The Symi Festival this week
Dates for your Symi Festival diary this week:
Tuesday 23^rd – Celebration of the traditional feast of our Lady of Nimos
Sunday 28^th – Local music ‘hypochromic’

The venue for the concert will be announced nearer the time through the island’s speaker system.

I’ve been watching the lights over on Nimos through the past few night, looks like they are getting the monastery ready for the festival at all hours. There will be taxi boats and others going backwards and forwards through the day and into the night on Tuesday. There is a description of this festival in William Travis’ ‘Bus Stop Symi’ if I remember correctly.

I’ve been having a bit of a Universal horror film weekend – not watching any, but moving about the house looking like Igor. I was doing one of those mundane things on Friday morning, getting dressed actually, and suddenly, for no reason, felt a great ripping up the top of one leg and into my back. ‘This doesn’t feel good,’ I thought and then said… Well, I shan’t repeat it here. But it’s now, Sunday as I write and I’m doing lines from ‘Noises off,’ “Am I in Spain? No I’m not in Spain, dear, I’m in agony.” (You should watch the film if you’ve not seen it, very funny especially if you’re into theatre or amateur dramatics.)

This put paid to my plan which was to walk to the monastery of ‘To Vrisi’ on Friday, and do some early morning wandering on Saturday and Sunday. Instead, I spent Friday at home trying to get comfortable while Neil went to Yialos and bought me some ‘anti-inflatables’, which have helped slightly, though you have to realise that the name of the tablets is nothing to take personally. You ask the pharmacy what’s the best thing to take for a ripped muscle and they reply with ‘Voltaren Retard.’ Luckily there’s no comma in there our it could be mildly insulting- but at least they seem to be working. As is sitting still and reading for two days mixed with a little moving about and the local equivalent of Deep Heat. Ah, the joys of getting older.

But it did give me time to read through the printed version of ‘Remotely’ to check for any last typos and corrections before the Kindle versions is finished. (Still a few weeks away as the man formatting it for me is now having to arrange the filming of the opening night of Hedda Gabler in Oslo from his cottage in Shropshire while also dealing with the sending out of info about ‘The 13^th‘ and caring for his elderly mother… But we are getting there.)

‘Remotely‘ has been selling well for its first month, but we could always do with more sales, so please take a look – just follow the link. I have to say, having not read it through for a while now it still made me laugh, in in places I’d not laughed in before and also brought a tear to my eye in places, and I knew what was coming. The most recent five-star review of it on Amazon includes: “More double-entendres than a Carry On film” which I rather like.

Anyway, I’m going to hobble away now. I’m hoping to get out later if only to get some more inspiring photos for the blog, though we also need even more cat food – I am sure he eats more than we do – and other bits and pieces. I shall put on my fake mid-European/Transylvanian accent, costume and bent walk and wander about Yialos saying, ‘Yes, Mhasther’ while throwing switches and pulling leavers before stealing a brain from a science lab that is clearly marked ‘Abnormal Brain’ (see James Whale’s Frankenstein) and laughing hysterically for no reason. Here’s to a good week.

Share on Facebook

I haven’t done this for a while, but as I am feeling particularly lazy today, here are a few Symi Saturday photos – I’ll be back on Monday.

Share on Facebook

Symi film news update, ‘The Thirteenth’
Here’s a quick note about the film filmed on Symi in 2013, ‘The Thirteenth.’ (And some unrelated musical images, unrelated apart from they were taken on Symi.)

I had advanced notice that the viewing for the backers will be available any day now. The film has been uploaded to a certain site where the industry place finished films for potential buyers to see; the distributers and so on. It made sense to put the film there so that it was in the right place for professionals interested in marketing it. This site also allows non-paid-up members to view films by invitation only. So, as I understand it, this is how it will go:

Backers of the film eligible for the free preview will receive a Kickstarter update very soon (it might even arrive before this is posted, I’m not sure). This will explain what you have to do in order to see the film. The email address that you used when you signed up for the Kickstarter donation is the one that the update will come to. You will be invited to go to the site (details of that will be in the update you get) and then you will have to register with the same email address. Registration is free and only takes a few seconds. You then get a conformation email with the log-in link.

It’s being done this way so that there is less chance of the film being hacked and stolen and put up on pirate sites, and the process is easier than I am making it sound. Once you get the link, you log in with the same email address (very important – else you won’t be able to log in) and then you can stream the film online. I believe there are ways to reduce the quality to aid the streaming, if you are on a slow connection for example, but if you can see it on the full quality, that will be the best way. You won’t be able to download it, and please don’t share the login details around, that would be very naughty.

A couple of things to note: there will be a watermark on the film which is a necessary evil. It’s not nice to see but it helps prevent pirating and copying. You’ll just have to ignore that. Also, the link will be there only for a certain period of time, it’s not a permanent viewing. But you should have plenty of time to see it all, I mean weeks rather than hours.

All this should be explained in the update that I have been told will be going out to backers very soon. I’ve also asked them to mention the other ‘perks’ that people have been waiting for. I know they now have to prepare a DVD version and a book for backers, but I don’t know what stage that is at. Anyway, here’s your advanced warning. And, if you were not a backer and don’t know what I am talking about, you can read my book on which the story was based by clicking to The Judas Inheritance at Amazon.

Share on Facebook

Cultural news
Here’s some news for our Norwegian readers, and I know we have a few.

A friend of mine has been involved in producing a film, a new, full costume production of Hedda Gabler. It’s been some time in the making but it is now having its world premiere on September 8^th. There are, I believe, about 150 tickets to the red carpet event available for members of the public. The organisers asked me to mention:

It’s on 8^th Sep 6pm (18:00hrs) Vika Cinema, Ruseløkkveien 14, 0251 Oslo, Norway
Cost of ticket (only 150 available) 119.25 Norwegian krone.
We’re asking people to dress appropriately for the occasion (black tie, but at least suits).

The full website is here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hedda-gabler-film-world-premiere-tickets-27125428888

This world premiere screening is being held in association with the Henrik Ibsen Museum and the International Ibsen Festival.

There you go, if you are in or around Oslo and fancy a world premier film screening then here’s your chance. I’ve not seen the film (I’ve never read the play, shame) but I hear it looks very good and the images I’ve seen from it certainly make it look well worth seeing.

Remember, if you are on Symi, you have some free events this week you can attend if you want to:

Thursday 18^th – Traditional Dodecanese night with lyre, lute and toumperleki
Friday 19^th – A concert with the band, ‘Master Tempo’
Saturday 20^th – The tradition of Koukoumas
Sunday 21^st – Theatrical performance in the Symi dialect ‘Saint Avissinezos’

And the Nikos Psarros exhibition runs at the Cultural Centre until 20^th August.

Short and sweet!

Share on Facebook

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…

Share on Facebook