I AM LOVE

The must-watch movie of the season

What people have said:

The always-shrewd Derek Malcolm (who I'm delighted to see is still around)

The kind of write-up I like to read: thorough, literate. Never heard of this Music etc etc mag but doesnt mean it can't hack it.

Excellent Q&A

Blithering Idiot: Tilda Swinton does NOT 'find herself in a torrid love affair with her husband's business partner.'

Bufone. It's her son's.

It is HER SON'S BUSINESS PARTNER!

Greece: charity case

Scroll down until you hit the Greece story

"One wag has set up a page on the JustGiving website: not to raise money for charity, but to “save Greece”.

Jim Croft's plea for cash — which is perhaps a little unkind to our Hellenic friends — reads:

“Greece is in deep financial crisis. Donating here will go a long way to helping these poor people who have lived beyond their means for the last 10 years and are now struggling to pay their bills. Please think of them as they avoid their taxes and then blame evil speculators rather than facing up to the fact that lying about their national statistics was probably more of a factor.”

He goes on: “Please donate in pounds as all Euro payments will soon be subject to a 50% haircut.”

The actual charity that is getting the money is Oxfam — perhaps suggesting that Greece will soon need the global poverty charity's help. There's a long way to go though: Croft has raised just under £500 at the moment, against a target of £100 million. One person, who has donated a tenner, says: “With friends like you, who needs the IMF?”

Anyone feeling generous, should go to http://www.justgiving.com/save Greece

[Which link does not work but you could try the cached version].

ASPGATE

This hour's the very crisis of your fate;
Your good or ill; your infamy or fame,
And all the colour of your life depends
On this important now.

~ Dryden's Spanish Friar

SmellieBalls

The diminutive lady is not singing. It sure ain't over. Typical.

I bet PC Pong is gloating.

Stark and unambiguous: The BS bully's shame 'n' guilt won't lie down. Do you hear the tumbrils rumble?

Riot Cop Cleared

Police's public order tactics "inadequate."

Acquittal an assault on justice ~ Of course it is, darling, but don't you realise the galvanising effect this fucked justice will have on Pongo's foes and grudgers?

This is when knives come out and stool-pigeons find they can fly.

Nary a worry, sweetheart. It's only just begun.

West Ham wonkers: Do read the comments from this bunch, too funny. You couldn't invent more typical brutish troglodyte reactions than wot the WH grunts dish up here.

Gawping in disbelief ~ The always level-headed George Monbiot spot on in his noting that "the ridiculous acquittal of a Met sergeant for striking a protester armed with a drink carton proves how important it is to try police officers by jury ... I don't think I'm the only one gawping in disbelief at yesterday's acquittal of Delroy Smellie."

Not just gawping: spitting gagging vomiting up shreds of belief in common sense.

You only have to look at what actually went on to lament the plummet in our safety from the uniformed thugs walking our streets.

Risk adversity. How very appropriate and coincidental that my other blog-bear is baby basher Venal Balls about whom 'Sir' David Latham has just pronounced in terms more suitable for PC Pong.

Oy, Sir Dave ~ all very well talking about Darth and Dora Public being "risk-averse over parole." How's about those of us who feel distinctly risk-averse about uncontrolled Smell-Dels lashing out willy-nilly with 'extendable metal weapons known as an asp'.

There's less than meets the eye here and I wonder if the truth will come out.

The District Judge with the job of ensuring odour-free justice is Daphne Wickham whose reputation for a straight gavel precedes her.

Let's see how she handles the spotlight on this one.

Notes for Editors: Daphne Wickham was called to the Bar in 1967. Her first senior appointment was in September 2003 as a Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate, later promoted to Deputy Senior District Judge (Magistrates' Courts).

Miss Wickham replaced Mr Timothy Workman who had been appointed Senior District Judge (Chief Magistrate) the previous March.

Learning his fate - And how very sensible of the papers to take from my own headline in re the 'fate' word.

When you blog it right, there ain't no way the mainstreamers can word it better.

Taste of Lies to Come - Smellie's weak defence comes down to 'self defence', despite all the photos and videos that give the lie.

But I have learned one thing: the rod with which he beat La Fisher is called an 'asp'. Nay, an 'extendable metal weapon, known as an asp', to be precise.

Very cleopatran.

"Nicholas Paul, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said he was justified when he shouted at her, pushed her back and struck her with the back of his hand.

But he said the officer went too far when he struck Ms Fisher across the thigh with the extendable metal weapon, known as an asp."

'Aspers' is so clearly one of those who should never be allowed near a uniform.

It will be educational to follow the continuing stench of this case, and what fun to be able to roll out old postings and juxtapose them with the squirming and worming lies PC Smellie will be coming up with.

What's needed here is reminders of how Delroy behaved at the time.

I've already suggested that looped film of Smellie's assault on Nicola Fisher should be running day and night in all police training centres and public waiting rooms.

His mealy-mouthed defence whinings should be printed large and posted up next to actual photographs:

• Acted "in self-defence because he felt threatened by her and feared for his and his colleagues' safety."

• Initially hit Nicola Fisher with a "clearance strike" by hand.
  • "Clearance strike", eh? That's one to add to my Dictionnaire d'Ordure Policière

• Fisher was holding a large carton of orange juice in one hand and a camera in the other.

• [Smellie] struck her ... when she surged towards him again, fearing the objects in her hands could be used as weapons against him.
  • I can see how a 12-gauge Brownie 127 could be used to take out a paficist gnome like Aspers - but a grande carton of OJ?

    • "I know what you're thinking.

      Did she take six sips or only five?

      Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a whole liter of Sunkist, the juiciest OJ in the world, and would quench your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel thirsty?

      Well, do ya, punk?"

• Video evidence showed he struck the baton against her thigh twice in a matter of seconds.
• 

  "I had stepped back to give the crowd space and to reassess and scan for other dangers but the crowd, including Ms Fisher, still ended up closing me down ... I was not aware of any colleagues who were facing the crowd in Threadneedle Street. I thought from the moment I turned that I was by myself with a large threat in front of me."

• [Smellie] said that, after striking her:

  "I hoped that she would either fall to the ground, drop the weapons or go away and get back, either one of those things she had been asked to do on many occasions.

  "But certainly to ensure that she was not able to use those weapons or that the weapons were not able to be used."

• Asked how hard he hit Fisher, Smellie replied he was aware that she was "significantly smaller". He added:

  "However it had to be enough to achieve the objective of negating the threat."

  • Got to love those euphemisms ~ 'negating the threat'

OJ versus broken arm

Dosh for cosh but testimony kyboshed

Hilarious bleat: A 'Michael' moans about Borromeo's 'poor research' ... yak yak emotive, prejudiced and legally flawed ...piece of

"agenda-driven diatribe that will feed on the antagonistic tendencies of her followers and grate on the police ... [here it comes] "I would recommend that she reads my book if she’s alarmed that ‘the doors are open for further police violence’ and certainly before she embarrasses herself with another unenlightened article on a subject she clearly knows nothing about.

The Guardian should be ashamed of itself for allowing such hysterical nonsense into print."

"Load of gibberish"

Note the quotes, guys. Not my words this time, although I'm always on the look out to wheel that sort of thing out.

Athens News Letters page, 9 April issue, Corfu's own feisty 'Disgusted of Tebloni Wells', Brian P. Vallance - except that I read somewhere that feisty has connotations of 'farty dog' so I obviously don't mean that. Obviously.

Anyway, splendid letter commenting on

"WHAT a load of gibberish you have published from irate English expats in Kefalonia on the subject of illegal foreign registered cars.

Under European and Greek law, a foreign- (British) registered car can only be used on Greek roads for a maximum of six months. After that period it must be taken out of Greece (or into quarantine) for a further period of 12 months before it can be used again in Greece. Any police officer worth his salt can spot and deal with the usual dodge of keeping an old ferry ticket in the car.

Greek insurance companies are, naturally, forbidden from insuring foreign cars. It is almost impossible (read that to mean astronomically expensive) to insure a British car kept in Greece, whose registered keeper has a Greek address. Just having a British mailing address is not good enough. Drivers/keepers of British cars living in Greece may possibly possess an insurance document for the car, showing a false British address, but this is worthless as it has been obtained by a false statement.

Consequently, the vast majority of British cars used on Corfu and Kefalonia over the winter is illegal and are not insured. Everybody knows that the tax police conduct checks for these cars every April at well known locations, make the whole procedure rather pointless.

The Greek government may do well to consider the amount of tax losses incurred by these parasites without adequate enforcement, but my main concern is their lack of insurance (and testing).

Brian P Vallance
Lefkimi, Corfu"

Check it out. BPV is always good value and I make sure to have my e-tracer constantly scanning for his name.

Speaking of 'expats', I'm so glad to have been sent for review Jim Potts' hypnotic cultural history of The Ionian Islands and Epirus

Every time I now hear the word 'expat', I think of Jim's 'telling words' from Robert Dessaix's Corfu, put into the mouth of a woman supposedly based on Fanny Lewis - widow of Cecil, about whom I assure you nothing will ever appear in these gossip-free pages.

We love to dig dirt but not that mucky.

Anyway, this 'Celia' has a lovely line that I keep using in the posher salons,

"I'm not an ex-patriate, you know.

I'm an Englishwoman living in Corfu. There's a huge difference."

There is, indeed, and when Potts turns his attention to this, he nails the ghetto with the precision and gentleness of a loving lepidopterist.

I'm keeping my powder dry for my Island write-up but Jim's already got a deservedly humdinger of a notice in Athens News so he doesn't really need me.

Available at PLOUS Bookshop, Nik. Theotoki Street. Hurry hurry.

Also in Athens News, reportage of the holiday traffic death toll.

How do they happen?

You will never believe what the traffic police have deduced: the majority of fatal road collisions were caused by - wait for it:

Driver negligence

Excessive speed

Violating right of way

Driving in the opposite lane

Who would ever have guessed. Crazy ol' Greece to buck the trend and come up with its own novel ways of committing highway mayhem.

But I do have to comment on the last point about driving in the opposite lane.

When I arrived in Corfu four years ago, I hooted with laughter at the satirical advice that, "When proceeding down a 1-way road, be sure to leave space for traffic coming in the opposite direction."

Today at the same advice I would simply look baffled at the obvious being spelled out.

Aintree Nags

This must be deliberate by the paper: I've never seen such an album of slags and fatties.

Cartoon from The Oldie

What can it mean?

"You didn't tell us he was from Belgium."

POTTS OF FUN

Having fun keeping out of trouble reading about everyone else's woes of yore as gracefully delivered in Jim Potts' excellent cultural history of The Ionian Islands and Epirus.

Jim's doing the perfect job promoting his book and I'm going to help by keeping the thread going.

Jim was pleased to be sent a scan of Athens News' Damion Mac Con Uladh's review, "the first review I have seen so far."

I've been asked to review it for Island mag hence trying not to glimpse others' opinions such as DMCU's,

"a wonderful and inspiring miscellany of all things Ionian and Epirot. Potts exposes the reader - who ideally is planning or undertaking a holiday or has taken up residence in the regions - to their rich corpus of poetry, prose and travel writing, be they of Greek or foreign hand."

And it really is cultural: Potts knows everyone and slides the references or quotes in with the skill of a Mississippi gambler goosing you from the bottom of the deck.

Check out his excellent blog

WHERE YOU CAN GET IT: One can rave 'til one's blue in the face but if the punters can't actually lay hands on the book, that's half the point of the bribe gone right there.

PLOUZ' Bookshop on Nik. Theotoki Street now has 15 copies of this excellent book in stock.

Now that I've announced that in my king-making blog ("The Oprah of the internet," someone once dubbed me. Me, actually) stocks wont last. Sprint, my lovelies!

Drudge Hobby

That is what yardwork/'gardening' is to me and everyone who visits Casa Corfuchsia to totter potter around Maman's creation gets a loud earful of my intense dislike.

Actually, after 4 years this April 11 of close encounters with the hobby, it is closer to hatred.

Bravo, therefore, Rob Crampton for his piece on why the word hobbies strikes fear into his heart.

Most people know by now the numb enmity that comes over me at the very sight or sound of yardwork but it's a measure of the arrogance of jardinery types that they then ask,

"So what hobbies do you have?"

as if one has to have something to fill the gap left empty by yardwork.

I've never thought of guitar or writing or composing - or blogging, even - as a hobby so it doesn't even occur to me to mention them. I just say that I don't have a hobby or, if I do, it's staying clear of being sucked into yardwork.

But you know what? I sometimes get the feeling - a look in an eye, a twitch of a gnarled finger - that these self-referential loam types don't think of vile jardinerie as the back-breaking dispiriting passer of time that it is (and an exceedingly drudge-bound one, at that).

I think many of them regard it as some loftier activity, elevated from soap or candle making; model aircraft; knitting/crochet, and all the other harmless activities of distraction.

It isn't.

It's worse than the others because

(A) It's so effing dull and repetitive and pointless and scratchy and stumbly and toe-stubby and nail-chipping dirty ... the list is endless.

(B) It's so utterly thankless

(C) It intrudes disgracefully on others' lives. Have you seen and heard the way horti-hobbyists go on and on about their floral faffery without bothering to check who else is around who'll be offended and bored?

It's a treadmill of futility that has had some good PR thru the years but its dulled (and dull) cult following should learn to shut the frock up in polite company.

I often wish - OK, every day with every mention or glimpse - I imagine myself back 4 years when Life trundled on with friends and close family, nary a whisper of accursèd 'gardenry', not a seed, stamen or trowel intruding on real life.

Stop Press: I have just looked up 'hobbies' for any choice rubbish to ram down the throats of those 'gardener' types who have a go at me, and lo and behold I find that yardwork is a pastime, as is guitar.

All the more reason to practise it in private or with consulting adults and FFS stop blathering away about it in front of others.

Yes, I'm glad to see it bunged in with all those other anoraksik activities.

Stop Press ~ Look at this piece of roobish I've come across, plugging some useless GardenWatchCam gizmo. One born every minute.

Listen to this:

"Every year tens of millions of people love designing, planting and caring for their gardens.

Gardening brings many hours of relaxation and enjoyment, and instills a feeling of satisfaction at being able to share this beauty with others.

[Pass the sickbag, Alice]

However, gardens only lasts [sic, illiterate buffoons] as long as the growing season [my itals] and only those who visit the garden can enjoy its unique splendor.

A gardener may remember to take a photo or two but that doesn't capture the total experience."

I don't know what sort of garden they think they're talking about but the ones I know go on and on and on ad literal nauseam.

"Only lasts as long as the growing season", my ass. And what about this bit of coy ordure:

" ... capturing the gardens [sic] growth from the first shoots breaking the earth to the graceful surrender of the last petal to cooling nights."

Excuse me as I gracefully surrender the last of my breakfast - and what a load of gardenry codswallop these hobbyist pastimers can drudge up.

Commentaria: Badass Baddeley has,

"put in request for In an English Country Garden to be played for you on the radio.

I know how much it'll be loved."

'How many kinds of sweet flowers grow
In an English country garden?
We'll tell you now of some that we know
Those we miss you'll surely pardon.'

I actually find that a rather sickly tune. If we're going to do botano stuff, give me Robeson's Tree poem.

Also good is Gerry Rafferty's Garden of England. Gorgeous dated accent right at the end from the minister of whatever.

While talking of what is "also good", Miles and John Lee 'take the rake', as we jardiniers says. Tried for a loong time to get this album online.

Desperately seeking Aris

~ The Corfu Olive Oil Blog ~

Driving me crazy - oil magnates Aris and Katie are proving as slippery as the fine oil they're out to sell.

Not a clue in their blog as to how to make contact and I want to screw their plans by creating publicity and interest beyond the dreams of avarice..

Prolly a case of a blog too soon ... rather like the many half-started buildings one sees around.

If anyone knoweth where this couple are holed out, drop me a comment. Still a few days 'til deadline ....

The Lost Art of School Report Writing

My kind of article. I would have been super at report writing, except today's parents are too thick to cotton on and would, anyway, be round to thump me.

Faithful readers who'll read this right thru can be counted on the head of one pin:

Prof Badders

Mountain Man [Lawks, what I would have given for a report by My Lord of the Nitekrü. Dude! Frame it for the jakes]

Lord Moss of Ma Wan

Hans Fletcher

Barry Greensted

David Li

Nevin Prakash

'Magpie' Mason

'Gary' Alban

Mary Visick

The only one I remember, that my father read out to me, went along the lines,

"Christopher keeps the table in an uproar. He likes to think of himself as a clever swine."

Dad said,

"Be careful. It's OK to be thought an ass or one who acts the clown, but when it's a case of 'You think you're a clever swine, don't you, Holmes?' Cave."

Which Dad of course pronounced cah-vay, bless him.

Holy Trinity Anglican Church
Corfu Greece

~ New Improved Website ~

Check out the cool features:

Home ~ How to find us ~ Services & Events ~ Gallery ~ News ~ Links ~ Contact us ~ Home

Welcome to Holy Trinity

21L Mavili Street,
Kerkyra 49 100, Corfu, Greece.
Tel (+30) 26610 31467
htccorfu@gmail.com

If you are resident in Corfu or are a visitor to this beautiful Greek island and would like to worship in an English speaking church you will find a warm welcome at Holy Trinity Anglican Church.

We have a vibrant resident congregation originating from a variety of different parts of the English speaking world.

During the summer months we enjoy welcoming the many visitors who join us for worship on Sunday and who may also appreciate the week-day events we host in the Church Room.

Amongst our many varied activities, the weekly programme includes times of Bible Study, Prayer & Intercession, Wednesday Lunch-Box, and Art courses, of which examples of Mary's exquisite creations can be seen here.

We are an Anglican Chaplaincy within the Church of England Diocese in Europe, but we welcome Christians of all denominations and those who would like to find out more about the Christian faith.

Find out more about us and how to find Holy Trinity by browsing our website.

Post-script ~ This post was meant to be no more than an easier-on-the-eye contribution to the improved official church site, but I kept being asked to include a link to my earlier post on the subject of a new vicar.

Personally, I regard it as childishly disrespectful on the subject but readers rule, so here it is.

Silk Hangings: Those wonderful Easter silk hangings are by Mary Gulland and I am delighted to see my submitted snaps in the HTC gallery.

'Howler' hoot

I've been playing 'Travelin' Light' since my teens and it's a big scorer with the girls ... that beginning on the bass, the cool strum, the A7 to D chorus and then the E ~ F井 ~ G# back to A . ... don't get me going.

But now and then the geetar is NOT the passepartout we expected and ... thwonk into a brick wall.

Do wait 'til 1:06 when Cliff nails it ... a hoot and a howler.

I mean, how more succinctly put?

The hoot of victory rises in your throat. Succès d'estime. She capitulated, yours all yours.

She caved in. You make to consolidate your triumph.

Suddenly ... Blam splat karoumph .... yer not in Kansas any more ...

Wheels

If you get a puncture in the Tzavros/Diellas area, which we devoutly hope you do, of course, with your crowding our supermarkets with obscenely loaded trolleys and oaken thighs, here is the place to come for instant satisfaction and relief.

I sound as if I'm plugging Meryem's new emporium. Perhaps I am, but in the meantime let's stick to rubber goods. Oh you know what I mean.

Yes, indeed, we long to see you limping along in need of a good wheelspin.

Me personally, I'd prefer it to happen wayy up north, where you'd only have goat innards to solve your inner tube issues.

But if I can't have the satisfaction of seeing your tourist ass sending cinders high as you scrape along, well this is the place to get 100% satisfaction.

They are fast and pro' and they speak English and mean and do business.

No sooner have you pulled in than the guv'nor has sussed the prob, a flunkey has started work on your car and the delightful missus has come out to ask if you'd like some coffee.

Actually, you have Sweet & Savory just down the road so they can take as long as they like.

Loipon, you pass Tzavros heading south. Past the BP garage on the right.

Look for the graffiti on your side of the road, look for the pottery on the left - ack ptui, if you were so dumb to get the flat in the first place, you won't need these dynamite directions.

Beckoning Beckett

Marvelous story in the latest Oldie

Phoebe Winch telling of lunch with Sam Beckett in 1955 as he waited for 'Godot'. Literally.

It had received good reviews from Tynan and Hobson and SB was over to see the play's transfer to the Criterion.

" ... thin, even gaunt ... ate very sparingly and drank little.

He spoke of Paris in the 1930s when, as well as being close friends with James Joyce, he was also his assistant.

Joyce used to dictate to Beckett.

"We were working on what became Finnegan's Wake, and there was a knock on the door. I didn't hear it, so when Joyce said 'Come in' I wrote down "Come in".

I never took it out. It made as much sense as anything else.

I like to imagine earnest literary students writing theses on the meaning and implications of that "Come in" in the book."

I tell you - I just burst out laughing. Such a relief to know I've not lost all sense of humour.

"It made as much sense as anything else."

That deserves to be in every dictionary of quotations, along with Mandy Rice-Davies and "Well he would, wouldn't he?"

Pupil: "Well, sir, it made as much sense as anything else."

Master: "Whaat, boy? I'll have none of your infernal cheek!"

"Just quoting Beckett, sir."

Actually, even mentioning Beckett would have got your hide tanned in my day and école.

I suppose that, too, made as much sense as anything else in those days.