My Big Fat Greek Life

Georgie Porgie Pudding and Pie, Screwed Markozy and Made Them Cry

2011-11-02T16:27:00.003+02:00

Honestly speaking, I am pretty much content to now let this blog go to seed, but recent events have pulled me out of blogging retirement.

Anyone living in Greece will know what an awful time we’ve been having of it lately.
Riots, rising prices, new taxes all the time and constant anxiety about what is
around the corner.

While the troika spent the summer asking for increasingly severe measures to be placed on the Greek public, we sat tearing our hair out. We heard all the time about how Greece might not get the next tranche of bailout money and then what would
happen with pensions, salaries etc?

Finally after much negotiating and begging, Greece’s debt was shaved by 50%. Hooray!
This was progress. Maybe finally things would be very shitty for a long time
instead of very very shitty for a very very long time.

And then George Papandreou pulled the rug out from under everyone by calling a
referendum on whether Greece should accept the next tranche of bailout money
and the extra cuts that will go with it.

Really????

Seriously, what was he thinking? Why now? Why after nearly two years of misery does
he decide it’s time to ask the people? As lovely and democratic an idea as it
is, you are left to hope against hope that the vote will return a Yes. Because
come on, those sweet little old grannies in the Greek countryside don’t give
two hoots about Europe and are likely to vote in their droves to exit the Euro
and the Eurozone, both of which would be the instant kiss of death for Greece. A
return to the drachma would be a total disaster, and a default would leave the
country destitute and a pariah of the global bond market, if that’s not already
the case.

So why do it? It’s a move as unexplainable as Andie MacDowell’s entire career – it makes no sense at all.

I don't get it

There are a few theories:

* Georgie genuinely cares about
democracy and wants to give the final say to the people. If he pulls off a yes
vote, it will shut everyone up for a long time (but see above, a Yes vote is
not very likely at all when the Greek public are reaching the point where they
literally can’t afford to feed their families any more and are as pissed off as
a Tasmanian devil rolling down a hill in a barrel full of porcupines) Plus he’s
a politician, they don’t care about the people or democracy as a rule.

* Georgie has all his life savings riding on a short that the country will default so he’s pushing oh so hard in that direction.

* Georgie has gone mad.

* Georgie knows something we don’t know. As in, there actually is no money for the next bailout, or it won’t matter anyway because the Mayan calendar says the world ends in 2012. Might as well stir things up between now and then, since the referendum is set for January….Those Mayans may have been on to something now that I think of it.

* Georgie wants to punish the rest of Europe and their markets by tossing everything up in the air just when the deal was sealed. Revenge is a dish best served cold and all that, and let’s be honest, the conditions under which people now have to live are becoming unbearable. The troika imposed a bunch of very severe measures on the public, which Ok they caused the problem too by tax dodging, but in the end it’s the
government that was responsible for collecting those taxes. That’s why it’s
called a GOVERNment, not a SCRATCHYOURBALLSALLDAYment.

*Georgie is an attention whore. With the immediate issue solved for the time being, no one would be talking about him as much. This way, he got invited to Cannes! And be part of the G20! Take that, other nations!

* Georgie is an evil genius.

If he pulls off a yes vote, everyone will want to know how he got past the laser field.

Back Through The Haze

2011-07-25T10:56:00.002+03:00

Before I had Mini Me, I promised myself I wouldn't be one of those people that just talks about their baby. That's why I've avoided writing on this blog. But frankly speaking, three months down the line with a baby that detests going anywhere by car or stroller, my life has pretty much become condensed into staying at home with the baby, wondering if I will ever see the inside of a gym again.

I couldn't understand parents who went into fine detail about their child's bowel movements, my first thought being "Seriously, no one cares about this information except you." but now my day quite literally revolves around whether the baby has taken a dump yet or not. This is usually followed by an excited phonecall to my husband or my mother if the dumping had recently fallen away from its usual pattern.

This is a picture of me on the phone... in an alternate universe

Never again in my life will I be this pleased about someone shitting himself. Because of this, I really don't have much else to talk about unless I come across something amusing on the internet.

Heh!

And so apologies in advance for this baby related post.

So what's it like raising a baby in Greece? So far, pretty brilliant. Whenever I do go somewhere, we are showered with attention. On a recent trip to the UK, we were fast tracked through check in and onto the flight. This by the way did not happen on the return journey. When transitting through Munich I pointed out that families are usually offered priority boarding and was helpfully told I could board last. Great! Thanks a heap. Anyone who disagrees with this should really try travelling with a small child - you will totally come to appreciate even the smallest little bit of help you are offered.

Greece loves children but this also goes hand in hand with various worries and superstitions which are passed on to you without hesitation. A child in Greece belongs to society, and so people think nothing of telling you your baby isn't dressed warmly enough, or you shouldn't be taking him out this time of day, or you shouldn't be taking him out at all. In Greece, it's uncommon to see babies under 6 months out and about with their parents. There are several reasons for this. First off, people believe it's extremely unhealthy for mother and child to go out in the first 40 days after birth. Although I didn't stick to this strictly, I was restricted in my movement and found it hugely depressing. The majority of people seeing you out with a newborn under 40 days old will make you feel like the worst mother in the world, with a tiny minority praising you for it.

Another reason is the grandparent system of babysitting. Many new parents are understandably too freaked out by the thought of leaving the house with an infant thanks to horror stories and social pressure ("Kiki took her baby out and the mati made it grow another head! I saw it myself!") and so park their offspring at home with the grandparents. In fact in Greece daycare for infants is very rare. Most people rely on their parents and in laws to watch their children while they work, which I think is a wonderful system. I don't have this system available to me, so I had to take Mini Me out with me whether we liked it or not, no matter how much both of us cried in the car and just grit my teeth at the "Ma ti kaneis koritsi mou" ("What the hell are you doing!") comments.

But the two biggest reasons are these: the mati (evil eye) and the MICROBES! Perhaps the thing that scares Greek parents most are the microbes. Those evil microbes are everywhere, lying in wait to attack your innocent baby. To me it came across as incredibly silly and after a while irritating to be repeatedly reminded "What about the MICROBES!!!". After all, this is Greece and not sub-Saharan Africa. But then I realised it's only because the Greek love children that much. It's totally natural for them to extend that concern even to your child although you are a total stranger.

Microbes are the reason Greek mamas iron their children's underwear and socks. It's why new Greek parents, including Mr Zeus, will stand at the door as you arrive to see their new baby and pour antibacterial gel on your hands before they'll let you near their baby. When I myself was faced with the microbe quandry, I thought guiltily of the heart attacks I might have caused by joyfully pouncing on the new babies of friends with my filthy microbe covered hands. So there's a tip for you: no matter how clean your hands may be, when visiting friends with a new baby, it's considered good manners to wash your hands before you even think of touching it.

Do I come across as a crazy hippy who will spoon feed my baby dirt to boost his immune system? It's only because I was raised in a much more relaxed manner, seeing very young babies circulated into the world immediately in both the UK and the Homeland. The 40 days rule applies in the Homeland too, but my mother said "Bullshit" and took us off on holiday when my younger sister was 17 days old. She never ironed our underwear, and trust me the microbes are a lot more lethal in the Homeland.

Anyway, when in Rome and all that. Now on to the mati. This is also a belief that exists in the Homeland. In Greece I have found that half the people believe the mati will get your baby, the other half believe that babies are not affected by the mati. You can offer extra protection by taking your baby to the church for a blessing at 40 days old, in fact you are expected to do this and not to do so is considered careless and a danger to your baby's soul.

Baby boys will be taken around the altar, girls are not. Meanwhile you will be instructed to do something that I didn't catch at all, being so sleep deprived that functioning from day to day pushed out Greek from my brain. But since the priest was busy walking around the altar with the baby, I winged it by making a suitable show of crossing myself infront of the icons, Orthodox fashion, and hoped that would be enough. The priest said nothing so I guess I passed the test, unless one of his minions at the back of the church later told him "You know that girl you just told to go get you a Coke? Well, let me tell you..."

The notion of the evil eye is used to explain every ill a baby suffers. An especially cranky baby that you have done everything else for is usually said to be under the mati (matiasmeno). It's a particularly seductive notion, and many times I have found myself on the phone to my mother in law asking her to remove the evil eye because the baby won't settle. You will likely receive several gifts of beautiful little blue eye pins on your baby's birth, and pinning on of these onto the baby's clothes is considered good protection.

Of course guilt-tripping a new mother is an international phenomenon, and one that would be banned if I could do anything about it. What no one told me about having a baby, despite months of preparing how to actually pop the baby out, is that no matter how experienced you think you are, when it comes to your own first child you will suddenly know jack shit and are mostly doing what you hope is right and won't break the baby. On top of this, the following comments are not helpful:

1. You haven't dressed him warmly enough (The old school notion prevails strongly in Greece that a baby must be warmly dressed, even in warm weather. Thankfully I have a great paediatrician who dismissed this instantly)

2. It's not good to take out such a young baby (Really? Can you come to my house and babysit him then while I run my errands?)

3. Don't bring him in here, the airconditioning is on

4. How old is your baby? Isn't it bad for his ears to be listening to this music (At a wedding from another mother when Mini Me was 2 months old)

This is just a sample. But like I said, it's best to let it slide or use the default answer of "The paediatrician said it's ok".

I think that's enough baby related stuff for now. By the way, who has been watching ANT1's Bollywood Saturday movies? I wonder who chose them, because frankly they're awful.

Oh, and one last thing. Perhaps the most hilariously innacurate image of early motherhood has to go to the Chicco catalogue. As if it's not bad enough that they have airbrushed babies in their catalogue, they really are taking the piss when this is what they portray as motherhood when you've been awake all night and your dress sense has boiled down to what's not covered in vomit, and your house looks like an all night baby rave has taken place there with empty bottles and nappies littering every surface:

Glorious Pas, Shiteous Present, Future Unknown

2011-06-23T12:03:00.001+03:00

Since we hadn't already had enough fun going round the economic hell-hole merry-go-round, all of Greece has been given a one-way seemingly never ending ticket to ride (except for the rich, who are, as they ever were, untouched by such crises). Things are just getting worse, and as the European Union stands shooting at Greece's feet and screaming "Dance, bitches!" suddenly everyone has an opinion about Greece.

I have to say, by the far the best analysis I have read to date was not in a newspaper or a magazine. It was this post on a blog, written by a Greek no longer living in Greece. The link was sent to me by a friend and I read it with fascination. It's the most concise summary of Greece's debt crisis to date, even if the checklist of how to rectify the situation is wishful thinking purely because as most Greeks will tell you, Greece's biggest problem is that it's filled with Greeks.

I'm not going to get all sentimental about the future of my child in a country like Greece. If push comes to shove, he can always live and work somewhere else, and that somewhere else will probably be South America or Asia, since Europe's glory days are now well and truly over. What I will say is that I pray he doesn't end up in a situation like Mr Zeus, on the verge of a nervous breakdown from busting his ass in the private sector. He pretty much missed out on the first two months of his child's life, and was called to come into a meeting ON THE DAY HIS SON WAS BORN while he was at the hospital with me. He said no.

Of the 25 days of holiday he is entitled to, he has only 9 left for the rest of the year. Why? Because his private sector company makes him take each strike day as a day off. Our son's passport reads Unbaptised Zeus because neither of us has the stamina at the moment to deal with the public sector to-ing and fro-ing that would be involved in declaring his name without him being baptised. We looked into the process and decided he'd just have to be known as little Mr Unbaptised until we get around to baptising him. Glorious, ain't it? Two of the biggest parasites of the Greek state, the Orthodox Church and the public sector, working in cahoots. It's kind of beautiful, really.

But these are small fry in the face of how bad things are going to get for Greece. Oh well. Excuse me while I go bury my head in a watermelon.

Image: http://images.contentreserve.com/ImageType-100/0128-1/%7B7338F609-126D-4A60-B935-FB93D2DC81BC%7DImg100.jpg

Giving Birth in Greece

2011-04-26T15:05:00.004+03:00

It would be best to start the story of my mini Mr Zeus with the kind of birth that I wanted. I know there are people who laugh at the idea of birth as an experience - a lot of women face it as a grit-your-teeth-and-get-through-it event in their lives. But I started out as a converted caesarean fan and having decided that natural was the way I wanted to go, the next step was to find a good doctor, one I could trust not to lie/trick me into unnecessary interventions.

This step began even before Bolly Baby was a twinkle in my eye. Various friends recommended me their doctors, but suspiciously they had all had caesareans, and not because they necessarily needed them. There is nothing wrong with having a caesrean if that's what you want or if that's what is necessary for yours and baby's safety - thank God it exists. What I object to very strongly is Greece's 65% plus caesarean rate for very stupid reasons, women who want to have a natural birth and are robbed of it because the doctor got bored of waiting.

Friends I know were told the baby's head was the wrong shape (lies), the baby had to be born RIGHT NOW because it was a boy, we could have left it a bit more if it was a girl (lies) and of course that old chesnut which seems to strike pretty much every expecting couple we know: the cord was around the neck. When I brought this up with my midwives, their response was: We've delivered tons of babies with the cord around their neck, and some that are practically kokoretsi when they come out.

I eventually contacted an organisation called Eutokia asking them to recommend me a doctor who wouldn't pack me off for a slice and dice as soon as he got bored. They responded, and this doctor is the one I began visiting before and during my pregnancy. Having now finished with the experience, I personally cannot recommend him highly enough. Unfortunately, he has a private practise so I had to shell out a small fortune over 9 months for my visits (EUR 80 each time and EUR 50 in the last month when you visit every 2 weeks). But if any ladies are interested in who this doctor is, please email me and I'll respond with the details. His caesarean rate is roughly 18% and he admits it's "that high" because he deals with infertility and so sees more multiple births.

Next came the preparation, which I did at the antenatal classes of the Eutokia centre near Mitera hospital, http://www.eutokia.gr/. These classes are run by the midwives my doctor works with and they are worth their weight in gold. They cost EUR 20 per class or EUR 15 if you purchase the full 13 sessions upfront. The class schedule is available online so you can check in advance if you just are intersted in specific classes rather than the full course. Each session lasts from 5.30 to 8.30 pm so that's EUR 5 an hour if you buy them upfront. I'd definitely call that value for money! The classes provided me with a warm and welcoming atmosphere to relax and ask any questions I had, no matter how stupid. I miss going to them. Note that you can also find out from your local IKA office about antenatal classes that would be covered by IKA insurance.

When it came to where to give birth, my first choice was at home but Mr Zeus wasn't having any of that, so the next option was the natural birth centre in Ilion. Sadly, the centre closed one month before I gave birth because the owner of the building it was located in sold the building. This centre was operated by the midwives at Eutokia and my doctor who was there on request or if an emergency situation arose. In the end, they struck a deal with Leto hospital (http://www.leto.gr/) and moved their services to Leto's homebirth room, and that's where my little pumpkin made his entrance into the world.

As for the experience of the homebirth room, the midwives and my doctor, I couldn't have asked for more. I got to hospital at nearly 5am and had delivered in just under 4 hours in the way I wanted, peacefully, naturally and drug-free. General practise in Greece is that when you go to hospital to give birth, you will be shaved, given an enema and have a butterfly needle put in in case you need drugs and discouraged from moving around too much. None of this is done if you opt for the homebirth room. I was meant to stay in hospital just 2 days but stayed for 3 because bubs got a mashed up head coming out, but he's fine now.

Here I'd just like to add that since I was after a certain type of birth, I had to pay for it. The birth alone cost around EUR 4000. This is no reflection on public hospitals in Greece which are very good - I met women at the birth classes who had given birth at public hospitals and had no complaints whatsoever. The general rule in Greece is you follow your doctor to wherever he works.

I think that's about it fact wise. I was lucky to have a wonderful pregnancy and an easy birth, and managed to stay very active and kept going to the gym and dance classes throughout. As for how I escaped stretchmarks despite my ass being covered with them from puberty, your guess is as good as mine. I bought a block of organic shea butter from ebay and rubbed this on my belly with almond oil religiously every night even though I was 100% sure it wouldn't work. I don't know if it made a difference or if I just got lucky since being well enough to stay active means I've been left with just 3kg to lose.

I hope this info was useful and if you have any questions, go ahead and email me and I'll be happy to help!

Image: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GPX1JrgEfuU/S8ocTG6WQRI/AAAAAAAAAnM/44-WSN-NeWg/s1600/baby-feet.jpg

Baby, I Love You!

2011-04-15T12:29:00.002+03:00

If I'm a little lazy about posting in the next few days it's because I'm busy welcoming little Baby Bolly into my life. More of the gory details to follow. Okay, maybe not the gory details, but plenty of info and resources plus my personal take on what it was like to give birth in Greece. Wishing you all good health!

You Talkin' To Me?

2011-03-17T21:20:00.005+02:00

Ahhh, taxi drivers in Athens. I guess it's my own good luck that I have spent so many years in Greece without needing to blog about them.

But today, I've got to say... I seem to have a disturbingly high rate of getting interviewed in great detail about my sex life by taxi drivers. And I mean everything. Various acts, positions, frequency, with or without birth control. I mean, what gives? Seriously, as of last night that's the fourth time it's happened and last night's session was particularly detailed.

It always starts off the same. Where are you from? How did you end up in Athens? How did you meet your husband? What does he do? What do you both do behind closed doors? They start off so nicely and politely that before I never know what the hell is going on when the conversation diverts to kinkier topics. And they're NEVER even cute to compensate for my suffering.

Are they just genuinely curious or being perverted? After all, in Greece what's considered rude and what isn't are not the same as in the UK. Here, no one thinks twice about asking perfect strangers how much they earn or how much they weigh, or how old they are.

And I like a fool go on giving answers. Well actually no. I think that if they're trying to freak me out by asking horribly unsuitable questions, I'm just going to go right ahead and answer them. And also, last night I decided to embellish a little here and there because why not. So here is my quick guide for upping the stakes when caught out with an unnervingly inappropriate taxi driver. Useful sentences include:

"Oh yes. Ten times a night. Sometimes more sometimes less. Usually until he begs me to stop."

"What have we done together? Pretty much everything involving two people. Okay actually three. Alright then four if you count that time with a midget. I'm sorry I didn't realise midget was an offensive term. He was a really short hermaphrodite."

"That's nothing! Have you ever tried it with a can opener and a roll of camera film? Well I guess not everyone has a roll of film lying around these days what with everything going digital. Ah no file, if you don't know what I'm talking about I'm not describing it. I had to learn on my own and so will you."

"This big (move hands appropriately far apart) and that's without the times we both took Viagra and Ecstasy together".

"No it didn't hurt. It never does because I go to the laiki every Saturday and buy the biggest cucumber I can find. Then I just, you know, keep it in all day."

"Really? Have you ever tried it actually with the washing machine? It's a bit logistic but when you get it right it's magic. I tell you, you'll never look at the detergent drawer the same way again. And you wait and see how white your whites come out."

The goal is that instead of it being me who leaves the cab flustered and upset, it's the can driver who kicks me out saying "Jesus, woman. You are one sick freak."

Image: http://www.obsessedwithfilm.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/TAXI-DRIVER7.jpg

My! What a Sly Smile you Have

2011-03-16T10:17:00.004+02:00

What do I have in common with George Clooney. Guess. Come on guess! Give up? Bell's Palsy, yaaaaaay!

Last week I began to notice the left side of my face was feeling a bit sore, but I put it down to grinding my teeth at night. When on Saturday I woke up and realised I couldn't close my left eye fully, I first thought my body had finally packed in and I'd had a stroke. "You must have sat in a draft" everyone assured me, "it'll get better. Put a hot compress on it."

By Monday my speech was starting to be effected so then began my epic adventure of three hospitals in two days, various tests and horrified looking doctors screaming "This is very serious! The effects may be permanent!" and other doctors saying "No big deal, it'll pass on its own in a couple of months."

A couple of months? Great! Perhaps the worst part was yesterday when I had to get an MRI scan. While we were waiting, I asked Mr Zeus if you can hear anything while you're in the machine since he's had one before. No, he declared. Nothing. He thought I meant if you hear a buzzing in your head. In grim reality, that machine makes a crap load of noise and I nearly wet myself each time it did.

"How long will this take?" I asked the doctor before he popped me in like a cheese pie in an oven. "Twenty minutes" he lied. More like 45 minutes and very unentertaining beeps, bangs and vibrations. I thought it felt like it was taking so long because I was having a bad time.

At one point they stopped to ask me how I was doing and I made the mistake of opening my eyes and seeing just how close to my face the machine was. I've never been claustrophobic, but being imobile like that under strict orders not to move a muscle and struggling to keep my left eye closed and thinking if it accidentally pops open the magnets will blind me or something... not the most fun to be having when I had taken the day off weeks ago planning a chillaxing session of shopping for myself.

Anyway it's over now, and my face is still lopsided. All I can do is wait it out. "Just tell people you botoxed one side of your face because you couldn't afford the whole face." a friend suggested helpfully. "If it doesn't go away, maybe when you're old you'll have a stroke on the other side and it'll even out" said Mr Zeus.

Hmmm. I'll keep those in mind.

Image: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_34PE0ZEgM80/TRQVP20RDnI/AAAAAAAAa2Y/r8ANaJbbVT8/s1600/george-clooney-20060805-150209.jpg

A quick hello

2011-03-08T10:35:00.002+02:00

I've kind of not been feeling like blogging much lately. It's just that time of year I guess, waiting for winter to turn into spring and finally into summer. There's not been much going on in general, and today it's snowing in Athens. Yes. Believe!

But I'll be back soon, just as soon as I have something interesting to blog about. Thanks for stopping by!

Next Top Model. Where's the Sparkle?

2011-01-27T08:24:00.007+02:00

Is it just me or is this season's Next Top Model pretty tame? Where are the fights between the girls? Where is the super bitchy judging? Even Chris Kontentos seems to have lost his ability to verbally rip a girl to shreds since cutting his hair off. It just ain't the same. He should grow it back.

And, did you know they let those girls out of the model house? Yeah! I know! I thought they weren't allowed to go anywhere for their entire incarceration.

This week the girls competed for an AIDS awareness shoot in which they'd have to pose naked with one of the male judges. Evangelia and Sindorela won. Dirty Harry was naturally right in there with Evangelia, because he's a judge you see and maybe he could help Evangelia earn some brownie points off camera. After all, she has become a bit of a fatso lately so we are repeatedly told. And if that's overweight, then there really is no hope for the rest of us. Put that celery stick right down, wannabe fashionistas. From now it's warm water and half a pumpkin seed for lunch.

Sindorela being underage posed more of a problem, so she got Christ Kontentas who's tastes we all know are otherwise inclined, and ended up looking like fashion roadkill.

Next, since we have to keep the sponsors happy, the girls were invited to a Lipton tea party. Hey, did you know that all over Athens there's this new concept and people are throwing themed tea parties where you pick a concept and everyone gets together to drink tea and you... oh? You've never heard of them? Or been to one? Well they're all the rage according to Tasos. Oh well. What do we know.

More sponsor bum kissing followed in the form of Georgia's Vodafone sponsored birthday. What the hell? Is this show now just a carriage for the sponsors?

As the show progressed it became obvious the judges are getting bored too, and with nothing better to do they asked the girls to do something totally ridiculous. They made the girls catwalk at judging panel blindfolded. Now, tell me seriously, except for cheap laughs what did anyone learn from that exercise?

Eliminations time rolled round and much to my disappointment, no one got eliminated. Although I can't really complain since Nancy got kicked off last week. I waited a really long time for that. I even wish I had baked a cake to celebrate.

But none of that is really important, because Greece's Next Top Model pulled out a trump card so fabulous on Monday night that it left all model wannabes screaming with all the delight that their skinny lungs could muster. Ever watched America's Next Top Model where Tyra builds the girls up talking about a fashion designer or photographer they're going to meet, who usually just turns out to be a friend of Tyra's (eg. Nigel Barker. Not so much noted fashion photographer as Noted Pal of Tyra) and in the end the vast majority of us are like "Who?"

Well next week the Next Top Model girls are off to Paris. Where they get to meet Jean Paul Gaultier. Awesome. We can ignore for a fact that my brother in law took some of the shine off this moment by reminding me that JPG used to regularly appear on a tacky British TV show called Eurotrash, and therefore was a pretty easy to get hold of fame whore.

Who cares! It's Jean Paul frickin' Gaultier! Beat that, Tyra. Let's celebrate with a tea party at my house!

Image: http://www.harpersbazaar.co.uk/cm/harpersbazaaruk/images/b6/or_6bf9b70811964433382920.jpg

Restaurant Review - Barba George's Indian

2011-01-19T11:02:00.006+02:00

Whenever someone in Athens asks me if I know where they can get good Indian food, my answer is usually "Yes. My house." But why would I want to find an Indian restaurant when I can cook the food myself? Well, sometimes you just want a curry but are too lazy to make it yourself.

My quest to find a spice fix has so far either ended up being totally bland, way too expensive or just mediocre. That is until I was watching TV on Monday night and the presenter of a cooking show showcased a tiny little restaurant in Exarcheia. My eyes popped. Tandoori chicken and tandoori naan! In a genuine tandoori oven! It seemed way too good to be true.

I had to investigate. So last night Mr Zeus and me took two friends and headed downtown to a teeny little restaurant tucked away in a side street, Baraba George. I was anxious, having eaten a fair share of pretty shitty Indian food in Athens. I wouldn't care if I was doing it on my time, but here I was with two friends I'd dragged away from a couch potato evening.

"Guys, if the food is yia ta baza, I'll cook for you as compensation"

The shop had four tables outside and three inside. It was nothing special to look at, but personally I don't care about aesthetics if the food is good.

We were handed laminated A4 menus, which listed a bunch of your usual Indian restaurant items. I went over and had a talk with the chef, who is from the Home Country, and he recommended what to order if I wanted something close to "How we eat it" as he put it.

Satisfied, we ordered the following:
1 order of samosas (I originally went for onion bhaji, or pakora as it's also known, but the chef recommended samosas instead)
1 chicken tikka
1 seekh kebab
1 chicken madras
1 chicken rogan josh
4 tandoori naans
1 raita
2 beers
1 coke

First to come were the samosas, which disappeared pretty much as soon as they arrived and got an all round thumbs up from the parea. Next came the chicken tikka and seekh kebab. The chef brought me over some extra spicy sauce to give the tikka and the kebab some kick, since they were pretty mild, but perfectly cooked. Tender and juicy, just what you'd expect from a tandoori oven.

Next came what I had been dying to try, the tandoori naan. I love naan but I'm far to lazy to make it myself. I have to admit, these naans were pretty much perfect. Gently puffed, chewy and with that particular flavour you can only get from a tandoori oven. I've certainly not had better in Athens. I'd happily have ordered 10 to takeaway and eat the next morning smothered in jam.

The two curries came served with basmati rice. The madras was firey hot, leaving us all sweating and puffing over it. If the madras was that hot, I think the vindaloo is probably on the menu as a party trick. I have doubts as to how edible a curry can be beyond a certain level of spiciness.

The rogan josh also had a pretty decent kick to it. At least as far as these two dishes are concerned, the restaurant made no exceptions for wimpy diners. The place was packed and the first question everyone was asking the waiter when they were seated was "Just how spicy is it?"

The menu has a selection to cover all levels of spiciness, and I would recommend an order of raita to take the edge off the heat. I did note though that fresh coriander was not used. This is most likely because not everyone likes fresh coriander. Some people say they find the taste soapy. Personally, I love it, but I have had Greek friends scrape it off curries I've made because they can't get used to the taste.

Overall, Barba George surprised me with how good it was. I have paid an arm and a leg for food that was not even close to what I ate last night. I admit that it was so far the best Indian food I have had in Athens. For someone as picky as me when it comes to Indian food, I was really impressed. I'd even go as far as saying it's on par with some of the places I've eaten in the UK.

The restaurant is very small and no frills. We're talking budget deco and plastic plates. But the food is great, and the price very attractive in the current climate. Our entire bill came to EUR 40.50, including drinks. For four people that's EUR 10 a head and we ate well. I'd call that a good deal if I ever saw one.

Another plus point that the food was quite light on the stomach. One thing that irritates the hell out of me with restaurant Indian food (in the UK too) is that sometimes the spices are not cooked properly, leaving you with terrible indigestion and a feeling of heaviness. Not so with Barba George. Apart from the fact that I made such a pig of myself that I lay in bed moaning about my over-stuffed belly, the food itself went down easily.

Don't be put off by the location in Exarcheia. Pak-Indian, the much touted and supposedly most authentic Indian food in Athens is on much skankier Menandrou Street, and serves food that is much more expensive and not nearly as tasty.

Barba George also does takeaways and souvlakis Indian style. I would definitely go back there.

Barba George
Mesologio 4, Exarcheia
210 3826505

Το Ινδικο του Μπαρμπα-Τζωρτζ
Μεσολογγιου 4, Εξάρχεια
210 3826505

Bollywood Tuesday

2011-01-18T13:08:00.002+02:00

Greece has always been a lover of protests, clocking up around 400 per year in average conditions. Yes, that's more than one protest per day across the year. With the economic crisis growing deeper by the day, the current climate is no exception.

Just in case you thought life in the capital was getting sort of boring, this week we are being treated to two transport strikes and now, in protest to government proposals to open up previously closed professions, pharmacies in the capital will be shut from this Wednesday to Friday. And next Wednesday to Friday. Because why the hell not! It's not like the pharmacy is the only place you can buy a packet of paracetamol if you need it!

Oh, whoops. Actually it is. Thanks to the pharmacy system in Greece being a 'closed' profession, they have a total monopoly on selling all types of medication. This makes perfect sense for prescriptions etc where you need expert advice, but is a pain the butt for other types of over the counter medication. Also, there is no such thing as own brand medication in Greece, meaning prices can be pretty high.

Anyway, with all this doom and gloom about, it's time we had a Bollywood song, don't you think?

And easy on the jokes about the title. Munni in Hindi is an affectionate term meaning 'little girl'. So you could easily go to my village and call a girl Munni, whereas if you tried that in Greece you'd end up with a black eye.

Home Sweet Home

2011-01-10T12:24:00.003+02:00

Sorry I've been out of action for so long. 2010 ended up not being the year I was hoping for at all. I lost several people I loved dearly, including the apparent suicide of a childhood friend in the home country in the dying days of the year. I'm not someone who deals at all well with losing people I love (who does, right?) and maybe the lesson from last year was that you have to just roll with the punches when a battery of unexpected departures happens. I keep dreaming about my friend. I just hope she has found the peace that elluded her during this life.

The result was me staring down the seconds on the clock until 2011, desperate for nothing else to go wrong within the leftover moments of the old year. I've been depressed, but I'm starting to feel better.

Finally the year did turn over, and nothing more terrible happened. I have been home for just three days in the last month or so thanks to work related trips and a holiday, and now that I have my feet firmly planted on Greek soil, I can say I have never been more grateful to be back in Athens. It's funny how you never realize how much you miss your home until you've been forcefully separated from it for several weeks. I spent most nights of the London trip crying because I missed Mr Zeus and our cosy little flat, and it was so cold, and I was scared my flight would get cancelled because of the snow, and I got flu.

But here I am, back again amongst an ever-deepening economic crisis, brows that are even more furrowed over money worries, but still, this is home, warts and all.

But there is plenty to look forward to. Winter dinners with friends, spring walks on mountains and my favourite season, the summer, which needs no further explanation. I have a feeling in my belly that 2011 won't be such a bad year.

An Apology to CaliforniaKat

2010-12-03T11:31:00.008+02:00

I have a confession to make, along with an apology.

I've been blogging for four years now, and though it's mostly been a fun experience, from time to time it has been pretty rotten due to some fairly scathing comments I get.

A few years back I started to get some anonymous and particularly harsh comments berating my blog and its content, my lifestyle, and criticising my writing a blog about settling in Athens when I did not have to go through any of the difficulties that someone who comes here totally on their own does. This includes being portrayed as some sort of ex-pat gold digger who speaks no Greek, riding on the back of my sugar daddy older husband.

Anyway, if you're wondering where this post is going, it is directed at CaliforniaKat, journalist and the author of an excellent blog http://livingingreece.gr/

For some reason, I got the impression that CaliforniaKat didn't like me very much, and based on this one feeling along with the writing style of some of the comments, I did the most childish thing possible and assumed it was her that was making anonymous and nasty comments.

I'm ashamed to say that I responded in a very stupid way. CaliforniaKat is a successful journalist and her articles appear in a popular British publication from time to time. I used the comment forums on these articles to make some pretty mean and personal attacks on her and her work.

A lot of time has passed and a lot has changed. I know it doesn't make up for my behaviour, but I would like to apologise. I'm not at all sure it will be accepted and there is no agenda behind this. The truth is I should have known better than to assume someone like CaliforniaKat would be bothered enough (or even have the time) to not only read my blog but also to write nasty comments about it.

CaliforniaKat, it's probably an apology too late. I think you are very talented and your blog is an exceptional resource. And yes, the truth is I was jealous. I call myself a journalist but the fact is I am not, nor will I probably ever be one. You on the other hand are successful in a way that I truly envy.

I would just like to say that I was very childish in my behaviour and I'm sorry about that.

Look Both Ways

2010-11-24T13:06:00.009+02:00

I have had a driving license for a full three years now and done nothing with it until recently. First, there was the long process of getting my paperwork done to insure me onto a car. Then came the small matter of finding someone with the time to take me for a drive now and again. Despite many offers of help, these never materialised with any kind of regularity.

At the start of this year, we decided to buy a bashed up Fiat from Mr Zeus's pal Z2. It came with the added bonus of being ready dented from previous accidents, but despite that it was a nice little car and perfect for me to drive and park - park being the key word here as there is no parking space at all in Athens. Everyone owns about 20 cars and would park them one on top of the other if they could, not to mention the idiots who buy gigantic 4x4s to drive in the city. Seriously? Did you not look at how narrow Athenian roads are before you bought that vehicle with the sole purpose of advertising your social status to the neighbours? Never mind that you put yourself into debt to do it.

Anyway, one fine day I was sitting at home and thought "I have insurance. I have a license. I have a car. Just how frickin' terrible can it be?" And so I began driving on my own. I've been sticking to my own neighbourhood so far where I know the roads and roundabouts. This is good because my biggest problem with driving here, apart from having obtained a license to drive on the left, is the roundabouts. Athens is full of them and there is no hard and fast rule about how to navigate them. Each one is laid out unpredictably, like some sort of Russian Roulette of the Roads.

In the UK, you are taught to give right of way to anyone coming in from the right and once you're on the roundabout you don't stop unless you get into an accident because once you're on, right of way is all yours. In Greece, take your pick. You never know from one roundabout to the next who has right of way and who should have stopped, or if you should stop mid-flow as you very often see on roundabouts. The only way to approach them is to just do it and hope you don't kill or be killed.

So far though the driving has not turned out to be all too bad. It takes much more concentration since you cannot rely on anyone obeying Stop and No Entry signs, and you still check both ways even on a one way street because this is Greece baby! Going both ways was practically invented here ya get what I mean?

I actually prefer driving on my own. Z2 has so far been my most regular driving companion and as much as I appreciate his help, he has the unfortunate habit of getting terrified while I'm driving. He's not to blame. It stems from him taking out another friend the first day she got (or rather bought - you can do that here) her license and her promptly crashing the car. It took some convincing to get him to agree to take me driving in the first place.

Also, like most experienced drivers, he tends to underestimate my need for Instructions for Idiots 1o1, the result being me misunderstanding his directions and screams of terror emenating from his lungs.

By far the most useful driving skill which I have yet to master is the mind/horn connection. Whenever I witness bad driving, instead of my hand flying to the horn in outrage, I sit there looking horrified and think "But I had right of way there!" Thinking that and looking pissed is going to get you nowhere whereas a lightening fast reflex action will announce your disastisfaction.

Image: http://girlsfirstcar.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/bad-driving.jpg

Next Top Mollycoddle

2010-11-23T10:44:00.004+02:00

Over the last couple of Next Top Model episodes, I've been scratching my head over 22 year old Jian Nan. It's become blindingly obvious that she is becoming increasingly isolated in the Top Model house and the rest of the girls don't really get along with her.

I feel two ways about this. On one hand I feel incredibly sorry for Jian Nan. When a few episodes back the girls played a prank on her by smothering her food in salt and pepper, my first thought was "Oh no. She's not going to react the way they think. She'll eat it." And she did, cutting later to her crying in the garden and later telling a friend on the phone that the girls were not being very nice. Personally, I don't think the prank was meant to be cruel. I think the girls expected her to react in a totally different way to what she did.

Sometimes the way she acts reminds me of myself when I was new in Greece and didn't really understand what was happening around me. It was over a year before I was able to work out if the girls in bellydance were teasing me or actually being mean but disguising it as teasing, or their sense of humour or way of thinking. But soon, with some effort on both parts, I was more easily able to navigate my new friendships.

But that was my first year in Greece. Jian Nan has been in Greece for 10 years, since she was 12 years old. Here is where I get confused. From her behaviour and her Greek, she gives the impression that she somehow managed to isolate herself completely from Greek society for the last 10 years. The easiest thing to do when you arrive in a new country is to seek out your own, but Jian Nan seems to have done so to such an extent that now when she finds herself in a house with only Greek women for company, she has no idea what to do with herself. It's as if she literally arrived yesterday.

I'm puzzled as to how she managed to do this. Did she never make any Greek friends? Didn't she go to school here? If so, how is her Greek still so poor? I don't say that to pass judgement. My point is children pick up languages much faster than adults. Jian Nan was 12 when she arrived in Greece. If she went through the school system here at that age her Greek and her mannerisms should be very different to what they are. If she didn't go through the school system here, how did that happen seeing as it's against the law not to send your child to school?

I feel sorry for her, but at the same time her strategy of trying to make friends by emphasising cultural differences rather than looking for common ground is backfiring miserably. Multiculturalism is wonderful, but you can't escape the fact that when you end up in a foreign country, in my opinion at least you are duty bound to try and integrate into your new society.

I don't think the girls in the house are particularly racist (except maybe for Nancy who I can not stand), but I also think they are not particularly interested in foreign cultures. They're becoming aware of Jian Nan's awkwardness around them and it's setting some of them on edge. As soon as Jian Nan seemingly steps out of line, tempers flare and the line between Us and Them becomes much more sharply drawn. I think this is more a case of a bunch of extremely insecure young women shoved into a house together and losing their shit over nothing, rather than racism. I get the impression that they're getting tired of trying to coax her out of her shell.

At judging last night Jian Nan ended up in the final two, and blamed her poor performance on her feelings of isolation in the house. She also slipped up during judging when the judges told her she was a babe (kouklitsa) and she said "Yes I know, I have a babe-tastic face." She probably meant to use the word koukla in its literal sense (doll) rather than its colloquial use as babe, thus meaning to say "I have a doll-like face". The girls in the back sniggered.

As for some well meaning but highly inappropriate cultural stereotyping, we can always turn to good old Harry Christopoulos who just can not seem to get past Jian Nan's cultural identity and simply see her as another contestant. Cringeworthy comments about China can always be guaranteed from his mouth, along with outrageous statements like "You are as sexy as an Asian woman can be." or with her terrified expression in this week's photo posing with two scorpions "But you eat those in China."

*Slaps forehead*

Not Cool :-(

2010-11-16T18:55:00.004+02:00

Apart from being Spot Chris Kontentos day, today is Eid ul Adha, a really important Muslim festival. When I woke up, Mr Zeus wished me Happy Eid, which he has never done before. I asked him how he knew, and he said he was watching on TV how public squares in Athens had been turned into prayer grounds for Muslims to come and worship. Eid prayers are considered quite important and people try to dress their best in new clothes for them.

I was happy when I saw this. Now, I'm not particularly practising... okay make that pretty much not practising at all. But it was nice to see the authorities take such a step, and I'll tell you why. Having witnessed the mess caused in the UK by unregulated mosques and imams, I very strongly believe it's important for Athens to designate an official mosque in the capital, monitored by the Greek government to make sure that the imams who preach there are moderates. Because extremism has no place in a modern society. Muslims in Athens gather at unofficial mosques anyway, where who knows who is preaching who knows what.

Wouldn't it be in everyone's interest to have an official mosque in order to keep control of extremist points of view? I'm sure we can all agree that no one wants that in Athens, especially in the current climate when things are hard and migrants are feeling hard done by. This is ripe ground for extremists to sow their seeds of hate.

Anyway, my feelings of happiness have now turned into feelings of sadness. Because a few idiots gathered at the squares where prayers were held, taunted and jeered the worshippers, scattered pictures of pigs around them and threw eggs at them. I can't imagine how humiliating this must be.

Ok, locals got upset, but to attack someone while they are praying is pretty damn low. I don't really have much else to say about this, when judging by comments on news pages about this incident the common feeling seems to be "They asked for it! Greece for Greeks!"

Just a final point for those wondering, from the comments I read. Yes, in my small home town in the Home Country, there is an active church. One of my childhood highlights was being a bridesmaid at that church. So now you know.

Be Still My Beating Heart

2010-11-16T11:29:00.003+02:00

Oh my God guys, the most amazing thing happened today! This morning I was meeting two friends for a coffee near Acropolis metro station before work. As we walked towards a cafe, a rather tall and pec-tacular man floated into my view, struttting up the cobbled street next to the metro. After a moment I then saw who he was with.

Dressed in model black, lithe limbed and flick haired, there he was. Christophoros Kontentos. Oh. My. God. Chris Kontentos was working that cobbled street like it was a runway. Mere feet away from me! In the flesh! Breathing the same air as us mere mortals!

How I wish I had witnessed this moment when he was still in possession of his flaxen mane. I was desperate to run up to him and start fawning about how much I love Next Top Model, but the truth is Chris Kontentos comes across a little bit mean. If I had gone up to him and he'd blanked me, I think I might very well have died of disappointment right on the spot.

I obviously watch way too much TV to say that this incident made my day.

Bolly Moves in Athens

2010-11-11T17:55:00.004+02:00

In May of this year, I took part in a bellydance show. I've been dancing bellydance for the 4 years I've been in Greece. It was the first thing I did when I arrived here and it turned out to be a lifesaver for me. Through bellydance I made some really good friends and was able to create a routine of my own in those early days when I was still fully reliant on Mr Zeus for entertainment.

In our classes, we like to encourage dancing for the group. It builds confidence in the dancer and helps the rest of us be not quite so critical - everyone who feels like dancing is welcome to do so, and it's only then you realise the amount of nerves that come with performing, even for a group of familiar faces. You're not quite so quick to comment on what you thought was sloppy dancing once you've been on the other side!

The teacher asked me if I wanted to dance some Bollywood for the girls. So I did. Once a week for a couple of weeks I danced something for the girls and I'm happy to say they loved it. Eventually, news came round of a show and my teacher bullied the organisers to get me into the programme. This would be my first time dancing on stage alone, ever. I would be dancing a form of dance that is not very familiar to the audience, and I'd be doing it in costume and thus praying with all my might not to step on the edge of my sari and fall off stage. To say I was crapping myself is an understatement.

Show night came around and I was a complete bag of nerves. I kept cursing myself for agreeing to do this as I stood in the wings. My heart was pounding and my mouth was dry. Eventually, the moment came when I had to step out of the wings and onto the stage. And what a big and empty stage it felt like!

But once the music started, I was fine, and even managed to enjoy myself. I flew back into the wings on a cloud of adrenaline, wishing I could do it all over again. When the next number went on, I made my way to Mr Zeus in the audience and members of the audience started coming up to me, asking where I teach.

Now there was an opportunity I hadn't thought about! Sadly I didn't pursue it. Although from time to time I give a mini-class with my bellydance teacher's blessing during our regular classes, I realised quickly I didn't have the resources or the time necessary to teach on a regular basis. First off, I had no idea how to teach a form of dance I hadn't actually learnt, I had just picked up growing up with Bollywood movies. Moves I can pop out without a second thought become impossible for me when I try to break them down into teachable sections.

But I do have good news for anyone interested in learning Bollywood. On the same night as I performed, another wonderful dancer danced a Bollywood number. This October, she has started teaching and having attended her class, I can say it's totally worth it!

Check out the website of Oriental Expressions dance school. Bollywood dance lessons are every Monday from 7.30pm and cost EUR 15 per lesson. Enjoy!

Image: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01382/Bollywood_1382192c.jpg

Why Did you Do It!!!!!!!!!!

2010-11-09T18:41:00.005+02:00

With Greece in economic meltdown, we are a little sensitive here at the moment to change. The public gave a big two fingers up to all the political parties last Sunday with a unusually low voter turnout at the local elections ("What's the point? They're all the same.") and an unusually high level of deliberately spoilt ballots (decorated with drawings, hearts, stars or scribbles according to observers).

So everyone here is basically saying please just do something that doesn't suck so bad without having to change everything.

I was not ready, not at all ready then to be assaulted by Next Top Model judge Chris "The Hair" Kontentos's new look. It was alarming enough when he shaved off his beard. But then, I caught a glimpse of him on a chat show and was assaulted by this, his new look:

BEFORE:

Sleek

AFTER:

Shriek!

Why'd you do it Chris, why! Who will bring me my Monday night dose of bitchy follicular spectacularness now? What next? Vicky Kaya with a beefburger in one hand? Jenny Balatsinou saying something I don't immediately forget? Harry Christopolous being left alone with a naked Next Top Model and saying "Let's just play Scrabble."? I can't take all these changes right now!

Sitting at Home, Going Loca

2010-11-05T10:51:00.007+02:00

Sorry muchachos for my lack of posting. The truth is I have had no life lately thanks to whole bunch of things, such as losing our dear Yiayia, coming down with a cold and therefore first not wanting to leave the house and then not being able to. I am still trying though to save this blog from a slow death.

So I've been stuck indoors without the release of my usual twice weekly session of bellydance to keep me sane. All I do is work and watch TV, the quality of which has deteriorated significantly this year.

When I first came to Greece I only watched MAD music channel and CNN since I couldn't understand anything else. And a hell of a lot of Jean-Claude Van Damme movies. If I thought things were bad then, they're even worse now, because Greek TV in the last few years has discovered the fast food equivalent of TV programming- reality TV.

Thus our schedules are filled with Kati Psinete, Top Chef, Masterchef (someone gets an idea and everyone runs to copy it)Big Brother which I hate and Next Top Model which I LOVE and a host of other satellite programmes much too stupid to mention. And the worst part is, you'll usually find me on weekday evenings parked infront of the TV in my pyjamas, watching some reality programme or the other and making snide remarks.

Of all of those shows, perhaps the only useful ones are Masterchef and Top Chef. You could actually learn something that you could apply to your everyday life, such as a new recipe or a new way of using an ingredient. Because let's face it. The chances of me standing in the kitchen wondering what to cook are significantly higher than Vicky Kaya popping up and asking me to do a pose that's not so commercial but more boutique.

On a total tangent, Shakira has released a new video. When I first saw it, my immediate reaction was: Where did she go??? Girl has lost some serious weight which is such a shame because seeing her super fit but still juicy figure was a delight in a sea of stick insects. Disappointed. Hope she puts the weight back on because this new skinny look doesn't suit her at all!

Have a good weekend y'all!

Image: http://www.iiia.csic.es/udt/files/corp/20070523234712-cient-loco-1-.png

Next Top Model 2

2010-10-13T12:21:00.007+03:00

It's back, bitches!

And not a minute too soon. Just when the Greek version of Big Brother, with its parade of losers and people I've already seen about 10 times on other reality TV shows, was preparing me to poke out my eyes and mail them to the TV programmers, along comes our saviour headed once more by Vicky Kaya.

She got married a few days ago, you know! Maybe pre wedding nerves explains her choices this year, which were whore-ific. Either that or she had laser eye surgery that failed. All summer she's been barking on about how this year the competition is fiercer as the girls are fiercer. Seriously? Could have fooled me, love.

So let's start. As always, things kicked off with boot camp and our judges - Harry "Pervo" Christopoulos, Christoferos "The Hair" Kotentos and Jenny "Was not invited to Vicky's wedding, Meeeooooww" Balantsinou.

The show opened with the 35 shortlisted girls tossed onto a ferry heading off to Mykonos for Model Bootcamp. Sadly, none of the bazaa crowd fell overboard. Next arrives Her Majesty Kaya in a helicopter. Because, you know, it's Mykonos and no one there feels the economic crunch!

Then the girls were thrown to the lions one by one. I won't talk about the ones I thought had potential, that's boring. I'm going to keep with the mood of the show and bitch about the ones that made me think "WTF?"

This year we got a Chinese-Hellenic contestant, Jian Nan. I think she got through purely on the exotic factor. Okay okay, she has a good body too.

Next came Shelby who Vicky only put in so she could speak English with that whacky American accent of hers. Shelby is Canadian! She has piercings! Naturally Harry couldn't resist asking where she has them, and Shelby delivered. Maybe they could show each other their piercings some time if yaknowwhadamean.

Georgia from Cyprus is hoping to be the first Cypriot to win the competition. She hates women, which is totally going to work for her in the fashion industry which is full of women and bitchy gay men.

Laura-Ann has a Scottish mother and a Greek father. Harry asks her if she really looks in the mirror and believes she's beautiful. Ooooh bitch you did not just say that!

On the same note, Elena has a Greek mother and Italian father. Seriously, Elena, I don't mean to be harsh but have you seen the other bodies you're up against? Lay off the pies and come back next year. It's not just you. The judges would tell the same to anyone who actually eats.

Let me cut in here and say how the hell do most of those girls have such flat abs? I busted my ass in the gym for months and never came close. Maybe it's down to being on the right side of 25.

Speaking of which, poor Zoe got ripped to pieces for being 25, which is ancient in model years.

As for Kelly, I will only say this: TRAGIKO!!! It must take a gigantic amount of self belief to be so sure you're model material when Mother Nature gave you an extra dose of nose and ears. To top it off, hideous orange blond extensions. When they made her cry with their comments, Harry managed to keep a straight face while telling her she was a babe. But then Harry ain't fussy. And look what Monica Man O' Chin achieved last year. Maybe Kelly knows how to model at an angel that hides her ears, nose, chin... okay her whole face. That's talent I'd like to see.

I will point out Sindorela only for her name. Not Cinderella.

Now, Aliki. She is 21 and has a baby daughter, and somehow her body carries absolutely no trace of this. How did she do that?! Some people get all the good genes. Harry adores her, not for what she's achieved with her post-baby body, but for her juicy backside.

Cue eliminations, screaming and crying.

Night time at the model house, and they were given a choice of souvlaki or sushi. I was so sure that this was a test and that they would get ripped into for actually eating. Rule number one of modelling: models don't eat! And if they do, they eat sushi, NOT souvlaki.

The next day and a photoshoot in Mykonos took place. Kudos, because there's something about Mykonos that makes mere mortals look fantastically ugly. The one and only time I went there, I felt like the haggiest and most decrepit person on the island.

Marianna believes her strongest point in her shoot was her eyes.

Hmmm. "Eyes" would be right. But with Harry O'Pervert shooting, what did we expect?
Eliminations! Not surprisingly 25 year old Zoe was eliminated, naturally, but maybe they gave her a walking frame or some thermal underwear to make her feel better about her age.

Don't miss tonight's episode at 9pm on ANT1, when THIS happens:

Flash Gordon

2010-10-11T11:10:00.003+03:00

Today I had quite a weird experience. Half asleep from a late arrival last night and a disrupted sleep, walking back from a hospital where my very very beloved Greek grandma is very very ill, I detoured to pop into the local AB supermarket to get things to make dinner for the family.

As I was walking along the busy main road, half asleep and trying to cope with the fact that it was still only Monday, I heard a shout. So insinctively I looked. There, next to a main road and a bus stop was a guy facing me and the rest of the world with his pants around his ankles jerking off.

Gross!

I just kept walking. I was shocked, sure, that's not what you expect to see so early on a Monday morning, but I wasn't scared since I was walking along a very busy road. Ok I was a little worried when I heard him shout after me again, not wanting his disgusting self to materialise infront of me for the money shot and so I walked a little faster.

Is it a worrying sign of our times that I didn't get all that upset? Maybe 21st Century living has removed the shock factor from such incidents, or maybe women today are better informed from an early age about these things happening. Or maybe I was too exhausted and upset about my Yiayia to care.

I went on to carry on with my morning as normal. On the scale of things, this was kind of unoriginal, pathetic and stupid and not as invasive as my run-in a few years back with a crotch grabbing jogger. Note that it was my crotch that was grabbed, not his. That was scary and upsetting.

But I did think later, while I was choosing between rictotta or cottage cheese, that I should have perhaps thrown something at him. Rocks were in plentiful supply along the path. But was a non-reaction better?

How have you dealt with such incidents if you've been unfortunate enough to deal with them?

Image: http://www.fugly.com/media/IMAGES/Funny/walmart-greeter-flasher.jpg

Recession Busting

2010-10-04T16:34:00.002+03:00

In wheelings and dealings with pals lately, I noticed two websites being mentioned again and again. Several times when we met up with friends who told us about all kinds of awesomeness they were up to, the names of these two websites kept cropping up.

And so, as we gingerly step into October, I bring you two sites that will save you a whole ton of money, tried and tested by friends of mine:

1. http://www.goldendeals.gr/

2. http://www.groupon.gr/

Simply enter your email addresses and every day you get sent an offer that you can purchase within the space of 24 hours, valid for use up to one year later. Offers include massive discounts on meals out at good restaurants, discounts on beauty treatments, gym sessions, dance lessons, manicures, pedicures, weekend trips and much more. A tiny example is the friend who told me she bought 12 Power Plate gym sessions for a total cost of EUR 60. The gym I go to offers the same thing for EUR 200. A big difference, I think you'll agree.

The only catch is the website is in Greek so if your Greek is not up to scratch, here's some motivation for you.

Sign up, it's for real and in this climate it's nice to know someone somewhere is making an effort to ensure the good people of Greece manage to still get up to fun things that are otherwise much too expensive with the price of living skyrocketing.

Image:http://www.cutlivingcosts.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/save-money-key.jpg

Life in Athens - the Sequel

2010-09-27T15:40:00.003+03:00

It's slim pickings for blogging at the moment. With nothing better to do, Athens is being replayed on a loop. So if you missed out on the truck strike, petrol shortage and general shiteous economic predictions, congratulations! Because now you get the chance to relive them all again.

As you may have noticed, there is jack shit on TV. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just replays of Jean Claude Van Damme movies, and if you live in Greece for the last 4.5 years like I have, by now you have seen his pouty face so many times it's become a form of visual waterboarding. It's as if TV execs are reclining in their leather chairs, sipping on black coffee (no milk, see above mentioned truck strike) and saying "Don't show any movie unless it's already been shown 10 times. I want the viewer to know it off by heart before seeing it again."

I went to the supermarket yesterday. It depends on where you shop, but slim pickings are abound thanks to those lovely truckers and their never ending strike. I went to Dia, which was so empty I actually felt depressed. There was practically nothing on the shelves, on account of Dia not having their own truck fleet.

The story in Carrefour and Galaxias is not as bad since they have their own private delivery trucks, but as of yesterday I was noticing gaps already, milk being the major one with pretty much half the brands of milk no longer in stock.

Where this will end is anyone's guess. Summer is drawing to a breezy close here in Athens and something tells me winter is not going to be much fun at all if things keep unfolding this way. It's got to the point where I don't even want to watch the news any more because I'm so sick of the constant misery mongering that's going on.

So I tried to think of something positive, like kittens, but even that reminded me of the one eyed teeny tiny little black feral kitten that I found not having a super fun time in the yard with our dog. Some cat parents are so irresponsible. A few days later I saw him dumped near a tree on the footpath again, with mama cat watching on nonchalantly. She's probably a cat crackhead. The family seem to have moved on since.

Anyway, kittens!

Image: http://static.rbytes.net/fullsize_screenshots/c/a/cats-and-kittens-screensaver.jpg

The Doctor Will See You Now

2010-09-16T11:05:00.002+03:00

"Bollybutton, you can't just expect people to be nice to you."

This was my mother's advice when I called her days after moving to London, complaining about how miserable and mean everyone was. I thought about it again this morning when I had to go into a hospital to get some test run. Just routine stuff, it's just that I spent nearly 2 years looking for a good doctor, and when I found him he sadly turned out to work in a private hospital.

Doctors are ten a penny in Athens, but a good one, one who listens to you and has a good reputation is really difficult to find. Most doctors here (maybe like anywhere) are of the opinion of "I know best and screw you if you disagree".

I won't name names, but when I got there, it felt like walking into a lunatic asylum. Chaos! Noise! Lights! I felt like a little ant lost in a big jungle and then it occurred to me - I've never been to a hospital on my own before, and never in my life to have tests run. A doctor father and nurse mother has that affect - my father operated on me when I had my appendix taken out and they took me home the same day, on account of having a mini hospital at home anyway. This was when we were still living in the Home Country - it's totally not okay to do that in the UK.

The receptionists were total bitches and told me the exact opposite of what I'd been told on the phone by another receptionist. After bungling around for a bit, I found the department I needed, and the receptionists there were total bitches too. They acted like they were doing me the biggest favour in the world to book me a slot with the microbiologists.

All in all, it was pretty horrible. "You're not a customer yet" Mr Zeus said. "When you're a customer they'll be fawning all over you." Which is true. Private hospitals are huge business in Greece and the way you are treated depends pretty much on how big and expensive your procedure is.

Bollybutton, I said to myself, you're not a baby any more. Time to take responsibility for yourself. Sure, it's nice to be at the point where my Greek is good enough to make appointments and discuss (up to a point) procedures and terminology, but beyond that, going into a private hospital confirmed everything I'd always feared about them. I was super grateful to come home and brood over a cup of tea. Phew!

Image: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lc8e1y0d-yo/TBTbJzBw8kI/AAAAAAAAAnY/6Y7qyjxLfTo/s320/EvilNurse1.jpg

Not the Summer Time of our Lives

2010-09-07T10:30:00.003+03:00

So here we are now in September in Greece, the time of year when we all start wishing each other a good Autumn.

This is something I never thought I would ever say after weeping through 10 whole years of British summers, but I'm glad summer is coming to a close here in Greece. This summer for some reason seemed more exhausting than fun. None of the charms of summer seemed to catch anyone's attention. It's hard to enjoy a day at the beach when you will pay an arm and a leg for the entrance to the beach, the sun beds, a frappe and a bite to eat.

The country in general was in a bad mood, no one felt like having fun, no one I know went shopping with any real dedication, we had losses of loved ones and multiple exam failures (failed twice now, and counting) and as usual all my friends buggered off during the summer, leaving people like me who went on holiday late this year moping around their deserted neighbourhoods.

So, dare I say it, I'm waiting for summer to get on with it and leave already. It sucked me dry this year, and I'm normally summer's number one fan.

Hope you're all getting back into gear as Athens begins to revive after the holidays, and thank God for that!

Jewels of the Summer!

2010-08-19T13:11:00.002+03:00

This year has been a particularly sparse one for my favourite fruit, mangoes. Not that they weren't around, I was too busy to go get them from Menandrou Street.

This is going to be a really short post to let you know that last night, when I was on Korinthias Street heading to Salamat market, I passed a shop called Roxanne that was still selling juicy sweet mangoes from the Home Country. Surprising as by this time of the year, I really didn't think they'd be anything left to export.

So anyway, I paid nearly EUR 20 for 8 mangoes, which is a ridiculous amount to pay and I admit it, but if you want to catch mango season right at its tail end, go NOW to Roxanne and get your mangoes before you're gone. The guy in the shop said this would be the last week he had them. if you love mangoes, you will not regret it.

Anarchist Groups Celebrate End of Petrol Shortage

2010-08-02T11:23:00.004+03:00

Anarchist groups across Greece broke into spontaneous celebrations today as the end of the week-long trucker strike was announced.

The strike which led to severe shortages of petrol across the whole country, with 80-90% of all petrol pumps running dry, has been wildly unpopular in a country where ones right to strike is usually begrudgingly supported no matter how much inconvenience it causes.

Tourists and the Greek public alike had their holidays ruined by the lack of petrol leaving them stranded at home or far away from home.

But the lack of petrol caused particular distress to the country's very active anarchist factions.

Petrol is an important ingredient - some might say THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT ingredient in the Greek anarchist's calling card, the Molotov cocktail. 99.9% of anarchists surveyed agreed it was impossible to petrol bomb a shop or car without petrol.

"I've been fielding calls all week from young anarchists searching for an alternative, viable source of fuel for molotov cocktails" said Yiannis Thanassos of the Greek Anarchist Hotline.

"People were panicking and making all kinds of stupid enquiries about things that are just not viable fuel"

Not viable fuel

"It shows the level of desperation young Greek anarchists felt. This strike almost ruined our plans for a summer of mayhem!" he added angrily.

But the general feeling in Athens this morning was one of relief as the blockade was lifted and petrol pumps restocked.

"This is a great day for all anarchists," said Maria, 19. "Without petrol, works of anarchy like the Syntagma Christmas Tree of 2008 would not be possible."

Stavros, 21 said "Those pelicans in Florida or wherever it is can go to hell! Hooray for petrol!"

Stop being such a drama queen!

A spokesperson for the Greek Anarchist Youth Club confirmed that the end of the blockade would be celebrated with a Molotov cocktail making contest tonight at their headquarters.

Disclaimer: I don't think this strike was particularly funny, seeing as it ruined the much awaited holidays for so many people. I don't think oil spills are funny either. This disclaimer is to make my views clear and protect me from people with no sense of humour.
Image: http://www.how-to-take-care-of-a-hamster.com/hamster1.jpg

Get Thee to the Gym

2010-07-29T19:10:00.004+03:00

At the risk of this post rating so low on the average reader's I-give-a-shit-about-this scale to as not even register, I joined a gym!

Actually, I joined a gym five months ago now. What can I say, something about the looming 28th birthday must have spurred me into action. I spent my whole life until 24 eating whatever the hell I wanted and not gaining a micogram. Seriously, I used to eat fried lunches every day simply because I could. I never skipped desert when eating out and baptised all my cake in baths of double cream. Just because I frickin' could! Thems was the days!

But to my own shock and horror it occurred to me that these happy circumstances might not continue forever, after turning 25 and the appearance of everyone's best friend, cellulite. Especially since fitting into the first pair of jeans I ever bought in Athens is now nothing but a distant dream. I couldn't even get half a butt cheek into them any more, so I got rid of them, by the way, lest they make me feel bad about myself.

I decided to join the nearest gym I could find, knowing myself to be much too lazy to take a bus trip to a cheaper one, and all sorts of hilarity ensued. "I'm interested in your evening classes" I exclaimed, innocent still of what was to follow.

The trainer looked me up and down. "Have you been to a gym before?" he asked.

"Never!"

"You might not survive the classes then."

Day one and the trainer took me around the equipment and made me do a few sets of exercises on the various machines. Yes, I was so unfit I actually had to be prepped for about a month before they made me a programme.

It didn't go too badly until we got onto doing leg curls. I tried one. "Oh God!" I wailed "I can't do this! Can you take some more weight off? I'm dying!"

The trainer said "Um... there aren't any weights on there. You're just working with the weight of the machine." Feeling like my thighs would snap off and slide down my knees, I persevered.

At the end of session one, the trainer warned me I might feel sore the next morning. I did feel a little sore the following day but nothing I couldn't handle, I thought valiantly, envisioning being able to crack open walnuts with my thighs in a week's time. Session two went much like session one. And the next morning I felt like every muscle in my body had been lovingly bathed in acid all night.

The pain! I thought I would never walk again. And yet I had to still keep going to the gym in order to stop it getting worse. I wondered when I stopped loving myself enough to voluntarily inflict so much suffering on my poor body.

Anyway, that was a good few months ago and believe it or not, I love the gym now. Here are some interesting things I have observed about my local Athenian gym (though it's not like I ever went to another one in the UK to be able to compare):

1. The serious people go in the morning. That's when you'll find me too, but only because I know if I leave it the rest of the day I will talk myself out of exercising

2. People bring their toddlers with them! I've seen this more than once. If you tried that in the UK someone would come screaming at you with a Health and Safety manual.

3. The beefcakes go in the evening and hog all the machines and make constipated sounds

4. The chicks hunting for beefcakes go in the evening too, with perfect hair and makeup. They consistently fail to work up a sweat. I admire their determination for beefcake baiting - gyms are expensive to join.

5. The male trainers are much easier on you than the female ones. But the female ones are much more understanding of what you want to achieve and determined to get you there dead or alive. Most likely dead in my case.

So there you have it. I can add "Joining a gym and following a gym programme in Greek" to my list of things I have achieved in my continuing, ever expanding adventure of life in Greece.

Image: http://cdn.smosh.com/smosh-pit/4/body-5.jpg

Greek Government Says Everything Now a Luxury!

2010-07-23T18:29:00.006+03:00

The Greek government this month raised Value Added Tax from 21% to 23% and is considering doing away with the 11% tax bracket for non luxury items like food.

"We're asking the Greek people to be a little patient while we ride out this crisis'" said Prime Minister George Papandreou, "This means making a few more sacrifices, like food."

Luxurious

Fashion student Maria, 19, agreed that food is overrated. "Which is why I try to get by on fresh air. The fashion industry is a bitch."

But shoppers at Greek supermarkets were less than enthusiastic. A housewife who wished not to be named said she was still coming to shop, filling her trolley and then emptying it again. "Sort of like shopping bulimia" she added.

Stavros Spyridakis, 29, free camping in the national gardens added "I'm not free camping. This is the only place I can afford to live now. But I guess it's for my own good, as the government says."

A spokesperson for the KKE Communist party of Greece blamed the bourgeois upper classes for witholding the food and driving up the prices in collaboration with the US and Israel, while the far right party, LA.OS insisted it had hard evidence that the immigrants were operating on a stealth policy of starving ethnic Greeks out of existence.

They made a giant curry out of all the food. Try eating that, Niko!

Meanwhile the government appealed for calm and insisted this new measure was for a better, more stable and happier Greece. Greek nationals all agree that they can't recall being unhappy in the first place.

Julia, Please make another Sex Tape!

2010-07-15T15:19:00.009+03:00

All everyone is talking about these days is the deepening economic crisis. So far, we've played it down, but I think the time has come to admit that yes, it is that bad.

A walk around my neighbourhood reveals shop after shop that has closed and let the premises out. The most tragic of these closures was the clothes shop in my neighbourhood that sold extremely ugly, extremely expensive clothes. It was also named Up Just. No matter how many times I turned it around in my head I couldn't understand what they were trying to get at with a name like that. I guess someone really did just pull it out of their ass.

Up Just was more than a bastion of ugliness, it was the source of many laughs from visitors and a useful landmark for giving directions to my house. Many was the summer evening when I would pass it and be impressed that the clothes had got even uglier (T-shirt with a picture of some girl, seemingly taken with a webcam, anyone?) and the shop that never had a single customer inside.

Personally I always believed it was a money laundering operation. That, and this Chinese restaurant downtown that I have NEVER seen a single customer dining in, and I've passed it nearly every Wednesday for four years now.

On the plus side, the sales have not really stopped since the winter, resulting in prices that are actually close to what the stores should be charging anyway. For example, a Body Shop body brush that costs GBP 7 in the UK costs EUR 14 in Athens. With a 50% sale, it comes pretty much on par with the UK price.

Sadly, supermarkets do not do blowout sales. And that's a shame, because we can all cut a few corners but when it comes to food, we can't look at out bills and say "No more food this month, kids! We'll survive on fresh air and love!" Supermarkets in Greece are some of the most expensive in Europe. A typical monthly shop costs me about EUR 200, and that's just staple items, not a trolley full of champagne. Brand loyalty has gone out the window. I just buy what's cheapest, and I think everyone else is doing the same.

Tourism is down, despite the GBP 200 for 7 nights, all inclusive to Kos and other such places that I saw in the UK. Not in my wildest dreams could I get that deal internally - it would be cheaper to fly to the UK and then fly back on such a package holiday. That's just wrong! Think about the hotel owners making jack shit out of deals like that. As Flubberwinkle so perfectly puts it, we live in Greece but can't afford a holiday here!

We're all bored to tears about hearing that the economy is getting worse and worse, and I don't think we've hit the bottom yet. Everyone expects the end of the summer to reveal to us just how shiteous the situation we find ourselves in really is. So enjoy the summer because it's going to be a bumpy ride this Autumn!

I leave you with a song close to all our hearts right now.

Where Everyone Knows Your Name

2010-07-12T11:07:00.005+03:00

Yesterday I had my first swim of the year! Okay, I'll be honest. I had my first dipping my buttocks in the sea of the year. I took the 171 bus with my friend A to the end of the line in Varkiza and shoe horned myself onto the free beach there, which was more packed than usual thanks to the economic crisis. Pay for the beach? Are you joking?

The 171 was packed, packed with rowdy teenagers too broke to get to the beach any other way. At one point, close to Varkiza it got too much. I started to feel faint and elbowed my way off the bus before spilling into a nearby souvlaki shop, asking for the bathroom.

"Hey," said the guy "You're Bollybutton, aren't you?"

And it turned out that we knew each other through my friend A. Ah, Athens, the city where everyone knows your name! After a splash of water and something cold to drink, we set off on foot to complete our journey.

I left it much too late to take the first swim this year. But all that is coming to an end thanks for having officially failed my Exam from Hell, so I'm not studying for a while. I just enjoyed the sea and her charms, laying back on our towel with A and admiring the blue sky and scatterings of beautiful curly clouds. When on the beach in Greece, life doesn't seem so bad no matter how much you hate your job.

Speaking of which, remember my grand ambitions a few months ago about leaving my job? Well, they came to nothing. I pimped my CV all over the place and got no replies. Conversations with friends revealed that absolutely everyone, Mr Zeus included, hates their job but doesn't dare change it, or if they have tried they are getting no where. Jobs are mysteriously being posted and then not given out. Strangely, realising that jumping ship is not an option when you're jumping off into a shark infested sea has actually made me sober up and get serious. I hate my job, so does just about everyone else on the planet. No big deal. Someone once told me you can do anything you want in life, but not everything you want in life.

Prices are skyrocketing in Greece, pays are being slashed but still somehow people are getting by. As the lady in the post office said with a shrug "This is Greece. We've been through worse!"

On a side note, I have noticed lots of lovely emails in my bollybutton@gmail.com address. Can I just apologise for the late replies to them, if you've sent a question and need an answer, drop me a comment here so I check my mail and Bollybutton, Agony Aunt will be getting back to you soon.

Clothes Maketh the Man

2010-07-09T09:12:00.007+03:00

It's funny the details you remember when under pressure. I was told on a Thursday night that things with Granny were not good, and I should come immediately. I took the first flight I could get on on Friday morning. At least I made it in time.

Over the next two weeks, I was amazed by the rubbish I had packed. A meagre supply of mismatched clothes, enough underwear to force me into a wash-and-wear cycle for two weeks, only one pair of smart shoes and incense sticks. Incense sticks? I mean, really.

On the funeral itself, I had picked out a dress the day before that looked to me like a smart pink shift dress that could be worn in the office too. That is until I sat down and discovered the artful fold in the side was a split that showed no shame and mercy once one was sitting. It rode up embarassingly high.

As for my office, I had taken one pair of office trousers which I promptly got paint on. So I turned up for a few days at work in some rather fanciful combinations that I hoped would pass as office attire. Rather helpfully, my department has been banished to the ground floor so I didn't have to explain the unhappy reasons for my less than snappy dressing.

***

Speaking of clothes... in the Home Country we have a saying: when the fox gets her tail chopped off, she tries to encourage all her pals to go get theirs cut off too.

Ever since my godson's mother popped the much beloved sprog, she has been trying to get me to do the same. This has culminated in her sending over all the clothes he has grown out of while I was gone. Guys, I am not joking when I tell you there is a mountain of baby things in my doorway. An absolute mountain.

I was supposed to start looking through it this weekend and organise it into piles. But I don't know where to start. Especially with my own potential offspring still being no more than a twinkle in my eye (as my Dad puts it), I don't feel particularly motivated.

But she did tell me that many people have asked her for these things over the years, but she's kept everything just for me. It is a lovely gesture, something you would do for your sister. Should the time ever come, our expenses for stockpiling ammunition would stand at nearly zero since she's included valuable items like a stroller (though this is useless in the car infested pavements of Athens) and a baby seat.

When I used to live in London, I used to wander over to Camden market on the weekend and check things out. I remember one stall that specialised in tie dye baby clothes. Since my lack of creativity has probably led to exam failure, I think I will let rip on this stash of white and blue clothes and turn them into items of dizzyingly colourful delight.

Yeah, I know. My poor future children. Don't feel too sorry for them, they didn't stand much of a chance. The universe tried to spare them by giving me all the normal, conventional baby clothes they could want, but forgot that I have an A at A Level Textiles. Mwahahahaha! And anyway, studies show* that a hippy upbringing is more likely to turn a child into a successful and boring career person.

*I have no evidence to back up this claim

Image: Image: http://cottages4you.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/packing-list.jpg

Where Have I Been?

2010-07-07T10:12:00.003+03:00

Hello chums. I've just got back from a hellish, unscheduled two week trip to the UK. Reason being my grandmother died. I won't delve into family politics, suffice to say the whole experience was roundly awful. The death took place two weeks ago, yet the Church only had time to do the funeral last Thursday.

My poor mother's carefully planned funeral was ruined by a last minute speech by a drunk relative. To top it all, I then sat an exam on Monday which went terribly and finally flew out on Tuesday night. I give this tripe -250 out of 10.

When I landed very early this morning and the first blast of warm air hit my face, I cried great big tears of relief at being back in my dear city, Athens.

This morning things feel strange and disjointed. I can't find things in my kitchen where I'd left them. But I do want to apologise for abandoning you all. I was too busy studying to blog, or even go swimming. I still haven't set foot in the sea.

But since my well planned strategy of 100% study and 0% fun has probably yielded a big fat fail, I am now going back to my normal schedule of blogging and general merriment.

It's good to see you all!

Save Greece. Holiday here

2010-06-02T08:32:00.004+03:00

Many, many moons ago, when I was still trying to adjust to the Mad Hatter's tea party that is life in Greece, a song irritated the hell out of me.

Proof that I have officially settled in Greece is that when this song plays, I am the one who is first on the dancefloor.

So, people of the world, we are in economic meltdown. A ton of you have cancelled your holidays after seeing the riots in Greece which, let me assure you, are a national sport and nothing out of the ordinary. Think of the interesting postcards home getting caught in a riot would make!

It's in your hands to keep us afloat this summer. Come to Greece! We need your tourist euros/dollars/yen!

Still not convinced??

Eurovision 2010: Nil Points to Europe for taste in music

2010-05-31T08:27:00.003+03:00

I *heart* Eurovision, though after all these years, even I know Eurovision is not a search for Europe's best song. It's a popularity contest.

Still, I was not ready for Germany's asstastic song to win. And I'll tell you why. There were much better singers at Eurovision on Saturday. The best of the lot was the Georgian entry. I give you exhibit A:

That girl has the best voice live I've heard in a long time. I've paid vast amounts of Euros to see celebrities that don't even come close to how talented she is. Compare this to the winning German entry:

Huh? This won? The mockney cockney accent? A song about blue underwear? If I were the Georgian entry, I would have killed myself. Talk about a slap in the face. I don't care what anyone else might say, this song sucks ass big time.

I knew that Greece didn't have a winning song, so my hopes didn't lie there, though well done to them for getting in the top 10 and delivering the first peppy song of the night, otherwise we'd all be stuck on a one way trip to Ballad City.

If you ask anyone in Greece you won't find many fans of the German song, partly because of Angela Merkel and partly because the song was a stinker. I would have preferred anyone to win, anyone except Germany.

I thought the Romanian entry was really good (minus the opera bit):

Armenia was represented by a booblicious relative of the Kardashians. She would have won but sadly they forgot that women and gay men make up Eurovision's biggest audience, therefore making fabulous breasts pretty much redundant. Write that on a post-it next time.

But it was the French song that I thought deserved win because it was so fun and with Eurovision coming so late in the year, it really got you into the mood for summer.

But no, Europe! You voted a totally lame song to win, thus proving in spades that you have no taste! France's entry was probably too good for Eurovision anyway.

And so for yet another year the Eurovision song contest is stuck in a frigid North European country. It's getting too much. At this rate I'll never go to Eurovision!*

So Greece, here is my proposal to you, my recipe for a winning formula. The last two years we sent men dressed in white and didn't get anywhere with it. I propose the following strategy:

1. Send more girls. It seems to get more votes and at least adds colour to the stage

2. Send a transvestite. It worked for Israel that one time

3. Send a novelty act like Finland did with Lordi, thus getting the highest votes ever on Eurovision.

*You're rightly thinking "But Bollybutton you moron, if France won Eurovision would be stuck in North Europe again, so where's the logic. I have friend in France so I could have gone to this and stayed with them. Life is not fair!

Tango Pimping

2010-05-24T10:02:00.004+03:00

This is kind of an irrelevant post with all that's gone on in Greece. What can I say that hasn't been said already? There are plenty of other blogs covering this perfectly well. Last night I was at a show and while I was watching, I thought it would make good blog fodder. So here you go.

I shall not name any names, suffice to say it was a tango show and I went to support my brilliant and long-suffering tango teacher. I thought he was the best dancer, and always give him extra brownie points for tolerating my complete inability to progress in tango.

Now, we all know the history of tango and how it began in the brothels of Argentina, blahdy blah blah, and that tango is serious and dark and full of people making orgasm faces. Whatevs, said I, and went along for some light entertainment.

This is how it played out. Here's the story:

La Vie en Rose is playing. That must mean we're in Paris, chérie! A bunch of tango peeps are sitting in a cafe and enjoying themselves. They then break into spontaneous tango. Hurrah! Tango over, they go sit down. But, quelle horreur ! What is this? The hot waitress is being molested by a customer! He proceeds to rip off her skirt and tango-molest her. Then he decides he's packing this hot tottie off to Argentina with him. I could see it coming. She looked too happy.

Nooo wails the waitress, and the waiter tries in vain to wrestle her away from the evil Argentine, but he succeeds in taking her away. See, when I read that in the programme I thought they fall in love and run away to Argentina. But oh well. Kidnapping is good too.

The scene changes. On the boat over from Paris, the kidnapped and molested waitress gets a change of wardrobe and a lobotomy, because now she's totally happy to be hanging out with her kidnapper in Buenos Aires. But hark... all the other women here are prostitutes, and the head hooker ain't having none of this. She marches over to the evil Argentine and they dance, of course.

Dancing over, the fawning waitress is thrown to the group of hookers and then she realises she's been trafficked. Heinous!

Much tango dancing ensues along with looks of anguish from the waitress who is being dressed by all the other happy hookers of Buenos Aires. She's all weepy and stuff until she spots her pimp again, and then she's all "Yay there's my pimp!" Lots of hugs and dancing ensue.

The scene changes. Waitress has again decided she's pretty pissed at her involuntary change of career and delivers a passionate modern dance interpretation of her misery. Then the waiter from Paris appears and they're both like "OMG where have you been all this time! Let's go back to Paris."

But oh no, you guys! There's the pimp again! And he's not letting go of his prize cash cow. Dance fighting ensues, the waitress tries to flee onto a boat, and is stabbed by the jealous head hooker and DIES!

The End.

And now what's happening? Everyone is dancing again. So is this part of the show or what? Are they in heaven now? If so, why is everyone wearing black? Or is Hell this tangotastic?

I was sitting there, feeling totally depressed by all this. The dancing was great, no question, and the live music absolutely wonderful. But jeez, people. I came out to have my spirits lifted and ended up thinking about human trafficking, and that made me feel sad.

Of Mountains and Moros

2010-05-14T14:13:00.004+03:00

I swear you guys I have been so busy that my inspiration is gone, squeezed out like a lemon lying tossed in the garbage outside a taverna. There is just no more room in my brain for creativity thanks to studying for work related exams. I've buckled down so that I can be exam free before summer gets into full swing. Nothing is more misery inducing than studying while everyone else is hanging out at the beach.

I will just say thanks for still checking in. This is turning out to be my year of re-evaluation and freakishly hard work. I'm trying not to sweat the small stuff and focus on the big picture.

Since I have nothing much to blog about, I will use this space and time that I have available to complain and say yes, I am still the only person who got married last year without a baby. but that's not my complaint. The babies are pouring out of our pals like it's going out of style. It's some kind of Babygeddon.

And with that in mind, to all those so helpfully pointing out my lack of a baby and who seem to think that reminding me of this will spur me into action ("A baby? Why didn't I I think of that! And Mr Zeus is not going to be young forever? What a revelation!") I ask you to click here.

Now you're probably thinking "But Bollybutton, weren't you yourself desperate for a baby a while ago? What's with all the evil hag-like behaviour?" and you'd be right, and I was, but since I can't procreate on my own, aphid style, I got over it. And I would be the first to advocate the joys of children in a home and parenthood etc etc, but if I go visit one more set of friends with a new baby that says "You guys should have a baby." and then look only at me, I will scream. Or I'll just ask them what time they got up today.

What's with the "You GUYS" line but looking only at me? Do I look like a magical human freak that can procreate solo?

Seriously, there's only so many times you can hear the same damn line over and over again before wanting to stuff Little Junior's pipila in your ears.

That's all. Back to studying. I hope to resurface in a more pleasant and creative mood.

Been Busy

2010-05-04T11:34:00.003+03:00

But I will get back to posting soon. In the last few weeks my free time has dwindled to nothing, but I have baby posts scribbled all over bits of paper in snatched moments, so thank you for visiting and rest assured I am going to get back to posting once I have a few spare minutes!

BB

x

Sparkle Dust

2010-04-06T11:47:00.004+03:00

Since I have nowt all to blog about at the moment and just to let you know I didn't eat myself into oblivion (though I came pretty close), here we are.

It's been hugely depressing to wake up for work again after the long weekend, especially considering there was only one day when I actually slept in. The rest I was up at an ungodly hour to use the time and finish up dozens of half baked projects.

So let's be cheerful today and hope that a blistering summer is on its way. Because I'm getting tired of these low 20s temperatures.

Time to get random.

Even a crushing workload seems possible...

After all, I have a magic sword

And my feline abilities are second to none

Evil shall not conquer so long as there are kittens in the world!

Images:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3001/2802166792_90ce71bc7e.jpg
http://reallycoolstuff.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/funny-kittens-preview-thumb.jpg

Reaching Out

2010-03-23T11:10:00.007+02:00

This is a post for the ladies, and the men who care.

Imagine this: you are in a foreign country. You don't speak the language. This country has a reputation of being quite safe and the locals are known for their friendliness. A stranger approaches you and offers to show you the ruins. It's broad daylight in public, so what could go wrong?

He offers you a bite of something he's eating, a local type of food, and you think what the hell, a little bit wouldn't hurt. After all he's eating it too.

Then everything gets hazy. Snow White's poisoned apple. You lose track of time and yourself and wake up in a strange room, alone with this man. He has drugged you and you have no idea what else he has done. You, your body which is precious and sacred to you, which you take care of and choose with love who you give it to - you have no idea what this stranger did to it and why he treated you with so little value. Like you were a nothing, a nobody.

Even if you were not raped, someone put something in your blood without your consent, took you somewhere you didn't want to go. You take care of yourself, there are people out there who love you. A fiance who is making plans to marry you.

What gave this man the right to do that to you?

On a scale of one to ten, how terrified would you be? Can you imagine this scenario? I can't, most of us can't because it's an unlucky few that have gone through the ordeal of having their body violated.

This is the story of Natalie Karneef, who came to Athens in 2005 and went through what I just described on the second day of her holiday of a lifetime. Her trial was due to begin this month, but the Greek courts have postponed it. To 2011. To start with, it was over 24 hours before she was able to find a hospital in Athens willing to run a rape exam on her. Then an agonising three months to see if she had been infected with an STD, or even worse, HIV.

This is unacceptable. The man they caught in connection with what happened to her had done the same 4 other foreign women. Unfortunately, there still exists a certain school of thought amongst certain men in Greece that foreign women are fair game.

I must say though that although assholes exist the world over, I did not expect the Greek courts to have the same attitude. Bah. She's a foreigner. No one in Greece to make a big deal of it for her. So what. They have sex with strangers on holiday all the time and then come crying to us afterwards that it was rape.

For shame. I say that not as a foreign woman in Greece. I say that as a woman. I say that as a sister. What if this had happened to Mr Zeus's niece? Or one of my Greek friends from bellydance class? Or my little sisters when they came here on holiday one summer?

What if it happened to someone you knew? What if it happened to you? This man has been left to roam the streets free once more, despite being convicted of other rapes. Us women who live in Athens could be coming into contact with him during our daily lives. Doesn't that thought make you feel completely revolted?

The Greek courts are a law onto themselves. There is not a lot we can do to make them take the issue of the abuse of women seriously.

We can, though, show our support to Natalie. She is one voice who wants to be heard out of God knows how many that choose to stay silent. I know that if this had happened to me, most likely I wouldn't have pursued it. Especially in a foreign country. I just don't have the courage and strength to last as long as she has.

So please, let's show her some support and drop in on her blog. Leave a comment, no matter who you are or where you are from. Let's let her know we are thinking of her and supporting her stuggle.

UPDATE: If you are a female blogger reading this, I ask you to link Natalie's blog in one of your posts. Let's look out for our fellow sisters. Let's not let this be a case of "There's nothing we can do." We can keep up to date with this case, and when it comes around again in January 2011 we can be present outside court. Numbers speak, maybe the judge will take notice.

Image; http://th07.deviantart.net/fs49/300W/i/2009/172/9/3/snow_white__s_poisoned_apple_by_daughterofthemist.jpg

Intergalactic, Planetary

2010-03-16T11:03:00.003+02:00

I spent all day yesterday convincing myself not to lie in the middle of the road waiting for a car to run me over, and much to my surprise everyone I spoke to felt miserable yesterday. It must be something to do with the energy in the air, the feeling that Spring was so close, close enough to smell, before it disappeared again, the lining up of the planets throwing bad energy around and having the TV choice of more bad news on the economy and Julia's fame-whoring.

On the first point at least this morning I took matters into my own hands and helped the Greek economy by going shopping. My target was Greek shoe temple, Migato. I adore Migato because they sell overpriced shoes according to winter and summer seasons, and once a season is over, they drop their prices so low I can actually afford them.

Thank God for fashion's stupid slavery to seasons.

So today I took advantage of their gracious offer of any two pairs of winter boots for EUR 50 and bought four new pairs of boots for EUR 100.

There you go, EU, I just paid some precious tax euros into the Greek economy! Time to give us a break.

Into the Blues

2010-03-15T10:15:00.002+02:00

I admit it. As of the last few days, despite fighting against it, I have sunk into a terrible depression. Yesterday we invited some dinner guests over, and I spent hours and hours cooking. But I was unhappy, so nothing turned out right and I refused to serve any of it to my hapless guests. We ordered pizza instead.

Today I have woken up utterly miserable again. The cold and cloudy weather is not helping, either.

I hate feeling this way. Mr Zeus is always telling me to snap out of these miserable spells, but it's easier said than done. When I feel this way I can't do anything. Work seems like an impossible task (and it is, since the job hunting is going from bad to worse and so I am stuck for the foreseeable future in an utterly soul-destroying job) even doing nothing feels impossible. I can't sit still without all sorts of dark and miserable thoughts crashing around my brain, or running through checklists of all the unfinished projects I have running.

Life is good. So why do I feel so hopeless today?

Here's hoping the weather gets warmer soon.

Image: http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs30/f/2008/055/5/7/sad_bunny_by_mariaesthetics.jpg

Look Into My Eyes

2010-03-12T13:56:00.003+02:00

In a belated tribute to International Women's Day, I must say: Where can one acquire this fabulous accessory???

Forehead Tittaes w/ Marion Cotillard from Marion Cotillard, William Fichtner, Jake, Taraji P Henson, Leslie Ann Warren, and Seth - Video- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

Economy and Pornography are Greek words

2010-03-08T09:11:00.003+02:00

On Friday night I passed a Greek-living milestone. I went to my first bouzoukia at Frangelico. It's been almost four years since I moved to Greece and in all that time, Mr Zeus has never taken me to something like this. For those who don't know, bouzoukia clubs are your typical grass roots Greek entertainment - a club with live singing and music, usually very emotional and dramatic, where in the past plates were smashed on the stage to show appreciation of the performer.

These days, plates have been replaced with over priced trays of carnations. I've got to say, as corny as the whole set up struck me, I am a glutton for cheese and campness and I LOVED it!! Okay, it's not something I would do every night, but it was still hugely entertaining and completely different to any night out I've ever had.

Frangelico is frequented by some Athens celebrities, and on the night we spotted the mayor who married us and that mean chef from Efialtis Sthn Kouzina. And would you believe it, he was wearing a baseball cap even inside a dark club.

Anyway, at one point one of the performers took a break from singing, looked out into the crowd and said , "Ah... Julia.." at which point everyone broke into applause and a hand in the crowd shot up waving a DVD.

With everyone in Athens getting tired of talking about the shiteous economic situation, one of Greece's Queens of Skank, Model/Singer/Whatever Julia Alexandratou did us all a favour and released a sex tape of herself.

Okay so she claims it was done without her consent, but I'm not buying. According to her this was a private moment. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but personally my private moments tend not to happen with a professional camera man and a professional porn actor.

Furthermore, she claims someone did the same thing to her in the past and she didn't go public that time. Eh.. if it bothered you that much the first time, surely something in your brain would say letting a cameraman into your bedroom again is a bad idea? Or not? Dunno.

Within hours of the news breaking, everyone with internet access had seen the tape. That's the thing with porn in Greece, at least those out of Mr Zeus' generation don't take it seriously. It's watched to be laughed at, not to draw inspiration from. It was the number one topic at our dinner party on Thursday.

Normally, I avoid porn because you can never be sure who is exploiting who, and it's so obviously fake I don't see the attraction. But celebrity porn is considered fair game and even I watched it, and here's my verdict: she was stoned out of her brains, looked really bored, and it was too well filmed and edited to be an amateur job.

Actually, I listened to more of it than I watched because most of it was so boring. Eventually I got tired of that too and skipped along the tape to see what it contained. Your standard stuff really, some oohing and aahing, a bit of this, a bit of that and the money shot. Ta da. It's not rocket science, and you should think twice about denying something that is so obviously professional.

Especially when there are photos of you circulating with two representatives from the biggest porn production company in Greece! I mean, really Julia! No one is buying your story!

But everyone is buying your DVD. On Saturday as I walked through the vegetable market outside my house, someone was shouting "Two kilos of potatoes for two euros, and a free DVD of Julia!"

Oh well. At least we all got a brief break from talking about the economy.

I Got Told!

2010-03-03T09:15:00.003+02:00

When I pitch articles, they usually disappear into a yawning chasm of silence. Sometimes, I get a rejection email, sometimes I get an email saying write us 2000 words for $5. I share them with you here in order to pick at my scabs and strengthen my resolve that I don't care if my article was totally not appropriate for your magazine genre, one day you will beg me to write anything, anything at all for you!

This is the first one as of yesterday and Bollybutton's Quest to Make a Living From Writing:

Olive Magazine:

Dear Bollybutton,

Many thanks for your email and idea.

I'm afraid this idea would not be appropriate for Olive at this time. Please look carefully at the structure and format of the magazine before submitting ideas to ensure they are appropriate to the publication.

Many thanks,

So and So

May I punctuate this post with the following song, dedicated lovingly to myself. Nothing but death will stop me trying to make it as a writer, so take that, rejection letters!!

Sugar Smooth

2010-03-03T09:01:00.003+02:00

Hope just posted something about her hairy legs (sorry, girl, there was no delicate way to put this) and it got me thinking. As a hairy Asian girl, I know which direction every follicle on my waxable surfaces points. I could wax with my eyes closed. And yes, I do it all myself because I don't want Anita at the salon taking a look and shouting, "Cancel all my appointments! This one's going to take me all day!"

I recently cracked the technique of making my own sugar wax. This is a really ancient method of hair removal involving a sugary goo and strips of cotton. What, did you think waxing was a modern invention?

I take equal parts water, sugar and lemon juice and boil them down in a pan until they turn caramel coloured. Sadly, here I can offer no advice on timings etc. It took me a lot of wasted sugar to get a feel for when the paste was done. I keep a plate near the pan and drip the syrup onto it at intervals, then I rub it between my fingers and when it gets to the right texture that's how I know I'm done.

This home made sugar wax isn't as effective as the usual waxes, but it has one major advantage: it's 100% natural and you know exactly what went into it. Plus, I don't see why we have the right to change a few thousand years of beauty wisdom. Sugar wax is the only type of wax that won't rip off the top layer of skin with it which means you can wax the same area a couple of times if you missed hairs, and the ingrown hairs are much reduced.

And finally, you can eat what's left over in the pan. Do I do this? Of course not! I'm Asian , remember? There is never anything left over in the pan! If anything you will find me scraping it with a toothpick to extract just a little bit more wax for a missed patch.

Life in Plastic

2010-03-02T11:54:00.010+02:00

Good bed linen costs stupid prices in Athens, so I literally brought back all the high quality cotton bed sheets and pillow cases that I could carry from the UK this time.

If anyone had told me 20 years ago that bed linen would become my new Barbie, I would have laughed in their face. In 1990, I was still getting high removing a new Barbie from her box and inhaling her delicious, plasticy, fresh from the box smell, stroking her hair and promptly losing her little plastic shoes.

Fast forward to 2010 and I'm pulling new bedsheets from their packaging, inhaling the fresh cottony smell and insisting Mr Zeus feel their quality.

Barbie was a big, big part of my childhood. I don't quite remember when I stopped playing with her. I do remember my first university lecture ever was about Barbie's media image, her constant career changes and her bad influence on self-image. I sat there thinking "Really?"

I felt bad. I searched my inner psyche for things I could blame on Barbie, but found nothing.

Me and my sisters had about 20 Barbies between us, and none of them left a negative mark on us. The only doll who always played the sinister role in our games was our solitary Sindi doll. That girl was bad news, with her real eyelashes and rotating wrists.

Our Barbies were in total control of their collective destinies. They did what they wanted, when they wanted. They divorced and married one of our three Kens as they wished, with no ill feelings towards the previous wives. They had spa days before battling dragons and monsters, went on expeditions and discovered new countries while the Kens were busy being idiots.

It was the Barbies who always saved the Kens from the stupid messes they got themselves into, never the other way around. In my Barbie World, Ken was an unreliable and immature moron who often had to grovel at Barbie's feet to feel worthy. I mean actually put his plastic grin to her chewed-up tippy toes. That's another thing, why were Barbie's feet so deliciously chewable? Tiny bite marks peppered her little feet and some even had extra long, bumpy fingers until my sisters and I got over eating our Barbies.

Sometimes I wonder if people give kids less credit than they deserve. I knew Barbie wasn't real and didn't have an actual life, so I had no interest at all in being like her. I certainly never undressed her and thought "I hope I have a little plastic body when I grow up". I was only concerned with throwing elaborate Barbie weddings each year, complete with hand-sown Indian wedding gowns and once, a fight with the neighbour who owned a Ken, that now my Barbie had to go live at Ken's house i.e. her house as is tradition.

Barbie was the spokesperson for the things me and my sisters had trouble expressing as just ourselves. Our Barbies would sit in a circle and conduct conferences on the various issues in our lives ("Should I change schools like Mum says?", "Shall I cut my hair short?", "Mum was mean to me. Is it a good idea to run away?")

These conferences of us three sisters (before the fourth arrived) were voted upon by raised Barbie hands. Ken's were never invited to the conferences and if they were, no one paid much attention to their opinions.

If I had a daughter, I wouldn't stop her playing with Barbie. I would take extra care not to let any fashion magazines into the house which is easy since I don't read them.

For now, I fold my new bedsheets like little Barbie outfits. I miss her sometimes. I don't think I ever truly grew out of playing with her.

Image: http://www.sfgate.com/blogs/images/sfgate/culture/2005/08/05/barbies.jpg

Walk, Walk, Fashion Baby

2010-02-16T09:35:00.007+02:00

So it's all over and I'm left wondering what I'll do with my Monday evenings now.

This is how last night's GNTM episode unfolded. The girls returned from London and started taking part in photo shoots that would decide who goes and who stays. First, they had to ski down a slope and deliver a line in Italian for a video ad campaign. Seraina was all "I can totally ski" having a Swiss mother and all that, but went on to do pretty much nothing special. The rest of the girls delivered their lines on their asses.

Next, the girls were asked to pose in bikinis in the snow. Why? Because this is Fashion, baby! It doesn't work like the normal world you and I inhabit. In Fashion World they shoot all the summer lines in the winter and all the winter lines in the summer.

At first I wondered why you wouldn't just fly across the equator for each respective season, but then I realised it's probably a very cunning ploy for people like Harry Christopoulos to say "Are you cold? Come here, I'll warm you up / Are you too hot? My hotel room has split level aircon. And a big circular bed with satin sheets. And all the tissue paper you can eat." (I have it on good authority that models do that behind the scenes at fashion shows, which leads me to wonder why they don't just eat a cucumber - equally calorie free. Go figure)

Next came a catwalk challenge for the gorgeous-haired Christophoros Kotentos, the only judge with hard-core fashion experience of the catwalk, who is also a designer and has dressed the likes of Rihanna.

The catwalk is where Ioanna and Seraina dazzled, and Monica and Maria stumbled, Maria quite literally. She lost a shoe while leaving the catwalk and instead of just carrying on on tip toes AS THEY HAD BEEN TAUGHT by Vicki Kaya, she kicked off the other shoe. Mistake. Telos panton, Monica has bow legs and walks like a camel so catwalk was never her strong point.

Then, eliminations time! The girls came before Her Royal Highness Vicki and eliminated in pairs of two. Here is where I disagreed. They paired Monica and Ioanna, Maria and Seraina. Monica and Seraina got to the final two. Ioanna should have been in the final two. Seraina won it, but it wasn't really a fair win.

When asked why they wanted to win, Monica talked about her lifelong passion for fashion and how she will work her fingers to the bone to make it, something she has already proved by getting to the final. She's not pretty, but she has slaved and sweated to make it to where she is. Seraina was all like "Yeah now that I'm here I realise how much I'd like to do this." Out of all the girls, the one who deserved least to win it on effort alone was Seraina.

She is one of the most beautiful girls, technically she is actually perfect. Great body and stunning face. But she has made practically no effort simply because she's so beautiful. She hasn't had to try at all. In every single shot, her eyes are completely flat. She's so devoid of personality that even last night as she was about to be crowned Next TV Reality Star, her emotions ran like this:

"I feel really... I can't believe it" (o_0)
"So many emotions are running through me right now" (o_o)
"I'm just so happy, so very happy" (o_o)

And when she won, she was like this (o,_o,)

Girl got nothing on the inside. She'd make a great door stopper.

Anyway, to me it was obvious that Vicki really wanted Monica to win, and I think that's why she put her through to the final two. When she spoke to Monica about how hard she has worked and how she has proven all her critics wrong and done nothing but work and work and work to improve, her eyes shone with pride.

When she spoke to Seraina, you could tell her heart wasn't in it. Okay she squeezed out a few cynical tears for Seraina's victory, but I knew it was Monica she wanted to win. She couldn't let her, most likely because Harry Christopoulos didn't want a Top Model winner he didn't feel like banging, so the next best thing she could do is let her almost win.

So that's a wrap, and proves my original theory that judge Jenny Balatsinou had no reason at all to even be there. The woman said about two words throughout the whole series, such as "I agree" and "Yes".

Seraina is the perfect reality TV star because she's beautiful and empty as a Greek church on Sunday - you can sit her infront of a camera and put whatever you want in her head and she'll say it. Monica meanwhile will pursue a serious fashion career. High fashion does not fit well with classic beauty - they like weird faces and strange concepts. That's why everyone remembers Lady Gaga's videos.

And so ends Greece's first Next Top Model. It's been fun, and I'm looking forward to the next, seeing where the Reject Debris washes up. I've already counted one former contestant at a wedding expo.

Image: http://api.ning.com/files/lJCuE6h8Nny-RReB1odYkFCwcLES20OS0E5ln0rb1yVFRXEinszH7ievpNCOhJ6ApYVh*8T-E86SMrQw27LqJfsCa67-hjf-/384747609.jpeg

Good Times Ahead!

2010-02-10T17:29:00.003+02:00

Okay. I'm probably one of Georgie's biggest fans because of how he has scrambled to keep Greece afloat while all the playground bullies are picking on us.

A whole bunch of reforms have been introduced, we are all collecting receipts like lunatics, strikes have crippled the country, costs are rising and pays are falling... and this is the only song I can think of to reflect the situation.

Top Model News

2010-02-09T10:18:00.005+02:00

Hello, fashionistas. We're nearing the end of Greece's Next Top Model and at this stage it's anyone's game. Who will be Greece's Next Top Model and enjoy a few months of fame on Star channel before disappearing again?

In last night's fun-packed episode, Ioanna, Seraina, Monica and Maria were sent off to London. Well, not Maria. She had some problems with her paperwork and wasn't allowed to board the flight. Shame. But that's the world of fashion, bitches; it waits for no one.

Anyhow, the person happiest of all was Vicki Kaya, who had orgasm after orgasm at the sheer delight of being able to throw her Queen's English around. Seriously, this woman has shown as much liveliness as a dead frog up till now, and once on the streets of London she was practically crying with joy. I've never seen her so enthusiastic. Maybe she joined the mile high club on the way over, who knows. Though with an entourage of fashion men and the persuasions of male flight attendants, I doubt that.

By the way, Vicki likes to coach the girls all the time about how they need to project more, get more into the mood of things, try harder, be the role. Well, I saw her in the Greek movie Loufa kai Paralagi where she played a soldier's girlfriend and it was excruciating to watch. She was terrible all the way through. There was a sex scene where the guy was all like "Oh yeah baby!" and Vicki was flopped on the bed looking like she was waiting for a PAP test. It had to be the unsexiest sex scene ever.

Or maybe it wasn't. If the director was shouting "No, Vicki, look like you have a rod shoved up your ass. I mean, like ALL THE TIME. Look bored like this is so not even worth your time. I want your eyes deader. No, deader than that. That's it! Perfect!" then she is a world-class actress.

Back in London, everyone loved Monica O' Man Chin. I'm starting to change my mind about her. Up until now I've wondered why the hell she's even there. She has model height but not model looks, and not model legs. But I have to say, lately I'm coming around to the idea of her winning. I don't think any of the other girls want it as badly as she does.

Her fashion knowledge of the Greek and international market is head and shoulders above any of the other girls, maybe even most of the judging panel, and she is not at all scared to let herself look ugly if that's what the photo demands. She is probably the most versatile of the bunch and has worked the hardest out of anyone to stand on an equal footing with the other girls who have an automatic advantage of being prettier than her.

Seraina is the most beautiful with the best body, but zero personality. She has nothing that would make you remember her. Ioanna take stunning pictures, but she's not versatile, and Maria seems to take most of her modelling advice from the Porn Star Book of Modelling.

So carting the girls off the London was a great idea because it showed how they would fare on an international market. In Greece, people like their models pretty. Actually, people like their models with their legs showing and lots of makeup. That's about all you have to do to call yourself a model - for example take some of the exhibitions I went to this weekend where lots of these 'models' were rolling around product stalls, attracting perverts and putting off any serious customers. One of them gave me a seriously bitchy look in the toilets.

The London market is much more into weird looks and Tyra's famous ugly/pretty concept, so they adored Monica and flushed the rest of the skinny bunch down the toilet. Yes, you can flush things down the toilets in London. It's allowed, unlike Greece, where you'd have to throw them in the bin which wouldn't have the same dramatic effect.

No one was eliminated, probably out of courtesy to Maria, and roll on next week when the final showdown takes place.

Out of all the above, even if Monica doesn't win she is the one most likely to make a serious fashion modelling career for herself. She's only 18, knows the market very well already and has got this far on sheer effort and determination alone. I can see her doing really well outside of Greece where her look is more in demand.

Write on the Money

2010-02-01T10:51:00.003+02:00

They say blogging is the forte of failed journalists. I'm the first to put my hand up and admit that! I blog because I love to write, and no one loves me enough to pay me to make it my profession. So I think about my two journalism degrees, my university room walls papered with interesting or well-written articles by admired journalists rather than Brad Pitt posters, and I wonder how come I'm blogging and there are journalists out there who get to work for the Financial Times despite knowing pretty much nothing about the Greek economy.

I say this because the analysts at work are still circulating articles about how China is going to buy Greece's debt and what would happen if Greece defaulted on their debts. I mean, people! Do a little homework! This is the Financial Times we're talking about, not a lowly blog like mine. Such wildly inaccurate information actually creates more problems than it solves.

If I worked for the Financial Times, I would work pretty damn hard to make sure I earned my employment there. That's like... one of the Holy Grails of journalism. I would certainly not simply pull stories out of my ass, and furthermore I wouldn't go chasing the head of a sovereign state up and down stairwells, trying to put words in his mouth like he was some sort of disgraced movie star.

But my biggest complaint is this! How come I know more about the Greek economy writing a blog about Bollywood and Greece's Next Top Model than a journalist for the FT who is PAID to know what they're writing about??

FT editors, if you're reading this, you can email me at bollybutton@gmail.com. Will write for bylines!

*The cartoon reads: "Our beloved friend Greece. Dies tomorrow, buried today. The Financial Times" from Greece's ΒΗΜΑ newspaper, Sunday 31 January 2010, reflecting the sentiment in the Greek press that the Financial Times is hell-bent on negative and inaccurate stories about Greece no matter what the facts might show.

Image: http://www.tovima.gr/default.asp?pid=2&artid=312620&ct=32&dt=31/01/2010

If you've Never Watched Bollywood Movies...

2010-01-27T12:20:00.001+02:00

... here's a four minute crash-course from the dynamite BBC series, Goodness Gracious Me.

I've had the 'pleasure' of meeting some Chunky Lafunga Bollywood actor types. They really are like that.

2010-01-26T18:44:00.002+02:00

Around this time of year I always start getting painfully nostalgic for the Home Country. I can tell myself as much as I want that there were reasons we left, very good reasons, that my life is so much better etc. etc. etc. and all of that is true.

But you still miss the place you grew up, however good or bad, and time has a funny way of accentuating only the good memories. You're left with memories of places that in your mind are more beautiful than they actually are, tastes that were more delicious than they actually were, seasons that were more gentle than they actually were, people that were nicer than they actually were.

In effect, you pine for a place that doesn't exist any more, because it never existed in the first place.

So this is going to be a bit of a boring post, with some of my favourite songs from the Homeland from the best of the best - Junoon.

Friday Bollywood Beatbox!

2010-01-22T13:38:00.002+02:00

It's been a while so let's take it slowly and get into the spirit of things with this smoldering love song from the movie Dil Se, with a naff video. Sorry about that!

Oh, No Baby!

2010-01-19T09:58:00.004+02:00

Happy New Year, honey pots! Hope you all had a happy and healthy start to the new year. I saw the new year in away from Athens in our country shack. Most Greek families have a place in the country to retreat to - a throwback from times when holidays abroad were too expensive.

We had fancy honeymoon plans for the two weeks we had taken off, like Cuba or Brazil. But in the end, being so tired and run down from stress, we packed off to our country shack where we hung out with the sea urchins and the sheep for two weeks. It was grand. On new year's eve an old couple, family friends, invited us over for dinner.

We went expecting a quiet evening. Don't be fooled even by little old couples in Greece. Those two had a sleight of hand technique of topping up my glass with so much all-too-easy-to-drink home made wine that I went home buzzing, and when I woke up I was still drunk until around 2 pm the following day.

The one thing everyone, and I mean everyone said when wishing us a happy new year was "And a baby!" Several even went as far as saying "Don't tire yourself in your condition!" to which I would think "Wow! How does this lady know I'm on my period! How considerate of her to... oh. You mean the OTHER condition. The opposite of this one."

As it stands me and Mr Zeus are the only recently married couple still without lump or bump. The issue is two-fold. First, we have no where to put our shoes so where would we fit in a baby? Second, this time last year I was so desperate for a baby that in order to drag myself away from thoughts of baby-snatching and unsolicited attacks on Mr Zeus, I brainwashed myself into cooling off the baby idea.

Unfortunately for me I'm a little too good at brainwashing myself. I overshot the target and now I don't want a baby at all, which has crossed with Mr Zeus starting to come round to the idea. I foresee battles ahead. And don't tell me how fabulous it all is because you're preaching to the converted. And then unconverted.

I currently know five friends who are expecting. Lately as soon as a female friend says she has news, I automatically know what it's going to be. Which is fantastic, but I only have one simple request.

There was a period when I went nuts bidding on yarns on ebay and for the first time I won every bid. Sadly, all this yarn is in shades of pink. So PLEASE!!! Help me use it up and have baby girls!!

Image: http://www.fremantlepress.com.au/dreamgirl/filesend/2900/crew.jpg

Junk in the trunk

2010-01-15T10:27:00.002+02:00

I've been getting so much useful information on my blog lately via comments. I am now rich beyond my wildest dreams! Want to know how I did it? With a cucumber and one single click! Then, tired of being a skinny nerd, I was able to buy a ton of V**I$#^A*^&G**R##A online and my penis is now gigantic and rock hard and She is Begging Me for mOre each nite.

Further to that, I became throughly eloquent but for as in the great pickle went mountain cheese oh my said lilian.

Spammers. FUCK OFF!!!!!!

Have An Economic Meltdown Christmas!

2009-12-22T16:51:00.004+02:00

The very first thing that happened when I set my dainty foot on the main floor of the office where I work in London last week is that all the analysts wanted to know what the dealio was with Greece. Is Greece the next Dubai? How soon do I think Greece would default on her debt? What are the odds of Greece abandoning the Euro and the EU? And now you guys have riots on the streets too because of the economy! Tell us, Bollybutton, what in Zeus's name has happened to make the Greek economy so bad!

And I was standing there thinking "For shizz?" Let's straighten out a few things here. Greece's economy isn't that bad, because it's never been that good, and to understand why, let's take a quick refreshing dip into her past.

For a country to have a strong and stable economy it needs a strong and stable past. Once's Greece's glory day party was over, all she was left with was an unmade bed and the West promising to call.

In the 1800s, Greece emerged from a 400 year Ottoman occupation which is no mean feat. By lots of scheming and dodging, Greece is one of few countries that emerged from a 400 year foreign occupation with her religion, language and culture practically unscathed.

How does this relate to the economy? While much of the West was having the Age of Enlightenment and the Renaissance, the Greeks were standing infront of the equivalent of a bored bank employee telling them "Computer says no" every time they wanted to try something new, say, like develop their country.

So in the 1800s the Greeks waged a bitter and bloody battle for their freedom and won it in a totally David vs Goliath kinda way. They'd barely had a chance to crack open the ouzo when World War I busted in to break up their party.

World War I ends, and Greece ends up pretty much bankrupt having sided with the Allies. The Allies think "Jolly wot wot, let's give Greece Smyrna as a reward". They let Greece invade Smyrna, the Greek army runs wild, and the Turks brutally retaliate while the Allies wonder what's for pudding. As a consequence of the immediate tragedy and the League of Nations' ridiculous solution in 1923 of forcibly moving all Christians from Turkey to Greece and vice versa, 1.5 million refugees pour into an already ruined country.

So that's Greece in the 1920s, absolutely at her wits end and being saddled with more people. Soon follows World War II, a civil war, a military dictatorship and it isn't until the 1970s that any kind of democtratic stability returns to Greece.

Now, how exactly do you build a world-class economy in the space of 35 years? The answer is you don't. You can't. It's like taking a starving orphan and saying "Next week, I want you to look like Mr Universe."

So back to what my colleagues asked me:

1) Is Greece going to default on her debt?

Not a chance. We're in the EU. Why would we want to go the way of Iceland? Though part of me thinks we should do it just to piss off Europe.

2) Is Greece the next Dubai?

You mean a ridiculously oil-rich country with more money than taste? Again, no way. And this is for a number of reasons. First, Greece hasn't enjoyed anywhere close to Dubai's boom to be in danger of a bust. Second, Greece has next to nothing in common with Dubai as a society, and that is very important to factor in.

A friend of mine earlier this year wrote an article on how well Greece was weathering the credit crunch compared to her neighbours. This has a lot to do with the social set-up. Greece didn't suffer the wave of bank crackdowns and reposessions that the UK did.

In Greece, it's unthinkable for someone to let their child or friend lose their house because they fall behind on payments. People will pitch in to save you losing your house, because home ownership is extremely important to the Greeks. Never underestimate the Mama Factor! Mama will sell everything she owns if it means saving her child's house. Are you listening, analysts in London? Next to Greece, write MAMA FACTOR in big red letters and put a circle around it.

If it's known that you are financially comfortable and let your child or friend lose their house, you will never be able to show your face in public again.

3) What are the odds of Greece abandoning the EU or the Euro?

Minus 2000. Neither of the above will happen. Greece totally lucked out by getting into the EU and will not jump ship. It's ridiculous to even suggest this. Same goes for the Euro. Sure, life is a lot harder for people here since the Euro, but if Greece still had the Drachma when the credit crunch hit, with the way interest levels went haywire Greece would have been totally screwed with a cherry on top.

The Greeks are crazy, but not that crazy.

Why then, is the economy in such a hideous state? Because pretty much everyone avoids following the law. You have more chance of getting a Greek woman to tell you her natural hair colour than you do of your average Greek paying their taxes. They just don't like doing it, because all Greeks distrust the government, and if you look back at their history it's not surprising why.

Still, these shouldn't be excuses, and maybe this crisis is exactly what Greece needs to get our ass into gear. I've always believed in Greece and her potential. It's an amazing country with amazing potential, especially the new generation. Greece deserves progress, change and reform, but this has to come from within, and it's a very messy situation to untangle. Undoing so much corruption will take a very long time. The public sector, where everyone gets paid to do nothing, needs to be shruken or made electronic, as does the system for paying taxes.

Also, declaring self-employed earnings needs to be simpler. I know people who tell me they tried to get their earnings legalised and taxes paid, but it became such an impossible maze of stamps and paperwork that they gave up and went back to flying below the radar.

So, dear analysts in the West, relax. All you need to do with Greece is wait and see. I know a lot of your bonds went bust because of the downgrade, but sit tight and you'll see things will look brighter in the summer. And lastly, those economy-related riots all the news channels in the UK were showing actually have nothing to do with the economy. Those riots were pretty much unrelated. Think of it as our equivalent of a street party.

Have a good Christmas and next time check your facts a little before you go off downgrading your little hearts out.

Image: http://www.athina984.gr/files/imagecache/main/files/news-images/finance_0.jpg

Once I Had a Love and I danced Bharat Natyam

2009-12-08T16:50:00.004+02:00

In Monday'sriveting episode of GNTM, the girls had a pop icon photoshoot. How old did I feel when 18 year old Denia didn't know who Debbie Harry aka Blondie was?

For those not in the know, this is Debbie Harry:

and this is Denia not being Debbie Harry:

Needless to say, she got the boot.

Meanwhile, Mr Zeus is always telling me that you can find ANYTHING you need in Athens, and he was right. Can you guess what I found? A Greek lady with a classical Indian dance school: http://www.shantala.gr/index1.html

Another Burning City

2009-12-07T11:07:00.003+02:00

I have just finished reading a book that shook me to the core like no other book I have ever read in my life. Never before have I flinched and cried out while reading something in a book or felt like I had to stop because I couldn't read on.

Yet, here I was in the comfort of my own home living in times of peace, reading words printed on a page that can't even begin to come close to the horror of the real events it documents. That perhaps was most upsetting of all - knowing that what I was reading actually happened.

I'm talking about a book about the destruction of Smyrna called Paradise Lost by Giles Milton.

Like many people in Greece, Mr Zeus's maternal side traces itself back to Minor Asia, specifically the city of Smyrna (Σμύρνη) today known as Izmir. I remember Mr Zeus telling me the stories passed down to his grandfather from his parents - of the city burning, of the Allied ships docked in the harbour cutting the fingers of desperate refugees trying to swim onboard their ships to escape certain death, rape, murder, torture, a city gone mad.

In this city where overnight Greeks and Turks were pitted against each other, it was the Turkish neighbours of Mr Zeus's great grandparents that helped get them to the harbour and then the safety of Mytilini. The two families never met again and Mr Zeus's grandfather was born two days later, a stranger in a foreign land, unwanted by both Greece and Turkey and within spitting distance of their once cherished homeland. He went on to marry my beloved Greek granny, a midwife in her youth trained by a doctor who fled Smyrna with only the clothes on his back and a thermometer in his pocket.

One day I pulled out a recipe book and started cooking Tas Kebab, a typical dish from Minor Asia. I threw the spices together in the pestle and mortar, and when I stopped to take a sniff, for the first time in my life I smelt something like nostalgia. It smelt so good, but the unusual combination of cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, chilli and cinnamon made me feel strange; it stirred something in my heart. The food itself moved you, it had a story to tell, and so I decided that it was high time I educated myself about the history of my Greek family.

I can't even begin to say more about the massacres of Smyrna, except for how horrific it was. One source quoted in the book, says that if you were to take what happened in those awful days of September 1922, added your own personal horrors and exaggerated as much as you like, you would still not come close to the reality of how terrible it was.

What struck me most of all is that I knew nothing about Smyrna before I met Mr Zeus. The West never mentions it. Who can say why? Out of guilt that they sat on their ships watching people get slaughtered and ordered their dinner bands to play louder when the screams began to disturb their dinner? Because they are heartless? I don't know.

However I will say if you are a foreigner living in Greece and planning a future here, treat is as your duty to learn more about the history of this place. There are things, thoughts and attitudes that you will never understand unless you do. This one book has helped me understand so much about modern Greece in a way that hours of talk and debate never did. Most importantly, it is written by a neutral source, neither Greek not Turkish, and so I place my trust in its accuracy.

Paradise Lost can be found for sale on Amazon.co.uk, with delivery to Greece if brought through Amazon rather than a vendor. Once you read it, once you read how peaceful, prosperous and beautiful Smyrna was, you really understand how apt the title is; it was Paradise that turned into hell. And I can't tell you how my hair stood on end, how sick to the stomach I felt reading scenes of desperate refugees huddles on the seafront, filthy, starving, sick and with absolutely nowhere to go, praying for a ship, any ship, to come and help, and knowing that somewhere among those souls were the great grandparents of my husband.

Image: http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/x3/x17542.jpg

Shopping Therapy

2009-12-04T10:35:00.002+02:00

I'm holding an Indian bazaar this Saturday 4th of December in downtown Athens, near Akropoli metro if anyone is interested in seeing my bangles, saris, kajal, perfume oil and henna transfer tattoos in person. Email me at bollybutton@gmail.com for the wheres and whens!

Image: http://www.welt-atlas.de/datenbank/fotos/5-171/big/5-171-29.jpg

Biryani to Kill and Die for

2009-12-03T10:08:00.007+02:00

The city my dear mummy comes from in India, Hyderabad, is famous for two things: bangles and biryani.

Biryani is a type of Indian rice dish that consists of a delicious layer of spiced meat covered by a layer of rice, sprinkled with saffron and steamed. The following recipe is the extra fancy version:

Ingredients for 4-5 people:
1/2 kilo lamb (or chicken)
250 gr basmatic rice
1 large onion, or 2 medium ones
1 cup yoghurt
3 garlic cloves minced
about a tablespoon of grated fresh ginger
1/2 cup of chopped coriander and 1/2 cup chopped mint (important, you can't cut corners here, it has to be fresh coriander not the seeds. Ask your local laiki or central veggie market near Omonia)
2 chopped red or green chillies
Olive oil
a generous pinch of saffron soaked in three tablespoons of warm milk
handful of cashew nuts (optional)
6-7 dried plums or dried apricots (optional)

Spice mix:
1/2 tsp chilli powder - or more if you like it spicy
1/2 tsp tumeric
1 1/2 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp cumin powder
2 cloves, pounded

2 cardamom pods shelled and seeds ground to powder
1/2 inch piece of pounded cinnamon or 1/2 tsp ground
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 bay leaf, broken into pieces and pounded as fine as you can
Salt to taste

Method:
Cut the lamb into bite-sized piece. If you have lamb on the bone, toss the bone in too. It gives extra flavour. In a bowl, mix the yoghurt and the spice mix along with the garlic, ginger, mint, coriander and chillies. Toss in the lamb pieces and mix everything nicely, salt to taste. Leave overnight if you can or a few hours, but if you don't have time you can move on to the next step.

Finely chop the onions and set a frying pan with some olive oil over a medium high heat. Try to get the onions nice and fine, because you're going to be browning them so it's less of a hassle if they are uniformly cut so that they cook uniformly too. Fry the onions in batches until golden brown, but not burnt. Like with curries, this is the secret.

This is where the depth comes from. Don't let your onions look anaemic, they should look like they spent a day at the beach rubbing baby oil on themselves. You'll recognise this from the yummy smell they release - if they start turning too brown the smell turns acrid.

Drain your fried onions on some kitchen paper. In a heavy-based pot big enough to contain the meat and rice, add some oil and toss in the lamb with the yoghurt. Cook on a medium heat for about 15 minutes, stirring now and then, and add the fried onions. Cook everything on a medium heat for 20-30 minutes, stirring to avoid sticking. You'll notice everything start to get nice and juicy and dark as the fried onions break down and the yoghurt thickens.

Cook until the lamb is tender and switch off the heat. If using the plums and cashew nuts, add them about 5 mintues before switching off the heat. Don't use them if you're not a fan of mixing sweet and salty, but I love it, this is how my mum does it. It's not overwhelming, you get a burst of pluminess with random bites.

The meat mixture shouldn't be too watery, but it shouldn't be dry either. Somewhere in the middle. The lamb piece should be about 1/2 poking out of the liquids. Check for salt. It was at this stage that I remembered to take pictures. If you're wondering about the ring of dough, ignore that. I have a hassle free alternative to achieve the same thing further on. I was just showing off.

Take your basmati rice and give it a good wash in 3 changes of water. Add enough water to cover it, salt and boil on a medium heat for around 5 minutes. Drain the rice off and layer it over the meat mixture. Sprinkle your milk with saffron over the top. It will be a pale yellow. Ever eaten traffic light yellow biryani? That's usually food colouring.

Set over a medium heat and allow to come to the boil. Do not stir anything from now on. Take a towel and soak it under the tap. Wring it out, but not completely - juicy wet but not dripping. Wrap the lid of your dish containing the biryani in this wet cloth, as if you're gift wrapping. Reduce the heat to the lowest possible setting, place the wrapped lid on top of the pan and if you have something heavy, weigh the lid down with that, like a marble mortar or a stone.

Leave undisturbed to cook on a low heat for 15 minutes. After the time is up, get a fork, crack open the lid and dive in to try the rice and see if it's cooked. Two important things here: 1) try not to faint with joy at the delicious aromas released when you break the steam seal 2) get in and out with your fork as quickly as possible and replace the lid. If your rice is not done, if will need to keep steaming and this will take longer if you let too much steam out.

When my mum was a little girl, her father would throw parties where cooks were hired to cook great big couldrons of biryani over coal fires. The traditional method of sealing the pot is with a ring of dough. This ensures absolutely all of the steam gets locked in to cook the rice, and the dough around the pot collects the best nutrients from the cooking rice and meat. A friend of my grandfather would volunteer to cook the biryani for parties so long as he got dibs on all the sealing dough afterwards. Personally I don't see the attraction. It tastes pretty awful.

And there you have it. Dig right in and enjoy this lucious, luxurious biryani. Mr Zeus didn't like it, I think it's too complicated in taste for him. But if anyone's interested I've got enough biryani for 4 people, so come on over!

Tips for success:

1) Make sure your salt levels are right. I'm still getting this wrong as the rice sets off a lot of the saltiness

2) To steam the rice, it's important to have a lid that fits snuggly onto the pot.

3) Once you've started steaming, resist your curiosity to crack open the pot and spoil the steaming. God knows I've been chased out of the kitchen by my spatula-wielding mother enough times as a child for sauntering over to a pot of rice and lifting the lid to take a peek.

4) Expect some stuff to stick to the bottom of the pot when steaming. You can reduce this by having a sturdy pot to start with as the heat distributes better. If you only have crappy pots with very thin bottoms, you can avoid too much burning by placing a frying pan on the heat and then your crappy pot on top of the frying pan. This makes the frying pan act as the bottom of the pot and the heat is distributed better.

The Best Indian In Athens?

2009-12-02T15:44:00.002+02:00

At tango class on Monday one of the girls slipped me a menu from a restaurant she'd been to. "The best Indian in Athens!" it declared boldly. "Oh really", thought I, "I'll be the judge of that!"

The place in question is Jaipur Palace in Glyfada which I've heard of but never been to. The menu was a takeaway menu from there. Last night I began to flick through it and practically fell off the sofa laughing. By way of the stupid prices, this was one of the most unintentionally funny menus I'd ever seen.

Chicken curries from EUR 9.60 each, chicken tikka EUR 10.30, lamb karai EUR 11.80, one tandoori roti EUR 1.50. And this is just the takeaway menu! These prices are totally ridiculous. Ah Mr Zeus, I wonder if you realise how much money you're saving by being married to me. What are they using in their curries to make them so expensive? Garlic grown by blind Tibetan nuns? Chillies irrigated by the tears of a thousand Indian princesses? It's curry, not rocket science!

I was impressed though that the menu contained one of my favourites, dahi papdi chaat. But then it went on to list something called a chef Dhananjay salad with eggs, ham and cheese. You would grow old and die searching for that in India... because it doesn't have any business being on the menu of an Indian restaurant.

Still, who am I to rip this place apart without trying it first? I feel an undercover restaurant review coming on! I'm most curious to see if their biryani is actually biryani. Will it be actual saffron rice, or just yellow dyed rice?

Speaking of which I have lamb marinating for a biryani right now. I'll post the recipe if it's a success, and save you all paying moronic prices for it.

Start the Week with a Bang!

2009-11-23T11:11:00.003+02:00

In less than one month's time, we pass the winter solstice which means the days then start to get longer and summer will be approaching day by day. With Athens basking in 20C and sunshine the last week, reaching this milestone doesn't feel all that impossible.

Hooray for living in Greece, where you can get a tan even in the winter! Here's to the summer just a couple of months away!!

ps: Bollywood Beauty Bags now up on ebay via the link in my blogroll, and my online shop which I'm trying so far unsuccessfully to direct to the domain name I purchased: http://www.freewebstore.org/bollywoodbazaar/

Big Screen and Small Screen

2009-11-21T10:38:00.006+02:00

Friday night is date night, baby, so I decided to take myself out for a movie. The movie of my choice was Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Yes, the original one. Palace theatre in Pagrati is showing it: http://www.athinorama.gr/cinema/data/movies/default.aspx?id=4194

I didn't to ask anyone because I didn't think anyone but me would be interested in such an old movie. Who would want to spend two hours drooling over the hunky Paul Newman and gorgeous Elizabeth Taylor on the big screen except me?

I got to the cinema a few minutes after the movie had begun. "Do you still want to see it?" asked the usher. "Yes I do."

"Okay, then go ahead and pay us when it's over."

I stepped into the gloom and took a seat right in time to hear Lizzie utter those immortal lines "I feel all the time like a cat on a hot tin roof!"

And then as my eyes adjusted to the dark, I realised I was all on my own. I had the entire theatre to myself. I really was the only person in Athens who wanted to see this movie. That's the first time I've been for a movie completely on my own, without even other movie goers for company.

***

Despite my initial concerns, I have found GNTM to be strangely addictive, and already favourites and demons are starting to emerge. So it was with a heavy heart that I learnt yesterday that two contestants, Anthi and Ramona, have dropped out. Who else but Star channel would get the exclusive on this, and Anthi dished the following eye-popping home truths about 'reality' tv:

She totally got the feeling they weren't looking for Greece's Next Top Model, just making TV. Gasp!
Vicky Kaya is completely different off-camera to how she acts on-camera! No way!
There is nothing real about reality TV, everything is constructed and everyone is playing a role. And there I was thinking reality and TV are two words that go together like peas and carrots.
The judges deliberately pick your worst picture just to pick it apart. Well, babycakes, if they showed how well everyone was actually doing, the show would be over in about 10 minutes.
She got the feeling the winners have already been picked and the wrong people keep getting eliminated and the directors are deliberately keeping in the types that stir trouble (and make good TV)! Oh honey buns, if you had watched as much ANTM as I have, you'd know it's just a show and Tyra week after week makes decisions that make even an avid fan like me think "Hell, no!"

Ramona has promptly left on the heels of Anthi saying that she doesn't think the show is geared to what they were made to believe it is, which is to find Greece's next top model. Girls, you would not have had this existential crisis had you watched 13 seasons of ANTM like I have. Let's analyse ANTM's greatest contribution to the world of fashion, the most wow and eye-opening thing it taught us which not many of us knew before:

What is a weave and what are eye smiles.

There. That's it. That's ANTM's contribution to society.

In terms of who will make the biggest media career out of GNTM, I think it's going to Areti. Areti is a nasty little piece of work who's only purpose in life seems to be to bitch, moan, complain, backstab, gossip and stir up trouble. She's is suffering from Madonna/Whore syndrome and comes out with ridiculously schizophrenic points of view, one minute stating like the Virgin Mary that she would never stoop to Naila's levels to win a task

at about 5.40 minutes - before all of a sudden having no problem doing this:

Areti comes across as being the kind of person with all the necessary 'qualities' to make it to the top, ie. she wouldn't hesitate to kick burning kittens out of her way if it meant five minutes of fame.

Meanwhile, GNTM's contribution to my life took the form of the undies the girls were posing in and I promptly went out and bought a Venus Victoria bra like the ones in the photo shoot. EUR 29.95 from Hondos Centre!

Preening and Prancing

2009-11-18T09:24:00.002+02:00

Remember back in the summer when my face was falling off? Well I'm happy to report, at the risk of bad-eyeing myself, that my skin is now nearly back to its peaceful, almost spot-free self.

So what was the secret after months and months of creams, lotions, potions and facial torture? One fine morning as I was about to apply my usual round of creams, I stopped. I put them back. And since that day, I have gone back to doing what I was doing all my life without any problems, which is absolutely nothing. I wake up, I wash my face with water and that's all I do. No cleanser, no toner, no cream.

My creamy quest has its origins in yet another female friend who practically fainted in horror when I said I have no skin care routine, just water and sun cream in the summer. "You'll regret that when you're 30!" she exclaimed.

Oh heck! Could she be right? What if I should really be joining them in stripping off my oils and then applying artificial ones? What if I wake up tomorrow looking like a prune? It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. You go to bed on the eve of you're 30th birthday, a fresh-faced 29 year old and wake up a hag!

I don't know. I have a sneaky suspicion we're being lied to. It's like when you stop using lip balm. The first week your lips rebel like crazy and then they say "Whatever" and get on with their naturally kissable lives.

I think my skin is doing the same thing. Sure, now and then when it's particularly dry or cold, a little sweep of almond or olive oil won't do any harm. But I'm so glad to be getting my old skin back I'm not messing with it again.

***

In other news, thoughts of tango are completely taking over my life. It's turning into yet another infectious disease along with everything else I'm riddled with. A few days before my dance disaster on Saturday at my tango lesson I had probably one of my best dances ever. Not from style or technique but it was the first time when I switched my brain off and enjoyed the dancing. It was light, lovely, and sweet, the dance equivalent of chocolate mousse (at least in my not-so-expert-one-month-of-tango opinion).

When I came back home, I told Mr Zeus how I had felt a sensation right in my gut while I was dancing, like being in another world and speaking in a totally new language (now I know that was probably my lungs preparing to spend the next few days chucking themselves in every direction).

But still! I wake up and start playing tango videos on youtube. I polish the wooden floor by walking backwards across it. I gorge myself on tango related information online until I feel disgusted and say "Enough!" then the next day I do it all over again.

And I look at tango shoes, especially Comme il Faut, which are like lingerie for the feet and atomic bombs for the wallet. I might just have to start a separate tango blog at the risk of boring you all to death.

My First Milonga... A Tale of Woe

2009-11-15T10:15:00.003+02:00

After years of daydreaming about it, I finally took up tango about a month ago. Classes have been going well so far and all us tango newbies have been progressing at a good pace. It may not be much of a tango, but I am so happy that I am finally starting to dance something that resembles tango.

Last night I finally went to the dance my dance school throws every two weeks. Here's the background. I've spent the best half of last week with a cold that turned to flu, lost my sense of smell and some hearing thanks to my blocked sinuses. On yesterday's gorgeous Saturday morning I was totally determined not to miss my first tango social dance and had every ambition of not falling any further apart. I knew just the thing to make me feel good - tango shoes! Sadly the shop was located in just the place to make me feel like a sloppy, sniffly, red nosed, frizzy haired peasant - Glyfada.

Glyfada is like the Los Angeles of Athens, where all the rich and beautiful people go to hang out and judge you. Amongst them I dragged myself from shop to shop like Quasimodo. Glyfada is the only part of Athens where I feel like a foreigner and I can't wait to leave fast enough. It's probably all in my head, but meh! They shoot unfashionable people, don't they?

So anyway, on to the shoes. The shop in question is conveniently owned by the father of our koubara (witness to our wedding) so I got a nice juicy discount. I was stuck between red and black. Black being the obvious choice for seeming like a grown-up tango lady. Red was, well... when you are feeling ill and running out of positivity, red is the colour to go for. So that was what I did.

Next stop, Hondos Center to see if they sell those sweet old fashioned stockings with a seam along the back. I asked the lady and she said "Yes we do. They're EUR7 but we have more expensive ones too." Glyfada is the only place in Athens where they'll tell you you can get the same thing for more money.

"Anything for less than that?"

"No you filthy poor person. Out, out with you! Security!" Okay she didn't really say that, and I decided that while faking it till you make it is always a good policy, I should not be drawing too much attention to myself with seamed stockings and red shoes when I only have one month's worth of tango under my belt.

I spent the rest of the day scraping myself back together again, de-monobrowing and fixing my hobbit feet. Being ill is when I realise how much daily fine-tuning it takes to keep the wilderness at bay. Three days out of action and the follicles think it's Christmas.

By nightfall I wasn't feeling all that much kefi and I was starting to loose my voice. You know when you just feel that it's not going to be a good night, and you go anyway? Mistake. But dammit, I braved Glyfada and I was going to my tango dance no matter what.

I walked into the dance school and my first impression was that I knew no one. My second impression was that the people who were there were a bit mean. I said hello to a couple and got a big fat zero in return. Others were really friendly and nice though and kept my company all evening, so I suppose it's luck of the draw.

Something about not being able to talk, smell or hear that well threw my dance skills into total disfunction. I accepted five dances and all five were disasters. Seriously, I've danced better with my dog standing on his hind legs. The mega boss of the dance school invited my for a tango and since lately I had been getting such good feedback from classes on how I was doing, it would have otherwise been an opportunity to shine.

But instead I was horrified that he should pick my stuffy, diseased self on that night when I knew the magic wasn't happening, and I danced like ASS you guys!! He, like all my other partners, was super gracious and said I had done really well. Yeah, you're telling me that when I'm watching people on the floor that can change lightbulbs with their toes.

And, I was the one and only person in the whole room with red shoes on. It's like they were screaming "Hey everybody! Look at us! Aren't we great? Shame our mummy can't dance for shit!"

I thought a milonga would be fun and easy, but I found my first milonga really stressful. I was trying to remember so much at the same time and the sad truth is that it was the worst time I've ever had dancing. Too much thinking, too much structure, I was dancing all from the head and nothing from the heart.

By midnight I'd well and truly lost my voice, the remaining scraps of my kefi and had had enough so I walked the short distance back to my little flat to be consoled by my dog and my beloved Mr Zeus who I told all about how miserably I'd done. But he being my knight in shining armour blamed my skanked up sinuses for my dancing and not me. Hooray!

All the Single Ladies!

2009-11-09T16:14:00.002+02:00

Yours truly was at last night's Beyonce concert. It was divalicious!

Bollywood Beauty and Friday Beatbox

2009-11-06T09:56:00.007+02:00

Ever wake up and think "This is just the kind of day to rub soot in my eyes!" Once again, I have a feeling these whacky new-age ideas only occur to me.

In a quest to add some extra special goodies to my ebay venture, I have started putting together Bollywood Beauty Bags, each of which contains a bindi, a vial of arabic oudh perfume, and box of incense and maybe kajal, the super dark traditional kind that I use. But I thought I could give myself an edge my making the kajal myself, the old-fashioned way!

So here's what I did. I made an oil lamp from a clay pot with a cotton wick poking over one side and filled it with olive oil. Next, I balanced a metal plate over the flame with the help of two empty jars, and let the flame and the oil do the rest. I left out a whole bunch of steps, like soaking the cotton in a special blend of herbs and juices and drying it, soaking it, drying it over the course of a day. But so what! Details, details.

An hour or so later and I got bored of waiting. A nice bunch of black stuff had collected on the steel plate. Once it cooled, I added a few drop of olive oil and mixed it up into a paste. It was promisingly black, and I did what any normal person would do. I applied this to the inside of my lower lids.

Well you can imagine the results. My eyeballs didn't rot and fall out, but they were pretty pissed with me, and considering I have a day job to concentrate on, partial blindness because of oil and soot in your eyes was not going to go down as an excuse.

This leads me to believe:

All these people posting home-made kajal recipes online have never actually tried them

Not everything our grannies did was a good idea

Some things are best left to a professional

To celebrate my stupidity and the fact that it's Friday, here's a collection of songs that mention kajal:

Referred to here as kajra (and has a really filthy sounding screen-grab which I apologise for):

And here. I painted my eyes with the kajal of your love, this kajal drove my insane (ie. your love)
I sacrifice myself to you
The world is after me,
But I'm after you
Make me yours
I sacrifice myself to you

In my eyes there is kajal, in that kajal is my heart (hopefully not itching profusely from home-made kajal)

The kajal of my doom is in your eyes, the redness of my ruin is on your lips. Yeah. Guys say that to me all the time.

Paint your eyes with kajal darling. Featuring my favourite actress, also called Kajal. And containing about 2000 reasons to be glad the 90s are over in Bollywood world.

These eyes, this kajal, this hair, this scarf, you are a beautiful sonnet. Sorry, but you'll have to try harder than that when you're a troll seducing a sari-clad babe.

You'll notice most of the songs pining after a woman's smokey eyes are from back in the day. Presumably this means men of today have discovered other more entertaining aspects in a woman than her eyes. Which is a shame. It must have been nice to floor a man with one look of your smoky eyes.

Image: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_l4HTfXGn-Ns/SY0m5QV3lXI/AAAAAAAAV1I/Vgyvj5Sag8c/s400/Rani+Mukerji-2.jpg

Oh Crap

2009-11-05T09:34:00.003+02:00

After looking for my winter clothes without success for a couple of weeks, today I had a very good root around for them with no luck and have come to the conclusion that yes indeed, I accidentally gave away all my winter clothes instead of the bags of clothes to donate.

Rats. I had acquired some really cool stuff in the winter sales last year too. :(

Image: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1046/1154311210_51183d9c4b_o.jpg

Midweek Masti

2009-11-04T11:06:00.002+02:00

So here we are halfway through the week. Is it just me or does no one seem to be having a good time at work these days? Every time I open my mouth to complain, I get a flood of work-related misery in return. Could be the unsettled weather in Greece, could be the position of the planet in our galaxy right now, could be the energy that Greece gives out sitting as she does across a couple of converging tectonic plates.

Who knows! But let's not mope too much. Time to throw on your hot pink sari and shake off the mid-week blues. Here's to all us small people with big dreams and pie-in-the-sky escape plans from our 9 to 5:

Get Your Goat

2009-11-03T16:07:00.008+02:00

Ever since I moved to Greece, I have been campaigning for Mr Zeus to let me keep a goat and two chickens, but he ain't having none of it.

A weird request, you may think, but what can I say? Goats and chickens make me happy. Just watching them go about their little lives is like a philosophy for living. Search here, search there, eat what you find, make a noise when you do something good like lay an egg.

On Sunday we went to Schisto bazaar, a sprawling market that is laid out near Pireas and it was just divine. For one thing, it was just like being back in the Home Country. Secondly, it had that same Home Country appeal of anything and everything being collected all together to be sold. There were people literally selling junk, but kudos to them for being that ambitious.

Okay, now I know Schisto bazaar is in the news now and then for the shabby conditions they keep the animals they sell in, for example teeny little puppies out in the open, shivering on a cold day when they had no business being away from their mothers in the first place etc. But guys, I have to tell you, my heart lept a hundred metres off the ground when I spied a pen containing kids. No, no, not the manifestation of all the threats mothers in Greece dish out about the Gypsies kidnapping you if you misbehave. Kids, as in baby goats.

My oh my, it has been years since I laid eyes and hands on a baby goat. They are about the cutest little creatures you could ever see. If you feel around in the fur on their heads, you will find adorable little horns. They smell like earth. Sadly I had no camera to capture myself with a baby goat in arms.

But they took me right back to my childhood days and our goat couple, Elvis and Priscilla, with whom we enjoyed many a happy frolick before they disappeared. I don't know for sure if they were sent to the village or if they ended up on my dinner plate. I wasn't a particularly questioning child. But I have pictures of me and them and some of their offspring.

Next up were cages and cages of fabulous chickens. They were all so round and lovely and looked so delightful pecking about here and there. Life is not complete unless you own chickens! Another childhood memory of visiting our aunt in the village and searching for warm, shiny, brown little eggs laid here and there, which our aunt boiled and served to us with bowls of hot tea before cups and saucers came into fashion.

Mr Zeus thinks chickens stink and the fact is that to me chickens smell like chickens, and that's not a particularly bad smell. That's just how chickens smell. It's not their fault! And they should not be barred from my household just because Mr Zeus was born and bred in a city.

But he said pooh to that, and no chickens were to be had. Oh well. Back to urban living without goats or chickens. I think he worries that I'm a stone-hearted bitch who will eat my goats and chickens once I'm bored of them, and it doesn't help that I go on about how tasty goat curry is. It's not like my childhood doesn't back up his claim. Mwahahahaha!!!

Okay I didn't eat my pet goats and chickens. Just the ones that people brought as payment when they didn't have money (see, I didn't personally know these goats or chickens so it was alright). Oh and there was one time a baby chicken we bought from the market grew up to be a really mean rooster who we gave away to a rooster fighter. Who probably ate him. And if you knew this rooster you'd agree that he deserved it.

Image:http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3015/2342781829_bc0f1ee7bb.jpg

Bolly Does Business!

2009-10-26T08:10:00.002+02:00

After giving it some thought for a really long time, probably too long, I have finally decided to go the ebay route and sell stuff online. I mean, I've given ebay enough business over the years, it's time to get some of it for myself!

There's not much up at the moment, but I'm waiting for a whole bunch of goodies that I'm going to post online in the next few days, like spice sets and of course prompted by interest from friends and this blog, my own home-made curry mix and home-made face and body scrub.

Postage will of course be a lot cheaper for anyone buying inside of Greece, and if there is interest within Greece I plan to sell my own 100% safe and natural henna mix that is safe enough to use on children, totally chemical free and gives a wonderful deep red stain that turns maroon over two days. The only thing is that since the henna is preservative free, I can only post the fresh mix as and when requested and within Greece only. Otherwise it'll lose it's bang by the time it arrives. But I want to know if I offered it, would you buy it?

Check here. I don't have an ebay shop at the moment, since I'm just starting out.This link will now be permanently displayed in my Blog roll and updated as new goodies come in.

What do you think? What kind of stuff would you like to find offered by me which you struggle to find already? Saris? Bindis? Spice mixes? I'm all ears!

Bollybutton's Bolly Bulletin

2009-10-23T16:26:00.004+03:00

Don't forget this Sunday's Kyriakatiki Eleutherotypia which is giving away one of my all time favourite movies, Kal Ho Naa Ho. This movie is ultra συγκινητική and perfect when in need of a good sob fest. I projectile cry, Spongebob style, every time I watch it.

Part of this movie's soundtrack is the below song, Mahi ve, which will always be extra special because it's the song I choreographed myself for me, my sisters and cousins to present at my older sister's henna party three years ago.

Image: http://www.smartproductionz.com/audio/songs/Bollywood/KAL%20HO%20NAA%20HO/pic.jpg

Tastes just like Asia

2009-10-18T17:55:00.007+03:00

Are you someone who buys Thai cookbooks and then mopes about how you can't cook most of the recipes in them because where the hell are you supposed to get Thai holy basil in Athens? Do you chase African handbag sellers down city centre streets, sidling up to them with breathless questions like "Hey friend, do you know where I can find a Big African Banana in Athens, you know what I'm talkin' about?"

No? Just me then.

On Saturday, my blog buddy Al and I met up with no particular aim in mind. What are two Asian babes with a free afternoon supposed to do in Athens when they're broke and it's not window shopping weather? We pondered for a few quick minutes and then it hit us: but of course! Two food obsessed Asians with a free afternoon should go on a pilgrimage to a food temple, and for this holy excursion we picked Salamat, an Asian grocery store I've blogged about in the past after it was featured in Gastronomos magazine but which neither of us had been to.

Now, what exactly to say about Salamat market? It's roughly the size of two peripteros pushed together, yet somehow Al and I managed to blow about three hours in there thanks to the dazzling selection of ingredients that both of us had never imagined we'd find inside the borders of Greece.

I'm talking about fresh galangal, yard beans, fresh lemongrass (I tried to grow this from internet ordered seeds last year so desperate was I), thai holy basil, pandanus leaves, banana leaves, banana blossoms, passion fruit, lychee juice, shrimp paste, curry pastes, fresh tumeric, fresh green peppercorns, sauces, noodles, dim sum, roti canai and so many other weird, wonderful, stinkily delicious South East Asian ingredients. There were bags of dried shrimps and dried ikan bilis, little anchovies that make a curry to die for but smell so bad I'd get divorced on the spot if I brought them home.

There were rice cookers, sake sets, woks and even a mongolian hot pot. Now, just how many people in Athens stand in their kitchens on a Saturday afternoon and think "God damn, I really want some mongolian hot pot, but I don't have the pot."? And yet here was the pot sitting expectantly on the shelf, waiting for someone to have that very thought.

There was junk food, prawn crackers, violently coloured custards and jellies that us carefree Asians love, canned lychees, mangoes, jack fruit and rambutan and frozen durian. It was food heaven. I wanted to pitch a tent outside and never leave. We were so delighted that we bought what we could carry, took a coffee break and then headed back to pick up frozen items before heading our separate ways.

Salamat is located on Korinthias street, closest metro Ambelokipi. The super thing is that whatever we didn't find at Salamat, we found at other wonderful little Asian grocers along the same street, including pak choi (stir fry with oyster sauce - heaven) and at long last after accosting African immigrants for months on the streets of Athens, I located my much sought after plantain bananas (wait till well ripened and serve fried in chunky slices alongside goat curry and rice).

So there you have it. Anything to do with South Asia can be found on Menandrou Street and anything to do with South East Asian food can be found on Korinthias street.

Go forth and shop! Your meals need never be boring again!

Salamat

Korinthos 24

Ambelokipi

http://www.salamat.gr/

ph: 210 77 96 766

Directions:

Ambelokipi metro. Exit and head down Leoforos Alexandras towards the mountain. When you get to the junction with Kifisias, turn left (look for a tall hotel called President hotel and head towards it).

Korinthias is the third street on the right.

View Larger Map

Bolly Bulletin

2009-10-18T10:31:00.002+03:00

It's Sunday, bollywood lovers! Go out and buy your Kyriakatiki Eleuftherorypia which today begins a new Bollywood DVD series!

Smiling with Your Eyes

2009-10-13T08:23:00.008+03:00

So many important things have happened since I last blogged. We have a new government in Greece and changes are already sweeping through the cobwebby system of Greek politics. I could talk all about Georgie dearest and PASOK, but that's what newspapers are for.

No, something far more pressing is happening in Greece for those who worship at the Temple of Tyra. The America's Next Top Model (ANTM) format has arrived in Greece. Now, as an avid fan of ANTM, I was very interested in seeing how the Greek version would turn out. I had high hopes. This is after all a format that is supposed to search for the next top fashion model in whatever country. Let's just ignore for a mo that ANTM has yet to produce a top model in 13 seasons, but who cares. We all just want to see what Tyra is doing with her hair.

So along comes the Greek version, episode 1 series 1 of which aired last night. Search for Greece's next top fashion model? Bitch, please! The Greek version is obviously just another format for Playboy model wannabes. All summer long the same types of girls made in the same type of factory compete in the same type of competition to spread their legs in the same types of magazines.

One would have hoped Greece's Next Top Model (GNTM) would be safe from such debauchery. But no. Roll camera and out rolled the same brand of factory fresh girls who swore their dream was to be a fashion model.

Say what you like about the nutty Miss Banks, she does actually care about fashion and teaching the girls a few things about what fashion magazines are looking for. GNTM is hosted by Vikky Kayia who does not come out with any Tyraisms like:

"I can see how much you want this but it's not here in front of me"

"You're doing ugly, you need to do ugly-pretty like this (`o`) not this ('@')"

And my favourite "Have you ever practised smiling with your eyes? Watch me... not smiling with my eyes (o_o)... smiling with my eyes (O_O) do you see the difference?"

Oh, Tyra! I confess to far too much time practising eye smiles. I did them in most of my wedding pictures.

The skank factor leapt off the scale when the girls arrived and model Boot Camp and were asked to pose by the judge panel, including Nigel Barker wannabe Harry Christopoulo, who handed one girl a cigar and told her to put it in her mouth.

Where Tyra would be shouting "Less Sports Illustrated and more Vogue" the girls on GNTM were actively encouraged to spread legs, stick out asses and tongues and put fingers, cigars, grapes and etc in their mouths. Bonus points if the object in the mouth was part of Harry Christopoulos's anatomy. Oh Nigel, how I miss you. At least all your perving was done strictly with eyes.

Alongside Vicky and Harry we had Ms J wannabe Christophoros Kotentos. I actually liked him. He was being a complete bitch to many of the wannabes and having been a fashion model himself for the likes of Versace and Vivienne Westwood he is pretty much the only one who knows what he's talking about on this show when he ripped into the girls for their appearances.

There was no Jay Manuel equivalent, and I shed many a tear over this sad oversight. There was a third judge called Jenny Balatsinoy but she was so nondescript I had forgotten about her until I looked up the GNTM site just now (http://www.antenna.gr/node/1148)

The 200 girls dry humped various objects in Grand Resort Lagonissi for a while and then it was judging time! Proof that 13 seasons of ANTM is perhaps one season too many, I found myself thinking various things like:

"You've lost your chin there"

"You need to find the light"

"I don't see you using your whole body here"

"You're not taking it to the next level"

"This is commercial, give me high fashion"

17 girls were picked and reminded that they would now begin to learn the demanding and difficult life of a fashion model. I love it when people say that. I wish they'd be more honest about the demanding and difficult parts of modelling - photographers you have to sleep with to get jobs, weight 40kgs and being told to lose more weight, going out of season in just one year as the competition becomes younger and younger. Be honest, otherwise modelling is the most superfun and easy career I can think of - new clothes, beautiful people, tons of travelling, champagne and ass kissers on tap.

And so rolled to a bleach blonde stilleto-ed halt the first episode of GNTM. And whatever, guys. This is Greece. Whoever wins will do a few shoots for Playboy and then, sleeping with the right sequence of people, she actually will end up being Greece's top fashion model. In a way at least the Greek version is more in your face about what they want. It's a very simple equation of pretty girls+ spread legs+ the right bedmates+ fairy dust = media career.

I do hope things get more high fashion from here onwards. It would be really nice to see the creations of Greek designers showcased on this show.

GNTM:

Things you are likely to hear

Open your mouth and stick your tongue out

You've got a great ass. I know because I'm squeezing it.

Put this in your mouth. Oh no, this is just a practise run. I'll get my camera later

You won't Hear:

Ms J Alexander, Runway Diva Coach Extraordinaire!

Give me less commercial, more high fashion

More fashion, less sex

My Momma told me ...

Smile. With. Your. Eyes

Image: http://www.businesspundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/tyra-banks-gl10.jpg

Let's Face the Music

2009-10-06T09:23:00.001+03:00

To those we Love

2009-09-27T10:24:00.007+03:00

I'm back in Athens as of very early Tuesday morning, and the inability to have grieved has affected me badly. It's only today that I don't feel like I'm moving through glue, and somehow it feels like now it's too late for my tears - the moment has passed, and what a bitter pill to swallow are the tears of grief.

On the ride from the airport to my flat, I began to cry for our lost friend, for my relief at being home, but once again I had to stop because going beserk in the back of a taxi is not the best idea at 3 am. It was my most expensive taxi ride because so desperate was I to get through the front door and back to my normal life, so happy was I at this stranger delivering me to my doorstep that I shoved a EUR 50 note into his hands and took no change.

Watching pre-election debates, sometimes I wish I really could talk to party leaders of the right wing, anti-immigration parties like LA.OS. I know they wouldn't listen, but I would say this:

I followed the Greek I loved to his land and fell in love with Greece. When my plane landed here on Tuesday morning, I felt a rush of relief. Riding in the taxi in the small hours of the morning, past the sleeping olive groves and the mountains that have seen so much and had so much blood spilled on them, I felt like Athens herself was saying to me "You are now home, it's okay to let go now."

The stress of the previous week released and tears rolled down my face because I realised that what Mr Zeus had always told me was true: Greece is not a place, Greece is a feeling, and if you open your heart she will talk to you. It's those that can't open their hearts that will never be happy here.

Greece spoke to me on Tuesday morning as clear as an actual voice in my ears and I cried that an alien land had accepted me so unquestioningly into her embrace. Greece - halfway between the Home Country and the UK, my new home, the home I love, where I am at long last free.

So please, don't judge all us foreigners with the same standards. It may be hard for you to understand, but some of us love Greece as much as you do, maybe even more, because we were not taught this love from birth, we felt it of our own free will. I may not be able to roll off the history of Greece on my fingertips or name all her past leaders, but I can certainly tell you what is right here in my heart, in my gut.

Here's to the ones we love, who we should all hold a little bit closer because for all the fights and for all the frustration, they are here, we are here, and life is beautiful no matter what the colour.

In Good Times and Bad

2009-09-14T14:42:00.001+03:00

When you move to a new country, much of what you base your decision to stay on is centred around happy times and successes. Greeks can be overbearing in their emotions but the pleasant side effect of this is that they celebrate your joys with all their hearts.

They are obsessed with their families which means someone is always nearby when you need them. They adore their friends to the point of inviting them on your holidays, without asking you, but this adoration means that when life becomes unbearable, the friends appear at your side to adore you right back, to lift you from the ground where you have fallen in your sorrow.

I have had the good fortune of experiencing many of the great milestones of Greek life - births, marriages, baptisms. Last week, I had the misfortune of going to my first Greek funeral and in its own strange way, nothing has made me more determined to live in Greece.

I can count on one hand the funerals I've been to in my life, and I have never been to a funeral on my own, without being an extension of my family. I am a coward, and I tend to run from funerals. Last week, I had to draw on a strength I knew deep inside me I didn't have and escort one of my dearest friends to the funeral of her husband, one of Mr Zeus's childhood friends.

In some ways the reality of that day has still not sunk in - the rain falling on us, the grief, the coffin, the feeling that this had to be a joke and any minute now he'd pop out from somewhere, my friend screaming and shaking in my arms, my arms that I had offered to remain by her side as a replacement for her family that had not arrived, who I cannot forgive for not being there.

Like me, she is a foreigner, and that same affinity I felt for her when we first met - two women who left it all behind to be with our men - is what kept me at her side, despite the feeling that I was not strong enough, that I couldn't do this, that Mr Zeus better turn up sometime now because I can't do this.

But I did it. We all did, and we all did it together. We all walked our friend to his final journey, smothering him in flowers, though I didn't have the heart to look. We wept together, and we even joked together. Later, the mourners were offered coffee and cognac and I shook hands with mourners on behalf of my dear friend's absent family as they wished us in Greek "Life to us, life to you."

That night we threw an impromptu heavy metal party where we drank some more, laughed some more and cried some more. "The next time I see him," I said "I'm going to force him to watch Bollywood movies because I never drink coffee and I never listen to heavy metal and I did both for him today!"

In Greece, when you tell them your bad news, they don't look away and mumble an apology. They don't shrink away from your sadness like it's a bad smell, like your misfortune might rub off onto them. They embrace you, look you in the eye and tell you that life is such and we must go on living it. When you start to cry, they don't pat you on the shoulder and tell you to pull yourself together. They stroke your hair, tell you to cry and let it all out.

48 hours later I found myself back in London for a week. I haven't had the luxury to cry as much as I need to clean my soul, to try and get to grips in my head the image of our friend's coffin, the feeling of my friend writhing on the ground in her misery. I had to be strong, but now I want to rest my head on someone's shoulder and let them let me cry to my heart's content.

But I'm in the wrong country, and when the tears began to fall last night, they made those around my uncomfortable. Their discomfort was so tangible I began to cry even more. I was told to pull it together, don't be sad.

This week, I don't want to be in London. I don't want to even be in my family home. I feel alone, miserable and tired. I just want to cry once, one good cry without anyone trying to stop me, and then things will feel better.

This is why they have therapists in Western Europe. We don't need them in Greece.

Life to us.

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Fruit of the Gods

2009-09-04T08:25:00.002+03:00

September has rolled around and reared her ugly head at last, and it seems summer will be over all too soon. From the 1st of September, Greeks start wishing each other a happy autumn, words that depress the living daylights out of me. Seems I waited forever for summer and now it's leaving again.

That doesn't mean that the taste of summer still can't be enjoyed. If you are the sort who doesn't start freaking out when outnumbered by dark-skinned foreigners, I recommend a trip to Menandrou Street in downtown Athens, just off Athinas (metro stop Omonia).

Down this street, the jewels of summer can still be enjoyed - boxes of yellow, fragrant, dizzyingly sweet mangoes from the Home Country. No one should ever decide what they think about mangoes without eating Home Country mangoes, which are universally believed to be the best on the market. They have a silky, juicy texture that Caribbean mangoes can only dream of.

Mangoes can be bought by piece or by 5 kilo boxes. I usually get the whole box for around EUR 15 and share the contents with other mango lovers.

And if you still need convincing, mangoes are considered to be aphrodisiacs, with the saying going that there is no clean and tidy way to enjoy a mango or a woman.

Oh, I do declare Miss Bollybutton! How can one be talking about eating and aphrodisiacs in the middle of the holy month!

Image: http://www.simply-thai.com/fruit-images-small/chauk-anan4.jpg

Before and After. Can you Spot the Difference? Me neither

2009-09-03T08:31:00.006+03:00

The big news in Greece at the moment is that elections have been called early thanks to the annual disgrace which is the handling (or lack there of) of Greece's wild-though most are set accidentally on purpose - fires. Hooray! New government time! Same old assholes, but a brand new covering on the box outside! Whoopee!

As a foreigner living in Greece, the thing that pisses me off the most is the wasted potential of this country. Here we are, surrounded by brilliant young minds, with families bankrupting themselves to educate their children, who then return to Greece and have zero job prospects because all the good jobs go to those who know someone, not those who know something.

Let's start with the most important thing, the thing that Greeks toast each other with instead of Cheers - good health. Take for example the NHS. That's a system the British love to complain about, but boy do you miss it when you can't have it any more. When I tell my Greek friends that you can walk into any clinic or hospital and get what you need without paying a penny and without having to slip bribes under the table, they're amazed.

With the crushing taxes that Greeks pay, don't they deserve something similar? I think yes. In my opinion, privatised medicine are two words that should never appear side by side. Doesn't a young, nervous, first time Greek mother deserve the right to have her baby safely and naturally under the guidance of doctors and nurses who have her interests at heart, rather than the doctor who will bully her into needless surgical intervention because surgery means a little extra in his pocket from the insurance company? Greece is now top in Europe for Caesarean sections at 44% instead of the WHOs recommended maximum of 15% - why is no one even talking about that? Because the medical insurance companies the government let in are so powerful.

This is country that could be absolutely anything, but because of so many years of such corrupt governments, nothing ever changes. Shabby schools and bored teachers who come to life all of a sudden at the Frondistereo after school schools where they get paid more. In giving the children of Greece such a shitty state school system, the government is basically sticking two fingers up at them and saying "Let them eat cake". I mean, there are so many really good private schools, right? Which everyone can afford, especially when their parents earn EUR 700 a month. Cake! Cake for all!

But I'm just ranting. Harsh as it sounds, not a thing will change in Greece until these old grandpas running the country die off, and some fresh young blood forces its way in. If I'm still hearing Karamanlis and Papandreou in 20 years time, I'll set the Parliament on fire!

Here's hoping.

Στην υγειά μας λοιπον !

2009-08-07T15:39:00.004+03:00

Say what you want about Greek women, but ain't no one touching their ass without their consent. If you have never been to the UK and been hit on by drunk British boys, it goes something like this:

Him: Hello darling, you're fucking gorgeous
You: Thanks
H: Can I buy you a drink?
Y: No thanks, I've got one
H: Come on don't be such a party pooper, I.. Brett! Hey Brett! That's my mate Brett, he's fucking MENTAL!

(Some pointless and unfunny story follows about Boy and Brett's drunken escapades)

H: A nice girl like you shouldn't be here on her own.
Y: I'm here with friends
H: Come on let's dance (starts putting arms around you and grinding his groin into you)
Y: Please, I'm really not interested. (backing away)
H: Well you're a bit of an ice queen ain't ya. Fucking think you're better than everyone don't ya! Well fuck you you stupid bitch!

Not made up. I've had dozens of these conversations when I lived in the UK. Not to say I'm a beauty queen, but in the UK the done thing when going out is to get completely, mind-bendingly drunk, and then anything female looks good. Drunk British boys have no manners and no sense of decency. They think that just because you're in a club and in their vicinity, you are fair game to be chatted up, fondled and then abused when you say no.

I'm not one to advocate violence, but I can understand that certain parts of Crete in the summer must become quite unbearable for the locals with hordes of British tourists decending on their towns for cheap holidays, cheap booze and thinking that they can get away with the sort of disrespectful behaviour they display in their own country.

All I'm sayin' is I didn't know Sambuca was quite so flammable, and I'll be keeping that in mind the next time someone invades my space.

Image: http://ramblingspoon.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/FlamingSambuca.jpg

Rain Dance

2009-08-06T13:39:00.000+03:00

At the precise moment I'm typing this, a brief, light rain shower is passing by. I tolds yas! So many years in a monsoon ridden country is good for predicting when the heat and humidity are going to break into rain.

Looking Ahead

2009-08-06T09:08:00.002+03:00

There is no country like Greece for trash TV. In fact , my number one reason for recommending learning Greek is so you can watch trash TV.

The number one trash channel here is Star TV, which only just stopped presenting their sexual inuendo studded weather bulletin with a weather girl in lingerie. Men loved it, I loathed it. Telos panton, anyway, Star TV in the summer blankets every news bulletin with bikini shots of women at the beach.

Their number one news gathering strategy is to head to the beach with a camera and interview people about how hot it is. In between these vox pops they slice in up-the-butt shots of women's bikini clad asses, the skimpier the better! Let's not forget that the newsreader has to always appear with her breasts half in half out of whatever top she's wearing, preferably some cheap and shiny form of satin.

My younger sisters and two cousins spent much of their wedding trip down at the beach and not once, twice got approached by the Star TV camera, which then departed upon discovering they spoke no Greek. I was appalled. The wedding planning stole my chance to be on my favourite trashy channel. If only I'd been there!! I would have totally been like all "Man it's hot! And I got this colour because I use baby oil. Screw sun protection!"

With August though, even trash TV presenters have gone on holiday, including my all time favourite Rania Thraskia, who has either gone to the beach or gone off to have her baby. Rania is none other than the presenter of my favourite trash TV show, Koitao Brosta (Looking Ahead).

The format is a daily topic with an expert panel and a phone-in for the general public. I tell you, Jerry Springer, Maury, Trisha, Jeremy Kyle ... these people are nobodies in front of this show. The four of them put together would make up Rania's little finger.

Where else but Koita Brosta can I enjoy such delightful phone-in topics such as:

* I got plastic surgery to look like my daughter in law because I'm jealous that she stole my ~~man~~ son

* My bitch of a daughter in law gave herself the bad eye and lost her baby at 5 months. A baby boy at that! How dare she! So me and my son threw her out. But not right away, we let her stay one day before we threw her out. And no, Rania, actually you're wrong because I am more devastated than her.

* I'm 19. My parents don't understand why I want to marry my 46 year old lover instead of get an education

* All my friends are rich and do rich people stuff. I don't work, because I gave my husband the favour of doing him a baby, so he should work to maintain my lifestyle. We're EUR 100,000 in debt but so frickin' want? I want to go on an expensive holiday! We can just take out another loan!

* I regularly left my child at home alone all night while I went out to search for my good for nothing husband, and now I don't know why she's all like "You're a terrible mother!"

* I adopted a boy and now that I have my own child I don't want him any more. I told him he's not my child and I hate him, and he's such a little demon child he misbehaves all the time! Not because he's lashing out for attention Rania, no, he's just a bad child. He is not my child. My child doesn't behave like that

* My daughter in law is crazy because she called the police after my son beat her. She does not care at all what the village will say about my family the selfish cow! It's not like it was the first time he beat her, so I don't know what her problem is. But anyway, all women get beaten by their husbands, isn't it?

And so many more. Every day is like a new delight on her show. Sometimes the callers are so ridiculous, I wonder if they're just making stuff up. But who cares! I'm entertained!

I hope Rania comes back off her holiday soon, because I'm getting bored of watching repeats of shows I've already seen. My life would be a barren desert of seriousness without Rania.

Long, Hot Summer

2009-08-05T10:18:00.005+03:00

Monsoon Weather - Various

Greece, for those of you who don't live here, goes into total shutdown in August. It's too hot for the industries to keep operating, and I swear, if they did it would be a crime against humanity in this weather, so this sets off a chain reaction where everything else winds down too.

The streets are pretty much deserted as whole neighbourhoods cash in their annual leave and depart to their respective villages for at least three weeks, often more.

The knock-on effect for someone like me who works from home is that I have nowhere to go now. Practically all my friends are either out of the city or melting in the sun and there is no bellydance class until September. You actually start to forget that other people exist in August. I'm just starting to come out from my wedding stress hangover and have not called anyone to thank them for their help/attendance/present.

With me sitting at home isolated I have nothing better to do than to try recipes out of Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess, a wedding present from my sisters that was obviously hinting at something. My match-box flat is bursting at the seams with so much stuff I periodically go on strike because I'm sick of tidying it. And my oven is broken and won't go beyond a certain temperature without tripping the main fuse of the flat so all my biscuits and pastry are coming out looking sickly pale.

So with nought all to do (apart from work, but who works in August! Someone should tell London that!) my favourite hobby is picking fights with Mr Zeus. It's the heat, the boredom, the not having a holiday destination with only two weeks left before we leave, the dog, my eyebrows, whatever! Anything and everything is fight fodder this time of year.

I have always said I love the summer, but yesterday I spent the day with rain sounds playing off the internet while I worked. I suppose I'm still reeling from the super sun exposure I got running errands before the wedding. I don't drive, so I have to walk everywhere, or wait for buses or taxis in the blistering heat. It was the first time in three years that I wished for rain.

No Money No Problems

2009-07-30T10:12:00.003+03:00

Since we're all in the same boat, scrabbling behind the sofa for spare euros and wondering where the money goes every month, we might as well sing and dance about it.

We may be broke but we're happy, and at least there are still some free beaches in Athens!

Onwards and Upwards

2009-07-28T12:18:00.007+03:00

So it's over. Words I never want to hear again:

boubounieres
decorations
bride
invitations
anything to do with one thing matching the other

Things I organised via the internet:

the wedding dress designed by me and created in the Home Country, which was made so lightly for the heat that I carried it around in a handbag.

the invitations in half Greek half English, printed in India and since I typeset them, the Greek part was full of mistakes. But so what. As far as I know no one turned up to the mayor's office at 11pm instead of 11am and that was my biggest error.

starfish charms for the wedding favours

marigold coloured tissue paper for decorating

mini incense and boxed bindis for the henna party favours

floating lotus lanterns for the beach

Maro from MAC on Ermou street, who I discovered via a comment on this blog and who helped me pick a foundation so perfect I looked airbrushed

MAC pigments in sample sizes from http://www.thebodyneeds2.com/

*Things that were not right on the day: Nothing

*My favourite thing about the wedding was: having all my family together for once.

*Now that it's all over I feel: Like I never, ever want to do that again as long as I live. Never. Ever. Ever. I'm so happy to be lounging around in my crappy clothes again, growing out my moustache and letting my fingernails break with abandon.

On the day itself I had a surprisingly good time. Not that I expected to have a bad time, it just was a lot better than I had hoped for.

When you're a bride, people break your balls about absolutely everything. It's worse being a bride who doesn't care much for weddings, because no one believes you when you say you're not into shabang type weddings and think you're just being a boring old fart.

The morning of the wedding was stress free and I was ready nicely ahead of schedule because I booked myself into a hotel and got dressed with my sisters. The rest was like a domino effect. Since the day started well it ended brilliantly with everyone in their swimming gear partying at a beach bar till the early morning.

Halfway through the party my sister and I walked past the bride from the other wedding party going on at the hotel of the beach par and couldn't help but laugh at the contrast. She was looking perfect in her white wedding dress, makeup and hair, and I was in a cotton beach dress, barefaced and barefoot. I had to show a little girl at the beach photos from the morning because she wouldn't believe her mother that I was the bride.

The next day though I was feeling major evil eyes so I burnt some sage and walked all the way through the flat with the windows and doors open, passing the smoke in every corner and all the cupboards. No jokes people, the evils were super bad. I got up at one point the night after the wedding and felt such a big weight press on me that I fell to the floor like a dead weight and couldn't get back up again. Mr Zeus heard the thud and had to come pick me off the floor because my legs had turned to jelly. You might say lack of sleep/low blood pressure, but it was evils I tells ya!

I will not give any advice for the bride, since it will all be useless anyway, except don't bother with diets. You will go through your own crash diet in the days before the wedding as the stress blow-torches the bumps and lumps away.

I will however advise you if you are a friend of a bride/groom to be:

Do not offer advice. Just listen

The bride will turn into a total bitch before the wedding. This has nothing to do with you. It's because she's sick of being asked unimportant questions and people freaking out around her about stupid details. Don't pay too much attention to the things she says when she's having a psychotic episode. She only means about half of them.

If you say you are going to do something, do it. The biggest disappointment for me when I was buckling under the stress was all the people who said they would help who then disappeared and turned up later to have a good time.

Do whatever the couple asks you to do, and don't complain about it. If you think you're tired you have no idea how exhausted they are.

In the days immediately before the wedding, take some food over. Otherwise the couple won't eat.

Take the initiative and fix any problems that you can fix yourself.

That's about it! I had a wedding day full of colours and happiness with the people I love all in one room. I would not do it again and I'm glad it's over, but I am equally happy that I had such a nice time. The mayor's speech before we signed the papers was very short but wonderfully to the point about respecting and lifting each other up and building a happy and secure environment for ourselves and our children. Many of the guests agreed that it was the nicest political marriage they had seen. So all's well that ends well.

ps. Al in Athens has left a comment here saying she wish she could have done more. I met Al through this blog, and we have since become good friends. Her gift to me were the flower decorations at the mayor's office, and there could not have been a better gift than the breathtaking job she did. Al, I could not possibly have asked for more than what you did as it was perfection.

Weekend Reminder

2009-07-17T15:47:00.006+03:00

Don't forget to buy this Sunday's Kyriakatiki Eleutherotypia for DVD 2 in it's current 4 DVD Bollywood series. The first movie was Veer Zara, the second is an epic and a favourite of mine, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham.

All four movies in this series are in fact extremely good choices. You could buy the DVD's for less on Menandrou street, but I believe by supporting ET in this endeavour, I am taking one step closer to the day that Bollywood movies will show in Greek cinemas.

Image: http://www.allzonedvd.com/bollywood/dvd/k/kabhie3.jpe

Greek 101

2009-07-14T12:20:00.006+03:00

Now that I have reached a level where I can communicate in Greek, even with my terrible grammar, it amazes me just how pointless and restrictive most of the Greek we were taught was. We were never taught any slang or anything particularly useful and applicable to survival in Greece, such as:

* Go f*ck yourself you f*cking f*ck!
* Who lets all these bloody grandpas onto the roads on the weekend?
* It wasn't my fault
* Sometimes you make me so angry I want to break something
* I'm really not interested in going out with you
* But the meter says EUR 4.50, so I won't pay you a penny over that
* Two tzatzikis, four kebabs, three chips and ten beers. No, just us two.
* If you don't behave I'll break all your bones
* I'd like to speak to your supervisor.
* Anything to do with talking on the phone.

Instead, I can recall spectacularly useless modules where the characters sit politely around a table wondering what they will order, instead of the bloodbath that usually ensues when hungry Greeks order at a restaurant, and another where a customer goes to the DEH electricity office and meets an unrealistically helpful staff member.

What would have been much more useful and realistic was to start basic Greek classes with a handful of swearwords, which constitute roughly 50% of a conversation. Furthermore, Greek classes should have been held in the same room as another language class, or with three teachers who all talk at you at the same time to give a more realistic sensation of the way communication takes place here. You develop an amazing ability to track three separate conversations at the same time, and this is not something taught.

Also, I hate using my Greek on the phone, so a few classes dedicated to that would have been good, such as getting us to call the tourist office infront of the whole class or something.

Perhaps the most pointless phrase I was ever taught was to ask if there is a bakery nearby. You will always find a bakery in Greece, just walk 5 minutes in any direction. They're as plentiful as churches.

Summer Lovin'

2009-07-10T13:47:00.005+03:00

As I type this, I am turning into jelly. Seriously, this life of not doing much at all is taking its toll. Gone are the days when I survived on a diet of pure garbage and had nothing to show for it. Time's a-moving on and at 27, the weight has now started to stick in places that previously had a Teflon-like ability to deflect fat.

A few days ago I got it into my head that taking the dog for runs would a) help me get fit and b) stop the dog being such a total asshole all the time. This project was unsuccessful because it is too hot to do anything, I am by nature a completely lazy person and the dog is by nature an asshole, and laziness and assholiness are not properties easily conditioned out.

I have also never been a fan of gyms. All those fit people being fit are far too intimidating to me. It's much less embarrassing to cough and splutter after two minutes of running with only my dog as a witness than an entire gym.

Other projects that have gone to seed are waking up extra early and going to the beach for a refreshing swim. It's so hot in the city right now that there were news reports of families sleeping on the beach last night because of the heat. I don't particularly mind the heat, except being without a car means running errands becomes a lot harder in this heat.

Tomorrow I plan on going to the much media maligned Menandrou street to buy mangoes, but let's see if the heat cancels out my drive to eat mangoes. I don't get the media horror stories. I go to Menandrou street all the time all on my own and no one has ever bothered me there. In fact, I only ever tend to see the police kicking up a fuss down there. I feel more uncomfortable in the snooty shops of Kolonaki than I do in Menandrou.

On more refreshing and sweet smelling news, Greece is now 10 days into a smoking ban that I would never have believed if I wasn't witnessing myself. On Saturday I enjoyed my first smoke-free night out in Athens and it was wonderful. I hope people keep up the pace, because no matter how much people here hate being told what to do, smoking is not good for you and as lazy as I am, I object to being forced to inhale a substance that I do not willingly put inside my lungs. My decision to poison myself on alcohol on Saturday was entirely mine and mine alone.

Finally, don't forget to buy this Sunday's Kyriakatiki Eleftherotypia for a DVD of 4 Bollywood movies. Count 'em, FOUR! Get yourself down to Menandrou street, buy a box of mangoes and enjoy a Bollyfest of unseen proportions in Greece!

Image: www.alienlovespredator.com

Growing Up with MJ

2009-06-29T12:07:00.005+03:00

There is nothing to say about Michael Jackson that hasn't already been said. To me, his death was a particular shock because as a kid of the 80s, I grew up on his music when he was at his peak. He was the benchmark of a good dancer for our generation. When talking about someone who could dance, the defining test of if they were really that talented was if they could do Michael Jackson moves. How many childhood hours the world over were spent trying to moonwalk?

He was the only person me and my sisters ever wrote a fan letter to. I believe it was a critical dissection of his Moon Walker movie which we addressed to Michael Jackson, Neverland, America. God only knows where it ended up.

Our mother would go to the video shop and buy Michael Jackson music videos which we watched on an endless loop during our parents' afternoon siestas. This was before we had any sort of music channel in the Home Country.

People even teased me about resembling him and I once donned a pair of Aviators and white tape on my fingers for a picture, stood next to my Michael Jackson poster which is the only celebrity poster I ever bothered buying. It was flattering as a kid when he was still normal looking, but when the last comparison occurred just four years ago, I was deeply insulted.

As the years rolled on I abandoned my Michael Jackson fan status as things got weird and eventually he became not much more than tabloid fodder to me.

And then on Thursday night, as I was inspecting the skin peeling from my face from over enthusiastic spot removal efforts, my youngest sister rushed into the bathroom and told me that Michael Jackson had died.

It was only after that that I realised just how much fantastic music he made, and how much of that music appears as a backdrop to childhood memories and how my future kids would ask me where I was when I heard the news, the way we ask our parents where they were when Elvis died.

The Thriller video scared the living daylights out of me until I forced myself to watch despite my terror to the end and assure myself that the zombie does turn back into good old MJ. I defined what I wanted to look like when I grew up by all the women in Michael Jackson videos. Isn't it nice when you're a kid and you just think that you'll grow up to look like Iman simply because you want to?

And kids of today have no idea how cutting edge for its time the Black and White video was when the people in the end are all merging into each other, not even movies were doing that back then. As for that particular video, my sisters and I were beside ourselves with joy that an Indian woman got to dance with Michael Jackson in a video. Man, we knew the entire script to that video by heart.

And now all we are left from a life we literally picked and pecked to death is the music. At least I got to see Michael Jackson in the flesh for a few very brief seconds.

It was the late 80s and on one of our trips to the UK, our parents carted us off to Madame Tussaud's wax museum. Amongst the other attractions, a new statue of Michael Jackson had been unveiled. I was pretty young, but as far as I can recall the statue must have been stood under a spotlight because the rest of the room was very dark and gloomy.

All of a sudden, my mother shrieked "Oh my God! That's Michael Jackson!" I thought, yeah, it is Michael Jackson, it's his statue, why did you realise that all of a sudden? She repeated again that it was the real Michael Jackson and I spun around to catch a glimpse of the man himself flanked by bodyguards making a hasty exit as the crowd surged in his direction. That night, his clandestine appearance botched by my mother made the news.

When the news broke of his death and we sat together recalling how crazy we all were about Michael Jackson, I told her I wished she had quietly turned us around and pointed instead of notifying everyone in the room, causing his exit and making my one and only glimpse of Michael Jackson the back of him. At least I fared better than my older sister who turned in time to be hit in the face by Michael Jackson's shoulder bag and thus saw nothing at all. On our return to the Home Country, awe-struck friends told her she should never wash her face again.

Lying Under Trees, Looking At the Stars

2009-06-17T08:59:00.002+03:00

I was a very little girl when we were dragged off one evening to see the great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan who was making an appearance at our little town where nothing ever happens. Naturally all the mysticism and poetry went straight over my head and the only reason I even remember the night was because I was so bored and annoyed at being subjected to this fat man singing.

If only I knew back then!

Greek Tragedies

2009-06-16T10:41:00.003+03:00

The following conversation took place in Greek:

Me: It would be nice to be able to wear those big sunglasses. Everyone looks good in those, it's hard not to look good in those!

Friend: Couldn't they make you a prescription pair?

Me: No, they'd apparently weigh too much because of the size of the lenses. But no big deal. On my next trip to the UK I'm going to see my eye doctor and get lentils for my eyes.

Friend: ...(looking blank)

Me: You know, lentils! You put them in your eyes and then you don't wear glasses? Come on! Your husband wears them too!

Friend: You mean lenses (φακόυς) not lentils (φακές)

http://tiny.cc/FAlZs

Bollybutton's Friday Beatbox

2009-06-12T13:00:00.005+03:00

It's been far too long since we put on our dancing saris and busted a move. It's Friday! We got through one more week of evil Bollywood villains and plotting, giant bindi wearing mother-in-laws! What better way to express our happiness than through the medium of Bollywood dance?

Image: http://pics.livejournal.com/filmi_girl/pic/00095d8p

Find A Happy Place

2009-06-08T16:02:00.005+03:00

After having my face practically ripped off my head, I thought I could not take any more wedding related shizz. But never say never!

Sore, irritable, and complaining to anyone willing to listen, I dragged my bridal ass downtown on Saturday morning to run errands, namely buying sugared almonds for wedding favours which I'm making myself (all that work and no one even keeps them afterwards) and picking up some fabric to make a dress for the casual part of the wedding day.

I went to the same shop I always go to for fabric and in the chit chatting about the fabric, I revealed what it was for. So the lady in the shop was kind enough to knock a few euros off the price since it was for a 'special occassion'.

On the ride home I was furiously running through all the things that were irritating me, like a kid picking at a scab. My thoughts sounding something like this:

* I can't BELIEVE I have to make so many of these favours when no one even keeps them afterwards!!

* My newly unblocked pores are sweating so much!

*Why is this flyer stuck to my shoe? Disgusting, melted chewing gum. Yet another thing to be pissed off at

* EUR 300 for hair and makeup? Are these people insane? I'll just do it myself and screw anyone who disagrees

And blahdy blah blah. It was a full on moan fest. I got home, threw the fabric into the washing machine to pre-shrink it and hung it out to dry.

A few hours passed and I forgot about the fabric. Finally on Sunday morning I remembered that I'd put it out but it had since disappeared from the line. Where could it have gone, one wondered.

Peeking into the back yard, I was horrified to see my poor dress fabric lying in a heap, crumpled and mashed into the mud of the yard. Yes, Brush-With-Death puppy had got bored of having no one to bark at and had a great time ripping a full variety of holes into the dress fabric, ranging from huge to teeny tiny. It was hard to find a square metre without some sort of hole through it.

I began to cry. And then I stopped. I rewashed the fabric and worked all around the holes to cut the pattern pieces. Not an easy task considering the dress is bias cut.

As a result of my pity party and lashings of negativity, all I did was attract even more bad luck. So from now until D day, I am no longer blogging about anything wedding related.Having found myself in a Catch-22 situation where giving my opinion results in people doing what they want to do anyway, and where not giving my opinion results in them insisting they know my opinion, then doing what they wanted to anyway, my new answer to any question is: "Do what you think is best."

I have adopted a zen-like attitude, a sort of mental hibernation. I'll wake up after the wedding.

Image: http://www.orbitcast.com/archives/head-in-the-sand.jpg

This is the Death Mask of Womanhood*

2009-06-05T14:11:00.005+03:00

There are times when I feel so out of touch with woman kind, that I really wish that I too was interested in all the stuff that other women are interested in - hair, nails, shoes, salon appointments, stupid looking handbag dogs etc.

I am on the whole happy with who I am, but sometimes I wish I found this stuff interesting, or could at least fake my interest in it, just to join in with the gang and have things to talk about.

What I'm talking about is the kind of woman who has been taught the 'rules of womanhood' by her mother. Who never leaves the house without makeup, who goes once a week to get her hair and nails done, who complicates her life unnecessarily but can't come to grips with you being female, not being a lesbian, and not being interested in those things.

My mother owned one eye pencil, one lipstick, one blusher and one perfume. That's it. She replenished the same exact shade and brand whenever she was done, and she always looked pretty great to me. But you might as well be from the moon if you admit that philosophy to other women, especially in Greece.

The build up to this wedding is turning into an exercise of first time rites of passage in womanhood for me. Since the Wedding Beast has now reached the size where it is devouring me, one nerve at a time, I thought I might as well join in and try some of this stuff women keep going on about. It might even be relaxing! A facial for example!

Since the resident spots did not even flinch when I began applying expensive spot busters to them, carpet bombing was the only option left. So I turned to my crazy friend M from bellydance, who happens to be beautician, but the good kind, ie she doesn't wear 6 inches of makeup or have fake nails.

She gave me a long chat about how careful I would need to be with my skin because the melanin would leave marks that would take forever to fade if I went to someone who had no experience with ethnic skin.

Now, I trust M. I know that all this will be worth it at some point and that at least most of the spots were evacuated from their posts this morning. But oh my GOD. I've experienced less pain in the dentist's chair.

The first facial of my life confirmed for me that women are completely insane. I had the living daylights squeezed out of my pores and then M declared "We'll burn the microbes now" followed by the bone-chilling sound of electricity crackling. "What the hell is that!" I wailed as she brandished a torture device near me.

And then, dear reader, I lay there while my face was electrocuted. And not only that, I paid for it afterwards. Do you know what they call this treatment? High frequency facial treatment. I suppose no one would submit to it if it was called what it actually is: Facial Electrocution treatment.

My face looks like a hot mess at the moment. Every pore on my face is screaming "FUCK YOU" at me and has turned red, swollen and angry. I feel like crying when I look in the mirror. With M's follow up schedule, I'm sure things will smooth out and at least those awful bumps won't come back. But when my face looks like I stuck it in a bee hive, it's really hard to hold on to that faith.

Preparations for the wedding is proving very revealing in terms of all the awful things women do to themselves to 'look good'. I was happy with my face. Experiencing all that pain on my face of all places has made me feel violated - I wish I could go back to this morning before I knew that ones face could feel such pain.

It's also made me realise that the women who are into this stuff are fucking crazy. Why complain about how long it takes you to maintain your hairdo when you could just walk out the door after washing your hair? The sky won't fall, you know.

And manicures? Seriously guys, these don't even last more than two days. You pay money to make your nails look like your nails do anyway. When I showed my french manicure to Mr Zeus's grandma, she said "I don't see any manicure. Why didn't she paint them with a colour?"

The excuse is that all this rubbish makes women feel good about themselves. Why do I feel like the only person thinking "But the emperor has no clothes... he's naked! Why all this oohing and aahing over how great his clothes are?"

And if you are a woman who goes for facials, waxing, laser treatments, salon hairdos where they yank and pull at your hair all the time, facial electrocution and suchlike, I don't EVER want to hear about your painful period again. And give birth naturally! I don't want to hear about your pain threshold, you big fat liar! You can't torture yourself for years like this and then decide pain is something you can't handle. Liar, liar, LIAR!

With a face like this I am not leaving the house for the rest of my life. I think it's time to freak out my neighbours and start wearing a niqab.

*Disclaimer: I am pissed as hell this week. And especially today, when my face looks like fuck and smells like wet metal.

Image: http://www.prevention.com/pvnstatic-assets/images/298x232_article_size/beauty/298x232_LB_AAA_home_skcare_ST.jpg

Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad

2009-05-21T12:29:00.004+03:00

This morning I got a nasty shock when I went outside to silence our dog barking. I admit he is a problem barker, but I was not prepared to find a piece of aluminium foil pushed under the fence containing two biftekia smothered with a rancid smelling blue liquid.

Without having the decency to come and talk to us about our dog's barking being disturbing, or even to leave a note, someone had tried to poison our dog. An animal that is only following its protective instincts. Lately I've been running errands in the mornings before work, and I shudder to think what would have happened if I hadn't been at home to check why he was barking and find him curiously sniffing at the "treat" left for him.

The people in the apartment building opposite saw me and my Greek sister (sister in law) shaking our heads over the poisoned meat and ushered us over. Apparently, someone in the neighbourhood had come to the building opposite ours and given the family's details in an attempt to convince the people in that building to make a complaint about us to the police.

What kind of people are these that would poison an animal without even approaching the owners first? Death by poisoning is a very slow and painful way to die. The animal suffers beyond belief. A dog of mine in the Home Country was poisoned and vomited blood for days before his poor little body could no longer take any more.

Lots of people in our neighbourhood keep dogs, and lots of them bark. One dog in particular yaps all day and all night in the summer. But I feel our dog was particularly targeted because he is a Doberman, and this breed has the mistaken stereotype of being vicious. Anyone who ever had a Doberman as a pet knows what silly, playful and lovable animals they are. Whoever tried to poison him must have thought that he's only being kept as a guard dog and not as a pet, so his death would only be an nuisance and carry no emotional weight for the owners.

Animal poisoning is very common in Greece so I don't know why I was so shaken today. I just had faith that my neighbourhood was populated by people with some decency and values, not barbarians who think its okay to torture another living creature.

Image: http://www.signswithanattitude.com/images_signs/special_signs/dead_dogs.jpg

Europe's Bad Taste on Display at Eurovision

2009-05-18T12:48:00.004+03:00

In the UK, representing the country for Eurovision is considered career suicide. It gets an ok following, but the last few years people got bored of the political voting and stopped watching. Hey, no one likes being reminded that the whole playground thinks you're a bully and won't play with you.

In Greece though, Eurovision is such a big deal that the chat shows dedicate blanket coverage to the goings on of the contest in the two weeks running up to the finals. Even my favourite chat show "Κοιτάω μπροστά" (Looking Ahead) sacrificed an afternoon to Eurovision, which I was most disappointed about. More on Κοιτάω μπροστά another time, it's the daytime TV equivalent of cocaine.

When our dear superstar Sakis picked his song, I was doubtful. It didn't sound Eurovisiony enough to me. But oh well, Eurovision's biggest audience is women and gay men, so Sakis was sure to bring the votes in. I'm crazy about Eurovision and missed out on attending it when it was held in Greece because it was too close to an important exam. But I thought never mind, Sakis is totally selling the whole Next-Year-Eurovision-On-A-Greek-Island thing. Who could possible resist that?

And then along came some Norwegian guy who still hasn't gotten over some girl he went out with and moaned about it to all of Europe. And Europe in a display of terrible taste gave him a landslide victory. Why am I surprised? Last year's Russian entry was equally shit and only won because of political voting.

I have things to say to the following parties about this heinous miscarriage of justice:

1. Now, Europe. Obviously you're all sentimental fools nursing broken hearts. I get that. We've all been there - the one that got away, the one I was so in love with, blah blah blah. But JESUS!! GET OVER IT! Couldn't you have just got some therapy instead of ruining my Eurovision dreams, and those of Sakis and all of Greece?? Don't you know who Sakis is? He's like a god here! I hope you're satisfied with what you've done. Go freeze your asses off in Norway next year and think of this as your extremeties loose sensation:

"I could have been in Greece right now if I'd voted for Sakis."

2. Northern Europe, who voted so shabbily for Greece - thanks for nothing. You all come here in flocks in the summer, stealing our jobs and our women and our sunloungers and forcing us to see your pasty white bodies turn red under the Greek sun. You come here all the time, year after year, and we're nice to you. The least you could have done was voted for Greece, how bloody ungrateful can you get?!

3. Sweden - I hear your Eurovision presenters has some rather nasty things to say about Sakis and his enthusiastic shirt ripping. I'd like to see you sing and dance like that at the same time with not even a wobble in your voice. Not even big international stars can dance like that and sing live, including Madonna who always mimes when doing yoga onstage. Furthermore, take notes of subclause a and b below:

a) You sent some terrifying manwoman to represent your country.

b) If it's going out of fashion for the Greek boys to chase the Swedish girls on holiday, that's not Sakis's fault.

4. Sakis, it was with a heavy heart that I watched your unnecessary apology to Greece. It's not your fault that Europe has bad taste in music. My tip for next time is: when shirt ripping is in progress, accidental or otherwise, go for it and rip it right off. That would have at least doubled your votes.

5. Russian cameramen - you didn't do too good a job. Don't you know who Dita Von Tees is?

6. Finally, Norwegian winner. Thanks to you we will have to listen to everyone else's miserable love stories next year.

On merrier notes, I thought it was a really good contest this year. I was sure the competition was going to be very tight. Landslide victories are no fun to watch. I thought Armenia, Turkey and Azerbaijan all had fun songs and I was happy to see my cheesey pal Arash again.

We were watching the contest with some friends and the disappointment in the air was tangible. When the last vote came in, with Greece about 300 points off winning, a member of the gang said "That's it guys, we lost"

You gotta admire that sort of optimism, not losing hope till the last moment.

Image: http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2008/12/11/128734810832554971.jpg

Big Brother Isn't Watching Me

2009-05-13T10:44:00.005+03:00

The Greek government spends most of its time being disasterously out of touch with its people, so I was delighted to hear that Google's Street View cars have been banned from picturing the streets of Greece in order to protect the privacy of the public.

Echoing a widespread view, Yannis Papadopoulos, a Greek leftist who agreed with the watchdog's precautionary stance, said: "Privacy as a concept or even word may not exist in our language but all this snooping is simply Orwellian. We won't let it pass."

Street View seemed like a cool idea to me, until I started reading about people who had been caught by the cameras in the privacy of their own homes half-dressed, or in other compromising positions, and could not get their image removed from Google. So there you were admiring yourself in some newly purchased Y fronts, and all of a sudden the whole world is watching.

What I didn't like about the article is that it starts off painting this move as a reluctance on the part of Greeks to embrace new technology. True as that may be, it certainly doesn't apply in this context. This is about the protection of individual privacy, not a fear of new technology.

Hooray! A rare step in the right direction by the Greek government!

Image: http://www.blogcadre.com/files/images/83732757_866609a35c.preview.jpg