Remember the strike of the garbage collectors a couple of weeks ago? We are slowly entering a period where every non-priviliged Greek will feel the effects of the latest strike where it hurts most: on his diner table and in his (parked out of necessity) car(s). I’m talking of course about the strike of...
Read more →Local time: 17:54:00 (GMT +3) I’m in the process of upgrading the WordPress software that drives this blog. As a result you might experience some unexpected effects or missing functionality. Please be patient, I expect to be finished in 1 hour.
Read more →My “short break” turned out to be a rather longish break. Everything went fine with the trip to Brussels. We had some problems at the car rental desk due to my credit card having extended it’s limit for the month (I didn’t keep track carefully enough) but after 3 hours of phone calls and...
Read more →Greece is currently subdivided into 13 Regions (‘Περιφέρειες’), 54 Prefectures (‘Νομαρχίες’) and 1034 Municipalities (‘Δήμοι’). This was the result of a major administrative reorganization in 1996, called the “Kapodistrias” plan. Initially some, but not all, Prefectures were further subdivided into Provinces (‘Επαρχίες’), but the latter were abolished after a couple of years. Municipalities were...
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 →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 →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 →For those who keep track of this, we have been going through some extremely rough weather lately. The whole of Crete has been hit with strong – 10 Beaufort – winds, with the usual, to-be-expected results: roofs flying off, electricity poles (wooden, waddayathink?) uprooted or snapped, cables broken, the works. Large areas have been...
Read more →It has never been easy in Greece to be a Macintosh user. Most people — or businesses for that matter — have never even heard of Macintosh. I remember when I went shopping for a bank and inquired if their online banking system was compatible with Macintosh, most banks replied with “Huh?”. When I...
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