Burning down the house

I have copied this post from the 'Athens Plus' section of the Greek Newspaper 'Kathimerini' published 3 May 2010

If Greece's economic crisis has taught the world anything - other than how easy it is to trash a country - it is how interrelated every economy is, and how political interests can have devastating effects on issues that should be purely economical. Very simply: Greece's inability to keep borrowing at exorbitant rates, coupled with the delay in decisive action to remedy the situation, led to the rapid collapse of the Greek bond market and set off a chain reaction - affecting the bonds of Portugal and Spain, driving the euro lower against the dollar and prompting losses on all Western European stock markets and Wall Street. At the same time, banks in Germany, France and a host of other countries trembled at the thought of a restructuring of Greek debt as this would seriously dent their portfolios.

In a striking example of the inextricable ties of our modern world, close to 1,000 tourists on a cruise ship lost a day of their vacation when Greek unionists, protesting planned legislation that will allow cruise ships with foreign crews to dock in Greek ports, stopped them from embarking in Piraeus. This prompted the Spanish cruise company to warn that it may suspend visits to Piraeus. If this occurs, at least 1,000 tourists per week, who are by definition in a high income bracket, will no longer visit Athens as part of their Mediterranean cruise. They will not eat at Plaka's restaurants, visit our museums nor buy souvenirs. This loss is not likely to affect the unionists who probably count every new injury to the Greek economy a trophy in their war against capitalism. But it does show how the actions of a few can affect the livelihood of many. It is a snapshot of how Greece destroyed itself - with every group taking care only of its own interests, without any consideration for the rest of society. All the groups, and their selfish interests, piled up, until Greece could no longer function.

When the European Union was revealed to be completely unprepared to deal with a collapse such as this, international markets quickly noted that this was not a problem for Greece alone but of a much greater, systemic weakness of the euro itself. Whether out of fear for their investment or because they sensed blood, or both, lenders kept driving up the cost of Greek borrowing. And as long as the Greek government delayed taking measures to make its economy sustainable, as long as Germany made of point of not agreeing to a bailout until the Greeks showed adequate remorse and discipline, the credibility of Greece and the euro were worn down by the day - indeed by the hour.

Standard & Poor's sudden downgrading of Greek bonds to junk status on Tuesday was the shock that concentrated minds wonderfully. If Greece, a member of the euro, could be allowed to fail, surely Portugal, Spain (and who knows which other country) would be sure to follow. What Germany and others thought was a fire in Greece's trousers was now spreading across the common European home. Here it is worth remembering that apart from German outrage at what is seen as Greek profligacy, Berlin's delay is inspired to a very great extent by the populist exploitation of the issue ahead of a regional election. However angry German voters may be at the Greeks, surely no responsible German politician can argue that there is any merit in showing the world that the euro has no safety mechanisms.
If anything good may come of all this, the adults in the EU will step up and consolidate the union politically, taking steps that will include checks on social security systems, labor laws and tax collection. In this way, the EU's economy will become a reflection of union rather than division. Because, whether we like it or not, we are already inseparable.

Stinging Nettle and Wild Garlic Soup

Ingredients
2 tablespoons of oil
2 tablespoons of white flour
1 onion, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 large handfuls freshly picked and washed young nettles
A handful of wild garlic leaves
2 cups milk
1 cup water or stock
salt and pepper to taste

Method
Fry the onion, garlic and chopped wild garlic leaves in the oil for a few minutes then stir in the nettles until they soften. Stir in the flour and gradually add the soya milk and water or stock, stirring all the time. Add seasoning and liquidise.

A Sensational Banquet

A cold north-easterly air stream had swept away latterly persistent grey clouds. The sun shone from a clear blue sky. In leaf-dappled sunlight, sheltered from a brisk cold breeze, I felt deliciously sharp contrasts between pools of dark cool shade and brilliant warm sunlight.
I rested on the moss softened bole of a long-fallen tree to listen to the music of the place, sounds as old as time; the occasional buzzing of a bee; the babbling of the stream, audible dynamics of wing beat and fettered water flow. Above and around me phrases of birdsong orchestrated with a rhythmic soughing of treetop breezes and with more distant sounds; caws of crows and ravens, buzzards meows.
Near to the stream, the redolence of desuetude and decay familiar in damp shady places vied with the more potent aroma of wild garlic. Away from the water, fragrances percolated from myriad flower and tree blossoms, subtly scenting the air. Contrasting odours, foetid and sweet, confirming the the truth of all life depending on a perpetual cycle of death and regeneration.
A canopy of translucent fresh leaves dappled viridescent sunlight falling into mossy shade. Transient highlights on the ripples and splashes of the stream flashed shafts of prismatic colour, a vision of reflections from a flow of innumerable diamonds. Intense light, deep shade, colour, form – essences of of being.
I had felt, heard, smelt and viewed the quiddity of a flake of time in Dollar Glen. My lunch, a tasty soup of wild garlic and nettle leaves gathered there, completed the feast.

Mother IX

Shortly before lunchtime yesterday a call came from St Margaret's to tell my sister and I to go there at once. Together with our respective partners we arrived at the Hospital to find mother awake, aware and relatively communicative. Connected in one way or another to a plethora of gadgets; electronic controls for drip feeding saline and blood, automatic blood pressure and pulse rate readers, a pneumatic bedsore preventing mattress and a device that warms air and circulates it under a plastic cover to keep body temperature stable, she appeared nonetheless to be comfortable. A nurse fed her with ice cream, of which she ate a full tub, and tea.
We spent the afternoon taking it in turns to sit by her bed, visit the hospital café and take a little exercise strolling around the hospital car parks (There are five!). As the afternoon dragged on into evening with no obvious deterioration in mother's condition – she was by now sleeping peacefully - we decided to return to Dollar.
Expecting to be summoned back to the hospital at any time we had dinner and turned in for a less than settled night. At nine o'clock this morning – post the doctors' rounds – my sister phoned the hospital and learned that mother had spent a quiet night and that shortly she would be offered breakfast and given a wash. If we hear no more from the hospital this morning we shall go there this afternoon at two-thirty, normal visiting time.
The peaks of this emotional roller-coaster sharpen!

After watching coverage of rioting in Athens

‘Few men realise,’ wrote Joseph Conrad in 1896, ‘that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings.’

Mother VIII

When I left the hospital yesterday afternoon I did not expect to see my mother again. Since I first arrived here I have doubted that she has known me as who I am but she has seemed to recognise my presence and, to a degree, responded to my attempts to make simple conversation. Yesterday however she appeared to be oblivious of even my presence or of anything else around her. She moved her head a little and with an emaciated hand tried pathetically to adjust her counterpane. Her arms are a patchwork of black, blue and purple a consequence of several intravenous invasions for drugs and nutrients; I can only wonder at the colours of the parts of her body that are covered. During my visit I was interviewed by a senior member of her team of doctors. He told me that she has been having transfusions because she is losing blood somewhere internally and that he would like to perform an endoscopy to 'see what is going on'; to do this he must have my permission. Reluctant to have mother subjected to further distress I refused, for the time being, to give my permission. I would wait to make a decision, I told the doctor, until this morning.
When I phoned the hospital this morning I was told that mum had had a peaceful night and that this morning I would not recognise her as the person I had left yesterday afternoon; she was sitting up in bed and 'chatting' to her nurses.
The roller-coaster we are riding runs on!

Sound advice

"Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted. And human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect.…"
-E.M. Forster, Howard's End