felix.gripe

A tremendous week here in sunny athens! Perfect temperatures (~30ºC), blue skies, a breeze and sunshine every day is good for the soul. Also good for the soul but less good for the body has been a reversion to going out a lot. Outdoor cinema Monday evening, after my greek class, was a trip to Nea Filadelfeia for a taverna meal at Αυλή and my first outdoor cinema of the year, to see the new Spielberg alien film – Disclosure Day (review + pics, ⭐️⭐️). Film was fine but forgettable. Cine Alsos was…

Browsing the Guardian’s top 100 novels list after reading their no.1 choice, Middlemarch (review, ⭐️⭐️) I saw Salman Rushdie in at 23 and I realised I’ve never read his stuff. His name was forever in the news when I was a child, hiding from very cross muslims but his novels had passed me by. So I picked this up – long again, clocking in at 650 pages after Middlemarch’s 900 – and enjoyed it too. A fantastical story against the backdrop of the real history of the partition of india/pakistan,…

First film of the year. I only heard about the film last week and ‘sci-fi by spielberg’ was enough of a hook to go and see it at the flicks. I went in without reading anything about it at all. A fine film, not really memorable, kind of like a feature length x-file. Emily Blunt superb as ever. The film is called Ημέρα Αποκάλυψης here, Apocalypse Day meaning Revelation Day in greek. Cine Alsos The cinema though!! ⭐️⭐️⭐️!! My first visit to the amazing outdoor Cinema Alsos in nea filadelfia down…

All week there was a weather alert icon on my phone warning of storms and misery for friday and saturday, so I cancelled plans and battened down the hatches. How was the storm? I heard two cracks of distant thunder, saw 5-6 drops of rain, and the temperature plummeted to a very pleasant 25ºC from 30. The sun shone in blue skies the whole damn time. Rampant capitalism As I mentioned last week, I’ve got back into a bit of a health kick after months of fun with visitors, and the end of going out…

A pleasantly quiet and boring week last week, no further visitors to shepherd around athens. Just as well as the summer temperatures are starting to become standard – up to 31ºC in the day and 20ºC at night. The greek word for summer is καλοκαίρι (καλο: good, καίρι: weather). Running View of west athens from the top of a very large hill I mistakenly ran up Zero trips to any tavernas, and zero late nights or alcohol allowed me to try and pick up running again, a couple of hot and slow 10kms. I…

Just as I’d finished reading my last book, the guardian released their The 100 best novels of all time, and I discover I’ve only read 18 of them. The greatest literature ever published in English, as voted for by authors, critics and academics worldwide. 82 to go! I thought I’d start with the no.1 best novel of all time, Middlemarch (written in 1871, set in 1830’s). Very much enjoyed almost all of the 900 pages! The english is victorian/dickensian, and the book itself is kind of what I imagine…

Late notes this week – a bank holiday yesterday, Holy Spirit Monday (???) – which appears to be yet another highly dubious orthodox jamboree: It commemorates the event during which the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles. Manifesting as fiery tongues, the Spirit touched each disciple, imbuing them with the miraculous ability to speak and understand all languages. I wish I could be touched by a fiery tongue to be imbued with the ability to speak all languages as it would save me a fortune on…

A week of mixed weather here in athens, mostly sunny but with a couple of storm showers. I see that the uk is undergoing a heatwave and is far hotter than here (30ºC vs a paltry athenian 25ºC)! The fun distraction of the week was the contined presence of my art teacher from school, her second and final week in athens. I have been enjoying her company and hearing of her exploits (trips to corinth/myceanea, every museum and gallery in town etc), and strived to spend as many evenings dining out…

Πολύ ωραίο. Very good sci-fi! Set on a planet on the far end of the universe, it’s an exciting story about the interactions between the human ambassadors who are all weird twins engineered to be able to speak the double-language of the curious but benign Hosts (Ariekei) – the extremely strange native aliens. The aliens are barely visually described, but the parts that are make them incredibly hard to picture. An exciting and unique sci-fi story, a bit heavy on the linguistic aspects but it…

A fun week here in sunny athens! 21ºC on the balcony at midnight the other day, you can’t beat t-shirt weather at night. Just as well as I’ve been doing a great deal of sitting outdoors and eating as my art teacher from school is in town for 10 days. I’d not seen her for over 30 years, but she’s as fun and sprightly as she was back then. She’s exploring the town with gusto – relentlessly hitting all the museums, antiquities, galleries, and with my help – bars and tavernas. Notes Greek lessons…

Finally unambiguous balcony weather has arrived – currently writing this on mine at 2230h (weirdly for the EU, greeks use the 12hr clock). Mid 20’s and the flowers are looking/smelling amazing. Especially all the jasmine! Last night the much anticipated metallica gig played the olympic stadium ~1km from my house and one could clearly hear the songs and banter from said balcony. I walked the dog to the stadium but I think she prefers more traditional dog music. They played zorba the greek lol.…

Truly superb gig at the Arch club last night! Schlepped my way across all of athens to catch ditz – one of brighton’s finest bands – and they did not disappoint. My first time seeing them live and they put on a great show – huge sound, really tight playing, front-woman amazing with crowd surfing etc. The two warm up bands Chasing Bone and Psychedelic Trips To Death – both from Thessaloniki – were also very good. PTTD were just two people – a bassist and a lead guitarist, with the bassist also…

I very much enjoyed this 1956 autobiographical story by Gerald Durrell, who aged 10 moved to Corfu from england in the 1930’s with his eccentric family. Beautiful descriptions of the idyllic greek island, and his relentless collecting of all the fauna thereon as pets. A bit white-british-colonial but if you can get past that, a v funny book. His older brother, the author Lawrence Durrell, made frequent appearances in The Colossus of Maroussi by Henry Miller (review, ⭐️)

Just when the weather had turned to perfect low-mid 20s, it appears even greece is not immune to the bank holiday weather curse. May day weekend here has been dismal, cold, windy and intermittently rainy. Snow in parts even! Gales and Showers Sweep Across Greece – TO BHMA. Booo! Greek lessons Back to two greek lessons this week, the first on monday put me in a black mood, really struggled to grasp any of the grammar my lovely teacher tried to teach me. Even the warm evening walk around the…

An extremely pleasant sort-of-holiday week here in sunny athens with my parents visiting. It was largely successful – we saw many sights and ate out at different tavernas every day. They’d not eaten a lot of greek food previously, and soon found they couldn’t get enough of it. Monday My Greek class was cancelled so we took a trip along the coast to the Temple of Poseidon in Sounion.

Double greeknotes this week, I failed to write anything last week after a double easter – the greek orthodox easter is a week later than the other easter. Being a freelancer abroad meant that I had to work both good fridays and easter mondays. Easter things: Good friday At 21h I went to see the Epitaphios procession in Iraklio, 100’s of people with candles following a beflowered coffin or something and a load of holy types, the leading chap was banging what I discovered to be a semantron, a…

A towering work of sci-fi. Written in 1930, it charts the history of humanity from the inter-war period to 5,000,000,000,000 AD. The premise is the cycle of human evolution and extinction in 18 civilisations, from current earth to the last men.

Another deadly storm (Erminio) lashes athens. Printed Athens ART Weekend in kypseli, meze at a friend's taverna, and dog sitting one of the biggest dogs I've ever met.

Failing to take advantage of Greek Independence Day, The First Cemetery of Athens, and a piss up in a brewery.

Like a moth returning to a slightly boring and plotless flame, I couldn't resist picking up another one of her books after noticing it had entered the public domain.

A cold and grey week in athens, improved by taverna food, cats, dogs and I suppose, by a half marathon. Although my legs disagree.