Koulouma (Κούλουμα)

It's the start of Great Lent, and the holiday allowed me to make the most of the day. Traditional food marking this event in the religious calendar includes shellfish - no meat or animal protein is eaten on this day.


First things first, taramosalata, using a salty cod roe, freshly processed breadcrumbs from stale bread, lemon juice, vinegar and olive oil.


As bloodless seafood is a mainstay of the day, I cooked some shrimps, in the easiest way possible to let me enjoy the day:  Take some headless shrimp, deveined and frozen. Wash them to get rid of most of the ice, then place in a shallow frying pan with minced onion and a good sprinkling of fresh aromatic herbs (I used Cretan wild greens picked up from my recent shopping trip to the Saturday street market, at the λαϊκή). Heat the pan and cook, straining off the liquids and adding a little lemon juice, a little red wine and some olive oil (and salt) to taste. Cook till the skin is crispy - you will be able to eat the skin too.


The rest of the meal consisted of fresh vegetables prepared as hot or cold salad: freshly boiled beetroot (with the leaves, which Greeks love to prepare as a hot salad), freshly prepared shredded cabbage salad, sliced avocado, freshly boiled potatoes, and some pickled vegetables.


The bread of the day is flat lagana. We buy two differnt kinds, to last us throughout the week. It was the case in the past that this bread went stale quickly, but times have changed - bakers have changed their recipe, and lagana stays fresh longer...


Although the weather looked promising in the morning, by lunchtime it was raining and remained so throughout the day, which cancelled our plans for a walk to the Ayious Apostolous beach which is popular on this day for kite flying. Many people were more daring than us: the beach area was full of kite-flyers.

The meal was finished off with some store-bought halva. The total cost of the meal is much more than what a home-made lunch meal usually costs, the most costly items being 800g shrimps 12€, 150g cod roe 4€, and lagana at 6€ a piece. As we say, it's only once a year.

Kali Sarakosti!

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Staying in control (while others panic)

You've probably heard me say the same things before, about three years ago when Greece faced another Grexit crisis. We're experienced in these things now. 

"In central bank circles it was discussed why the Greek government had not yet introduced capital controls. The Governing Council and the Governing banking supervisors would feel better if there were capital controls to prevent bleeding of the banks." (Translated from this German link).

I'm no longer worried about when Greece runs out of money, as this is already a well established fact about Greece, a country so desperate to find money from anywhere it can, that it's practically begging (non)tax payers to pay their taxes, by allowing people with unpaid tax dues up to 31.12.2103 to pay just 50% of what they owe if they pay half what they owe up front (or: they can pay whatever they can, and the same amount will be forgiven, while the remainder can be paid in small amounts over a long period of time). As for those who paid all their tax dues on time, like myself, well, they can revel in the knowledge that they simply don't owe anything, it's that simple. (So if you are the 'paying' kind of person, you are the true loser; if you were a true believer of the ΔΕΝ ΠΛΗΡΩΝΩ movement, you  have just been vindicated.)

I wish Greece had introduced capital controls ages ago as it only seems sensible. (My husband says that the reason it hasn't is because we live in a very democratic country - there is no other explanation.) I no longer care if I run out of money - I just don't want to run out of food; it's time for me to stock up on pantry basics. Voting in a new government has resulted in people being irresponsible about how to handle money, and we often hear them blaming Germany for everything that went wrong in Greece. It's hard for me to like the new government when I am surrounded by spoilt-brat behaviour and misled rhetoric.

Our wood supply is protected from the
weather with all sorts of bricabrac.

As long as no one takes the food
out of our mouth, we shall never starve.

Let's take a moment to imagine that capital controls to stop people taking money out of the bank are finally put in place overnight, just before the upcoming three-day weekend celebrating Kathara Deftera (Clean Monday, the first day of Great Lent before Christian Orthodox Easter):

We buy onions
every summer
in braids which
last nearly all year.

Don't look at the brown
bits on the cauliflower.
Boiling water blanches
them.

I've got plenty of beans in the pantry, some sorry-looking (due to the weather) broccoli, cauliflower and spinach that needs to be picked, plenty of onions, garlic and spices for flavour, and enough pasta and rice for bulk. I'm running out of flour, which is very important for me as I make a pie every week. I've just stocked up on some protein (from the German discounter supermarket chain LIDL, who gives Greeks what they want: apart from cheap imported food, they also sell cheap made-in-Greece food), and I also remembered to buy some petfood - our dog and cat have to eat too! There's plenty of wood for the heater till this temporary freeze goes away. I may not be able to buy petrol for the car if I can't use my credit card, which means that I will have to work from home, or simply take time off work. I've been wanting to do that for a long time.

Work at home is the same as in the office.

But I'm definitely not stocking up on cash. I hate cash. I can't stand the idea of taking money out of the bank just to make myself vulnerable to burglary, attacks, etc, which has already happened to others: a couple was robbed of 60,000 euro in mainland Greece, and only last weekend an elderly couple was murdered in a remote village in Hania, all because they were known to be keeping large stashes of cash in their house.

Reduced and non-reduced chicken wings.

It's not a war with starvation, blood and bullets, but it's definitely a war, and I know I'm one of the innocent victims, along with many other ordinary people like myself. Take for example the Bulgarian man in the supermarket who saw me picking up the last two sticker-special packets of chicken wings. He asked me if there were any more with a 30% reduction sticker, and when we realised that there weren't, I gave him one of the packets, so we could share the savings, and when he wasn't watching, I picked up another packet of chicken wings at the full price. That's what I call solidarity. I could have made another early morning trip to the supermarket to see if there were any more discounted chicken wings, but who wants to fight through the last-minute shopping rush before Clean Monday?

Clean Monday?! Oh gawd, the shellfish. I may not feel the need to buy or eat it myself (the family doesn't call me Merkel for nothing), but the rest of the brood won't be too happy to hear that we will be eating beans again. Another shopping trip is in order after all, in order to contain the masses, and maintain an appearance of being in control. Now, where do I find cheap seafood and halva*?

*LIDL sells cheap halva and seafood, but we are used to higher quality in this line of goods, since we rarely buy them.

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Hoxha the Greek

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, communism declined all over Europe, and people from communist countries were able to move freely. At this point, many citizens of former communist countries entered Greece, whose borders never really needed controlling during the communist era: Greece was surrounded by the sea in the south which created a natural border that was difficult to navigate, with Turkey in the East and Italy in the West, countries whose politics never targeted Greece from the migration aspect, and finally the communist countries in the north, who guarded their own borders for their own purposes. But when communism began to lose favour and free movement was granted, Greece was an obvious choice for Eastern Europeans (as we often label the citizens of former communist countries), and since 1990, many Eastern Europeans, primarily Albanians, are a permanent fixture of Greek demographics. But a whole generation has passed since then, and immigrants' children have been born/raised in Greece: the Albanian in Greece is now a Greek Albanian.

I've written before about Albanian people in Crete. 25 years down the track, we are talking about a second generation of Albanians who have been born and/or educated here, and they are now creating the third generation of Greek Albanians. Despite being born in Greece though, their citizenship status still creates problems for them in terms of official documents, and they remain a kind of Hellenic alien. The previous government was set to recognise some rights of second generation immigrants, but this is now being vetoed by the present government's coalition partner (who says that it may show preference in recognising the third generation - and so the chase goes on).

The second and third immigrant generation has essentially grown up and been educated in Greece. They speak Greek perfectly, without an accent, and they do not stand out among the general population, given that Greeks come in similar shapes, colours and sizes as they do. Despite the subtle differences between Greeks and Albanians in terms of their appearance (they tend to be shorter, paler and slimmer than Greeks, and they sometimes dress differently), Greek Albanians are thoroughly assimilated, and can be found in all sectors of society, save one: the public service, which in Greece is still reserved for 'real' Greeks.

The way that Albanians have assimilated in Greek society reveals a lot about Greek society itself. I'll use a few examples of Albanian people I know and have contact with, who show 'typical' Greek societal traits. My Albanian contacts are simply copying society:

1. My daughter recently came home feeling rather grumpy, after we told her that she couldn't stay longer than 9pm at a Sunday night party at a friend's house. "But the party hasn't even started!" she complained. The next day was a school day and the start of a new working week. Didn't her Albanian friend's parents know this? I'm sure they did. But this is just how the average Greek in their neighbourhood holds parties.

2. An Albanian friend recently told me that he is no longer sure about his legal status in Greece. He had a resident's permit, but during one of the least stable political periods of Greece in 2012, he stopped paying his social welfare contributions - like many Greeks - given the lack of monitoring. But now that the system has caught up the non-payers, he owes a lot of money - like many Greeks - and if he doesn't pay it, he will be asked to leave the country - unlike his Greek counterparts, because they are living in their own country.

3. My husband recently picked up an Albanian from the police station, where he had spent two nights in a cell. His crime: driving without having a driver's licence. Driving without a licence was quite common in Greece, up until the law came down harder on unlicensed drivers, albeit relatively recently, and now the general rule is that people will not risk it. This man has been living in Crete for more than a decade, is married and has three children. He had no legal status in Greece. but this was not a problem when the law was lenient, and he was just doing what other Greek citizens were also doing. Now that it's harsher, he finds himself in great difficulty, much greater than the average Greek: legalising his status in this country will require a lot of money.




The crisis is said to have taken its toll on all residents of Greece, irrespective of their background, and many Greek Albanians have had to reassess their existence, in the same way as other Greeks, in their country of birth. For many Albanians born in Greece, Greece remains their homeland in most senses, even food-wise, as can be seen from the highly authentic looking Greek food, prepared, cooked and sold in North London, by Albanian-Greeks.

The arrangement of the food in this cosy-looking takeaway restaurant has little to differentiate it from the typical Greek mayirio found all over the country. In fact, it felt like I was looking at the dishes on display in the Agora of my own hometown. The reviews of the restaurant attest to its Greek authenticity - but the facebook site is quite telling of a different story. The names in the likes and comments are not at all Greek.


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Two bags full

My brief annual spells in Athens (one weekend in winter, assisting a local sports club to manage their team) take me to the same places. Unfortunately, I don't see much of the city of Athens at all, which is a shame, because last weekend was such a sunny one, and Athens would have been in her best form under all that sunshine. If I look at things from the outside, then the sky, the buildings, the people, the roads, the metro... they will look much like they looked the last time I was there. They don't change much at all. To see what is different, you need to 'read between the lines' in order to comprehend the fuller story.

These two bags full of Greek pastries like tiropita, tsoureki, stafidopsomo, and other delicious-looking bread/filo-based treats will look very tempting to most people.

But the pastries were stale - I could tell just by looking at them, as they remained so rigid in that flexible plastic bag. They were badly packaged and some were broken, before they had even been placed in the bag. If they had been bought, they would have all been placed carefully into appropriately sized bags with the bakery's logo - more than two, that's for sure - with a paper napkin wrapped around each one, and a few other napkins placed in the bag.

The man carrying the bags was standing in front of me on the ilektriko*. He had hopped in at one stop, and hopped off the next one, which gave me a very short period of time to observe him. His clothes were dirty, and they smelled. No doubt, he was picking up some food from a place where he knew he would find it. I don't think he would be eating it all himself - he was really quite slim. Because the bags were so full, I presume that he had not eaten any of the contents yet. He was probably taking the bags to some place where there would be others to share it with, people in the same position as himself.

I suppose it's a fair comment to make if I say that he would not be going hungry today. But I can't guarantee that he (or the company that he keeps) is not homeless.

*ilektriko - the oldest metro line in Athens, running south-north from the port of Pireas to Kiffissia.

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In or out? (Μέσα ή έξω;)

Last night, many Greeks attended peaceful rallies staged at their local town squares, protesting the measures that the European Central Bank (ECB) has enforced against Greek banks (it won't lend them money to cover their needs, so Greek banks will need to borrow from an emergency fund, which will work out more expensively for the banks). We are hearing the "Unfair!" and "It's not our fault!" cries from the Greeks, which seem to be falling on deaf ears at the moment.

Athens, Syntagma Square, "without cage wiring and special police forces. And pro-government. A first! pic.twitter.com/sqKUAN8IAY
— Niko Ago (@NikoAgo) February 5, 2015

Athens, Syntagma Square, "No cage wiring and special police forces. Pro-government. A first!"

The uncertainty and distrust of Greece's position is to blame for this move. After five years, Greece still hasn't settled the question of whether she is 'in' or 'out'. On top of that, the new government simply overturned what the previous government had enacted, and is 'promising' to break past promises. It's understandable that we are not being trusted.

The global media does in fact seem to be supporting Greece but we aren't getting support from the places where we need it. The ECB just turned off the tap, a number of eurozone governments are being non-committal, and the German government tells us that, actually, they will only support us if we show that we can support ourselves. Our cockiness with the newly found support the freshly elected Greek government has found might be preventing us from taking a more practical approach to our problem which is based on increased uncertainty and lack of trust:

"The foreign press is full of inspired articles that feed our narcissism as we again become the center of attention – this time for good. But this barely does us any good for it cultivates our immaturity as a nation. We see ourselves reflected in the distorting mirror of the foreign media and we derive pleasure from this. Because in that mirror, we look like tragic victims or beautiful heroes. But we hardly look like the average European nation." http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite3_1_05/02/2015_546935

I'm really hoping that the new faces in the Greek parliament will deliver on one thing, and that is reform. After all, their faces are a welcome relief after those 'old-school' corruption agents that we had before. But don't think they don't come from 'important' Greek families themselves - their names are not necessarily new players in the who's who of Greece. For example:

- Tsipras (Prime Minister): his dad made a mint from construction projects

- Konstantopoulou (Parliamentary Speaker): her dad was the head of the Coalition Party of Greece (before it joined up with other parties and evolved into SYRIZA)

- Varoufakis (Minster of Finance): his dad was not only a university professor, but also the president of the Greek steel industry

- Tsakalotos (Alternative Minister of Finance): his grandfather was Chief of the Hellenic Army General Staff

... and so on. I fully believe that the above-mentioned politicians all started off their political careers quite humbly... but they were not unknowns to start with, and they certainly weren't ordinary members of the public. 

If these newbies can simply reform the state, that will be enough for me. Once you no longer fear the euro/drachma dilemma, you realise that this Greek problem was never really about staying in the euro or not (and I firmly believe that we are going to stay in the euro, as both sides have too much to lose). It's all about reforms, and the reforms have to show, and that's when people will trust us again. That won't happen overnight, and if our recent experience is anything to go by, we don't have much to show for our last 5 years if we bloat the public sector again (the new government has decided to rehire 3,500 fired public employees) and start dishing out more forever-jobs:

One question European policy makers are asking is whether Mr. Tsipras represents a break to [Greece’s] clientelistic tradition, or whether he will be guided by the business-as-usual principle that “it’s our turn now.” If the former, Greece’s eurozone partners may be more inclined to accommodate its requests provided the government signs up to meaningful reform. If the latter, they may eventually be inclined to take the risk of casting it adrift. http://www.wsj.com/articles/europe-weighs-the-costs-of-casting-greece-aside-1423174320

It's still all quite unstable to make predictions at this stage. One thing for sure is that Greece is being talked about a lot by everyone - by the good: 300 scholars urge Greece's European partners to accept the mandate of the Greek people; by the bad (see above) and by the ugly: apparently our beloved and charming Minister of Finance, Mr Varoufakis, was refused entry to a Club because... he wasn't wearing a tie, despite the fact that he

"... certainly impressed the hedgies and City types he addressed on Monday night. His two-hour speech received a standing ovation; his flawless English, “more eloquent than practically the entire British Cabinet”, said one person who met him. “Not the dogmatic Marxist he’s portrayed as.”

Maybe we still stand a chance. But all this instability is really getting on my nerves. I haven't yet dug a hole in the garden, or lifted some of the bathroom tiles to hide my euro. If Grexit could ever be classified as a genuine threat, then the whole euro thing will be jeopardised. Surely 'Europe', above all, doesn't want that, does she? But at this stage, we Greeks don't really know whether we are in or out. Then again, perhaps we're bi:


And if we do go 'out' and Greece returns to the drachma, as a friend of mine noted, "this time next year we'll all be millionaires" (thanks @ChrisMurphy).

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Breakfast (Πρωινό)

My kids keep telling me that they are the only ones in their class groups to eat breakfast every morning before school. According to my compatriots, this kind of breakfast tradition is just another Anglo-Saxon element of my upbringing.  



Maybe I wasn't made for this country, or this country wasn't made for me. It is also possible that this country has not caught up with me yet. 

The way I see things, if the previous generation had no breakfast before going to school, and the present generation buys a breakfast of chocolate-filled (XL) croissants and just-shake chocolate milk at the mini-market located two doors away from the school, then in all likelihood, the Anglo-Saxon breakfast will forever be regarded as a quirky hotel perk that someone other than the eater is paying for. 

(Just my two-cents worth.)

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Property tax (Φόρος Ακίνητης Περιουσίας)

ENFIA (Unified Property Tax) was very badly received by all Greeks, few of whom could even conceive the notion of paying annual property taxes on the value/location of their properties. They argue that they have 'already' paid tax when they bought/built the property, and they claim that they pay taxes to the local council on their property through the electricity bills, which is of course highly misleading: if you don't use your property yourself but rent it out, then it's the TENANTS who pay the electricity bill in its entirety, except when the crisis broke out and an 'emergency' property tax was clamped onto it (the infamous 'haratsi', which was named for its historical significance).

The new Syriza government says that they will replace this tax with something called Φόρος Μεγάλης Ακίνητης Περιουσίας = Large Property Portfolio Tax, which I understand will apply for people whose property portfolio is worth more than 200,000 euro.

Source: POMIDA, the website of 
the Hellenic Property Federation.

The figure on the left details the history of property tax in Greece, which is not just messy: it also shows how easily old laws are repealed and new laws are introduced at the whim of a new governing party, to satisfy the people, not the nation. It also shows how LITTLE Greek property owners have had to pay in the form of taxes on their real estate. Here is a selective translation of the text:

1975: First property tax law passed, applied only for urban properties.
1980: Law was annulled due to intense protests (!), deemed unconstitutional, and replaced by 2-4% rises in income tax (!!) and inheritance tax by 2%
1982: Law reinstated (!) at 2%, then annulled again after massive protests (!!) and re-added to income tax at 2% (!!!)
1993: Law repealed unconditionally and a "Property Fee" was introduced
1997: Tax re-introduced (!) as "Large Property Portfolio Tax" at 03.-08% (!!)
2007: Law repealed (!) for the third time (!!) and replaced by the "Unified Property Fee" at 1% (!!!)
2010: Property Tax clamped onto electricity bills (at the start of the crisis)
2013: Property tax which was not credited to owners between 2011-2013 (due to the confused and chaotic conditions prevailing in the Greek state during the crisis) is billed all at once to property-owning tax-payers
2014: ENFIA is introduced by the Samaras government
2015 (pending - not shown in photo): ENFIA will be annulled, and a new property tax called something like "Large Property Portfolio Tax" will be introduced

It's hard not to miss the degree of lawlessness inherent in the Greek tax-payers liable to pay this tax. It's also the reason why, in the past, having a large property portfolio in Greece was very common among Greeks.

Doctor, my parents never loved me!

Why do you say that?

They left me five urban properties and a rural residence!

Source: Cartoon by Nikandrou, Imerisia

I won't call it 'investing' in property, because very few Greeks were in fact using their properties as investments - it was so 'cheap' to own property that they were 'collecting' properties to pass on to their children, for their children to live in, use in another way, or rent out. It's fair to say that Greek social class was never really based on property ownership. Greek social class - food for thought for another post that I'm working on.

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This is it

Greeks have had a taste for a week now of our new government headed by the SYRIZA party. It seems pretty obvious that our Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his comrades have a plan for Grecovery which they reveal by dripping it onto us drop by drop, but it's basically part of their election promise: they want to press the re-start button. They want a debt write-off and repayments in teeny weeny amounts and/or in due time as they see fit; they refuse to talk to the monsters who keep lending us money, they want to talk to European leaders instead; they are betting on 'the other side' agreeing to this in order to save the euro which the other side created. The bottom line is that they (the Greek government) are hoping that we won't be asked to leave the euro and/or the EU. They (the Greek government) aren't going back on any of this. There are no ifs and buts in their argument.

Greece's so-called creditors (the infamous troika, who I think have rightfully been labelled kleptocrats) are really naive to believe that even when there is a change of government, things will carry on just like they did before - Greeks wouldn't have asked for a change of government in that case. So they have to accept that some things will change and they (the troika) will also have to re-route. If they (the troika) don't desperately need to get their money back from us, I suppose they will just be happy to forgive our debt and ask us to leave - this will have to happen so they can save face: Greece must be seen to be punished in some way for her 'errant' behaviour. Otherwise, the troika will have to bend to our wishes and re-route. If they don't, it's probably over for everyone - euro, eurozone and EU. The euro crisis has made politics so much more transparent. Paul Krugman's latest NYTimes article on Greece says roughly the same thing: the game is definitely over, and so is the experiment. 

I have a feeling that it's not Greece who is under pressure here, but the 'other side'. We don;t have money, and we don;t want to accept phoney do-gooders' money any more. So it's not a bad plan that the Greek government have after all, and it just may work. It reminds me of what my mother used to say about people who created personal disasters for themselves: 

"Aυτοί που τα φτιάξανε θα τα χαλάσουνε από μόνοι τους."

(Those who created it will break it up by themselves)

With all eyes on Greece at the moment, there is no need to read Greek news anymore. Our news is being reported the world over, and in all languages. And what's more: the conspiracy theories about the destruction of Greece have stopped - now we all now, we are in this together. Amen.

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Elections (Εκλογές)

Back in the days when I was much slimmer and living in Athens, and I had just sorted out my Greek ID, as election days loomed, I had to sort out my voting rights in Greece, especially since in those days, not voting in an election was a punishable offence (that no one was ever punished for, as far as I know).

In those days, you needed a voting booklet together with your ID card in order to vote (I got mine issued in 1994, at a time when much of the Western world was already using email). The voting booklet looked like it had been made of recycled paper (at a time when recycling was a virtually unknown concept in Greece - the rubbish bins on the street stood side by side with bags of old clothes and tossed-away furniture). It had nothing printed on the outside covers to denote its contents.

You could only vote in the locality where you were registered, and most people had ties with their villages, no matter how tiny they were. Public employees were given time off work to travel to their villages if they lived far away, which applies for people living in main centres (eg Athens). Not so for non-state employees, who were never even considered when pension schemes, retirement and employment laws were being drawn up in Parliament (which is why everyone dreamed of a public service job). If you lived a certain number of kilometres away from your registered locality (was it 200km? I can't remember), and you couldn't get there in time to vote, you had to get a note from the local police station which excused you from voting (the information concerning addrresses was never able to checked - they simply went on trust). I got one of these συγχωροχάρτια ('forgive-papers', similar to the indulgentia) twice in my lifetime.

Once I left Athens and moved to Hania, I had no excuse but to vote. I used my booklet 5 times before it was abolished:

We now vote with just our ID cards. But the basic method of voting has not changed at all. It is still manual, there are no computers being used in the process, we don't vote by mail or online, and it looks rather old-fashioned. For some, this old-fashioned world reeks of the staleness that still characterises the Greek state.

From the 2012 elections - they make good scrap paper.

Greece and the Greeks have never really kept pace with each other. I don't think they ever will.

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Brain-drained (Ανενγκέφαλοι)

"Young, gifted and Greek: Generation G – the world’s biggest brain drain," the headline reads, in a discussion about the Greeks that have left the country since the financial crisis hit.

Yes, they've gone, and we call this a brain drain, but as Aliki Mouri is stated in the article as acknowledging:

"...even in good times Greece had difficulty absorbing the surplus of professionals its universities produced..." 

These are the same people that wanted public-sector jobs, the same ones that are often blamed for the crisis:. Again in the same article, we read:

"The north German town of Minden was not on Roppa’s radar when she elected to study medicine at Athens University in the late 1990s. She made the move when it became clear the alternative was years on a waiting list for a position as a specialist dermatologist." 

A position where? In the public sector, of course.

We often hear about the "leaving Greeks" and the "Greek brain drain", but it is important to note that this is nothing new in Greece. Young gifted individuals have been doing this long before the crisis. Indeed, many young (and not-so-young) people have left recently, and their 'glad I left' stories are often published in blogs and fora, but we rarely hear about the failure stories, the ones about the people who left Greece during the crisis, but realised that they could not fit into their chosen new setting and returned home. There are plenty such stories floating about, but I think they are simply not sensational enough to be made into a 'newsworthy' story. It's not hard to track some of these down though, and the way most of those bandwagon-joining Greeks actually made their move does bring up a whole set of other questions.

Most Greeks who left Greece during the crisis do not fit into the truly desperate category - they leave with aspirations of greater comfort and high income prospects, which is probably the reason why many of them fail. Only the head-hunted can succeed in this way, and most of us simply don't fall into that category. I rarely hear Greeks mentioning the opportunity to widen their experiences abroad or to go on a working holiday. I often read the most embittered comments, mentioning things like 'getting married', 'starting a family' and 'having children', which is the last thing you expect to hear from people who find themselves in a similar predicament (ie they are out of work). This is a sign of the monorail lifestyle that most Greeks were on before the crisis: there is only one road, and you hop onto the train, all heading in the same direction. A country where people aspire to greater individual wealth rather than a greater collective spirit was never going to succeed economically in the first place.

People say politicians are to blame for what is happening in Greece, but surely people are just as much to blame, as they are the ones voting in the politicians - they mirror each other in many ways. As the election looms ahead of us this weekend, we will see exactly the same kind of choices being made now as they were being made a decade ago, when this new "Great Catastrophe"* could not even have been imagined. Despite the unsustainability of a bloated public sector, and the lack of creative alternative solutions for Greek tourism which would have maintained an advanced modern tourist industry, Greeks generally voted for the party that would maintain their privileges, or promise them something.

Opinion poll, 21-01-2015

ΝΔ = conservatives (they will continue with the reforms as the EU/ECB/IMF demand)

ΣΥΡΙΖΑ = radical left (they reject austerity)

ΠΑΣΟΚ = socialists (ruled almost uninterrupted from 1981 to 2004; it is regarded as causing the economic crisis - the majority of its supporters defected to ΣΥΡΙΖΑ)

Ανεξάρτητοι Έλληνες = claims a patriotic agenda, but also claims not to be left or right; doesn't support ΝΔ; is contemplating to be part of a coalition if a majority party is not voted in

Χρυσή Αυγή = far right, mainly extremist: most of its members of Parliament are in jail - refuses to form a coalition with anyone

KKE = communist-style agenda (before the crisis, it was always the '3rd party') - refuses to form a coalition with anyone

Το Ποτάμι = claims to be centre-left, but is often regarded as centre-right, due to its leader who is a TV journalist; is contemplating to be part of a coalition if a majority party is not voted in

ΚΙΝ. Δημοκρατών Σοσιαλιστών = founded a few weeks ago by former PASOK dynasty family member George Papandreou

ΛΑΟΣ = run by a far-right uber-rich one-man show (he was implicated in off-shore scandals)

ΑΝΤΑΡΣΥΑ = anti-capitalism, far left

Άλλο κόμμα = Another party (including the 'Pirate' party, etc)

Λευκό/Άκυρο/Αποχή = Blank paper/Invalid/Abstain from voting

Αναποφάσιστοι = Not decided

This is probably not so different to any other country - surely it sounds logical that people vote for the privileges they believe they will maintain according to their voting choice. But it also isn't true everywhere: there are many people in the world that vote 'for the greater good' and 'in the interests of the country'. That is not the norm in Greece.

Let's not forget how against the tide Greece was operating compared to global politics, after its entry to the EU. In 1981, PASOK formed the first socialist government in the history of Greece, lasting for nearly 24 years, interrupted only for 3 years by a Conservative government. Compare that to the free-market economies dominating the UK and the US at the time, when Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were running their respective governments. Greece was being governed by old communist-style closed-shop rules and regulations, making her look similar to her north, south and east communist/totalitarian regime neighbours.

But it isn't all Greeks' (and Greek politicians') fault, is it? It's Europe's fault too. When you lend someone money, you expect to get it back. If you keep lending people money in the form of new loans, even though they haven't paid back the old ones, surely you also keep tabs on them, checking up on how they spend it and how quickly they make repayments. I guess Europe (aka Germany) wasn't doing that at all. How dumb. No wonder Greece is in this mess.

Despite the weak situation of the economy which lessens Greece's stature in global politics, it's still all eyes on Greece, in the same way that Greece's woes dominated the G20 summit in 2011, when the then Greek prime minister thought it would be a good idea to offer Greeks a referendum deciding whether they would like to remain a part of the EU which reduced Angela Merkel to tears. As the weakest member of the EU, Greece still holds so much power: if Greece leaves the EU, the euro is in danger; but Greece can's leave the EU becasue there is no mechanism for throwing a member out - there is only a mechanism for adding more members. Not that it is impossible for Greece to leave the euro - but that will only happen if the euro ceases to exist, which tells us why it continues to exist: only Germany can push that button.

Promise a Greek what they want, and they will vote for you, even if it means that the country will sink. 600 cleaners in the Finance Ministry! Reminds me of the how-many-Irishmen-do-you-need-to-change-a-lightbulb joke. Tell a Greek that, if they vote for you, they will have to incur hardship, and you've lost them, end of story. Given that Greeks are so predictable in their voting, how will they vote this weekend?

 

Poor Antonis, the protagonist of Helena Smith's venomous post about my dying country (she has really aided the situation of the Greek bank runs), who hates his country. But it seems that he has another one to go to! I hope he reads this (I have left it as a comment in the article):  

Hey, Antonis, don't feel so sorry for yourself! You are leaving a beautiful country - Greece - to go to another beautiful country - New Zealand - and that is certainly something to be envied because I don't know many Greeks who are in your privileged position to be able to move from one beauty spot to another! I too have this privilege because I was born raised and educated there, and moved to Greece about 24 years ago. "ARE YOU CRAZY? WHY DID YOU DO THAT?" I hear you asking me. Well, there was a recession in NZ at the time, and despite my BAs and MAs and my good teaching and research skills, I couldn't get a job, which to my surprise I found that I could get in Greece! So count yourself lucky, mate - and learn to drink beer. From a bottle. At a pub. Standing up. The locals will love you. Of all the wonderful things that I did learn in and love about New Zealand, that was the one thing I could not get used to.

Oh, by the way, I didn't realise that photographers were in short supply in New Zealand. Or maybe that is just your hobby when you showed whoever it was around 'the wound of Greece'. Or maybe... you have some right to enter New Zealand, in the same way that I can return to NZ if I really wanted to (through my citizenship). Well, it's your choice, and you will be especially happy to do that since you hate this country.

But you aren't alone: I hear this a lot from many Greeks around me, that they hate this country. But they aren't like you: they aren't leaving. They seem to be stuck here, unable to leave (or unwilling to make the move). I can't really argue with my hot-blooded knee-jerking compatriots about why they hate Greece, but I am always left wondering something when I hear them say that they are not happy in their country: Did they ever stop to think whether Greece likes them? Just a thought.

As a family, we talk politics a lot in my household, over our home-cooked communal meals. One thing I know I have imprinted into the minds of my children is that they have no right to ever say "I hate my country". because, as I have explained to them, it will reverberate back on to them in a negative way. In my mind, Antonis' parents made a mistake somewhere along the line. For me, it really does all start in the home.

PS: It isn't only Greeks leaving their country in search of work.

* This name is solely used in Greece to denote the loss of the Greek colonies in Asia Minor in 1922.

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Steak and kidney-less pie

One of our more memorable meals in London was taken on New Year's Eve at the Battersea Pie Station in Covent Garden. We had ended up there after attempting a walk along the Thames, starting from Cannon St. At Blackfriars, we were stopped by the crowd and safety control units who were policing the area and keeping people away from the riverside, due to the fireworks event that was schedule to take place later in the evening. Our detour away from the riverside took us through some very London sites of great historical interest. It almost felt Dickensian.

Poultry obviously takes its name from its former association with the chicken trade.

We were intrigued by what looked like a private function with a focus on seafood...

... and highly unamused by this vile-sounding Christmas food special! (It has been described as: "An overwhelmingly negative reaction, ranging from 'aggressively disgusting' to 'one of the worst things I’ve ever put in my mouth'. It gets points for effort, attempting to combine virtually every festive ingredient, but it tastes like someone has pushed their Christmas leftovers into a blender and served them with rice.")

New Year's Eve is a very quiet day for London business people, but even when London is supposedly sleeping...

... it keeps changing looks, as it prepares for various events, and this time, the portaloos made it look like it would be welcoming the New Year with a heavy bout of drinking.

We eventually needed to use a bathroom ourselves, so I popped into a Pret-a-Manger and bought some Christmas mince pies which I'd really wanted to try while in London.

When I asked for the bathroom facilities, believe it or not, this place did NOT have toilets! So we held off, in the hope that we would eventually find a place to take a leak legally.

At The Strand, the former Aldwych tube station, often used as a film location, looked ghostly silent. This street was cut off to strollers due to the fireworks event.

Somerset House was looking very festive with its ice rink (where we found some free bathroom facilities).

I had a quick browse through the ridiculously overpriced Fortnum and Masons shop (it was sponsoring the ice rink) - 50 pounds for a set of 6 Christmas crackers, did I read that right?!

A short stroll away, we found ourselves at Covent Garden. Cold weather makes you feel hungry all the time. I chose the Battersea Pie Station, in the hope that I would find some steak and kidney pie (and Cornish pasty - another of my favorite pies in New Zealand). We weren't disappointed. My family lets me do the ordering most places when in London, because they know I know the food well enough. My early life in colonial New Zealand stopped abruptly just when New Zealand's food tastes became more international, so I still have fond memories of New Zealand old-fashioned comfort food, which were invariably British-based.

Chicken and mushroom pie, steak and kidney pie, and Cornish pasty - ~20 pounds, with a bottle of beer and a cup of tea.

Back home, when I decided to make a steak kidney pie myself, I found it near impossible to find kidneys! In Greece, the sale of beef and chicken kidneys has been banned since the mad cow furore - which started in the UK; yet, they aren't banned there! Although lamb's kidneys are still available for purchase here, when I tried to track some down, I found that they are never severed from the actual animal, so you have to buy the part of the animal that they are connected to. This is done for transparency reasons: in this way, the butcher is showing you that the animal was healthy - if the kidney is missing, the buyer may wonder whether the animal was sick. 

I used this very easy-to-follow recipe as the basis of my beef stew and pastry. The beef stew was cooked last night, the pastry was made this morning, and we had the pie for lunch with some leek and potato soup. 

To replace the umami taste of the kidneys, I bought a packet containing two slices of kavurma, adding some mushrooms and soya sauce (I was out of Worcestershire sauce) to my beef stew. I think the taste was successful, and the whole family enjoyed the pie, which will be made again eventually, because I froze half the stew. Slow-cooked food takes a long time to cook, so why not make a double batch and save your time later?

Bonus photo: A chat with the butcher where I bought the beef also revealed another mysterious EU meat regulation, which forbids lamb's spleen from being sold - but cow's spleen is permissible!

At any rate, if you have close relations with someone who raises their own meat, you can procure everything. I had lamb's spleen in sheep's intestine last week at an inner-city cafe bar, where the landlord-owner-cook prepares everything freshly and to order.

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Food for the brain

Belated Happy New Year to everyone.

We still haven't cut the vasilopita in our house, so we ourselves are slightly delayed in our own celebration of the change in the year. We were rather busy (over-)enjoying ourselves during the festive period.

A very educational meal at a Pret-a-manger outlet near Hyde Park: The choices were made by myself, so that the family could experience 'alternative' food. Crisps need not be potatoes; I also introduced them to the idea of 'corporate responsibility' towards a society (stuff I know about, 'cos I proofread Master's students' theses about them). Total cost for 4 hot drinks, 4 wraps/sandwiches and two packs of crisps: 24.50 pounds.

On reflection, my decision to the take the family to London during this time was the best decision I ever made in my life. It was based on a number of factors, mainly that of creating one's own happiness, which I feel need to be written down for the record, so that those who read this in the future (hopefully, my son and daughter) will remember how and why their mother made the (extravagant-sounding) decision to take the family on a (second) holiday abroad.

My favorite fresh market is the Lewisham street market - it is very cheap (most stuff is sold in bowls, all for just 1 pound), and this Christmas, I got to try brussel sprouts, kale, parsnips, swedes and turnips, some of which I added to a roast with a chicken (3.50 pounds).

The most important reason for my rather last-minute New Year's plans was to show my children (primarily) that life is dull, boring, sad, etc only if you allow it to be. As I said in my last post for 2014, Life doesn't always go as planned... You may or may not be the perpetrator of all your own misery, but you can usually be the creator of all your own happiness. But nothing will happen if you don't plan it to take place, which may mean that you have to act in an original way, perhaps appearing unpredictable among your friends and family. In most cases, you can envisage the consequences of most of your actions: if they seem dull, boring, sad, etc, then try to change your actions and behaviour before the consequences become history.

Battersea Pie company in Covent Garden, New Year's Eve - I grew up in New Zealand savouring the taste of steak and kidney pie and Cornish pasty. Total cost: 20 pounds (with a cup of tea). 

Despite the pervading belief in the west that Christmas is now far removed from its religious context, it is still one of the biggest events of the year. (In Greece, Easter is far more important than Christmas.) But Christmas is actually a very quiet time in Crete. Some small events take place for Christmas, but they do not penetrate society in the same way that Christmas events do in western countries. Hence, Christmas/New Year's time is not really very exciting in Hania.

The best souvlaki we have ever tasted is found in Camden market. Souvlaki Superstars import all their meat and pita from Greece. They have been there for two years, but they are unsure of their future now that the Camden markets have been sold to developers - this part of the market will be the first to go. It's a difficult time for them, as they moved on from their own country only to be moved on in their new one. 3.50 per large souvlaki, much larger than the ones we normally eat in Hania.

Staying in Hania for the New Year almost ripped my heart out this year. I can't fool my kids anymore during these festive periods. Gone are the times when I'd take them into the town and say "Look! The Christmas tree! And the boat! And here's Santa!" They don't fall for that any longer. The town is gaudily tinsel-clad, the events that take place in the town are usually geared towards young children, our friends are very predictable in their habits, the food always consists of standard Cretan menu items (unless I am the host for the day, but I knew I couldn't have this happen this year for various reasons: one friend has developed a fear of driving, while the other always prefers the ancestral village home in the mountains), and in short, a certain misery pervades, often caused by cold weather and a belief that life is bad. Among people who own their own home, don't have debts, have a job, eat high quality food and can afford to educate their kids, I'd say that these folks really have no understanding of true misery. This year, I had to get out of here, even if it meant on my own.

The cheapest time to enjoy Christmas pudding is ... after Christmas, when it's discounted by 50% at the supermarket! Sticky toffee apple pudding, with clotted cream and last season's foraged blackberries. Total cost: 7 pounds.

Giving my children a wider experience of the world has always been a priority. This is how they will become well educated. Greek schools do not give many opportunities for mental stimulation.  My children are not born geniuses, but their school grades are very good. This has something to do with the Greek education system. It's ... predictable (it is all based on set textbooks). I use my knowledge of this predictability, and steer my children's learning around being prepared not just for the lessons they are learning, but the lessons that will come. Hence their good grades. They do not have preparatory classes, extra lessons, outside help, gadgets, or whatever else it takes to give them the upper edge - they just have better planning skills, and a wider experience of the world. It is difficult to find suitable rewards for this: good planning skills are rarely rewarded in Greece, primarily because they are not found in a text book. There is so much junk that we can buy for kids, most of which will be used once or twice, before it takes refuge in a dark corner, and will not come back into use for a while. A stimulating holiday with many new experiences will forever remain etched in their minds.

Best meal out ever: fish and chips in Brighton. My kids learnt a lot of things about British food during this wonderful experience. Total cost of meal: 37.50 pounds. 

Above all, we have gracious hosts in London. They like our independence when we stay with them. so that they can do their own thing while we come and go, doing our own thing and meeting back at their place for a meal. This year we prepared communal meals nearly every day with them. (Eating out in London can be ridiculously expensive.) The nicest thing that they said to me this time was: "It's really good that you can always find something new to do while you are here and you are never bored." I take it that this means that we can come back again, with our gifts of freshly pressed olive oil and home cooking. Without this free accommodation, I probably would not have the opportunity to visit a very different world to my own - but I'm sure I would still be finding ways to make my own and my family's life happier.

Bonus photos: As a teacher, I couldn't help posing brain teasers to my son who wanted to visit the public library in Lewisham. So I asked him questions like 'What might Gay and Lesbian contain?', 'Why might the book Gay Life and Culture be located in the Politics section instead of Gay and Lesbian?', 'What about Sex Life? Why is that in the 'Psychology' section?'

I think I'm a good teacher for teaching people about alternative views, perhaps because I'm a little alternative myself, despite my conservative background. You can't get this sort of social education in Hania, 'cos there's no reference starting point for it to begin with. Ignorance causes the biggest problems in society, which is the basis of western-style humour, as we have seen throughout this year's holiday period.

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