CORFUCIUS: PINE PAEANS PAPAFLORATOS

"Going down to Zisimos, Listless on the Liston,
Save me a seat at Ζήσιμος, Languid on the Liston,
Got my own chair down there
Where the serious biz gits done"

I subscribe to single 's'. Just sayin' ...

Sad business, and clever writerly Richard Pine has come up with a clever EJ Thribb tribute:

"So farewell then Olympia
or Zissimos as some call you
or even Papafilatou*
for the oldest among us.
No more coffee dregs
no more mezès
no more sunlight filtering through the trees
no more cosy winter days indoors
with your art deco attractions.
They say the Mayor has closed you down
So he can sell the premises
which is owned by the town.
Why the town would want to destroy
one of its own cultural and social assets
is for the Mayor to explain.
I always said he was a malaka."

EJ Thribb, age 9.

* [actually, I'm told by an unimpeachable source that the correct name is 'Papafloratos'. Blimey, what a blunder! I say, not doing very well, are we? First, his age appears as 9 here, whereas Fantoni pitches Private Eye's Poet-in-residence as 17½. Now this Papafloratos bish.]

Post-script action

Splendid post-Pine action with Vinnie Psarras replying to Simon Baddeley's 'Only Corfu Society'/flickr posting of the Thribb parody to deliver a stern 'Dis-Like' and counter with her own Zisimos tribute.

Vinnie would prefer to say,

"Farewell dear friends, you have embraced and cared for us all over so many years; you have watched our friendships and our families blossom.

You have eternally been kind to our children and have helped to carry them from infancy to adulthood, always with great care, love and kindness.

We, in turn, have seen our belovèd Kyrios Nikos grow older and have become concerned for his welfare.

He cannot carry on forever and we wish him a very happy and peaceful retirement.

Zissimos will always retain a corner in our hearts as it has meant so much to so many of us.

We thank you, Kyrios Nikos, and all your wonderful staff for the care you have given us over so very many years.

God bless you all."

STOP PRESS!

Hot damn, we got some action going down! Curtains for Zervo' - sounds like a movie title I'd leap to, but nay, lad, it's Simon Baddeley 'taking it to the next level' ~

Curtain end for the historic bookstore Zervopoulou by Joanne Spyridoula

Quoth Badders,

"Richard-Lavinia! Look Back in Anger meets The Cherry Orchard.*

Jimmy Porter meets Madame Ranevskaya. For me the Mayor is of course Lopakhin...

Hey, musicians play! I want to hear you. Come everyone and see Yermolái Lopákhin lay his axe to the cherry orchard, come and see the trees fall down!

We'll fill the place with villas; our grandsons and great-grandsons shall see a new life here....Strike up, music! Oh and we are also losing the oldest bookshop in town."

* I ain't no link man, no link-man's son, but I can link yer rinky-dink 'til the Link Man comes

It's Baddeley's page so he can wax lyrical as he likes ~ and look at that boy wax. Anton and Osborne in the same Post - who says Facebook ain't literary?

Αλλά προσοχή! Just when Sinbad gets on his roll, nouveau poste:

"Get the name right, at least ..." ~ Maria Potts (if that doesn't send a chill thru you).

I love this aspect of FB - and I have to watch my words here - you know how it is (I sure do) ... tapping away, dictionary whippin' all and sundry, then wham! Like a lurking pike, scrunch ! You bite the dust.

Wonderful! (altho' I may get a 'look' from Maria when next we meet): "Darling, you calling me a pike?" Ahem.

1107 hrs, 9/10/13 ~ Gettin' the Name Right - This just in from Maria Potts, apparently it's "Papafloratos" [What? Like that cute Point Guard? Who says whitey cain't jump?].

By Jove, if I'd been thinking on my tootsies I'd've claimed that as my own encyclopaedic correction.

So farewell then, Zisimos!

Or 'Olympia' or Papafilatou,

Or even Papafloratos.

Vinnie didnt like it, Helen 'completely lost'

I mean, which is it? 'filatou' or 'floratos

Keith's mum - dispensing with preambles -

Declares this whole papa-wotever paean

A bit of a shambles.

But I love the musical references. I was suddenly reminded of the summer of 2005 when I played guitar all around Ipsos and down Cava Mitsos stiv Agathi and was dripping Greek songs from those marvelous compilations. A Greeky tune wrote itself but I had no words and no one to help me, so when I got back to my freezing Finchley Road crib, I wrote some english lyrics but in the style of a translation, so I could regale my pals, "This is a wonderful song I heard in Corfu, my translation is rough but it conveys the flavour."

[romantic Greeky intro, all vibrato and dark Greeky looks at the wimmin]

"Moonlight bright as day, as we walked down

To the quiet end of the bay

And we talked the nonsense lovers always say,

When I walked you down to the quiet end of the bay.

[chorus]

Strike bouzouki! New strings!
Bright and brittle, hear how my heart sings.

Strike, plectrum! Euterpe, Polyhymn'!

Here I am with the woman of my dreams"

Years later I forgot it was mine and Stephanie caught me out, so of course there was a 'discussion' of fibbing to ones betrothèd. I tell you, wimmin? They get you in the end.

But I digress ~ I'm hoping more people submit their indignant counter-blasts to Ricky πεύκο's thribberic lament:

"So farewell, then, Zisimos! A moment to pine

As Le Tout Corfou remembers the good times

Within your hallowed portals, laughter and chortles.

Never went there m'self, shame to say,

But Keith's mum said you were OK."

Hark the Corfu Blues Bloke.

Hark, too, Miss'pi John ~ also good to the last drop. Listen to that rippling right hand. Those guys were playing crap guitars, action this high, but they pulled it off.

Otis knew what it was about, too.

Commentaria - excellent point made by SB, that "This is the kind of discussion that in a good world would happen in Zisimos." Bullseye.

'Don't look now but Baddeley's just come in. Shove your coat on the spare chair.'

"Poor bastard, did you see the pig's brekfast they made of the Pine poem?"