High life
Ship ahoy
Taki
AAthens s everyone who has ever heard of Onassis knows, his great boat, the Christ- ina, was left in his will to the Olive State in order to keep it out of the clutches of his loving widow. What poor Aristo never figured was that the Olive State would one day be run by people as ghastly as the Kennedys, the very ones he wished to keep off his top deck in the first place.
Onassis went to purgatory in 1975. The first apres-Colonels president, Constantine Tsatsos, had the good taste not to steam away to Mykonos while the body was still warm. The second big feta cheese, Con- stantine Karamanlis, used the boat spar- ingly, preferring to cruise on Basil Goulan- dris's floating palace, the Paloma. The third big saganaki, Christos Sartzetakis, moved in lock, stock and barrel, except that in his case it was three goats, 17 relatives, two pigs and a washboard.
Sartzetakis was hand-picked by premier Andreas Papandreou because he not only looks as common as Andreas but also dresses as badly. Unlike Andreas, howev- er, the big saganaki is not a womaniser, nor a liar. What he likes to do is cruise, and although I do not keep such records, he has probably sailed longer on the Christina now renamed Argo — than Maria Callas ever did.
Sartzetakis is also the first president to move into the Royal Palace, again with his goats, pigs, family etc. . . . Past big cheeses remained in their houses and used the Palace only for formal receptions. But not the first socialist-appointed biggie. Mind you, I don't care because at least Sartzetakis is honest. Which is something I wish I could say for the rest of the government, but I would probably be sued for telling egregious lies if I did.
What Sartzetakis is not is an orator. Here is an example of his Demosthenian prowess and verbal dexterity as offered to the masses only last month: 'In today's times the dangers which encircle us carry not racial, but chiefly other names. In the great society of all nations and in the narrower but still substantial European Community, the danger of our total extinc- tion appears as threatening and literally imminent if we are to abandon ourselves passively and in utter carelessness to the unthinkable enjoyment of consumer pro- ducts. As not to be transformed into a pitiful flock of unwilling, bleating servants always and continually at the beck and call of others who are multi-multitudinous and powerful. . .
I could go on but it isn't fair. What the ffihrer means is that the coming hordes of Europeans in 1992 will strip us of our identity by abducting our tsarouhia (tas- seled peasant shoes), doing away with our flocati rugs and, horror of horrors, intro- ducing electrolysis to our womenfolk. It is enough to make any red-blooded Greek go to Turkey, but now they're even threaten- ing to let the Turks in too.
This week the Big Olive gave the im- pression of Moscow circa 1812. I counted about four cars during the ten-mile drive to the centre, and not a single pedestrian. It seems the whole population escaped the city when pollution passed the danger point and reached deadly levels. The gov- ernment, of course, denied this, and de- clared a four-day holiday for reasons un- known. Mind you, had Andreas Papan- dreou consulted a certain San Francisco astrologer, he could have declared the holiday before the people had decided to take it rather than die.
Which brings me to the female equiva- lent of Andreas, Nancy Reagan, who was first introduced to paranormal phenomena by Jerry Zipkin, himself far from normal and definitely a most unpleasant phe- nomenon. But what I really find mind- boggling is that two of the last great presidents America has had, Richard Nix- on and Ronald Reagan, were both ren- dered powerless by con artists, flim-flam men, liars and turban-wearing women peering into crystal balls. No wonder Andreas listens only to his mistress.
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