the dangerous book for old codgers

no comment needed

The Splendid Fane

Despite the hour, she finds me and plonks a Metaxa 5* down.

She doesn't burn a nail:

Then mou kalyetai karfi.

Not give a damn.

"Let me lead
Your footsteps towards my royal father's abode
Where all Phaeakii aristos will see
There on that hilltop
Our city, walled around with strong defences,
And defended on both sides by the narrow-entranced
Port where our brave ships
Are ready aligned, each in their place,
And where, tight-knit with the proud fleet
Of Poseidon, looms the forum of immense stones
From quarries drawn from afar, hence built strong."

Odyssey VI, 308

Secret glade; devious haunt

All this moving wordery from my literary brethren.

("Maman, I don't believe you've yet met my companion in devilry, Lord Baddeley-Wells ..."

"No, indeed. Good day to you, sir.

Far more important, where is that delightful young gel serving those cooling sherbets?"

"Allow me, Lady Holmes" [shimmers off in search]

LMH: "Good shimmer, agile toady. You could learn from him. Ah! So kind.")

Far more important, I'm suddenly sad for my wasted salad days.

Time to take up my lyre and compose ... in the meantime ...

"The Gods are dead; no longer do we bring
To grey-eyed Pallas crowns of olive leaves!
Demeter's child no more hath tithe of sheaves,
And in the noon the careless shepherds sing,
For Pan is dead, and all the wontoning
By secret glade and devious haunt is o'er;
Young Hylas seeks the water-springs no more;
Great Pan is dead, and Mary's son is King ..."

"Santi Deka" Corfu, Oscar Wilde

Yo! Like I'm not your Mister "Brainy Thread", going to keep allowing these posh comments. Nuff already, dudes.

Badass Badders scrolls in - maybe for the last time if he keeps up his Balliol bavardage - with:

"Pan dead? ... long ago, in Aegina, in the midst of much happy laughter, singing, eating, drinking and boisterous table talk in which, I, a polite political innocent so far as Greece was concerned, heard reference to the name Markezinis.

Outside the glow of a taverna, rather than squeeze through the crowd I strolled down the gravel road for a pee. The etesian northerly, which Maria detested and wouldn't call meltemi, was gusting as boisterously as our party, stirring the olives trees into a crackling roar that ebbed and flowed like breaking surf.

Standing in the warm dark I was assailed by fear, more intense for the closeness of the bustling taverna. My anxieties are to do with enclosure, so this was odd. Maria said later, and matter-of-factly, that I'd had a bout of Panic - sudden fear in a lonely or open place caused by 'him'.

My Greek step-mother was always coming out with this kind of tosh. I think Pan might be there when one is suddenly filled with awe in a lonely place - like the toad on the hill I saw the other day."

And the dear boy treats us to a flickeroo.

Actually, this is damn'd fine stuff and I'm humbled he'd share it here.

Also, I'm back from dinner with Island mag's composer of the 'Lost in Translation' page and frivolous with laughter from her latest deliveries of "wonderful words in Grik" for which there's no English:

Kili'othoulos - slave to one's stomach.

Xethe'onome - To be de-godded, ie Xethe'othika sti douli'a, I de-godded myself working; worked extremely hard or, as I still slip into, 'worked like a black'.

POOL CLEAN

I'm desperately getting the pool back into shape after its earlier disguise as the great green greasy Limpopo River.

I'm emptying it and refilling it; I'm sweeping every dust bug from the floor; I'm timing the fillings so I can monitor the cleaning.

The silly face is because, up to now, it's been a soup temperature Limpopo; now it's being filled from our well that fills endlessly from the mountains and provides clean drinkable water.

I once made the gaffe of telling some gaffer that we filled our pool with drinking water. He used it agin me, even tho' it was true and it got a very nice lady returning with me to have a taste.

 

 

 

 

 

Luka

My tech skills aren't up to persuading blogger.com to let me post more than 3 or 4 pics so I have to do it in stages.

Here is Luka sneaking home to his siblings, home being that pastel house seen thru the sunset trees.

Observe him first up there, padding along from our garden, thence to the border area accessible via steps past the greenhouse.

Up he sneaks and thru a hole in the netting which i will soon fix and put paid to his double-crossing ways.

Thru he goes and the next thing he knows he's being snapped from our side of the guard wire. But hold! What's this? He can go no further back home because of the wooden barred gate that separates him from the other doggies.

Lara Croft

Too many readers (aka Sid and Doris Bonkers) have posted complaints that this blog has "lost the plot" (whatever that mumbo-jumbo means).

Not at all, dear hearts. I am merely much choosier these days of the vedettes I feature.

Mignonne gymnast Alison Carroll (23) fits all bills with her recent appointment as "the new face of Lara Croft".

Jamie Lynn Repro Rap

This is like so-o patronising to my two readers who will not have the faintest idea who Ms Lynn is.

I am referring to the sister of the slightly famouser Britney (who gets in her own jams). At the tender age of 16, JL got preggers and shocked the world (minus readers of this blog).

In particular, she must have shocked kiddie viewers of her TV show (who would not have known about sex) and their parents, who would have hoped that Ms Lynn was relatively unaware, certainly to the point of "doing it".

The splendid rap video on the subject of procreation comes thanks to the even splendider sedition.com, of whom I trust my readers are tastefully unaware - which makes this a somewhat exclusive posting, if only as a bar-room bet winner to the challenge:

"Betcha anything ya cain't show me Jamie Lynn Spears and sedition.com onna same page."

"Can"

Onna *same* page?

Yip

"There some trickery here, but ok, show me."

(Nota bene how I don't even bother to mention that the Youtube clip is a spoof. It would make not a jot of difference)

Spilia Spiniada

I have been commissioned by a successful local (but offputtingly named) online mag to contribute to some anniversary issue and have chosen to write about the area that has always fascinated me, around the old fortress where the shops seem never to close and the people never to go to bed, including the children.

*I* thought i was writing about the area we refer to as 'spilia' but clever clogs pals correct me with 'spiniada' which I recognise but don't agree with.

Any way, my deadline is early September and I am wasting no time enlisting all pals to chip in, rather than my usual style of beavering jealously secretly away ("Wot you working on?" Not telling you. "Oh g'won")and then the article comes out and everyone phones up with those "My deah, if only you'd asked me ... Patricia's ex practically *owns* the quartier and could have given you a guided tour with intros and freebies galore. Such a pity."

This time I am playing helpless ignoramus even down to, "Oh really. I didn't know that ... hmm, i see from my notes that Diana says blih blah blih"

'Did she? Hrrmph, fat lot she knows. Look, darling, I'm terribly busy right now but i can see you're talking to all the wrong people so I'm setting aside tomorrow night for an absolutely crash course visit, take bags of notes and photos and throw all that misleading stuff away ... and I guarantee a top article." Gosh thanks! "And please don't listen to the likes of that Diana." No, right.

Later that evening. Brrr brrr. "Darling - how's the article going. I've got oodles more stuff for you so why don't we meet tomorrow evening for a lovely drinkie and briefing ... what? with whom? Oh my gawd, Chris - are you KRAZY? Do you want to be THE laughing stock in town? She knows absolutely nothing about the area ... sweetie, how long have you been out here? And still making dud judgements? Oh my ... "

And so forth and so on until i have consulted every harpie in town and got all the data i need. Then I'll ask P or CB to accompany me on an all-nite bender and together we'll cobble something together.

Avis Rara

These boys don't mess around.

Mater weeds down by the pool and complained about the "tree rats" that scuttle overhead.

Since chummie has adopted us as sanctuary of choice, he's been dive bombing with Stukka accuracy and Momma don't moan no more about rodentry.

Very fast: glide, spot, recce sweep and then plummet.

Currently featuring in our local downtown Kondokali deli

Sentimentalia

Doncha hate meeting someone new who gets yer heart pumping?

Out to all the sunset views, holding hands, brushing lips, heavy eye contact ... lingering thigh caress ....

All that schmaltzinanity all over again, and we know where it's going.

Thump dump gazump.

Two Francis Bacon stories, both from Muriel's RIP, the darling:

Someone asked him why he didn't move to Switzerland?

"What? Have to put up with all those fucking views?"

Muriel's always had a TV running but way up in the rafters so it never intruded.

Another regular was there, Tom "Dr Who" Baker. On came Doc Who and Francis said, "But that's YOU up there, you cunt."

"Yes", said Tom. "Twenty three million people watch that. Got it? Do you think 23 HUNDRED people know or care who you are? CUNT."

Three Francis stories, come to think of it.

Francis always bought a bottle of champers and weaved his drunken way round pouring into everyone's glass. I'd seen how they preyed off him and one night said "No thanks Francis, I won't sponge off you."

Shock horror. he stopped and asked Muriel, "Darling who is this divine boy who "won't sponge off me"'?

M told him i was ok but not for him, but ever after we were pals and he would insist I sponged.

Hilarious moment one evening when he took me aside: "Darling, some writer wants to do my story. Would you check him out? I'll pay."

It was doyen David Sylvester. FB kept saying "Only if it's all right by Christophoros." (squeeze of hand, tilt of Moet).

God I felt uneasy.