TOP TEN THIEVERY MEMORIES

YULETIDE JOLLITY: My xmas exercise in response to blog-wide demand to post the best of the best from the past years.

I want to get the whole Piece of Work ugliness into perspective and write it right, research back-blogs, calendars, and phone taps ~ hone, tone, moan and groan. Drive the ugliness home.Caregiver comp

VICTIM GULL ~ I was the classic victim gull buffoon on this job. The moment I saw my stolen jewels on that dressing table in Villa Thefti, I should have booked a flight back to London and escaped the whole culture of theft which I never in the whole five years and eight months understood or came to terms with.

DO THE MATH ~ I should have done the sums, extracted modest back-pay for services rendered and vested sufficient of my mother's shares to pay for a professional outside Corfiot carer who'd lay down the rules including fair and precise hours and be ready to deal 'robustly' with incidents of thieving.

As a minimum basic precaution, I should have read the literature and online advice.

• "Caregivers typically make an average of about $16.00 per hour.

  Care giving companies charge about $6,000 a month for 24 hour a day care."

• "You definitely need to work something out, get it on paper. Don't settle on getting it as 'inheritance', either.

• "Most of the heirs are willing to do nothing for the person they expect to inherit from, no matter what her condition. But they don't think that should affect how much money they get and if anyone in the family does something to care for the elderly person, its supposed to be for free."

• A classic with families: most of the heirs are willing to do nothing for the person they expect to inherit from, no matter what her condition. But they don't think that should affect how much money they get and if anyone in the family does something to care for the elderly person, its supposed to be for free.

  A disgusting job, thankless and sanity-scraping.

  If I meet anyone today who even hints at being daft deluded enough to be contemplating this slow suicide, I tell them,

  "If I had a gun, I would shoot you where you stand and save everyone a lot of pain and hatred. No further discussion."

"PIECE OF WORK" ~ the succinct reaction of a friend in the USA who knew neither thief but responded in a way that now seems to define for everyone the nature of the filcherie:

"Oh my God! That is so funny, I mean disgusting.

Can you imagine how far down the moral sewer you would have to swill to find a double-act like that?

What a piece of work!"

GYAKU GIRE ~

"There’s a Japanese term for such hostility: gyaku gire, literally “reverse rage.” The phrase refers to a situation in which someone who isn’t in a position to be mad unfurls fury. In other words, I was the one who should be irate, having had my papers lost, but instead the man in the office at fault was yelling at me.

I can’t find a similar term in English, which must mean there are no entitlements in the United States when it comes to rage; everyone has equal rights to that emotion."

An excellent phrase, sent to me by a friend of maman's after I had expresed puzzlement over her bizarre flare-ups each time I rammed home a reminder of the April 2007 theft.

I made a deal that I wouldn't raise the subject unless cued in by some remark by my mother or brother.

A good example is one of my mother's brisk dinner chat assertions that

"Corfiots lie; Italians steal."

There was often an awkward silence at this maxim since our guests often included Greeks if not actual Corfiots.

I would try to defuse the gaffe with a mild comment that, although neither of us was Italian or Corfiot, under this very roof had been perpetrated an effective theft which, to that day, had yet to be resolved, satisfactorily explained, or made amends.

'NICE' THIEVING ~ My mother was a devoted gardening hobbyist and would often expand her enthusiasm with the generous generalisation that she didn't know a 'gardener' who wasn't also 'nice'.

My younger daughter was out one year - one of the six victims of the crime.

Each item of personal jewelry removed behind my back had been itemised in my Will of January 2002 as being bequeathed to her or her sister. I felt I ought to show some balls and stick up for her loss and commented that, personally, I didn't see what was so 'nice' about thieving.

Much gyak-king and gir-etching.

April 8th - the day I'd dedicate to remembering the theft with a half-bouteille of real champagne.

"Villa Thefti" ~ another dinner topic favourite was the vulnerability of my brother's Tuscan mansion to break-ins. We rarely locked our doors in honest Corfu, compared to Tuscany where they had to lock all access even when venturing out to the garden. We dubbed it 'Villa Thefti'.

After the purloining of my jewels, it became confusing and one dinner guest confided:

"I'm a little lost: Is it your brother's place that's Thefti, or here? Or both? Stolen from and stolen to?"

The Stolen Froms ~ Speaking of theftee, a popular parlour game that no-one seems to get it right is to name all the victims: Myself, my ex-wife, my two daughters ... and the two people for whom I so carefully chose each tie-pin, bauble, and cuff-link and who are out there still unaware of their loss: my sons-in-law-to-be. No-one ever remembers them.

More to follow.