Every so often the Issue of the King breaks out into Greek political life. Like malaria, it’s a latent condition which is most likely to recur when the body politic gets run down from something else, thus becoming susceptible to otherwise dormant forces.
Athenians call their drinking water by the lovely word oulen. Is it not the most beautiful of ancient Greek words? Does not its sound instantly conjure up the image of babbling Arcadian brooks? Did not the great Pindar with the very first words of his first Olympic Ode sing, “Best of all things is oulen?”
All Skopje and no play makes Yiannakis a dull boy. For over a year the Macedonian Issue has dominated the attention of the country to the exclusion of nearly everything else. It is beginning to dawn now on a growing number of people that there are other things to do and think about without being accused of sedition.
On December 12 the European Community (which is so adept at putting things off) decided not to decide on what the future name of the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia should be.
Last spring this newspaper called its readers’ attention to a privately sponsored organization called “Plant Your Roots in Greece” which was collecting funds for national afforestation.
The Macedonia hot potato was gingerly passed around by a lot of old hands at the EC meeting in Birmingham last month, and then placed on the Specialties de la Maison list being compiled for the Edinburgh Summit menu in December by which time, most hope, it will have cooled off though one wonders how.
Last spring this newspaper called its readers’ attention to a privately sponsored organization called “Plant Your Roots in Greece” which was collecting funds for national afforestation.
One evening last month Premier Mitsotakis, the implacable Sheriff of Greece, had the nerve to sit down in front of a pretty painting by Volanakis and for two hours harangue three TV journalists (and a national-wide audience) on all the things that are going wrong in this country. It was an impressive list.
Surely Lawrence Durrell stood in celebration of life. He said that he learned this wisdom in Greece, but he was always a leg-puller and one can’t quite be sure.
