DAY 1 Government: we are going to pass a law to re-organize the Greek pension funds. Unions: Oh no, you’re not! Don’t touch our pensions or we’ll organize massive strikes for weeks, leave the garbage cluttering the sidewalks and the streets, cut down the electricity to hundreds of thousands of households, sabotage the financial...
Read more →As I mentioned before, we live in a small street off Leofóro Knossoú, which is the main road from the center of Iraklio to the archeological site of Knossós. It goes all the way down from the Palace to the sea. We usually call it Knossoú Road, except in the winter when we rename...
Read more →We have a new internet phenomenon in Greece. It’s called the “blog spot”. I don’t know what it is. I spotted (pardon the pun) it first in an article of eKathimerini which I quoted earlier. At that time I postulated that it might be some as-yet-undiscovered variant of the G spot. But I didn’t...
Read more →Back in 2003 when I just arrived here in Crete, at a time where 64Kbps ISDN was called “broadband”, I couldn’t really afford to spend too much time hanging out on the internet. I just made short connections to download my e-mail and my newsgroup subscription (anybody remember newsgroups?) and uploaded my pre-written postings...
Read more →As I was about to leave a shop today, I heard the voice of a beggar outside asking for help, so when I was out on the street I looked for him. An aged, dark and tortured face was there. Maybe a gypsy. I got close and gave him my little something and went...
Read more →There is some controversy going on in Greece about the anonymity of bloggers. I noticed it first in the local newspaper Nea Kriti which ran an article under the title “Βάζει φρένο …” which is translated by Google as “It puts a damper..”. Since, as usual, I couldn’t make sense of the automatic Google...
Read more →Oh my, I’ve gone all philosophical an moralistic on you in my last post. Never mind, let’s blame it on the weather. Or something. The thing that brought this along was a memory flash that I had, from a period some 50 years ago. I was in my first year at primary school in...
Read more →I’ve been thinking a lot lately — with more than enough time on my hands now, I was bound to do that sooner than later — about what it is that makes this world of ours so messed-up. No need to give you examples of this messed-upiness, there are plenty of examples around you....
Read more →Everybody’s been talking about snow on the Intahrnet today. A friend from Belgium even sent me an e-mail this morning inquiring about the situation. Quite frankly, I had no idea what they were all talking about. Here, about 1 kilometer north of the archaeological site of Knossós and some 4 kilometers south of the...
Read more →Whoa! Whoa! Enough already! We’ve had no less than 6 rumblings in the underground in the last 2 hours, all in the same area, 3 of them above 6 on the Richter scale. Someone’s throwing a hell of a Valentine party down there! Time LAT LONG Depth KM Mag 12:08:56 36.44 N 22.03 E...
Read more →