Fruit in season.

Just eaten the first prickly pear of the season. Delicious. I’ve more than likely written about prickly pears before but nevertheless here I go again. Apart from buying Chris a bottle of prickly pear liqueur in Italy some years back I never thought of the fruit as anything other than edible but in fact I read, like most fruits, there are all sorts of things you can get up to both with the fruit and its juice so guess, as there are so many this year, the plant has grown simply enormous, and most of them will end up on the ground, maybe we should try a few recipes.

As it is a cactus what does one call it apart from a plant? It’s not a tree, it’s not a bush and it can hardly be called a shrub. There are evidently a number of species, about 200 in all, and in one American state they are protected, goodness only knows why when you can’t stop the damn things from growing and multiplying. I did get rid of two some years ago and this one really should be cut back heavily but that creates yet another problem – how to get rid of the cuttings they are so large and you can’t burn them they‘re so wet. If you leave one lying on the ground it will sneakily push out some roots and a new plant will grow. Tenacious buggers is what they are and, if it weren’t for the fact that I love prickly pears, I would be tempted to get an Albanian in to get shot of it completely.  In Australia they call it the most invasive weed ever (never thought of calling it a weed and in  NSW the Prickly-pear Destruction Commission was formed in 1924, continuing right through until it was disbanded 31 December 1987 - some 63 years later. In Queensland they tried getting rid of them with the cactoblastis caterpillar with some success.

There has been medical interest in the Prickly Pear plant. Some studies have shown that the pectin contained in the Prickly Pear pulp lowers levels of "bad" cholesterol while leaving "good" cholesterol levels unchanged. Another study found that the fibrous pectin in the fruit may lower diabetics' need for insulin. Both fruits and pads (so that is what the leaves are called, pads of paddles: logical) of the prickly pear cactus are rich in slowly absorbed soluble fibres that help keep blood sugar stable.

Of coursed the prickly pear has been food in South America for a great many years and in Mexican folk medicine its pulp and juice have been used to treat numerous maladies, such as wounds and inflammations of the digestive and urinary tracts. It is also the basis of alcoholic drinks. The cochineal scale insect that feeds on it is used for cochineal dye and the gel-like sap might be useful as a hair conditioner. Some    species also produce the mind-altering drug mescaline and I reckon that’s enough about prickly pears for this time.
The pomegranates are almost ripe and fresh lychees are in the greengrocers. Of course they’re expensive, 7 euro a kilo as opposed say to oranges 10kilos for 5euro. I remember even in South Africa as a boy how expensive lychees were and were bought sparingly. Pity. I love them. My mother would drive us down to the South Beach in Durban where we would sit in the car and eat lychees. And still on the subject of fruit, friends have a mango tree in their garden. It is still quite small, only about five foot tall but it is fruiting. The fruit is small, half the size of what one knows as a mango, but we have tasted some and they are delicious. If I had known one could grow a mango here I most certainly would have done so but I read it takes eight years for one to fruit so doubt I’ll be around to enjoy it. However Douglas has dried out some pips and intends planting them. Bananas and avocados grow on Crete. Maybe we could try lychees at the same time.
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Employment

According to an article in the paper (you can’t believe everything you read in the papers but I think this one is probably true) eighty percent of British mothers are fearful for their children’s future. It is not really surprising. They are worried their kids might never find jobs, never be able to afford a house of their own but have to live in rented accommodation for the rest of their lives. With so many countries economies gone haywire and prices spiralling out of existence they have every reason to be afraid. The unemployment rate in the EU is evidently the highest it has ever been. The unemployment rate has been fairly high since the year dot but the situation can only worsen. Why? Once upon a time not so very long ago there was an industrial revolution which produced a phenomenon called the Luddite. The Luddites went around smashing up machines because they thought, in fact they knew, their livelihoods were in danger and such of course was the case. A machine, industrial or agricultural, could suddenly do the work of six or more which meant six or more were no longer employed. In Yorkshire for example hand weavers immediately became redundant as the dark satanic mills took over their lives.

Now, in living memory, there has been another revolution, an electronic one and the amazing computer growing in power every day has taken the place of machinery in denying the workforce work. If the computer can do the job of six or more, of twelve, of eighteen, of twenty-four, or more, all these people are made redundant. Well, the computers, unlike machinery are here to stay. They can’t be smashed. But with some industries in decline and some gone forever what exacerbates the problem even more is the ever growing population. As more and more young people reach working age so more and more are simply going to be unable to find work. And being well educated without being qualified in a specific profession, medicine, dentistry, engineering etcetera, isn’t going to help. It seems these days everybody wants to go to university, everybody wants to attain a degree but it seems to me that academe is letting them down by offering ridiculous course that in the great wide world amount to nothing. It also seems that many of these graduates, gifted though they may be, simply cannot find work and it can only get worse. So the mothers of Great Britain and everywhere else for that matter have every reason to worry.

Then, as fewer and fewer people work in an ever increasing population and more and more go on the dole, never to become tax payers, what happens then? Can the country or the remaining tax payers sustain the expense of keeping more and more people idle?

Forget jihad, forget terrorism, the frustrated unemployed, unemployable young are without doubt the world’s biggest problem and it can only get worse.

Blue Moon

I never knew what was meant by ‘once in a blue moon.’ Well, yes, I know what it means but why in a “blue moon?” What is a blue moon? Well, now having just had one in August I have found out. Evidently a blue moon is the second full moon to appear in a month and evidently happens on an average only every two and a half years and it is called a blue moon. You might of course have known this; I didn’t. When I was a kid there was a popular song written by Rodgers and Hart – ‘Blue moon, you saw me standing alone, without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own.’ I remember it still. It became a classic and I am sure there are artistes still singing it today. Strange, when so many are forgotten, how certain songs from one’s long distant past linger on in the memory. They must be associated with some place, experience, or emotion of the time perhaps. ‘This is a lovely way, to spend an evening, can’t think of anything else, I rather do.’ Now why should that be so fresh in my memory? I have even used it in my South African novel ‘Angel.’ Others include’ ‘Red Sails In The Sunset,’ and ‘Lovely To Look At,’ and ‘Long ago and far way, I dreamt a dream one day and now that dream is here beside me.’ Obviously I was heavily into romantic ballads.

But back to the blue moon: the internet is awash with information about blue moon. Evidently more than our twelve months (month comes from moon evidently) there are eleven extra days and these mount up until every two or three years there is an extra full moon. The term "blue moon" comes from folklore. Different traditions and conventions place the extra "blue" full moon at different times in the year. In the Hindu calendar, this extra month is called 'Adhik masa (extra month. In calculating the dates for Lent and Easter, the Clergy identify the Lent Moon. It is thought that historically when the moon's timing was too early, they named an earlier moon as a "betrayer moon" (belewe moon), thus the Lent moon came at its expected time.^[2]

The earliest recorded English usage of the term "blue moon" was in a 1524 pamphlet violently attacking the English clergy,^[4] entitled "Rede Me and Be Not Wrothe (Read me and be not angry) if they say the moon is belewe [blue]  We must believe that it is true." Evidently the meaning of belewe in Middle English could mean both “blue” and "betray" and the clergy referred to the phenomenon as a “betrayer’s moon.”^[2] The most literal meaning of blue moon is when the moon (not necessarily a full moon) appears to a casual observer to be unusually bluish, which is a rare event. The effect can be caused by smoke or dust particles in the atmosphere, as has happened after forest fires and after the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, which caused the moon to appear blue for nearly two years. Other less potent volcanos have also turned the moon blue.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Maine Farmers' Almanac listed blue moon dates for farmers. These correspond to the third full moon in a quarter of the year when there were four full moons (normally a quarter year has three full moons.) Full moon names are given to each moon in a season: For example, the first moon of summer is called the early summer moon, the second is called the midsummer moon, and the last is called the late summer moon. Logical I suppose. When a season has four moons the third is called the blue moon so that the last can continue to be called the late moon.
The next time New Year’s Eve falls on a Blue Moon (as occurred on 2009 December 31) will be 2028. At that time there will be a total lunar eclipse but I for one won’t be around to see it.

E.Ps Go Home

There are any number of countries I am very happy not to be living in and Vietnam is the latest to be added to the list. All governments make mistakes. Criticizing leaders for these shortcomings or mistakes shouldn't land someone a 20-year prison sentence. -- Like a former Vietnamese police officer did by a Blog -- Ta Phong Tan criticized her government's policies in a peaceful and respectful manner. In a series of Blogs she opposed government overspending, advocated for rural citizens, and warned about the danger of too close a relationship with China. In short, she expressed her views as a concerned citizen. For that she faces up to 20 years in jail. The ability to express your thoughts is a fundamental right of all people, not an offense worthy of a lengthy prison sentence, but then living in a communist country it doesn’t do to be a dissident even in a small way.

Not necessarily a communist country only but an ex-communist state like Russia which under Putin seems to be reverting to its bad old ways. I’m quite sure my Blogs would have got me into deepest doodoo in any of these places and others besides.

So the expats hoping to sell their houses and abandon what they believe to be a sinking ship; what will they find when they return to the UK? Apart from the floodtide of foreigners, many living off Britain’s generous benefits especially those with large families – “You’ve got eleven kids? Oh, dear! I’m not surprised you came to the UK. Now where can we put you? I know, there’s a nice four story house in Mayfair worth a couple of million quid, you can have that all found.”  Nigerian woman flies into Britain and has a caesarean at a cost of £10000 to the NHS and flies out again more than likely without even a thank you. But you, Mr. and Mrs. Expat, I don’t somehow think you will find social security being quite so generous. You are after all British, you carry a British passport, you were born and bred there and paid your taxes and national insurance all your life but unfortunately you are not a member of an ethnic minority in this colourful multi society so there’s not much we can do for you except let you continue to have your meagre pension which, with inflation, loses its value year after year.

And, that apart, what else will you find taking place since you went away. Well here are some nice juicy little stories in the news about the state of the country that you may or may not enjoy as you prepare your departure. If you are a smoker there will be no more cheap cigarettes. A pack will cost you £7.50 so you best give it up, and no more cheap booze either. No more dining out and having a full delicious meal with drinks at around 12euro a head. Don’t expect to pay peanuts for your water supply as you have done here and here you have got used to your domestic rates being part of your electricity bill so you don’t really notice them that much. You will get a shock at what you might have to pay in good old Blighty. Don’t expect to get away with free television. Here there is a small amount added to the electricity bill as well for the government channels but nothing like the amount the Beeb will require from you.

Rubbish collection –A problem on Crete because it is a smallish island, particularly in the season when the population is augmented by thousands of holiday makers but here we have two collections a week (used to be three) but now it’s two and they will take away any and everything expect extra large items like old fridge’s etcetera for which you can make a special arrangement. But what is rubbish collection like in England now – well, that’s a whole different story, innit? To start with collection is fortnightly, you have different bins and god help you if you use the wrong one, you’re liable to quite a hefty fine and dustmen seem to be a law unto themselves. In Stockport recently they refused to empty black bins insisting they are not allowed to if the lids are open by as much as a quarter of an inch. A spokesman for the local council said that waste had to ‘fit comfortably within the wheeled container’ to be collected. So there you are – no collection for another fortnight which means the waste is sitting there and growing for a whole month, presumably now being held in plastic bags. Is this what the residents pay exorbitant rates for? Evidently it is because, if the lid isn’t on properly, rubbish can spill out and injure the poor workman which brings us neatly to elf and safety. A golf course has banned golf buggies and cafes refuse to heat baby food, the little darlings could burn their mouths I suppose. A woman was banned from wearing flip flops in the office (if she had two left feet she would be banned from wearing flop flops tee-hee!) because they did not have enclosed toes and a supported back. A school tree house had to be located outside school grounds because of health and safety fears. What difference its location made is beyond me but there you are. If the child is going to fall out of the tree it will fall out wherever the bloody tree is situated. Maybe outside the grounds the school can disclaim any responsibility even if it is still a school tree house. Another council stopped a teacher taking pupils to an allotment. Allotments, like erupting volcanoes, are very dangerous places. The list is practically endless and this, my dears, is one of the aspects of modern Britain you will be going back to. And let us not mention the millions councils are taking in parking fines and they want more. The best of British luck as they say.

Ex-pats

At a splendid birthday bash the other evening (26 guests) at a delightful restaurant famous for its jube-jube tree, I never knew jube-jubes actually existed or grew on trees, the talk naturally got around to the crisis. Judging by the food that was being served you certainly wouldn’t know a crisis existed and two English girls dining on their own were invited to join us. They declined with thanks as they had already ordered and started their meal but one of our lot got talking to them and it turned out they were on holiday for a couple more days and couldn’t wait for their next visit. They went on about how beautiful the island is and more importantly how warm, hospitable friendly and generous are the Cretans. Sure there are bad apples, there always are. It would be very strange if there weren’t but, on the whole, visitors don’t tend to be ripped off despite reading at least one letter in Athens News every week someone’s tale of woe of it happening to them, and the British press has a lot to answer for in their lies and ignorant denigration of Greece that has devastated the tourist industry.

It would seem there is hardly a country that isn’t undergoing some degree if financial crisis: Ireland, Spain, Italy, Portugal, US of A and the UK isn’t exactly far behind but then it appears to me that when it comes to spending (or overspending) no one is ready and able to say, okay, this is the line, don’t cross it and so-called savings are inevitably made in the wrong direction. For example maybe cutting back on the armed forces is logical if Britain isn’t going to go to war at the drop of a hat but cutting back on the police is plainly ridiculous and dangerous. Not that they seem to be up to much cop these days (unintended pun) with all the paperwork they have to do and all the elf and safety precautions they have to take and the possibility of criminals screaming of their yuman rights and trying to sue left right and centre. So how is it in Britain these days? I ask the question because one of the rumours circulating at the dinner party was that 80% of panicking ex-pats have put their houses on the market and are ready to return to the country they blithely abandoned when the going here was so good. It is very foolish if true. One, it isn’t a seller’s market even before being flooded with unwanted houses, and even if they manage to sell at a much reduced price, what will that get them in England?

I hate to sound snobbish or ‘told you so’ but a great many of these ex-pats coming out here seeking the good life have never made any attempt to integrate or contribute to Greek society. Some of them, letting their homes for holidays, have the money paid in sterling into a British bank which doesn’t do anything for the Greek economy even though the holiday makers themselves obviously spend money whilst here. But they see bad times ahead and have decided to make a run for it, the days of sand, sea, cheap booze and cheap cigarettes are over. For some reason we nicknamed them the Dagenham Brigade because despite their age their whole mentality is chav.

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.

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