.
 In London the estimated cost of £2.4billion resulted in a final amount of £9.3billion. What happens now?

The Perpetual Pessimist

We are the voices of the wandering wind,

Which moan for rest, and rest can never find;

Lo! As the wind is, so is mortal life,

A moan a sigh, a sob, a storm, a strife.

Sir Edwin Arnold.

My bedside reading these last few nights has been a little paperback published by Pan Books in 1963, ‘The Perpetual Pessimist’ (An everlasting calendar of gloom and almanack of woe). The copyright holders are Daniel George and Mrs Hugh Miller and their research has really taken them far and wide in their efforts to discover just how truly awful life can be. For example we all remember the assassinations of people like Lincoln, John and Robert Kennedy, Mahatma Ghandi, Julius Caesar,  but what of Edward ll 1367, Richard ll 1400, Henry lV of France, President Garfield 1881, President Carnot of France 1894, Peter lll of Russia, 1762, King Umberto 1900,  President McKinley 1901, King Abdullah of Jordan 1951, King Faisal of Iraq 1958, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo that led to the Great War, Czar Nicholas and his family, but just how many more have there been? Joseph Smith, a founder of the Mormon sect 1844 for example, well he was lynched. Remember this book was published in 1963 and there have been a whole lot since.  Some assassination plots failed of course. President Truman, Hitler, James ll and Napoleon lll escaped and the Cato Street conspirators failed to assassinate Castlereagh and his cabinet in 1820 but assassinations of public figures are much more numerous than those listed above.

The other thing I noticed was the number of massacres that have taken place over the centuries: 1692 Glencoe, massacre of 7000 Armenians by Turks 1920 (which Turkey still denies of course), massacre of Christian Indians by whites in Ohio 1782, Sharpeville massacre 1960, massacre of whites San Domingo 1804, Sicilian Vespers 1282, 8000 slain, Bulgarian atrocities 1876, massacre of Christians by Turks, Chios, 1822, massacre of Europeans in Borneo 1854, massacre of Protestants in northern Italy 1606, massacre of Janissaries Constantinople 1826, massacre of French missionaries Tien-Tsin 1870, massacre of Christians, Damascus 1860, massacre of Negroes, South Carolina 1876, Moslems massacred in Acre 1191, Moslems massacred in Jerusalem 1099, Peterloo massacre 1819, massacre of  St.Bartholomew 1572, Drogheda 1649,  massacre of Europeans, Meerut 1641, massacre of Europeans, Jamaica 1865, massacre of Danes, London 1002, massacre of Incas by Pizarro 1532, massacre of Paris workers 1851,

This is without taking into account numerous wars, the sacking of various cities, the massacres in China and Pol Pot’s Cambodia, the millions dead thanks to Stalin, the inquisition through which hundreds and thousands of so-called heretics were obscenely, cruelly tortured and killed, the holocaust, and ethnic cleaning, Shia versus Sunni and vice versa continuing to the present day, The Taliban and al Qaeda. It would seem, apart from his ability to breed, man’s most common talent is his penchant for killing.

When life’s a sheer unmitigated curse,

When absolutely everything goes wrong,

When things could not conceivably be worse,

Something just too bloody awful is bound to come along. –Anon.

Curry Night in Crete

Today is Douglas’s birthday and we are going to celebrate by having a curry! What! A curry? In Crete? Yes, seriously, folks, our friends Helen and Kristos used to run a little eatery in a village called Alexander Amagdali (Almond) where we used to love to eat out quite cheaply, on the deck in summer looking across to the mountains, and in winter, snug inside around the wood stove. That was where the police chief sitting by the door fired off his pistol into the road one night just for the hell of it or so it would seem. Cretans like guns, fire them off at every opportunity. A law was brought in forbidding the firing of guns at weddings, baptisms, festivals etcetera but the Cretan simply ignores it, especially if he is from Sfakia. The little taverna actually belongs to Kristos’ brother who lives in Athens and since the pair gave it up it has started to fall into wrack and ruin which is a shame.

Anyway, they have recently taken over a restaurant called the Stardust Tavern. It is situated in the most wonderful spot high above Georgopoli with a panoramic view across the bay and beyond. When we first ate there Douglas remarked that it was like being on holiday again. It reminded us of those wonderful holidays we took so many years ago in Plakias on the south coast that led to us deciding to come and live here. And, if it should all goes pear -shaped now, we have at least had sixteen fantastic years and never regretted a moment, made many friends both Cretan and expats and enjoyed their company, hospitably, and generosity, both materially and of the spirit; the constant ‘if you need anything,’ or ‘if we can do anything.’ It really is a community and recently they have started an organisation called ‘Helping Hand’ (in Greek of course – ‘vouithia keri’ – that’s the best I can do) to raise money, buy food, collect clothes, bedding  etcetera for distribution, to those in need on the Apokoronas since the financial crisis that has hit some folk so very hard. For example we are invited to a friend’s 60^th birthday bash on Saturday – no presents by request but a contribution to Helping Hand would be appreciated. Mind you, looking at the heaving clubs, the crowded tavernas and the bars in Xania, you wouldn’t know there was a crisis at all and that Crete has the highest unemployment rate in Greece.

Anyway, back to Douglas’s birthday. Every so often Helen and Kristos throw a curry night, it so happens this one falls on his birthday, and here is the menu.

Samosas, onion bahjees, spicy ribs,

Bombay potatoes,

Mild chicken curry, Hot & spicy beef curry, vegetarian curry (medium spiced). 

Tandoori chicken skewers, 

Plum chutney, pea and mint raita, rice and papadoms. 

Lemon geranium and coconut cake. .

Book in advance to be sure of a table! Which of course we did and, as expected, now not a place to be had.

So happy birthday, Douglas and we look forward to this evening’s celebration.

Electronics

A boy who stabbed his foster carer to death after he was grounded has been detained for seven years. The 14-year-old attacked 34-year-old Dawn McKenzie who bled to death after being stabbed 10 times on the head and body. The court heard that, in the days leading up to the killing, the boy's X-box, mobile phone and laptop had been taken from him.

In his defence advocate Donald Findlay QC said his client had spent his early years falling victim to physical abuse from his natural parents - and that this prevented him from learning the differences between right and wrong.  He also said that his client's mental condition meant he was unable to keep being grounded in perspective and was unable to fully explain why he killed his carer. The court heard that the teenager was suffering from a mental condition, called a dissociative state, in which he was unable to properly distinguish between reality and fiction.
Defense council naturally had to do his utmost to explain the boy’s behavior and childhood abuse is a good enough excuse for sending someone off the rails though in the millions of cases of child abuse not many result in murder. Mental conditions are also pretty standard when it comes to an explanation but if you were to ask me (and I could be far off the mark here but somehow I doubt it) it had little if anything to do with abuse, mental condition or being grounded but everything to do with the boy being deprived of his electronic crutches at which he flew into a raging temper with this painful result.
I think I wrote once before about watching a family dining out here in Vamos and how one kid was quite simply not a part of the evening’s roistering (they seemed to be a very happy family otherwise) but was intent the whole evening in playing with his I-pod or whatever it was, to the extent that he didn’t even seem to be that interested in his food. An e-mail from a friend (a computer whiz by the way) taking a well-earned break of a couple of days out in the wilds had his two kids, as he put it, going cold turkey, deprived of their gadgets.

A 17-year-old has out-tapped the competition to hold onto the title of being the US's fastest texter. Austin Weirschke from Wisconsin beat 10 other competitors at the sixth National Texting Championship held in New York. Contestants had to do one task with their vision blocked and another with their hands behind their back.  (That is something else, wouldn’t you agree?) The competition - which is sponsored by LG Electronics and featured one device with a physical keyboard - put three skills to the test: accuracy, speed and dexterity. Two of the tests were straight-forward - memorising and then typing phrases as quickly as possible, and translating text abbreviations into "regular speak" such as TTYL (talk to you later). But others were more challenging, including writing words backwards - or text sdrawkcab as the round was dubbed - and having to tap out the words to the song Twinkle Twinkle Little Star within 45 seconds while wearing darkened glasses that blocked the competitors' view. Oh, hey!  Oi vey! What is the point?

 This is the point I’m trying to make, Austin Weirschjke said he typically sent 500 texts a day to his friends, but attributed his success to added practice with his mother. The writer Malcolm Gladwell once wrote that studies suggested that it typically took 10,000 hours - or 417 full days - of practice to become an elite performer. Is there no better way to spend one’s life than indulging in this futile occupation, concentrating on this little gadget in your hand to the exclusion of all else, even if it did mean a big monetary prize in the end. I mean, come on, get a life, listen to the birds, smell the flowers, look at the mountains, pet your dog, talk to people, but unfortunately this lack must apply to a whole generation, texting or playing endless computer games.
We had an American visitor who was taken down south to visit the ancient ruins at Phaestos and who spent the drive, instead of looking at magnificent scenery he would be seeing for the first and more than likely the last time in his life had his head down, eyes glued to his sat-nav, or I-pod or whatever it was, to tell him exactly where he was.
When you stop for a moment to think about it, it really is sad. Reality can only be experienced through an electronic device. That’s progress?
.
v

Further thoughts on Shakespeare

Continuing my thoughts on Shakespeare I think the biggest hurdle biographers have to overcome is not his boyhood with all its attendant myths, or the lost years before his arrival in London, but his return to Stratford where he would spend the last years of his life with occasional visits to London mainly it would seem (there we go, it would seem, perhaps, maybe!) on business and the purchase of property. He had money, there’s no doubt about that or he wouldn’t have been in a position to purchase a substantial house, New Place and an acre of ground, dabble in real estate, (Bought from William and John Combe 107 acres of land in Old Stratford for £320) and go to law issuing writs so the question I have to ask is, where did this money come from? Another question is, how did his family in Stratford keep their heads above water or the wolf from the door (two beautiful clichés for you there) all the years he was in London? Did he send money home during the entire period he was absent? If so I reckon that would have depleted his budget somewhat. What money could he have made out of his poetry and the plays? Not very much I reckon. There was no such thing as copyright to protect a writer’s work and anyone who fancied using it could do so without offering any payment. This copyright problem lasted well into the nineteenth century when playwrights like Boucicault would hop over to Paris to see a new play, take notes and hop back to London to write their own version. And even today the laws of copyright are not always a one hundred percent safeguard as I know to my cost but that is another story which, if it ever comes to a conclusion, I will tell you all about. But getting back to Willy, what would his income have been as a jobbing actor? Probably not much; actors then, like now, being two a penny. (The star system still had to be invented.) Still, as a shareholder in the theatre he would have made money there so maybe that is the answer. Or was he supplied with a continual stream of the readies by a patron? The Earl of Southampton?

No, apart from, where did he get his money; it was his apparent mind-set that worries me. Was his behaviour symptomatic of a universal genius? Mooted as the greatest writer in the English language? How did he behave on his return to Stratford? Did he have with him copies of the plays or the poems? Was mention ever made of his career in the theatre? Was there even talk of plays? Did he not own a single book? Do we know if he could even write as all we have are those six signatures? There are those who believe that, being the offspring of illiterate parents and begetting his own illiterate offspring, William Shakespeare of Stratford on Avon could neither read nor write. He describes himself as “William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon in the county of Warwick, gentleman.”  Maybe the coat-of-arms, originally applied for by his father was indicative of his standing in the community.

After His long absence and having made quite a reputation for himself how was he greeted on his return to his home town? As a famous man of letters? Someone of consequence, if not renown? Someone to talk about and applaud? A VIP of the period? Was there a fanfare of trumpets, the proverbial red carpet, a banquet, the equivalent of a ticker tape reception? It would seem not. As far as the good folk of Stratford were concerned he was merely another citizen and merchant albeit a rich one now. His reputation in the last few years of his life didn’t seem to amount to much but over the years, over the centuries, his history became so embellished that in the nineteenth century it got to the point of being what Bernard Shaw described as ‘Bardolatry’.

By now statues and monuments were springing up all over the place which brings me to the biggest mystery of all; the Shakespeare monument in Holy trinity Church, Stratford. The first sketch was made by William Dugdale in 1634. In 1656 it appeared in ‘Antiquities of Warwickshire’ an engraving by Hollar followed in 1709 by a copy. In all these illustrations Shakespeare is shown with his hands on what is possibly a woolsack indicating a merchant and it wasn’t until 1725 that suddenly a quill appeared in his right hand and a piece of paper in his left. Has there ever been an explanation for this?

In September 1856 a man named William Henry Smith of Harley Street wrote –

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S is indeed a negative history.

Of his life all that we positively know is the period of his death.

We do not know when he was born, nor when, nor where, he was educated.

We do not know when or where he was married, nor when he came to London.

We do not know when, where, or in what order, his plays were written or performed; nor when he left London.

He died April 23^rd 1616.