The Last Hope of Girls, by Susan Boyt June 25, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , add a comment
This rather unusual book may well bear rereading. We are given a window into PhD student Martha’s life as she moves in to be the caretaker of a block of flats on Oxford St being refurbished.
It’s perhaps best described a collection of stories, joined together by the characters and the progress of time, rather than any particular plot.
We observe her go about her life, shopping though rarely buying in Selfridges, dealing with her father’s marriage and new baby, her
brother’s drug addiction and imprisonment and finally deciding to read her father’s novels. Her world is painted in great detail, but she is somehow detached from it, observing and letting it all sink in.
Back to Greece June 23, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Politics , add a commentBy the time you read this, through the miracle of wordpress scheduled postings, I expect to be sitting in a taverna by the sea, with a carafe of wine at my side. My favourite client is sending me off to Athens to talk to a supplier, so I’m staying for the weekend to explore the Argolid.
Mycenae, with the tombs of Agamemnon and Klytemnestra, the great theatre at Epidaurus, passing through Corinth and staying at Nafplion.
I remember the first time I went to Greece. It was another work trip, and I’d visited four islands in as many days, in a cold, blustery March. I arrived, exhausted and hungry, to discover that I’d been booked into a grotty hotel in the red light district, where the 
restaurant closed at the ridiculous (and very un-Greek) hour of 9pm. I got a couple of chocolate bars from a vending machine and went up to the room. The wiring looked dodgy, and the bathroom had definitely seen better days.
I opened the curtains, looked out to the building next door and then up. And there, lit in splendour, was the Acropolis. Pure magic.
Zorba the Greek, by Nikos Kazantzakis June 22, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , add a commentYears ago, I saw the film of Zorba the Greek, and my memories of it are vague – lots of Greek blokes dancing. When I saw the book in a shop on the waterfront in Hania, it seemed like the ideal read for a holiday in Crete.
The book deals with the relationship between two strongly drawn characters, the intellectual, upper class narrator who is detached from worldly persuits and seems to live through his writing and observing of others, and Zorba, an earthy, exuberent somehow more primeval character who feels his way through life rather than thinking. These unlikely companions are running a mine in Crete or, more specifically, the narrator is financing it and Zorba is actually running it.
I’m not sure I like this book. It is powerful and absorbing, but the strong seam of misogyny running through it is hard to take. There is the tragic figure of the old courtesan, abandoned by Zorba and cruelly tricked by the narrator into believing Zorba was returning to marry her, and the widow, killed by the local villagers. Both Zorba and the narrator seem to have a very cavalier attitude to women – Zorba travelling by finding a lonely widow in every village, though his defence of the local widow is heroic.
It is worth reading for the strong characters and the picture of Cretan life in the first half of last century, but is by no means a comfortable read.
Carnival of the Green 32 June 20, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Environment , add a comment
This week’s roundup of green bloggers is over at Savvy Vegetarian, so go and have a look.
There are a number of reviews of Al Gore’s movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ which is being released in the US this weekend, and in the UK in September. This film should raise awareness of climate change issues, and there’s a campaign on to make sure that its opening weekend goes very well and gets it the media attention it needs.
There are a couple of interesting posts about the misanthropy that can sometimes be seen in environmentalists who believe that population reduction is the only way to save the planet, and the Evangelical Ecologist suggests that a Christian faith-based approach would increase the reverence for life, and so see humans as the stewards of the environment.
It seems to me that what is needed is not seeing humans as beings in some special position, but as only one species amoungst many, and with no more special right to use resources than any other. Buddhist meditations on the nature of different species, and one particularly powerful visualisation of someone you knew who had died having come back as an unlovely beast, such as a cockroach, generate compassion for any being, and are the realisation that we are all interconnected and interdependent.
I’ve heard the ‘humans are stewards’ arguement before and it may help to lead some to a more caring attitude to the environment, but my favourite riposte to it (not original, but I can’t remember where it came from) was that it was more like letting the goat be the gardener.
Waters of Chania June 19, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Travel , add a commentIn Heraklion, the water is awful, over-chlorinated and salty. Its probably safe for teeth-brushing, but is undrinkable. In Chania however, its lovely. The white mountains of the Lefka Ori are limestone, and the water comes down through them to provide the drinking water of the town.
This is a limited resource though, and in the summer with the increased usage by tourists, it is not enough. Despite its excellent drinking water, Chania is plagued by the same problems which occur in virtually every tourist destination around the mediterranean. Overuse of local water resources by tourists having too many showers, hoteliers providing fresh water swimming pools to cater for those who want to look at the sea but not too bathe in it, watering gardens which look lovely but are unnaturally green for such a dry climate.
In many places, local villages are put on water restrictions to allow the tourist hotels to keep working in their profligate way. A few years ago, I visited Paphos in Cyprus, and had dinner with a rep who lived in a village just out of the town. Her village only had water available for two hours a day during the summer months, and this is not unusual in all summer tourist destinations around the mediterranean.
There is an argument that, because tourism is the major industry in these areas, that is a choice made by governments and people living there. That’s probably true, but someone living in a village not far from a big resort doesn’t necessarily profit much from mass tourism, and may not have a say in the allocation of water. It may not even be necessary as so much of this is put down to the ‘demands’ of tourists. Perhaps tourists could start demanding something different.
Here are some suggestions:
Take short showers. In Greece, you’ll often be confronted with a handheld shower with no way of attaching it to the wall. That’s good. It forces you to clean yourself quickly without lingering. Don’t complain about it, and tell the hotelier how much you like it. This may discourage them from replacing it with a full shower.
Don’t take too many showers. Try to keep it to one a day. Remember that in the high season, when the hotels are full, the populations of many resort towns expand by a factor of 5-10 or more, so water systems will struggle to cope. If you normally shower in the morning, but are planning to be on the beach all day, try switching to taking a shower just before dinner.
Swim in the sea. If you have children, and are worried about their safety, how about getting them swimming lessons in the UK. Make sure you swim between the flags, and keep them in sight. Sea water is much healthier, and possibly cleaner, than chlorinated pool water. After all, when small boys do what small boys do in the sea, there’s a lot further for it to dissipate than in a pool.
Encourage hotels to build salt water pools. Tell them how much you like salt water for bathing. Waterfront hotels can do this fairly easily, pumping water from the sea and round, though it needs more infrastructure for hotels set further back from the beach.
If the tap water is drinkable, drink it. This isn’t so much to save water, but to save all those plastic bottles that are a blight on the landscape everywhere. It is very unusual for the water in EU countries to be dangerous to drink, but it is often very salty, which makes it unpalatable. Try a little and make your own decision. If you have to buy water, get the biggest packs you can find, and decant into a smaller bottle.
Ask your hotel / restaurant if they provide filtered water, rather than bottled water. Express surprise if they don’t. Many good hotels and restaurants will do this now, particularly the more environmentally conscious ones.
Play golf in Scotland, not the Algarve. Scotland is lovely in the summer, and being outside all day in August will be much more pleasant there than in the boiling hot sun.
Visit in the late Spring or early Autumn. Many of these places are much more attractive in May or June than in July and August. They’re not so crowded and not so very hot. If you have to fit in with school holidays, maybe taking a holiday Britain, in northern Europe, or on the Atlantic coast of France, Spain or Portugal would be a better idea. Its not so far to travel, the weather is still good, and most places on the Atlantic coast of Europe have better water supplies.
Happy holidays!
He Never Came Back, by Helen McCloy June 18, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , 2 comments
I found this in the Amnesty Bookshop on Eversholt St, for 49p, and its one of the elegant old penguin paperbacks, green-covered for crime. My Now Reading widget (on the side bar) won’t accept it, because its out of print, but it’s a nice wee book and deserves a brief review.
Shortly after WWII, Sara is a single woman living in New York, when she accidently buys a priceless ruby which has been left in a 20p sale. From this rather unlikely beginning grows a pleasant, light thriller involving an Indian Rajah, an extremely wealthy Aunt and an enigmatic but attractive neighbour.
Sara is a well-meaning but rather silly woman, who makes a fool of herself with a case of mistaken identity, and fails to see the obvious under her nose, so this is no subtle Agatha Christie novel, but it is a good telly-substitute, and will stay on my shelves with the other old penguins, for the sake of its binding if nothing else.
Did I mention, I don’t have a TV, so while everyone else is chilling out to the East Enders or Big Brother, I read light novels like this. Expect more in the future.
Moving a WordPress Blog just got easy June 16, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Blogging , add a commentIts a little late for me, but the nice people over at wordpress.com have just released a new feature to export your blog there via XML, so it can be imported into another wordpress blog, say on your own hosted site.
Very useful, if a little late for Camden Kiwi!
Good hotel booking site June 15, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Travel , add a commentOn my recent trip to Crete, I used Bookings to book both the hotel I stayed in on the first night in Heraklion and the main one in Chania. I am impressed.
Its clear and easy to use, with a clickable map showing where all the hotels in an area are, lots of photos and guest reviews. I was quite dubious when I booked the hotel in Hania, knowing it only had four rooms, but it was fine. There’s no cumbersome registration process, and they only ask for information that’s needed to make your booking and take a credit card imprint in case you don’t show up. A couple of days after your stay, you get an email asking if you’d like to review the hotel.
They sound like they provide a good service to the hoteliers, which is important when you’re booking small hotels. The owner of the hotel in Hania commented that guests from Bookings always show up, and that the people she dealt with were very helpful.
This is one I’ll be using again.
A balcony over the street June 14, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Travel , add a comment
I sat on the balcony of the apartment in the ancient Venetian townhouse last week in Hania, looking down and along the narrow street watching people go by while I ate breakfast. Across the road the little ouzeri wasn’t quite open yet, though the son of the family, who had been playing guitar in there until about 11 the previous night was already up and gone, delivering to restaurants. A couple of cats wandered around, and women were setting up tables, sweeping, going about their business. Tourists came by, some with a walking guide, taking photos of the buildings covered in nasturtiums and bougainvillea.
The hotel was Silde Apartments, and is highly recommended. It only has 4 rooms, and I think I’d pick the one at the top, though mine on the first floor was excellent too. Silvia runs it, with the help of Thomais from next door, and they’ll do everything they can to make your stay go well.
McDonalds?? Is this for real June 12, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Environment,Politics , add a commentA site which appears to be affiliated with McDonalds talks about an interactive management game played within McDonalds which includes a climate change simulation. The effect of normal McDonalds policies always leads to a rapid end to the game in about 20 years time. The sad thing is that even when the participants know about the outcome, they continue to play for shortterm profit towards their own doom.
The conclusion reached by those running the game is that the only way to get McDonalds (or presumably, any similar large corporation) to really work in ways that might reduce global warming is by regulation. Once rules were put in place to prevent deforestation and reduce emmissions, players found ways to make a profit and have their businesses thrive.
The site claims to have split from its parent corporation because it could not make the board of McDonalds realise this.
I think this is a clever piece of activism, rather than the real thing, but it is an excellent way of describing the corporate responsibility dilemma. Even a company, or manager, who wants to consider climate change is driven to act in a normal, short-term profit maximising way, because everyone else is. Wouldn’t it be great if it really was McDonalds?
Update 14Oct2009. Just came across this, and found the link to the original site is dead. It seems it was a spoof though.
