Read the label

Vitales supermarket is great for oats and apples but they also carry some right old crap.


"100% cashmere like"... what does that mean?



Ahh, I see. It means 'acrylic'.

Bring on the Fun Girls

So they've got this Beach Volleyball championships going on down at the port just now. On Tuesday they brought in a load of sand and built the stands overnight. Voila: a beach volleyball stadium where there used to be a car park.

It's apparently the Panhellenic Championships or something, but what's really caught the punters' imaginations are the sponsors' scantily-panted dancing troupe - the Lipton Ice Tea Fun Girls!!!

The Lipton Ice Tea Fun Girls get their name from their love of ice tea in cans and from the fun way in which they appear from the wings whenever the crowd show any signs of being bored by the volleyball action. For around one minute, the Lipton Ice Tea Fun Girls rock one of their amazing dance routines from their endless repertoire, and they do it all whilst wearing very small pants indeed. Everyone gets excited again and the sport may continue.

Here they are, in the middle of another dance devastation. See how the Lipton Ice Tea Fun Girls hold their young fans suspended in a trance!

Time of The Fat Watermelon

Learn Greek time again.

Watermelon = Kaρπouζi (Karpouzi)

At the moment there is a glut of watermelons from Kos and Rhodes and the price is down to 40 cents/kilo. You can get a big fat karpouzi for €3.

Selecting a good one is a local skill and a matter of pride.



We have a lot of watermelon = Eχouμe πoλi kaρπouζi (Echoume poli karpouzi)


See?

Easy!

Philosophy Latest

Twenty five centuries after Plato's dialogues, Greece still produces key philosophies for all the world to know.

Here's the latest.

Amazing. The author has captured the essential foundation of Modern Greek thinking in just nine words that are not even his first language.

Impressively concise.

On The Beach

Summer, and the Town Beach is actually getting quite busy.

The cafe has started serving burnt hamburgers and that seems to be drawing the crowds even though there's nowhere to go for a piss and the 'sand' is the builders'-yard variety which leaves a thin film of grey cement-dust on your skin.

Daytime fills the strand with brown bodies: big fat ones lolling in the water; lean fit ones splashing or playing volleyball. Greek disco booming from the cafe. It can get quite noisy...


...But the true character of the Town Beach comes through later on, towards dusk, when there's no one around.

This is the place than can relax you even if you weren't stressed in the first place. Nothing is happening and you love it.

It's Echo Beach, so it is.

Not As Easy As Last Week

So, the Easy Cruise boat has been showing up at Kalymnos every Sunday.

The boat also goes to Kos, Siros, Samos, Mykonos and Paros, plus Bodrum in Turkey.

When we heard the ship was going to be coming weekly we feared being submerged by waves of lager louts but it looks like the clientele of Easy Cruise are slightly more mature than that and so far Sundays have been pretty calm and our local restaurants are feeling the benefit.

Ola Kala - all good.

Yesterday was a problem though. It was so windy that the Easy Cruise Life (the name of the ship) could not safely enter the harbour and had to anchor outside, ferrying the passengers to and from the shore in tenders, just like the old days.

One day Stelios might have enough money to stop the wind...

Massive Insect Season

Look at this bloody monster that flew in through the living-room door last week.



It just flew right in there, opened its mouth and said in a broad Glaswegian accent

"Hey you - are ye making a cup of tea or what?"

It was insistent and only succumbed to being trapped in a family-sized coffee jar after getting his cup of tea and a bit of cucumber.

What to do in situations like this?

Do you say "yes" and get the kettle on or do you say "no" and risk them becoming violent? Is giving in to a bully insect's tea demands mean that you're a pussy or is it just a sensible course of action... what if stubborn pride leads to the house being smashed up?

We quickly decided that appeasement was the answer in this situation. After all, he looked like he'd been drinking. So we brewed up.

Before we could show him to the guest insects chair, he plonked himself down on the sofa and spread himself out, allowing us to see his fat belly for the first time.

He drank his tea and ate his cucumber, taking up the whole sofa as he did so while we perched ourselves on the two little chairs, laughing nervously at his slurred stories and racist remarks.

Eventually, the tea was finished and he allowed himself to be jarred and chucked. We breathed a sigh of relief you could hear in Kos. He was probably only here for 20 minutes but it felt like aeons.

Anyway, after we put him out, we've not seen him again and its been more than 5 days so here's hoping we made the right decision.

We'll let you know.