A Late Cretan Discovery

“The wind is in from Africa, last night I couldn’t sleep” – the opening line of Joni Mitchell’s Carey – has always chimed with my fondness for the Mediterranean. I imagined the song was written in southern Spain during the scirocco season but have just discovered otherwise: it was written here, in Crete, in the tiny coastal village of Matala, where she stayed for a while in the cliff-side cave of one of the resident hippies, the eponymous Carey. There is a clue in the line – “they’re playing that scratchy rock and roll beneath the Matala moon” – but it only makes sense if you have heard of the place and I hadn’t, unfortunately, until this week. Had I been aware that Joni was looking for adventure in Crete in 1970, I might have relocated there from South London, where, at that time, I was not gainfully employed. So, it was Carey who got lucky – though not for long. Joni was already successful and rich enough to have hired a VW van and, as she tells us later in the song, consider splitting to Amsterdam or Rome, where she would rent a grand piano and put flowers round her room. I had not previously considered the attractions of fan-tourism but now I see it has a certain appeal.

However, my main interest is the history of the island and the hippie legacy is but the most recent phase of a long and tortured story. To get a grasp of it requires an acquaintance with the combined studies of classicists, historians and archaeologists: much has happened here since the first inhabitants left their traces 8,500 years ago. Such an historical time-span can be overwhelming at first but, after a little reading, an hour or two in museums and a few picnics among ancient ruins (liberally interspersed with doses of eating, drinking and interacting with locals) it begins to read as one continuous, fascinating story. This time of year – off-season – is ideal for history-tourism. Not only is it cool and, therefore, easier to concentrate the mind, it is also uncrowded or, to be precise, deserted. In museums, there is no one to obscure your view of the exhibits – though it can feel uncomfortable to be the sole object of the security-attendants’ gaze. At archaeological sites there are no queues to gawp at the best bits; in fact, there is nobody at all, which lends a certain piquancy to the experience. Sitting in lone contemplation of several acres of Minoan ruins somehow concentrates the mind on the futility of human pride. Moreover, these considerable advantages are enhanced by an unexpected bonus: all tickets for entry are half-price at this time of year!

I have been using Lonely Planet as an introduction to all things Cretan but there are certain behavioural eccentricities it does not explain. Despite laws to the contrary, many Cretans still smoke in cafes and bars, ride helmet-less on motor bikes and drive belt-free in cars. In fact, I saw one man riding a moped while simultaneously talking on the phone, smoking, carrying a takeaway coffee and giving his dog a pillion ride. The seemingly casual regard for the law – and for health and safety – is puzzling, but some clues may be extrapolated from the island’s cultural history. The Cretan author, Nikos Kazantzakis, in his novel Freedom and Death, portrays characters that inhabit Heraklion around 1880, the dying years of Ottoman rule. A legacy of oppression by foreigners has nourished a culture of resentment and rebellion against their rule and, along with it, an admiration for the traits of extreme machismo characterised by tough, native rebel fighters. Could this explain why Cretans shun sissy seat-belts? Kazantzakis epitaph, “I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.”, suggests as much: and the anti-authority vibe must also have appealed to the hippies of Matala.

The Picky Traveller's Guide

The number of countries that I am prepared to visit is dwindling because, in order to qualify, they must have liberal governments. The blacklist, which includes Saudi Arabia, Turkey, The Philippines etc. now includes Poland and Austria, where nasty nationalism is on the rise. None of these, however, is quite as troubling as China, the place where sci-fi becomes reality. I heard that the Communist Party is accelerating the development of artificial intelligence, not to benefit the populace but to control it more tightly. It is harnessing AI to perfect the technology not only of facial recognition but also gait recognition. The way you look and the way you walk will be electronically recognisable. In a free society, entrepreneurship and a sense of humour would quickly combine to thwart this threat by boosting production of latex masks and wheelchairs, but I suspect that the Party has already banned both in anticipation.

The Party argues that it acts in the best interests of the people by propelling the economy forward and creating wealth for the masses. It has a point. It has been said that in 1976 Mao Zedong, by one simple act, began the process of lifting billions of Chinese out of extreme poverty: he died. Since then, industrialisation has made the population increasingly prosperous. This was achieved regardless of the cost to the environment and to individual liberty but, to quote Berthold Brecht, “grub first, then ethics” is a very human response to hunger. However, I am a well-fed beneficiary of the traditions of the Enlightenment who feels at home in like-minded societies – which is one reason why my partner and I will be spending the next few weeks in Crete, where the roots of Graeco-Roman civilisation are deep.

Crete, at this time of year, is not the sun-scorched island of popular imagining. In fact, on the first morning here, piles of drifted, giant hailstones littered the streets, along with the debris of leaves they had shredded from the trees during the night. But, as I have implied, I am here for the culture, not the weather, so we collected a hire-car and headed into Heraklion, mindful that our taxi driver had warned us that Cretans are dangerously bad drivers. (Perhaps he was just touting for more business but, having last year mastered the art of driving around Sicily, we are not so easily scared.) Nevertheless, driving into the centre of the walled Venetian city, with its narrow streets and unruly traffic, was a wake-up call. We soon left the car at an attended lot near our accommodation and, for the last three days, we have walked everywhere. This island has a deep and complex history which we have begun to explore in the museums. To summarize: after Neolithic tranquillity, it was grabbed by Greeks, ruled by Romans, sacked by Saracens, assailed by Arabs, occupied by Ottomans, liberated by Brits, nabbed by Nazis, liberated by Brits (again) and, finally, gathered in by Greeks. For once, it seems the British were not the ogres, which may explain why the natives are friendly – although it may be that they are well-disposed to all tourists, since 40% of the economy is dependent on us.

In any case, one feels culturally comfortable here. Yesterday, while sitting by the harbour, I retuned the greeting of a passer-by, a trampish-looking old man who mistook my politeness for an invitation to soliloquise. I learned that he was from Essex originally, had strongly-held libertarian views and had fond childhood memories of building and sailing Mirror dinghies. He had no front teeth and was dirty and ill-kempt, but he seemed content. The glass he held in his hand was half full. I took him to be a stranded survivor of the hippie commune established in the sixties at Matala on the south coast, another fine example of cultural empathy – albeit of more recent vintage.

Not Dreaming of a White Christmas

The barber shook my hand this morning. He’s not in the habit of being formally expressive, so I’m guessing he was trying to thank me for my custom and convey season’s greetings – though he didn’t say either of those things; he knows by now that I would probably respond “Bah! Humbug!” so he just said, “All the best.” That was my last haircut before we fly – in a few days’ time – to Crete, where we will take shelter from the excesses of the forthcoming period of frenetic over-indulgence, aka the ‘festive season’. My personal Christmas Card Fairy has taken care of postal communications, while I have been busy with preparations for the trip. All that remains is for me to buy a wad of Euros because Cretans, I hear, prefer cash to credit. This is not a problem, but I wish I had moved sooner: the Brexit cliff-hanger being acted out in Parliament currently is having a very negative effect on the value of Sterling and each day that passes records a further slump in its value. My hope is that our Brexit-crazed parliamentarians will coalesce in some sort of agreement and that the miserable pound will recover from the wounds they have inflicted upon it before we get to the airport.

Meanwhile, life goes on in a compressed “must-do-it-before-Christmas” kind of way. There is a schedule of hook-ups with friends whom we will not see for a while (including a day-trip to London to catch a transiting Aussie), an outing of the Heaton Moor Jazz Appreciation Society to a live performance inspired by Benny Goodman’s music and a couple of cinema visits. As I write, some of these events are yet to come, but those that have occurred include a couple of socials and the cinema outings. The social events have been intimate foursomes of the kind that do not involve an exchange of gifts but are lightly tinged with tinsel on account of the incidental proximity of revellers in Christmas jumpers and soundtracks of tediously regurgitated yuletide musak.

There was no hint of Christmas at the cinema, however. First, we saw The Old Man and The Gun, a film that surely must be Robert Redford’s swansong. If so, his acting career is now bookended by portrayals of two loveable rogues – the Sundance Kid and the Old Man – both of whom were engaged in the business of bank robbery. Now, although Hollywood has presented it as an entertaining caper, robbery is condemned, not condoned, by upstanding citizens and punished by strict laws pertaining to ownership of property. However, I think this view has probably softened in the years since 2008, when the bankers themselves pulled off the biggest robbery of all time, leaving us with a legacy of civic penury, an abiding sense of injustice and a heightened awareness of the rapacity of corporations. Let’s hear it for bank robbers! Well, all right, that film is a light-hearted entertainment, but the other one we saw – Disobedience – certainly is not. It tells of the repercussions consequent upon an individual’s refusal to conform to the strict rules and conventions of the society into which they were born. On one level it is a love-story with complications; on another, it is a contemplation of entropy, the tendency of a closed system to descend into chaos – somewhat like the Brexit negotiations.

Disobedience came to mind the next day when I was heading for the loo in a department store. I passed a grey-haired couple and overheard her say to him “Don’t you move from there!” as she walked away. He didn’t. When I came back that way he was still standing, forlorn in the Ladies’ Shoes Department, with the strains of Bing Crosby’s White Christmas having no obvious cheering effect upon him.

Etiquette and the Meaning of Art

As a group of friends, we gather for dinner at a restaurant. There is no fixed menu and no prior agreement as to how the bill will be settled, just an unspoken ‘understanding’ that it will be divided equally, regardless of individual choices. So, what happens towards the end of the jolly proceedings, when we are all quite tipsy (except for the unfortunate driver) and someone proposes that we should order yet more wine? We order more wine – because nobody wants to be a killjoy or a skinflint. This is the etiquette to which we conform and which leads, invariably, to excess.

The following morning, remnants of the group reconvene for a head-clearing walk along Crosby beach, where a hundred cast-iron replicas of the artist Anthony Gormley are planted irregularly over a mile of the shoreline. The installation is titled Another Place, which I am inclined to think of as a clue to its meaning – if there is a meaning. But we do not voice so crass a question. Instead, we comment on the patina of rust the figures have acquired, their apparently haphazard distribution, the fact that one of them is toppling over (a great selfie opportunity) and another has fallen on its back so that only its toes protrude from the sand. Visitors have ‘intervened’ in the work, adorning some of the iron men with hi-viz vests and other oddments of clothing. I suppose there is an element of mockery intended, but in the case of the one that has been given a lovers’ pledge, a padlock attached to its inventorial wrist-band, it seems that someone has sought to invest it with meaningfulness of a personal kind. But whatever they stand for, the iron men are resolute: they face the sea, come what may, make of them what you will. I (after satisfying my curiosity regarding the technical details of fixture) am left with the feeling that they represent a yearning to go back to a place and time that is no longer accessible. I imagine longing in their blank eyes.

I find myself experiencing such wistful feelings from time to time, most recently at Manchester Art Gallery, where Martin Parr’s photographs of the City are currently on display. Gazing at the monochrome pictures taken in the 1970’s is a bit like flipping through an old family album: there are familiar but shabby-looking backgrounds and people I feel I ought to know but don’t, dressed in comically dated fashions. It was another time, alright, but it also feels like another place and one to which, on second thoughts and nostalgia notwithstanding, I don’t yearn to return. To an outsider, of course, the pictures will be of interest for other reasons: historical (the content) and/or technique (the medium). The question of where this work sits in the spectrum of art is debatable but it is at least easy to attribute meaning to it, if only as documentary comment.

Perhaps that also applies to a 1950s novel I picked up recently, a well-regarded work that I had never read. It would be interesting to know what impression somebody too young to have known the period first-hand would form of the context. I do recall the timbre of domestic life at that time, so the author’s words effortlessly conjured images, feelings and atmosphere. But an abiding impression of history was impressed on me by an unexpected subtlety – the yellow-edged pages of the book itself, which added an authentic period feel to the medium, thereby enhancing the message.

I was explaining this to a friend over a lunch for which he had offered to pay and which was in danger of taking up most of the afternoon. Etiquette forbade me suggesting another bottle, even though I felt the need for one. Happily, though, he picked up on the vibe and voiced it himself. I just hope I wasn’t too obvious.

 

Ways to Shop

From time to time we hear heart-warming tales of informal arrangements whereby postmen (posties?) look out for elderly people who live alone. In rural France, however, this is now being commercialised: people pay for a service whereby elderly, lone residents in remote locations can be kept in touch with their relatives via regular contact with postal delivery operatives. This seems like a good idea, not only for dispersed families but also for postal services looking for income to supplement dwindling sales of stamps. (Set aside any sinister thoughts of ghoulish outcomes that you may harbour due to memories of The Postman Always Rings Twice.)

Last Wednesday, I waited in for our postie, not to check up on my welfare, but to deliver two packages. I had ordered a cushion to make my desk-chair more comfortable and a replacement part for the vacuum cleaner. You can never be sure whether online purchases will be delivered by a courier or by the Royal Mail, though it seems the distinction between them matters less and less. Whichever one comes, you have to wait in for them, which is doubly infuriating if your purchase turns out to be a dud, as did one of mine. The cushion, upon which I had anticipated settling comfortably, comprised a wedge-shaped pad that propelled my buttocks slowly and inexorably towards the front edge of the chair and under the desk. The vacuum cleaner part, however, fits perfectly. I have made a note, therefore, that internet (or catalogue, as it once was) shopping should be reserved for items that do not require a body-fit.

Nevertheless, internet shopping is convenient and I wish that it could be employed for my latest requirement – a new pair of spectacles necessitated by age-related macular degeneration. The prospect of wearing glasses permanently, as opposed to just for reading, looms and with it comes the realisation that I have lacked empathy for all those people for whom this has long been routine. The implications are only now becoming clear to me, among them this: wearing a medical appliance on your face changes your appearance, thereby making an impression on other people in much the same way as does your clothing. Some consideration is called for and I am lately transformed from a person who never noticed the displays in opticians’ windows to one who can no longer walk past them without careful inspection. I have discovered that finding a comfortable fit is straightforward but deciding on an appropriate style is not: there are subtle ramifications which I do not feel qualified to assess alone. I must rely on the advice of my personal style-consultant, aka my partner, and hope that her patience will last the course.

Meanwhile, I am quite content to wear my existing, utilitarian specs when needed as, for example, when I went to the exhibition Lowry & the Pre-Raphaelites. There, I mingled un-self consciously with people coping with a variety of sight-aids – taking them off to read the labels, putting them on to read the labels and so on – while also observing with newly-aroused interest those who sported permanently placed ‘eyewear’ of note.  

For the time being, I am fortunate in not needing specs for cinema screenings, even when – as in the last film I saw, Shoplifters – there are subtitles. The story concerns a ‘family’ that supplements its income by shoplifting, though the real interest lies in the personal relationships depicted (and very convincingly acted). The actual shoplifting is trivial in the context of the struggles endured by the characters: petty crime is an understandable consequence of a hard life. Nevertheless, the word ‘shoplifting’ is a euphemism – rather like ‘scrumping’. I heard a southerner tell a northerner about his childhood raids on a neighbour’s orchard. The northerner was unimpressed. “Do you know the word ‘scrump’?” asked the southerner. “Aye,” said the northerner, “but we call it theft.”