Monday 11 August 2014

How Hard Can It Be?

...A road less travelled to fatherhood

Norman Rockwell - Maternity Waiting Room - 1946

The usual scene is the father to be sitting anxiously in the hospital waiting room. Diligent and tired, he has been waiting until the early hours of the morning. The doctor eventually strolls out into the empty corridor, he too is exhausted and grim. With slow and measured steps eventually he stops before the man and gives him the good news. It is a boy or perhaps a girl or it is just fine. A cigar is slipped into his breast pocket by a best friend. It was the traditional man's man of rites of passage, a defining moment.


Skinning A Cat Differently

Times have changed and now the father is right in there amongst the action, half listening to his wife's earnest and personal recriminations and him muttering positive inanities to his grunting wife, recording it all the while on his iPhone. Quite who will ever have the inclination to watch the birthing video is beyond me and as far witnessing the miracle of life, some things are best seen only by doctors or until edited by the BBC with the soothing tones of Sir David Attenborough. In fact I am sure it puts you off the whole thing all together and the availability of the hand-held camera in recent decades correlates perfectly with the steady decline to less than two children per family in the developed world. Call me old fashioned but I'd rather court lung cancer by cigar a couple times that get stuck that deep in the trenches. Of course neither option had been available to me, so this is all theoretical, but I am quite sure my feelings are bedded correctly in the squeamish ground of ignorance and avoidance. I am also rather keen on the stork alternative, for everyone involved. No mess and a freshly changed baby is dropped down the chimney. But I think The Stork has retired to Florida along with Elvis and Father Christmas.

My date with fatherhood also involved a waiting room, in which I waited and fidgeted nervously. I was called in to see the judge who leafed through my file that had taken over a year to fill. Then I was legally pronounced
a father. I don't think there was the smack of a gavel, but it was just as stern and definitely not a memory to be video recorded. There was no cigar, no sweating and exhausted wife nearby that rued the day she ever met me. Just me. Next I caught a taxi and half an hour later I was at the orphanage. Not the usual scene by a long shot. Of course I am brushing over the long journey of becoming an adoptive parent. The angst, procedure and uncertainties need not be delved into. It was a moment my wife and I had been longing for, for over a year. Except it was nothing like we had envisioned. I had had to come alone and now I held a one-year old that I had met nine months ago and seen grow up through photographs. I was unprepared. How hard could it be? It was all I thought about as the two of us strangers blinked at each other in a the back of a taxi on the way to the hotel.


Too Soon To Panic

To say that I was wholly unprepared for the experience is an understatement. Whatever your views on adoption are, it is a process that is lengthy, intrusive and designed for introspection. I had developed an idea of the values and importance of parenthood over hours of discussion with my wife, social services and other experts, but now, face-to-face with it I realised I had really only dealt with the conceptual side of it. I had received one hasty nappy changing lesson, brought along various rattling toys and could not remember more than a snippet of any nursery rhyme from my childhood. I avoided restaurants that were child friendly and viewed prams with disdain. Even though I work in a school, the reception and nursery areas remain the most unsettling and intimidating to me. A trip to the infant and kiddies store the day before I flew did nothing to reassure me that I had made the transition. Most of the toys in the store looked like they could be used by consenting adults who were used to using safety words. The toys, placed in a different setting, perhaps down a certain side street in Amsterdam would fit right in.



You Sent A Man?

Meanwhile, word had crept through the neighbourhood that we were adopting. In fact we hadn't told anyone, but you can only keep a secret for so long when when elderly Greek ladies are concerned. A crack in a curtain across the road was all it took to see the delivery of the baby's mattress. Of course, the eagle-eyed neighbour, armed with some information had been left no choice but to directly confront my wife the next time she spotted her leaving the house. And so the secret was outed, that we had applied and gone through the adoption process for over a year. When my wife explained that I alone had gone to collect our child - and would be sole carer for two weeks she was truly horrified. "You sent a man?" Incredulous and of course quite convinced that I would not manage to bring the child back alive. You see in Greece, men are not really involved in the rearing of children. After the age of seven, men get more involved, but until then the mother is in full command. Of course they never ever let go entirely.

While the legal formalities were processed, Joe and I spent two weeks in the hotel room getting to know each other. He for the first time came to see that the same person would be there for him when he fell asleep and when he awoke. I was in the deep end, slowly building up his trust and getting better at getting food in his mouth. Initial attempts ended up with more food around his face and or down the back of his shirt than where he wanted. The weeks that passed were the most tiring that I have ever been through. I longed to be home for a short break or even just a change of scenery. But looking back those days are best I have ever spent. Playing Hide 'n Seek with a one-year old is usually a one-side affair but the smile that began to creep over his face has never gone away. The toys I had brought elicited little interest and he seemed happier climbing over me or finding out where all the plug points were. Listening to The Beatles seemed to work better than any nursery rhyme I could try sing. We were bonding in our own little way, perhaps it was a bit Stockholm Syndrome-ish while we waited to come home, but it seems to have worked no matter how unorthodox. Of course we were never quite on our own and thanks to the wonders of Skype and FaceTime my wife was able to be part of the daily routine and even the quiet criticism from my mother-in-law was even able to find its way into our little world. Quite how the baby never caught pneumonia or some other dreaded disease in my care she will never know and, not so secretly thinks it is a small miracle.



The Miracle of Life

Time and dementia go hand-in-hand and it is why grandparents love children all over again. My wife's mother was perpetually fretting that the child was not clothed warmly enough and that any area outside the cot was heaped with germs and so should not come into contact with the baby miracle. In the two weeks I think Joe must have licked everything that was from the floor to mouth height. He seems okay. My mother too on the other hand was full of the miracles of life and bursting with questions about what it was like to be so close, finally, to a small bundle of miraculous goodness. I could never supply a good enough answer containing a satisfactory enough amount of wonderment. I hadn't, even after several days, quite got over the contents of my first nappy change. Even now, I still flinch if I think back to that first morning. At home, the nappy inspection is something my wife is quite fond of and takes an avidly forensic interest in what foods seem to complement and solidify well together. I am still of the opinion that the devil lies in the nappy.


The Road Ahead?

I wrote recently that we teach the way we were taught and that we parent the way we were parented. Change only comes when there is a concerted effort to break with the pattern. My wife and I have our own ideas as all shiny new parents do. Although I am not sure what I need to change just yet. If I follow my mother-in-law's approach, the world is a germ abundant and dangerous place. Meaning Joe will never think of leaving the house until he is past the age of 30. On my side of the family tree, I would like to think my childhood was similarly conscious of danger, but I do know that I spent a good deal of my toddler years buck naked from the waist down and enjoyed playing with wet concrete. I also seem to have spent a lot of it crouching happily in a bucket. At least that is what the family photo albums depict. I guess we'll find a middle way of sorts. I have seen enough bad parenting to see that it is very easy to make life very difficult. Social media too seems to be rife with the look-at-me-good-parent-brag photos. Making 5 hour cakes of some favourite cartoon character or posting links to read "10 Jaw Dropping But Shockingly Good Lessons I Want My Toddler To Read Before He Goes to Nursery School - But Can't" is on my not to do list. Clearly it isn't easy. Marriages fail and children become their own persons - despite your parenting and careful nappy changes. I know that the most difficult part of it all is consistency and has been the glue in the start of our relationship. I will need to be more consistent than I have ever been in any other area of my life. Day after day. His little grin when he sees me every time is what makes it all worthwhile. The rest we can figure out along the way.


Friday 4 July 2014

What do we want from our children?



The school year has just ended and I must admit that aside from the relief of reaching the end of term, there is a small degree of sadistic satisfaction in knowing that for the next two months the parents of my class will be under pressure to keep their children occupied and content. Of course the tables are turned again when school resumes anew in September. Most parents are suspiciously pleased to see me again and mutter that the school holidays are really a bit generous in length and it is high time for little Johnny to get on with his learning again. 


The end of the year is bitter sweet for both teachers and children. There is a close constant relationship that has grown over the year that ends abruptly with the last school bell of the year. It is a time for a breather too but most importantly it is time to reflect on the year that has just passed. Teaching throughout the year is filled with not only delivering a curriculum, extension and support, continual assessment of progress and of equal importance too is the pastoral and emotional support. Yet, the  end of the year is terminal and puts your efforts in a stark light. For a year, they have been yours to teach, guide and nurture and now their care under your charge is up. Which children did you feel you really helped? Who did you not quite reach? 


Teaching provides an unintentional insight into parenting and children once you have their trust openly let you in. You become a family member of sorts and in some cases spend more time with the children over the year than their parents might if they have demanding work schedules. Teaching is by far the most rewarding work I have ever done and one of the more difficult components of the job are the parents. All parents want the best for their children and the most challenging aspect can be separating the development of the child from the ambitions of the parent. I know a child who at the age of seven would explain exactly which univiersities he would study at (Oxford and M.I.T in that order) and what field he would specialise in. I am all for setting goals, and it is a big focus in my classroom, but these goals are completely disconnected from any imput from the child. I sincerely hope he does attend these universities - if they are really what he wants from life. But at the moment that decision has not been his to make. It is the parent that seeking validation through the success of their children. It is a heavy burden for them to carry, because at some stage there will be disappointment along the way. 


A happy child. Again something all teachers and parents try to achieve. It sounds such a nonsensical thing to say but sometimes it is harder to achieve that you would think. Children need all the things they have always needed, safety, time to play, support and boundaries but it is harder than ever to provide these things for our children. What parents and children often do for leisure is to go shopping together. It is a strange cycle of a temporary reward equalling happiness. It is fleeting. Brand awareness amongst children is bordering on disturbing. One child I taught was looking forward to a parent returning from a business trip. I asked how long the parent had been away for and was told without scruple that the reason was that the parent had been working in the U.S and always brought back better presents that when they went to other destinations. Dr Tessa Livingstone, an expert in child psychology, and author of ‘Child of Our Time: Early Learning is of the view that our society has equated happiness with success and all the trappings of consumerism that go with it. Even today, the things children love the most are free. It feels to me that it is a battle that we are losing though and too many parents are too afraid to say no. 


In the words of Zoolander, kids need to read good. And be able to do maths good too. But they are not the overriding indicators of success and development. Schools go to great lengths to track pupil progress and often academics are the main focus because they are easy to assess. What should go hand-in-hand with the academic side are the values and qualities we want our children to develop, but they cannot be quantified in SATs or levelled against a national average. 


Children need to learn things; facts, skills and values. Education has to incorporate values because it is through values that goals are formed and acted on. Several classes and their attendant parents have passed through my doors, and in keeping with the theme of reflection, these are values and qualities that I try to instill in my class - and will at a later stage to my own children. 

Politeness: it might seem a little old fashioned but simply it is just the right way to interact with others. 

Passion: not only finding out what you love, but also becomming interested in what you are doing. I see it all the time, you can motivate children to become passionate about what they are learning quite easily. The key is - you have to be passionate about it!

Curiosity: becomming interested in something means you will question and seek to learn more. This sense of enquiry is critical. You can learn most things, but curiosity as a skill or quality is truly transferable. 

Resilience: not everything works out the way you want. Being able to pick yourself up and carry on is incredibly important. 


Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics and professor of economics at the Universty of Chicago says that when he looks at his students, the truly exceptional ones combine a creativity and excitement for life. If we are not sending our kids to school for these reasons then I am not sure why we are sending them at all. 

Monday 30 June 2014

Very lost in translation

It is all in the tongue

A language often defines a people, provides a common identity and is a link to its history. Few people are more proud of their language and its place in history than the Greeks. Greece is a wonderful place. A place of sun, of food, it's fragrant and noisy, and of course regrettably for its visitors, it has the Greek language. Greek is just a step in the long linguistic journey of an earlier Indo-European language but it is an important one. It is the one that has shaped our alphabet, given us the beginning of Western literature, the first written New Testament and made lasting and wide reaching contributions to most of our everyday language. It has also caused untold misery to many who have tried to learn it. It is where I find myself now.

Learning a language provides you with the key to bumble through most of the everyday tasks needed. It also allows you to finally pick through just the veneer, seeing and understanding much more about your host country, such as small conveniences in getting by when shopping, suffering through inconveniences in family situations and some things that you should just never have asked about in the first place.


On the surface

Greece is a place that overloads the senses. Viewed in a romantic light, it would be the kind of place you would like to disappear to. Do a Shirley Valentine or even just let the clear light and blue sky wash over you daily in a carefree simplified existence. it is what crossed my mind on my earlier visits here. Less simple but no less romantic in the old fashioned sense at least would be to rob a bank, hide out, get a new identity and settle down in Greece. It would seem the perfect place to go on the lam, just blend in. You would be excused for thinking so, for it is a place of splendid disorganisation. The state is a creaking bureaucracy where not much helpful gets done and the police seem genuinely indifferent to the law so long as they can get a coffee and smoke a cigarette in peace. So much so that if you have the misfortune of getting apprehended, you can escape from a high security prison yard by a helicopter. Twice.  Does it not sound just perfect? It has all the complimentary stirrings of heat, passion and an inert bureaucracy that It should have been the idyllic land of the Ronnie Biggs-es and Casablana-esque type films. But it never happened.

The reason it never was is unfortunately the language of the Greeks. A writer who settled in Athens for some years, neatly described the uphill task of learning Greek; when his brother settled in Madrid he was asked for his paseporte at the airport, when he arrived in Athens he was asked for his  διαβατήριο (diabitirio). No guess as to which brother learnt the local language first. (The writer then went on to write the very hilarious and steeped in reality "How to Learn Greek in 25 Years".) Greek a language that is unyielding to the outsider. Even if you do manage to speak it, it is very rare that you will sound like a Greek. Whether you are mute, on the run, eloping, engaged in an illicit affair or just visiting it's impossible to go unnoticed. Greek women after a certain age make it their life's work to know everyone else's business. It is because of them that Greece has some of the lowest crime statistics in Europe. No CCTV surveillance system can ever compare with the alert and ever watchful elderly ladies on their balconies.


Pass the burnt toast please

One of the consequences of living in a foreign country and not being able to speak the language fluently is that many facets of life wash over me in a wave of white noise. I can get around though, make polite conversation when buying a coffee.I can generally do about most of the things a recently escaped mental patient could do, with attracting the same amount of attention. What I really do wish though is that I could follow or join in family arguments - because no one argues like the Greeks. Any foreigner married to a Greek will find family arguments mystifying, tense and exotic. So quickly do arguments escalate that comprehension is soon lost. Even if the argument begins with something as minor as burnt toast, within seconds it will escalate to something that you can only conclude must contain a murder and accusations of who had slept with the postman. Just being nearby to an everyday argument  is electrifying. You do not even need to know what the subject of such a heated exchange was. Anglo-Saxons don't argue with such vehemence unless they have a broken beer bottle in one hand or if someone did sleep with the postman.

Are you the postman?



Please feel free to argue..

Arguing in Greece is about as common as the English commenting on the weather. It happens all the time. A major flaw in most Greek language guides is that they do not have a 'How to Argue' section placed just after the 'Common Greetings and Farewells' to be found in chapter 1. Anybody is allowed to join in other people's arguments without even having the slightest idea of who the parties involved are or what they are arguing about. In fact they are encouraged to.

If you have any desire to learn how to argue properly, the next time you are in Greece you should skip a trip to the beach and hang around any road intersection. Traffic accidents are a truly wonderful sight to behold in Greece, because everyone gets involved, even the old lady who saw it all from her balcony and is now breathlessly shuffling across the street in her nightgown towards the gathering crowd. The only condition of participation is that you enter the fray shouting and gesticulating loudly. It is oddly appreciated, because at the root of it all, Greeks love company and the noisier the better. It is also felt that the noisier you are the more you know. Fortunately, Greek driving is rather conducive to accidents and so this enjoyable pastime of enjoining other people's arguments is never infrequent. In fact I think that this is the main reason that all Greek cafés face their chairs out onto the road. 



Scusi, no habla Ellenika...

Apart from much of daily life passing you by when you do not speak a language fluently, there are definitely advantages to it. It is important that the learner of a language is aware of this and does not readily get discouraged. Perhaps the greatest advantage is that you able to selectively choose what you pay attention to. Or at least pretend to. This is an invaluable tool when dealing with awkward mother-in-laws. Even when I do gain some level of respectable fluency I will keep it a closely guarded secret from my awkward mother-in-law.

In fact, the best defence is to feign complete incomprehension when cornered with a Greek mother-in-law. They are to be treated with the utmost care and are generally considered by Greek married men to be slightly less deadly than a mother bear and her cub. For the non-speaker it is the same ploy as rolling over and playing dead. The idea is that they will grow weary of pestering an idiot that cannot speak and eventually leave you alone. It is also about the only way you will escape a to-do list longer than your forearm and just because that can't help themselves, a parting gift of some well-meant criticism. You know the old adage, Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me - except when from my Greek mother-in-law? Well there you go. In fact this should be Chapter 3: When its best to know nothing, after Chapter 2: How to Argue Like a Local.


Shouting heads...

Greek television is another source of endless education and entertainment. But I fear it falls into the mother-in-law category and it is best for your sake that you don't know what is going on. It follows much the same vein as does a traffic accident in Greece. Routinely 6-8 pundits are featured on a single screen, all shouting at the same time. No viewer is ever any the wiser after these sorts of shows, but most importantly, a noisy gathering took place.

Initially I took an interest in Greek politics as a source of information and understanding of my new host country and it spurred me on to learn the language. Greek politicians are adored by atheists and believers in equal measure. They are proof for the former who feel vindicated that there can be no god because why would and sentient being create anything so abysmal and for the latter are sign that there is still much much work to be done. The news and politics have at times filled me with such dismay that I have no longer wanted to learn the language. Ignorance is sometimes bliss. If you are in any way at all curious to experience what a developing stomach ulcer feels like, then turn on your television to the news.





To contrails or not to contrails...

Greece is a wonderful place. A place of sun, food, smells, noise, meddlesome mother-in-laws, awful driving and conspiracy theories. Most countries will have their share of conspiracies and crop-circle chasers, but Greece seems inordinately blessed with theirs They range from the fantastic: Greek is an alien language because it is to complicated to be created by humans. As a long suffer of Greek I am starting to come round to this one. However, there are those that scoff at the alien link but still agree on the superior genetic coding of your average Greek greengrocer. So fantastic and intriguing is that it seems to come straight out of Ron L. Hubbard's world. This is a larger than marginal group. The previous Health Minister used to promote and sell a range of books (whilst his other job of being an MP) exclaiming the virtues of a superior culture and race. Why he is employed with the business of government is a true mystery. Superior beings probably do not need a health service which unfortunately is rapidly where Greece is headed.

Less fantastic but with a strong grip nonetheless on the majority is astrology. Astrologists are not confined as newspaper margin fillers next to the comic section or a tasty summer salad recipe. These specialists hold sway on mainstream television programmes. Never mind that the country is staunchly Orthodox, but it seems a union that can be tolerated happily. Previously, when my wife interviewed for a role that she felt didn't go well, her mother confidently proclaimed that of course it did because her star sign proclaimed so. But then again on the same day she also met a tall dark stranger and found some money which kind of infringed on the schedule for Sagittarians and Cancerians. Unfortunately she got the role, which means I can't get to say I told you so to my mother-in-law. But then again I am a Gemini which is generally felt as an incompatible choice for her daughter. I guess she is also waiting to say 'I told you so' one day. Oh well. For a country with such in ingrained mistrust of any sort of authority I would have expected a greater degree of scepticism here.
Whereas Greek politics put me off learning the language, this is an area that potentially can offer unending amusement.


FIN...

My path to fluency will undoubtedly be a long one, but I look forward to the day when I can partake noisily in arguments at traffic accidents or comment on how oddly accurate their horoscope was. At the moment though, my understood version of what a speaker or writer is trying to convey to me is often wildly divergent. It is sometimes a more interesting yet inaccurate version but it is why I always suspect the postman. All in all, Greece is a wonderful place, a place of sun, food, smells and noise. For now I am starting to realise that some things are just better left not understood. 

Saturday 14 June 2014

Never underestimate the power of laziness




A question of balance.

  
Time. There just isn't enough of it. So, I'll make this a short post. Nothing drives this fact home quite to the hilt as does a Monday morning. It is when the fluffy free notion of time hardens like a rock, when life seems to be its most bleak and coffee its bitterest. These mornings trigger the dark moments of inner reflection when you realise that something has to give in order to get back some of that fluffy free goodness.


We have all have these moments. Mine at the moment is the end of the school year rush. It is a time for assessment, report writing (12,000 words thank you very much), wrapping up the loose ends and if it were not for the endless box ticking, more time would be spent reflecting on whether you had gotten each child where you wanted them to be. Time, when teaching is like watching a Slinky spring going down stairs. It is compact and then then stretches out and then compacts again as it is pulled together ad then so on and so on. At the moment it is crunch time.

So chances are that on some Monday morning commute, you have grimly pondered where the ideal balance in life is, that point where the load of work is acceptable to the amount of free time. We like to think of it as that mystical point of equilibrium, of Ying and Yang, being bent over a barrel and having breakfast in bed. The reality is though that unless you are a Windsor Sax-Coburg-Gothe or a Greek member of parliament you will have to find some way to balance drudgery and dollars. 

To keep your balance, you must keep moving, at least so goes Albert Einstein's quote of life being rather like riding a bicycle. Stop and you'll fall over. Useful, true and accessibly inspiring enough that it often makes an appearance on the hallowed walls of Facebook users on those bleak Monday mornings when reading on the loo.
 Like most of us who have reached the stage of life where quite possibly we have lived half, or fairly near to half of our life or at least not counting on that lorry taking us out on the way to work. That fluffy-goodness-type of time really is of the essence and we just don't seem to have enough of it. The only way to make it all worth it is to achieve that something called Life Balance. But the point is that balance or equilibrium is infinitesimally fleeting, and just like riding a bicycle without fairy wheels it is just a series of averted falls. 


Inbuilt into this notion of life balance and ultimately time-management is that we just want to be lazy. It is in our DNA. It is the cornerstone of our evolution and is the banner of our progress. Laziness defines progress as we are always looking for an easier way to get things done and have always done so: making tools, sewing skins together, agriculture and gunpowder are just a few short cuts we have accomplished on the way to making life easier. Just about every great thing we have as a species has that hint of laziness in it. 

Ever since that fateful Tuesday (it usually was a Tuesday after a bleak Monday) millennia back in our nomadic drive when Tzork decided he had enough of the constant roaming for game and seeds to eat. He really wanted to spend more time his heavy brow-ed wife and child. He couldn't really have more than one kid because two was a real drag. In his quest to have more of a life balance he struck upon the idea to plant a few seeds and settle down. Most likely it was his wife's idea but then it is His-tory isn't it?  What could be better? He had come across a short-cut, the very first #lifehack. No walking around chasing unpleasantly bristly animals, just sitting and watching seeds grow. There now, for the first time time he could watch his cute large fore-headed heirs play down by the stream, and his equally hairy better half return with fresh berries from the nearby thicket. This was I am sure he though the secret to life. This trail quitter changed everything. Agriculture had arrived and allowed more time to guarantee a food source, breed and argue about how to decorate the dwelling with your wife who now had time for a pleasurable new hobby - nagging. This hastened the development of fermenting grain. 

Now that we are older, there always comes a point when you wonder whether it is really all worth it. All jobs will have that unavoidable grind to them. Tzrok found it out pretty quickly I am sure. Mondays will feel like Mondays do and Fridays like Fridays. Of course we do like to challenge ourselves in between Monday and Friday or at least we said we did during that interview, where we made some largely fatuous statement about where we saw ourselves in 5 years time. Inevitably, though we try to chip away at the work side of the deal, trying to get better or faster, or find more effective ways to do the same work in less time. Commendably of course, but it always does point to the idea that if given a choice, at least the most trustworthy and human of us would like more time to just do less wok.


Time management is temporary, and is eventually unsustainable

It took me several years to figure this out. I had had enough of spinning plates and trying to manage my time. I knew that I had to change how I viewed myself through my job, and also the benefits it afforded me. I left finance and chose to do something that I loved and had value. I hoped the rest would sort itself out.  A change of careers created the new balance that I sought. But despite that, the time has come to make more changes. I don't want to leave teaching by any means, but I want slightly different things, a little more of that and less of this. I know full well that my life will change immeasurably in the coming months and well...whatever balance I am striving to achieve will fall hopelessly out of whack. 



Cutting the dead wood and what have I done for me lately?

The biggest change to be made is how you view yourself through your job. If you love it, great, but if you are in for the wrong reasons you will always resent the time you will inevitably feel later as being misspent. 



  • Make a Not to Do List . I am not sure who said, this most probably my wife: with the exception of children, dogs and potted plants, most things will continue just fine left unattended for periods of time.
  • What you don't do determines what you can do
  • Be German about your time - get to the point. This applies to meetings, planning your day, phone calls etc. 
  • Spin less plates and let little bad things happen. Linked to the first point  - spin what you need to spin. 
  • Perhaps this is my favourite and this is borrowed from Tim Ferris - If you don't have time - you do not have priorities
  • Get rid of your TV or only watch what things that are genuinely interested in


The overall gist is to get rid of the trivial and unnecessary time consuming things that just do not help. 


No one likes a smug athlete... 

Athletes, especially triathletes love to explain how they manage their time, cramming in all the hours for training amongst work and family commitments. The embodiment of commitment. Somehow they just do it. The truth is though, they just give something up in order to pursue what they love. That giving up of things happens unconsciously. Pretty soon, after work drinks become less frequent and you only schedule to meet friends late on a Saturday afternoon after you have ridden, eaten and napped. Eventually you don't even meet those friends any more. Small changes that if you look at them are binary in their simplicity. The key to understanding this in hindsight is that the deadwood is cut away from doing something that is useful to what they love. 














Friday 16 May 2014

Beauty is only skin deep

Where does the time go?

Flashes of genius, even the very first eureka moment, happen accidentally. It is a little known fact that Albert Einstein first toyed with the idea of relativity while waiting to get a mole removed in a doctor's waiting room. All it took for Isaac Newton to finally twig about the whole gravity lark was just a well placed apple above his head. Aristotle had too much time on his hands in the bath. These are how the legends started but the genius behind any moment of clarity is proving that you were actually onto something after all.

Einstein's special relativity is loosely, something to do with the observations of space and time and speed. What you observe will be different to that of other people if you are somehow fortunate enough to travel very fast on a space ship. The phenomenon is known as time dilation . If someone were to leave Earth on fast moving craft only to return five years later, they would have aged less than the rest of us suckers on Earth.

Time dilation occurs down here too, just the inverse though. Emerge after any amount of time from a doctor's waiting room and you will have aged considerably compared to rest of us. Alphabets have evolved in less time that it takes you get seen to. So, aside from the space and moving at near to speed of light thing, you can see how dear Albert stumbled upon his eureka moment.


Do I look much older now?

I recently had to visit a doctor. I secured the first appointment slot of the day and happily arrived 5 minutes early and mentally began to plan the rest of my day, priding myself on my efficiency. No one came to get me. It was rather strange, I had been let in through the door, asked to take a seat and left to my own devices, presumably to wait until the doctor had washed their hands and shrugged on a white coat that hung behind the door. What else really was there to do? No one came. Time seemed to have stopped still. With not much else to and the rest of my Earth time calendar crunching backwards, I looked for something to read.

Magazines, there are always well-thumbed magazines piled up somewhere in any waiting room. Aside from being marvellous germ receptacles that would make a plague rat feel miffed, the connotation of a magazine is a brief waiting period where you flick through several pages, briefly scan last season's fashions and you are off to get something stuck down your through or zapped off your skin before you know it. A blink of an eye is what they say. Of course that doesn't happen and you end up going through everything you can find, even retrieving the Caravaning Today magazine from under the couch.


Time dilation is real





This of course meant that when I picked up the magazines I was inevitably going to have wait a long long time and finally end up cross-checking caravan model specifications, despite my fond dislike of them.


That's nice but can I wash it?

We like magazines because we can picture ourselves in either what is being advertised or in a similar setting or in some combination of the two, but with us and looking better than we are now. And therein lies the catch. The problem was that no matter the combination I just could not in my mind's eye picture myself in a better world, being with better people and wearing better things.

There is nothing quite like teaching in a primary school to kill any style aspirations one might have no matter how vague. Perhaps only being a fishmonger could be more detrimental. After several years I seem to find myself drawn to anything that has the label 'machine washable'. Even ties. Italian silk won't last a day. My old wardrobe has steadily removed itself with a series of splotches and stains into the bin. When not in the classroom, I am out on the sports field, and if at home I'll either be sleeping or preferably if I have the energy, out on the mountain. I realise that my standards have dropped, perhaps irretrievably.

There is nothing quite like the union of Italian silk and runny glue to change your priorities when selecting a tie. The advantages are of such a functionally driven wardrobe is that I'll survive a car wash almost intact yet with the nearest singe of an open flame, I'll be the smouldering puddle of bubbling rubber before you can say 'whoosh'. No matter the magazine, I really couldn't find a better me anywhere. As much as I may try to harbour the fantasy of wearing a tweed jacket, tastefully matched with a man bag, complemented by mustard hued trousers cut stylishly to show my 'mankles', and staring off into the middle distance with some willowy, yet strangely limp looking female companion - it is something I give up on almost immediately.


It's not me, it's you

If I could not see myself looking good, then I at least wanted to be with someone that did. Looking at some of the women I felt equally at sea. Sure all the women looked striking. But in the way that there is something slightly awry with their appearance. The look seemed to be all about having that little something that set them apart, but not distractingly so, but just enough for you to take a second glance. It is a necessary trick for your attention when all the models are beautiful. A giant ginger mass of hair, a square mannish chin, eyes that are a little too far apart. I wondered if the little visual barbs that worked so well on the runway or photo set would be a little too startling first thing in the morning, sans the grace and skill of the make up department. Wake up next to anyone who's eyes are distanced so far apart that they seem to move independently, or someone blessed with a lantern jaw that would have snapped up the leading role in Spartacus and you would feel a small bit startled.

None of the models looked as though they had seen the sun lately. None of them looked as though they had the musculature to do anything more than contentedly adorn a chair the way a melted Salvador Dali clock would. Anyone that is involved in sport can sniff out fellow malcontents easily. Physiques tell you a lot. You can spot the rowers,the runners, the rugby players, the cyclists with a feeble and withered upper body. Mountain runners seem ill at ease and like beards. Crossfitters will most likely be wearing a t-shirt informing you before you have need to ask them. You can tell the condition of someone just by looking at the thickness of their skin, the muscles that are used tell you, the sun creased face tells you. These people move. There is something reassuring in that recognition.

Retro Housewife Fashion - Vogue UK June 2010 Far From Heaven Shoot is Sitting Pretty (GALLERY)

There was no sense of the familiar when I looked at the photos. Yes, I know I was looking at the wrong type of magazine if that was the sort of model I was looking for. Yet I was looking at magazines that appealed to the mainstream of society and as examples go I didn't think this was the example of what we should be striving for. In addition to women models needing to be slender or stick thin, they have to be smooth and muscle free.


Houston we have problem

A few weeks ago I had a maths lesson that didn't go at all as planned. That in itself is not unusual in the primary years, lessons often change in moments of inspiration or if little Jonny has glued himself to the floor. The exercise was to bring maths into a real word context and make some of the concepts tangible. How many Smarties (chocolate sweets) were required to complete the perimeter of the football field? Similarly, how many to cover its entire surface area? Progressing to how many Smarties would fill our entire classroom? Come to think of it, these tasks weren't too tangible, just an idea of heaven to a small person. Nonetheless, the idea of a room of chocolate nirvana was enough to motivate them to work out the maths. Bribery perhaps was the most real world concept taught but, bless them, they are too young to realise or feel the least bit used. Eventually we moved onto Weight. I told the kids what my approximate weight in kilogrammes was and then showed how on the whiteboard to convert my weight into an equivalent amount of Smarties.

Hilarity followed, but when they were challenged to work out what they weighed into the number of Smarties they grew uneasy. Several children did not want to reveal their weight - not because it was more or less than another class member, but because they had a preconceived idea of what a good weight for them should be and they did not want to admit how near or far they were to it. I was stunned, the numbers that were mentioned had nothing to do with how tall or short they were, or whether they were active or not. Just a round number from somewhere that indicated if they were good or bad. The maths lesson was abandoned - weights and measure can only get you so far in life and even NASA will crash a probe into Mars from time to time. The rest and much of the next lesson covered what was to be healthy. Not thin, just healthy and active. Unfortunately, this scenario too has happened a few grades below my class, with children aged 7.

Body image is an increasingly important issue of child well-being around the world. Young girls and boys have to contend with powerful ideal images of what we should look like. It is of great importance that children as they grow and develop maintain a positive body image. Unfortunately, and as happened in my class, and the class several years below mine, demonstrate body image problems. Many studies point to the problem of body image, some point to around 40-50 percent of primary school children are dissatisfied with some aspect of their body and shape. Girls most often feel they should be slender, boys a bit later on, to be muscular.

Exercise and the enjoyment of being active is being lost. Either through a feeling of inadequacy or of perception. I have had girls refuse to run a lap for fear of developing visible and unsightly leg muscles. Like it or not, children follow modelled behaviour, and parents that obsess about weight and dieting pass on these concerns to their children. I have seen it time and time again. Somewhere, the fun and activity of childhood is being lost. Perhaps it already started a generation ago. We are getting fatter, Greece, regrettably is leading the charge in creating inactive SUV sized children. Looking at the World Health Organisation's child activity level guidelines, few children come anywhere close.


Role models

Greece is particularly a bad example when looking for female role models that embrace an active lifestyle. The most well-known woman here is a sweat-free celebrity aerobics/ yoga instructor with impeccable make-up. Most amateur races are conspicuous in their near absence of female competitors. My wife, when running the Athens marathon overheard a little girl excitedly exclaim 'Look mummy, a lady is running!' To which her mother explained that my wife was certainly a foreigner as Greek women don't do that sort of thing. If that didn't snuff out any dreams of future achievement for that little girl I don't know what else could.


The stuff that our dreams are made of

And it is not just children that are easily swayed. It appears, that we who should know better are just as easily swayed by body image. My first triathlon was a pivotal moment for me. Not because I almost drowned in the swim and had to be hauled into a boat (swimming has never ever really been the same for me since and seems an unnecessary and frivolous flirtation with death, but I keep doing it), but because I came away from the event in awe of the other athletes. I had never seen so many fit and healthy looking people all in one place before. It didn't help that I discovered that women triathletes had beautiful legs too. I was swayed and in a good way. It was where my love of the bicycle started and a deeply rooted idea that it was foolish to disobey evolution and get into water again. It was, later at another triathlon that I met my wife.


A study says it is so, it must be so

Sometimes all you want to know about something can be found in some research paper. Refer to a study and it always makes your point irrefutable. And, after doing a little research into the problems the youth of today now face in a society so concerned with appearance, it is not only them. My point is that adults are fickle too. We just want to be wanted and we'll do whatever it takes to look so. Women, we know because they tell us, have long been an easy market, but now that man has become a little more in touch with his feminine side we too have a growing list of perceived flaws that need to be rectified. Where there is an inadequacy there is a study.


Do What You Love

The premise of one such study was how the male body has changed due to the overwhelming pressure of the fashion industry. Fair enough you might say, you might even agree that this is an insidious movement against the manly man, but I became fascinated by the researchers. They, in their quest for complete learning, above and beyond the call of duty decided to look at back copies of Playgirl and ponder how male models have changed over time. Methodically and exhaustively they they pored over every single centrefold from 1973 to 1997. Now, I do believe that you should love your job, or at least detest it less than other jobs that you could hold, but the seeping of their satisfaction in the task at hand seemed everywhere. Men had gained in 'thickness', 'length', muscularity' and 'decreased body fat' in almost two and a half decades. 'Girth' I am sure was snuck there too but that alas was too much for the editor to stand. 300 centrefolds were examined. Apparently, this study was an 'ingenious twist' on another pre-eminent study of female centrefolds featured in the more well known PlayBoy publication, and how too under fashion's pressure the female body had to change. I am not going to bother reading it, but I am sure it is peppered with full, pert and springy nouns.



PlayGirl model feeling the pressure, forced into wearing the latest MacGyver mullet and always poised with a Swiss Army knife at the ready. 


Relativity so.

If I were again unfortunately to age at an accelerated rate, while skimming through glossy magazines waiting for my doctor, I'd rather imagine myself fashionably attired, staring off into the distance while someone like Jessica Ennis drapes herself on something nearby. What can be better, someone who enjoys what her body can do well and wearing something beautiful? Imagine what would children think? I wouldn't even mind showing off my 'mankles'. 










Monday 21 April 2014

You don't eat meat? I'll make lamb then.

Traditions and rituals are where the comfort is

I like to call it "our mountain". It isn't of course, but generally we are the only ones on it. Now that it is Spring there are a few hunters that watch their hounds chase hares and then leave disposable coffee cups next to
Monastery of Agios Nikolaos Kallision
their parked vehicles. Generally though we hardly see anyone. Up on a small promontory half way up the mountain sits a small squat stone Byzantine church. It is inhabited by a solitary monk, who maintains the small grounds and I am sure all the other duties that go with a life of quiet servitude. Every evening a small enclosed shrine is lit and it is the only flicker of light to be seen on the mountain. The church catches the morning light before the shadows retreat lower down to the stream below. On late summer afternoons its stones seem to throb a warm pink as the shadows gradually encircle it. I find it intensely satisfying to look upon. No matter whether I run by early in the morning, midday or bob along by head torch much later. I am not sure what it is about it that always pauses me to reflect as I am not religious. I think it is the idea that I am looking at time, a visible thread back to a time many hundreds of years.

Traditions are like lighthouses in a way, they are focused points of ritual and collective memory. They shed light on why we do the things we do, how we feel and react. Growing up in the New World (I only get to call it that because I now live in one of the great cities of antiquity) traditions were family made or borrowed from our forbears that settled only as far back as 1821. It is a ridiculously short span of time, but nevertheless traditions do form and are quickly prized. Rituals are similar and feed into traditions and can be anything. The smell of linseed oil will forever remind me of the start of cricket season, much the same way that the leather of a baseball mitt must for others. It is a momentary but satisfying association with a time past.

I decided on a long run up Mount Pendeli on Easter Sunday. Pendeli looms above Athens at just over 1100m. It has been ravaged by miners for its prized marble since antiquity and is famous for providing the marble for the Parthenon. Yet with 164 modern and ancient quarries, the nearside flank to Athens has a sunken and pockmarked appearance. Despite it sounding as appealing as a close up of Ray Liotta's face it is an intriguing part of the mountain to explore with rough stone chipped paths and empty quarries, hidden churches and even older shrines to gods long past. There is a sense of time all around.


When I first for got here I was amazed that Easter was a bigger holiday and religious event that Christmas. I can see why now. The season is changing and the hills are bursting with life and colour. Winter, unless you have a white December is dull and grey with the Christmas holiday as a beacon amongst the shortest and darkest of the year. Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere is an odd affair with northern European style Christmas trees and cheery Father Christmas's sweating profusely in their faux red winters outfit. Commercialisation has also become associated with the holiday. I shudder at my often desperate and self-loathing filled last minute shopping trips on Christmas Eve. The whiff of Christmas is first felt when the shops start with the carols and decorations in October. Comparatively, most Easter panic buys are more food, charcoal and extra chairs.


Socks again?

Easter in Greece has a slow inexorable build up that mirrors Spring the closer you get to Easter Sunday. It starts with a meat feast and then a prescriptive Orthodox fasting for lent begins where animal products are sequentially prohibited for the 40 day period until once again another meat feast on Easter Sunday. It is not a token giving up of small pleasures that happen elsewhere. Even McDonalds has had to bend its ways and it provides a special Lenten menu. The culmination of lent is a celebratory day of feasting (usually an entire lamb) and music. The smell of roasting lamb, sounds of music and fussing Greek mothers are common in wherever neighbourhood you are in. It is a day of richness in time, food and family that I find so appealing as a tradition. That is not to say that Christmas has none of these elements, it does, it is just is a richer and more drawn out experience. It may be that it is a better holiday because no one has to pretend that they are happy to have received a pair of socks or a new steaming iron. It is not a day for vegetarians and the gross tonnage of lamb consumed and charcoal burnt must be astronomical. Animals are imported from all the neighbouring countries to satisfy the demands of the celebration. It surely must be happiest day of the year in Greece because Greeks are at their happiest when sat round a dinner table.


It's in the mail

As a tradition I particularly like the service before Easter Sunday to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. Church goers share a flame in the church and carry it back to their homes. It is a touching service to behold. The journey of the flame to each church is an interesting one. It starts off in Jerusalem, in the church of the Holy Light. The Orthodox Patriarch kneels before a marble slab and a flame miraculously appears. This has happened for centuries. This flame is then shared and spread throughout the church. Much like the tour of the Olympic Flame, this too is flown to Athens in a specially chartered plane. News programmes routinely show the aircraft landing with the Holy flame. It goes a long way to explain how important tradition is here and why the country has such poor control over its finances. But without the care and rigidity given to traditions they fall away. Somehow, and this is really the miraculous part because time keeping is not an inherent quality here but somehow the flame is shared throughout all the churches in the land. How they get it to all the islands and backwater villagers is beyond me but it is maintained that it is. If they indeed succeed in this feat I only wish it could be emulated by the post office. How and when my parcels arrive involve a process infinitely more mysterious and miraculous and always much much later than expected.


It is not only the pious attend a service that evening which concludes at midnight with the light being shared to the congregation. When we have opted to not attend the service we were reproached for breaking with tradition rather than out of piety. In true Greek fashion the great majority will arrive with 10 minutes to spare to light a candle and then rush back to enjoy a meal at home. I once attended a service where the priest implored the congregation not to leave once the light was shared as the service still had some important bits to cover. It helped not because in joyous celebration the church was emptied speedily and the sermon was drowned out by the crack and thumps of fireworks. Occasionally, where churches are within range, fireworks are aimed at each other resulting in a startled re-entry of the congregation back into the church. News segments the following day are usually quite entertaining. Life can never be entirely peaceful in Greece.


The Orthodox Church keeps an iron grip on tradition. There is no middle way found in other Christian Churches - there is just the way. There is no interpretation and debate. And that way has not changed since the very beginning. Services are still given in Byzantine Greek because that is the language of the early church. Of course most church goers have only a sketchy grasp of what is actually being said. But it is an unbreakable link to the past. Even if you do not know what is being said, you know that exactly the same thing was said in the same way hundreds of years ago. For the faithful and the traditionalists this can only be reassuring. It has also managed to stay clear from many of the pitfalls that the Catholic Church has fallen fowl of. Premarital sex is frowned upon but it has decided to pick its battles and look elsewhere. Condoms are allowed, its Priests can marry. Divorce is permitted and you are given the opportunity to marry and divorce up to three times. Four is considered taking the piss, but I think it is the church's recognition of the fact that a Greek mother-in-law is a difficult beast to manage and so some wiggle room is only fair to find more peaceable pastures.


If you hadn't already guessed by now, it is an overwhelmingly Christian country which makes it one of the few outliers in an increasingly sceptical Europe. Although its inhabitants are not what you would call pious in the protestant sense. Life carries on the way it does with humans, messily and with little guilt. The Orthodox Church is more of a reminder of who they are (Orthodoxy and Greekness are inextricably linked) rather than how they should be. No one wants to be lectured, lest of all Greeks and so the Church has stuck with ritual and tradition and it is the cornerstone of its longevity.


Icons are to be found everywhere. Growing up Protestant I still haven't got quite used to them. Go and sort something out at the Vodafone store and you will have some Saint peer balefully back at you while you query your bill. Visit the doctor's office and it is usually Madonna and Child that you share your consultation with. Of all the icons, it is they that I find at odds with a modern doctor's office. With the biological improbability of a virgin birth, it makes you wonder how much room the doctor is leaving for luck or divine second opinion. About the only place I can see an icon being useful is at the Greek Tax office because if there is anywhere that you are completely and utterly alone, it is there.


So you are a Gemini...

Curiously, despite the ever presence of the church here, you will never find a people more interested in what star sign you are. Unless you are foreign they know you are Orthodox (because there can be nothing else), but what they don't know is what position several celestial bodies were at the time of your birth and whether you would be compatible enough to go for coffee with.


What good has change ever done?

Anyone with an appreciation for history is grateful of a glimpse into the past, or something unchanged. The Parthenon is ever glorious, yet the sun bleached skeleton of a building that have now is a far shade from its gaudy and colourful past. It is hard to imagine and the link with a time 2500 years ago is faint. The Orthodox church has steadfastly remained the same, its buildings and interiors need to conform. There is no modernist intellectual architecture to contemplate, just a steady repeated living reminder of what they should and have always looked like ever since sandals were about the only footwear option going. And therein lies the comfort, whether it is right or wrong, it has managed before and will manage long after we are gone.


We find comfort in routine. It is the comfort of writing early in the morning with a cup of tea while the day brightens. Running likewise is full of routines that we knowingly and sometimes unknowingly follow. It is the comfort of running a trail, sometimes quickly, sometimes just to be there, sometimes to just feel restored. It may be the smell of brewing coffee and a bowl of oats before a long run. The feel of quiet on an early morning outing. It is why we always stop at a particular spot, to mark our times or just to take time out to take in the senses. It is something we cannot help but enjoy, even unknowingly.


I know that one day when I leave Greece, the smell of thyme will instantly be associated with my dry and dusty mountain and my heart will quiet and I will be back there for a brief moment. Traditions are those momentary connections with something past. Perhaps it is because we know nothing of the future, but the past at least, we can see like a trail of breadcrumbs behind us that slowly get swept up by time.


Tuesday 15 April 2014

Where the goats refuse to roam

Goats and free range Greeks

The kind of land you end up living in determines your perspective and who and what you are. We are connected to the environment. Mountains do something else entirely to a character and mountain people are different to the flat-landers. Greece is a sea and sun destination for the tourist, yet venture a little from the
shore and you will invariably head up and up. It is a crumpled land of mountains and only 20% of it is not considered mountainous if you want a statistical confirmation of how unlike Belgium it is. Almost anywhere here inland is where the mountains are and that is the rocky heart of the place...

This last weekend I ran a mountain race on the stunning Greek island of Hydra.  It lies just off the Peloponnese with steep grey flanks subsiding into the sea and only a handful of coves or bays to land a boat in. As a result only a small part of the island is populated...the rest is scrub and rock and goats. The only approach to the island is by boat. Its rocky prominence is Mount Eros. Bobbing towards the little port town of Hydra I wondered why it was called Mount Eros. It is an attractive name and it certainly was from afar and I looked forward to the race that would take in its summit. Perhaps the name stuck because of sailors who spent too long at sea and so predictably viewed any landmass containing a bulge, or any protuberance for that matter, to have some lusty association. 


Approaching Hydra


Mountains shape peoples, sometimes confine them and sometimes protecting them. The Scots, the Basques, or the Swiss are a few of many independent minded mountain dwellers. Hannibal is more commonly known for crossing the Alps with some very unfortunate elephants rather than marching all over Italy for a decade and a half like a rogue termite. His story is a far more interesting one than that, yet it is this primary school factoid that remains with you always. Despite his cunning and tactical nous, the mountains almost broke his army. Only a handful of shuffling elephants survived. It is not for nothing that when you think of mountain men the image that leaps to mind is one of wild eyes and wilder beards. 


Where the goats refuse to roam

Later the next morning, the race went very well and I quickly moved up the field as we rolled out of the paved streets and onto the trails. Until we hit the bony spine of Eros.
From afar, I remembered thinking that it's grey flanks looked mysterious and beautiful. Up close there was nothing lovely about it. It was like running up and over a large mound of shattered rock. In the heat of the day, the sun bounced back sending the temperatures soaring. Not even the goats ventured this far up. Given the choice of continuing further they would promptly opt to be spit and roasted right then and there and with a spring of rosemary for good measure. On the exposed and unrelenting grey rock Mount Eros showed me a rather unwanted kind of love and I vowed that I never go to prison. It was this part of the trail race where I began to realise why Greece is the way it is. It is because of its mountains. This is about as much of my race that you'll hear because race reports are often where paint goes to dry. 

There are few modern countries with links as ancient as Greece where the land of their forebears is still in their hands and its language is still spoken. Italy at the start of their reunification in 1861, only about 2.5% of people spoke what we recognise as Italian - almost lost. Those of the Levant are gone as are others that ringed the Mediterranean. Despite Greece being the cradle of western civilisation it has been more or less continually occupied since it's lofty heights. Romans, Goths, Huns, Slavs, Franks have all had a turn at the helm and later a rather lengthy stay by the Turks. It is only since 1830s that Greeks have been ruled by Greeks and then not even all of Greece as we now know it. 

The question that puzzled me was: why could no one hang on to the place? 
You'd want him on your side too

Greece's lengthy visitors are never able to stay indefinitely - they are eventually worn out. Despite its beauty or strategic value it just cannot be held. The only reason is, and I can say this with unequalled authority because I have lived amongst them, are its beguiling yet utterly confounding and irksome people. And the mountains have something to do with it. 

Never mind the Romans, lets start more recently with the Venetians. The Venetians held several islands and controlled swaths of the mainland. The coastal city of Nafplio is perhaps the best example of their lingering Italian charm and it boasts an exquisite square which makes this city one of the most attractive of Greek cities. 


Perhaps just a little too peaceful

Quite why this idea of spacious squares never caught on elsewhere in Greece is a mystery because if there ever was a people more predisposed to whittle away huge amounts of time over coffee it is the Greeks. The Italians, another coffee loving nation seem positively twitchy with their espressos taken quickly on the hoof. The Greek equivalent of the square can be any shape, purposefully chaotic and is usually accessible from any direction by car. It is usually strewn with cars and cafe chairs - this makes it highly attractive to the car and coffee loving Greeks and to almost no one else. The spacious and genteel air of an Italian square is just too far from one's car to ever make a Greek feel truly comfortable. 


That's more like it: cars, dogs, pigeons, noise.


Do you know what the time is, or the month is for that matter?

The absurd Greek relationship with time is well known. They pride themselves on inventing cold coffees like cold frappe's and iced cappuccinos. It is because I don't think any Greek has ever managed to drink an entire cup of coffee without it going cold. A Greek can nurse a coffee in the amount of time other people manage to put their children through primary school. The ancient Greek calendar used to revolve around the span of time between Olympic games and cups of coffee drunk. 

Aside from the beautification of the town, the Venetians also set about extensively renovating, extending and beautified the castle that sits above the town. They just can't help themselves. Strategically it was an important town, but a castle needs to look good you know what I am saying? Eventually the Italians grew weary of the Greeks trying to park their donkeys and horses haphazardly about the Square and when the Ottoman Empire came knocking they found an easy way out and without much fuss handed over the keys to the city and smirked all the way back to Venice where they could enjoy their squares in peace. 



It is because of the Greeks that the Venetians could not have nice things


Make yourself comfortable


The Ottomans stayed for much longer. They too have a fondness for coffee and chairs as well as velvety foot stools. A perfect combination and hence they made themselves comfortable for the next 400 years. But - who leaves a country after 400 years? That is the life span of 8 family members if they all lived on average of 60 years. Most family trees struggle to go back four generations. It is an even longer time period than the combined New World European histories of South Africa and Australia. 
 It is just short of the time from when the English first tried to colonise Ireland and well, that northern bit of the island will never be the way it was. Nor will that place be after those first pilgrims left Plymouth and landed at the other Plymouth. You would think that after such a protracted period, the yoke of occupation would be accepted and people would adapt to a new normal with altered customs, beliefs and language. But the Greeks on the other hand weathered them out and after four centuries and several cups of coffee decided to revolt.  


Every man is an island

Even after the initial success of the 1821 revolution, the Greeks turned on each other and two consecutive civil wars followed. They practically undid the progress of the revolution. A similar deadly sequence of events happened after they had fought against the Axis Forces in WWII. It is a difficult place to govern whether you are Greek or not. The new Greek Republic managed to last only four years before the first Greek Prime Minister was assassinated. Even if the people are indebted to your service it is not a guarantee that you will avoid a bullet or jail like one of the most influential of generals in the revolution against the Turks was. It is a land of heated passions and certainly not politically a land of moderates. It is jokingly said that there is the extreme right, the extreme left and then the extreme centre. The problem with running for several hours is that you have the time to think about these sorts of things.


Please sit down...

Aside from the obvious problems of extreme Greek politics and a different comprehension of time, another main reason for the downfall of their unwelcome visitors is that Greeks have stamina. They have oodles of it. Something Eros was teaching me was that I didn't. When Greeks attack a cafe or a restaurant the amount of time that they spend there would sometimes be misunderstood as an occupation in other countries. Any occasion to sit and eat or drink with a Greek requires huge amounts of stamina. Try and leave early and you are in trouble. Strangely it is not a problem how late you arrive. Aggressively hospitable is what the Greek comedienne Katerina Vrana calls her people. I have yet to last a full meal here successfully as after 4 hours I have to retire in exhaustion. I seem to lose all track of time and I get the distinct feeling that we have started another meal within the first meal because the food never stops coming. I have stopped eating with Greek people for fear of developing deep vein thrombosis. Brian Church, an English writer who after several years could no longer take the extended meals dryly penned that if there were any Greeks in attendance at the Last Supper, Easter would instead be celebrated in October.  


Be it on your balls


Greece's politicians spend a great deal of time smoking, debating, shouting and passing many laws. Most of these laws are considered and are then ignored (and that is just the Police). Advise any Greek on the street politely on the correct order of a queueing system or that parking in the disability bay is frowned upon,  at least in the legal sense, it will quickly escalate into a heated argument where you are informed that they will write your gripes on their balls. This is a genuine reply, often used yet unhelpfully not found in any language guide book.  


Learn it, it is one of language's great gems:  (Σε γραφω) στ' αρχιδια μου. 

I struggle to imagine how it came into popular parlance but it is nonetheless bluntly illustrative of the care your gripe is given. 


It's not me it's you

The point is, it is the telling that causes the problem, not whether you are right. Even if they know you are right you will still be shouted and wildly gesticulated at. Greeks make life difficult for Greeks too. And these are the people that have been voted in to run the country. Many outside of this country view Greeks as tax evaders. Whilst there are those that do enjoy that particular pastime, it is an unfair stereotype and it is really that Greeks hate visiting the tax office. And I for one heartily concur. The sheer unhelpfulness of the public servants or the maddening paperwork bonds a particular hatred of the State by most people. When trying to get out marriage certificate recognised in Greece, because we were not married in an Orthodox church were told to go and get letter from the Anglican Archbishop. I don't think he does that sort of thing, but that is the sort of thing you are told to write on your balls. 



The answer is up there...

British cartographers had long surveyed all the mounds on their island before industriously setting off to chart some actual mountains, the Himalayas. They established the height of Mount Everest in 1856. Greek cartographers addressed their blank contour free patches on the map as the 'unwritten areas' and set about ordering another round of coffees. It was only after a particularly lengthy evening meal that they finally got around to clearing up their own backyard. A national land registry only came into being in 2010. Time is like a volcano in Greece, there are long periods of inactivity then violent outbursts where everything should have been done yesterday, but then they realise that they had already done them 2000 years ago and then wonder what is for dessert. 


Be it in your head

These unwritten areas in some of the craggiest places in Northern Greece remained free throughout the Ottoman's 400 year rule. A fact immediately telling of its inhabitants and the environment. Once passing through a small village we stopped off to buy some of its famed smoked cheese. In the shop was an article proudly mentioning the museum exhibit of four stuffed heads - bandits that had been caught rustling livestock. This sort of custodial practice is now frowned upon, and even the truculent British Museum agreed to send some of their pried Maori heads home. It was a wild place and it still feels that way. 

Even in peaceable times, the police are routinely ambushed in Crete if they venture into areas that are high up and are engaged in something illicit or untaxable. The mountains are where the heart is and it neigh on impossible to dislodge it. It is why Greeks still speak Greek after having other people mind their business for nearly 2000 years. It is why the Welsh with their valleys speak English.

Greece's recent unwanted visitors are the Troika, the group who are from their perspective trying to help Greece out from its financial mess. They have been met with resistance all along the way. I can only wonder at what the Troika officials have found on their visits. The thing is they too have been worn out, the changes that they have made will never be lasting. The European officials for all their suggestions will just leave with them written somewhere private. 

For such a sociable people it is hard sometimes to work out whether a behaviour that is so antisocial such as smoking, reckless driving or just parking wherever one may choose to is seen as an unalienable liberty or a small act of defiance against being told what to do. 
And this is why Greece will always be free, or trapped or neither but it importantly it will always be Greek.

What yellow lines? Greeks invented the drive through, and even if the 

facility is unavailable they will still park as close as possible to the entrance


Want a taste?

If you want to do a race that encapsulates Greece, the Hydra Trail is the one to do it. The other thing to do is learn the phrase: 
(Σε γραφω) στ' αρχιδια μου. 

You start in the old port, running up through slate paved streets and white washed walls, through terraced hills, through forests and then finally climbing along it's ridges.. You will pass by abandoned farm houses, past working monasteries. All the while with the blue Aegean all around. From sea to sky, it is a race that starts at the water's edge and takes you up the mountain. Beauty and harshness. If you only had a few hours which which to experience a country, this is way you should spend them. Who knows, you might find something up there in you.