Greece takes care of you
Along with some photos of folk seen recently in Yialos, here’s a nice story, related to me by a friend.
“I discovered some news yesterday and thought that you may wish to put it in your Blog. I bumped into a lady recently and she told me that she had just fetched their cooked meal for the day from the Army. It seems that as her husband is a Reservist, he and his family are entitled to one meal a day from the Army. She tells me that with them both working in the summer, she takes advantage of the offer, but during the winter when she is not working, she cooks at home for the family. She said that this offer was also available to (1) The Army (2) Army Reservists (3) The Police and (4) The Port Police. This is obviously an offer from the Government to help families who are struggling with the cutbacks in wages due to the austerity measures imposed on Greece. I thought that it was a nice gesture by the Government that could be mentioned in your Blog as positive news for the people of Greece.”
Quite agree and it’s not the kind of thing that makes the headlines, sadly – they are always about the poor state of affairs, not necessary the state looking after the affairs of the poor – or similar. (Trying to be word-play-ish there but not quite succeeding.)
If you, dear reader, have any positive stories to share with you other dear readers, please feel free to send them in. The email is, as always, at the bottom of the site page.
In other news from Symi, well not really news as such but… The festival continues with live performances, the Panagiri of the Virgin Mary took place on Sunday night/Monday morning and Monday was a bank holiday. It also saw the return of several Turkish gulets and their passengers, the arrival of three packed Rhodes day boats and live music at Georgios as it was a special occasion. The new fruit and veg shop in Horio is selling made-up fresh fruit salads for those wanting to take-away and it also has a juicer or two so you can pick your fruit and veg, and they will juice it up there and then. Not sure of prices. Yes, it’s been a quieter summer than usual but it’s good to see some folk are still being positive and opening new businesses, while others are trying to keep their heads above water in others.
On a completely unrelated subject, I was celebrating a little on Monday as I finally finished my scriptwriting course with the South Africa Writer’s College. I had six months to complete it and came in with a couple of weeks to spare. The final assignment was a review of a script and to present a 15-page screenplay or script. I wrote five pages about James Cameron’s ‘Titanic’ after reading the script – very interesting to see what was omitted, to read the original ending, now the alternative ending and no the ship doesn’t float up from the bottom – and to see how a few words on a page lead to such huge visuals. My script submission was a 40-page screenplay. I know, a bit more than 15 but they were happy with that. After writing it, it seems to me best suited for a TV series of one hour per episode. It’s a comedy set on a Greek island, strangely enough, and, depending on what mark I get for it, I might share it on here when I get it back with my final result…
