High life
Emperor of Slough
Taki
I hone for the fish-knives, Norman' is the only thing that comes to mind after three days and nights in the Big Olive. If Betjeman were here he would publicly apologise to Slough, a place that seems like pre-war Dresden by comparison. The ex- pensive restaurants and night-clubs are jammed with a new type of Greek, the Papandreou Philistine, a humanoid that is more often than not mistaken for a rock star when travelling abroad. The last time I saw so many hirsute and repulsive-looking people was when I attended my first — and last — pop concert back in 1975, guest of one Bianca Jagger, now better known as the world's oldest up-and-coming starlet.
Mind you, I feel lucky to be here. Last Sunday the Olive Republic got hit by the kind of storm that left Hyde Park treeless not so long ago, and I found myself in the middle of it — right above the Acropolis, to be exact. To say that the aeroplane resembled a Greek Orthodox church at Easter would be a gross understatement. Never have I seen so many pray so hard and for so long. Some Greeks even stop- ped smoking while begging the Almighty to save them in order to continue to screw their fellow man.
Greeks are notorious for thinking out loud, and they were louder than usual last Sunday. The lady sitting behind me, however, was an exception. She cried softly throughout, while repeating, 'The pilot can't see, the pilot can't see, we're finished, I tell you, we're finished.' I finally took pity on her — well, perhaps she was unnerving me — and told her that thank God the pilot couldn't see, because we were going in on instruments, and that instruments did not need to see: `Ah, ah, don't say such things, don't say such things,'.was her reply.
Things got worse after we landed. My two karate boys, Dimitri and Elias Kazakeas, were waiting for me, and as we left the airport I got the strange feeling that I was entering a war zone. In fact the last time I had had that particular feeling was while landing in Da Nang in the spring of 1972, just after 40 divisions of the NVA had crossed the DMZ. The Big Olive looked like Athens in the winter of 1944, the only lights being those of a few cars. It was soon explained to me that when it rains the city's electricity system goes on the blink, as the funds that were allocated for it went for the most part into the pockets of the ministers who allocated them. The funds for the overhaul of the system ditto, and so on. As Aristotle said, par for the course.
Aristotle, needless to say, would have been put on trial by the present govern- ment because he would have shouted out loud at the antics of the master clown of Europe. Andreas the First continues to indulge in his various schemes of global design in order to keep a high profile, while dissatisfaction among his subjects is approaching a St Petersburg circa 1917 pitch. The same, however, is unfortunately happening as regards the opposition party. The conservatives are hopelessly split, a fact that Papandreou exploits to the hilt. The communists are even more obsolete than the Albanians, and are busy trying to out-Moscow Moscow. Which means that the poor old Olive Republic is going to get five more years of imperial rule from Andreas, a master at outmanoeuvring his sluggish opponents in political matters. Here are a few examples of Andreas's Houdini-like antics: on the sluggish and stagnant economy, Andreas declared that Greece in 1988 would have an economic development equivalent to that of . . . West Germany. No figures were given and the government-controlled media didn't ask for any. On the pollution that is literally killing the four million inhabitants of the Big Olive, a spokesman for the emperor called a press conference and announced that a special police squad would be responsible for the prevention of atmospheric pollution and that ten mobile units would be assigned to check car exhaust fumes. The spokesman also said that great plans were afoot to build public garages and parking lots. The fact that the regime has been in power for seven whole years and the first brick for a public garage has yet to be laid made no difference. The media applauded, as did the ten units which will check the cars of the various ministers to make sure they are in good running order.
What is definite is that huge sums of public money will find themselves in pri- vate pockets, and that more and more Papandreou Philistines will be breaking plates and dancing on the tables of my once favourite haunts. I guess it's no different in Eastern Europe, where the sons of minis- ters lord it over old families now employed as waiters. Which reminds me: back in 1951 I spent the summer working as a bus boy in a Connecticut resort. Next time I hope I make it at least as a maitre d'.
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