Life Simplified

          When it comes to novels, the thriller genre is not my favourite: it was on a friend’s recommendation that I have just read one. It was true to type – ‘unputdownable’, with an intricate plot driven by a cast of highly motivated characters – yet my enjoyment was compromised by one, inexplicable flaw. Despite being set in the UK around the year 2000, nobody had a mobile phone – not the spooks nor the ex-military nor the middle-class civilians. Was this plausible? I think not and I suspect that the author deliberately made his task easier by deciding not to factor-in modern telecommunications.

          It is hard to remember what life was like without mobiles, so quickly have we adopted them into everyday use. For example, even the doorbell of our apartment is connected to my mobile, not to a bell, buzzer or a video-entry system. Hence, when I was walking the other day to collect a parcel from the sorting office (it required a signature and I had been out on the day of delivery), my phone rang in my pocket and it was the postman telling me he was at the door with another parcel. He asked me to come down for it but, when I told him I was not in the building, there ensued a confused conversation, the result of which was his refusal to leave the parcel in the lobby (“If it gets nicked, it’s down to me”) and my having to return to the sorting office the following day.

          Yes, mobile-phone dependency can be easily mocked, yet still we are hooked on the convenience. When the camera on my partner’s phone ceased to function, it became a major issue. Having checked all the settings, we decided to take it back to the shop. “They will just exchange it,” I said, “nobody mends things nowadays, they are too complex. It’s not like the '60s, when you would set off on a long car journey with a toolbox that included a pair of nylon tights for when the fan belt snapped. We have moved away from the manufacturing economy. Now we all provide services to each other.” But they did fix it – or so they said – and within two hours. However, the fact that I then had to spend the afternoon restoring all the data made me suspicious that they had made a sneaky swap. Nevertheless, it was all done willingly, efficiently and smilingly. We have indeed moved into the service economy era and skills have been adopted accordingly. Though not by everyone.

          I cancelled a restaurant booking recently because of the offhand attitude of the chap I was dealing with. One tries to put incidents of this sort into perspective – he might have been having a bad day and be looking for a little sympathy but, if that was the case, he needs to get real. Back in 1972, when the water pump on my engine failed, Ford Motors shrugged (metaphorically), blaming the component’s sub-manufacturer for my expense and inconvenience. Soon after that, Japanese cars came along and Ford – and the rest of them – stopped shrugging. Service industry workers, likewise, need to acquire the right degree of competent professionalism. Competition is unforgiving.

          Of course, it’s possible that the booking guy took an instant dislike to me or was offended by my attitude, but that’s another story. Sympathy works both ways. I, too, might have had a bad day. I might even suffer from a pathological condition that impairs my ability to interact normally with other people. Who’s to know? The causes of crossed wires are so numerous that we must rely on social conventions to avoid them. Life would be simpler if we could define its parameters – like a thriller writer can.

The Science of History

          Well, I managed to finish reading War and Peace – its many pages of turgidly detailed description and seemingly superfluous analogy notwithstanding – before leaving Athens last week. What sustained me was the stories – which army won which battle and who got off with whom in the romantic stakes. My curiosity satisfied, I admit to merely skimming the epilogues, in which Tolstoy sets out his theory of the study of history. After all, my time in the city was limited and I didn’t want to spend too much of it with my e-reader.

          So, each morning, at one or other of the myriad kafeneios, my partner and I would convene before sampling Athens’ other attractions. There are so many museums, galleries and archaeological sites that a campaign plan (sorry, Tolstoy) is necessary to do them justice but, fortunately, we had already been to some of them on previous visits. The Byzantine and the Islamic, however, had eluded us. They are both beautiful museums, full of treasures that are meticulously explained and lovingly displayed. If asked to choose between them, however, I would come down in favour of the Islamic, not only because I have an aversion to the idolatrous art that is the main feature of the Byzantine period, but also because of the charming roof-top café where, with a restorative glass of wine in hand, one can contemplate the ancient ruins of Kerameikos laid out below.

          The mega-rich of the Greek diaspora are responsible for founding and endowing many of the magnificent museums and galleries, but there is a modest Municipal Gallery of Athens, housed in a former silk factory, where we saw some lovely works by Greek artists that were made in the 1930s and 1940s – a time of great political strife for the nation. Our visit to this gallery came with the benefit of sole occupancy: it is also located near some very good ‘neighbourhood’ cafés, which is ideal for one of our other favourite pursuits – lunch.

          Bravery is perhaps too strong a word, but it does take some gumption to seek one’s lunch in a place that makes no concessions to tourists. On one occasion, we took the advice of a local and ventured down to a cellar, through a trapdoor in the pavement, to an old-fashioned, basic eatery established to provide lunch (only) to the workers at the adjacent market. (The pop-up concept is not new.) There was no menu, no pricelist, no staff, except for the proprietor-cum-cook and his assistant. We ate and drank what we were given, which, because the business relies on returning customers, was authentic, delicious and inexpensive. The next day, we became bolder and chose ourselves a café that was intimidatingly native. But the lady in charge took pity on us and offered us a choice of dishes, served cheerfully and without pretension.

          Of course, I miss all that now that we are back in a city that lacks family-run restaurants of that sort. Still, I have more time for reading and have had a closer look at Tolstoy’s epilogues. He argues that the history of humanity is not explained simply as chain-link of cause and effect, such as can be found in the narration of episodes in the life of an individual: he refutes the notion of individual free will and argues that History should aspire to become a science, by establishing ‘laws’ as do other sciences. The amount of data-collation needed to establish such laws would have been beyond his ability, but present-day computing power makes it feasible  and, in fact, his legacy is alive in the work of Peter Turchin’s ‘Cliodynamics’ and his Seshat project, a vast, big-data attempt to make sense of it all. Still, if science isn’t your thing, there’s plenty of enjoyment to be had in reading history as stories and, if cinema appeals, get yourself along to see Sam Mendes’ film 1917.

The View From A Hill

          Tolstoy’s War and Peace is a famously weighty tome so, having made up my mind to read it during this current stay in Athens, I am glad to be able to do so on my e-reader. But I admit that I’ve had difficulty not losing the plot, what with all those unfamiliar Russian names and the bafflingly detailed descriptions (without the aid of maps or graphics) of the various battles. There is a passage in which an entire battlefield is described from a strategic hilltop. In theory, such a panorama would give any commander a tactical advantage but, as Tolstoy points out, the advantage is illusory, since the time-lag between giving orders and carrying them out is so long that anything might happen to alter circumstances in the meanwhile. But that was in 1812. Nowadays there is no such thing as communications-time-lag.

          I tore myself away from the book long enough to meet a couple of people that I have known for several years via the internet but whom I have never met in person. Bart and Sanne van Poll are the Dutch founders of an online travel guide, Spotted by Locals (to which I am a contributor). It turns out that they currently live in Athens and, discovering by chance that we are here, suggested a get-together. The conversation naturally turned to their peripatetic lifestyle, facilitated by the nature of their business and the fact that they are childless. They can live almost anywhere – soon they will go to India for a spell – and need only a laptop to run things. To any free-spirited individual, this sounds like a wonderful way of life, but there is a downside: they admitted that it is difficult to stay close to friends and family, despite all the comms-tech at their disposal. Whenever they go back to the Netherlands, they are hard-pressed to spend enough time face-to-face with everyone and so must ration their availability. Well, maybe absence does make the heart grow fonder, but beware the cut-off point.

          We also talked about the triumph of Boris Johnson and the disaster of Brexit (on which we all agreed). “Maybe you don’t have to go back to all that. Have you thought about living abroad?” said Sanne. Technically, that would be possible but emotionally, for me, not so. The novelty of alien surroundings is stimulating and fascinating, but it does wear thin and, after a while, I begin to yearn for my native culture, warts and all. One can only imagine how difficult life must be for refugees.

          That same day, another coincidence occurred: we met a couple of friends from Britain that we had not seen for several years. They were visiting Athens and got wind that we were here too. Of course, we just had to catch up and, in so doing, I was reminded of the value of friendships and shared experiences. I also delighted in the luxury of conversation unrestricted by linguistic or cultural differences, something which I sorely miss whenever abroad. Yet, there is no substitute for the unique pleasures of foreign adventure, i.e. the surprise dishes you get for lunch when you fail to communicate your order to the waiter: then, the unplanned afternoon stupor brought on by overeating and the large tot of unfamiliar liqueur that followed.

          One day, we walked to the top of Lycabettus Hill, which stands proud in the centre of Athens and affords a panoramic view of the city. This vantage point is a ‘must visit’ for tourists, offering spectacle, selfie opportunities and help with the business of orientation. The view from the hill is no substitute for getting down in the streets but, within seconds of being there, you and all your WhatsApp circle can get some sense of what the place is like.

Coffee in Kolonaki

          As is our preference, we opted-out of Christmas (easy to do if you don’t have children). Having posted greeting cards to distant friends and relatives, we left town. So, we’re in Athens, where we don’t know anyone and are under no social obligation to celebrate the birth of a religious figurehead or to join the orgy of consumption for the sake of tradition. Mind you, even here people wear Santa caps and plastic antlers – waiters, shop-assistants, children etc. – and, for the sake of politeness, we did learn to say kala Christougenna (to which the invariable reply was “merry Christmas”). Nor are we the only escapees: there are plenty of other foreigners here, though it would be a mistake to assume they are all Christmas-averse: the few that I did speak to had the temerity to wish me “merry Christmas” on parting company.

          Still, being an outsider makes it easier not to participate in the big event. It also affords opportunities to observe differences. The institutions, businesses and big shops are closed for a couple of days, but it seems not to impact daily life. This is a low-rise city where, even at its core, whole families dwell in the five-storey apartment blocks that line almost every street. This, I surmise, explains the myriad cafes, bakeries and corner shops that seem never to close. It also explains why some cafes are equipped with card tables and frequented by old men. Where else would they go to escape when they have neither gardens nor allotments? Our apartment overlooks an active church in a modest square fringed with cafes, each of which claims a patch of outside space – essential not only for cooling-off in summer but also for smoking at any time. The rest of the space is used by children kicking footballs, teenagers hanging out and neighbours stopping to chat. Life here – as everywhere – is influenced by the built environment and by the climate.

          This is a relatively ‘nice’ neighbourhood – stable, family-friendly and law-abiding – but, like any densely populated city, there are people of different means living cheek-by-jowl. A twenty-minute walk from here, where two coffees cost €3.50, exposes a typical cross-section of urban life. Three blocks away, at Platea Omoneia, the traffic gets serious, the shops and cafes bigger and the hustle palpable. A couple more blocks and you are confronted with the fallout from Greece’s recent economic woes: ornate 19^th century villas are abandoned and crumbling – only recently have hipsters moved in to save some of them by establishing trendy bars and modern restaurants. One particular square forms an oasis of cool, stylish entertaining, but ignore Lonely Planet’s advice and turn up the wrong way and the streets belong to drug addicts who do not trouble to avoid scrutiny. I saw one young woman, sitting on the kerb with her chin uplifted, while a man injected something into her neck and three policemen drove by on motorcycles. Yet, a few more blocks away, set on a wide boulevard, are the magnificent neo-classical buildings of the National Library and Athens University, beyond which is the posh residential district of Kolonaki, where corner shops are replaced with boutiques. Here, two coffees cost €7.

          I am no expert but, in the end, the Greek economy may recover its balance. It does not rely on manufacturing or high-tech exports, both of which can be vulnerable to competition. Instead, like professional football clubs, it has a loyal customer base that keeps coming back for more – tourists. And I have read that the Athens authorities welcome the latest influx of immigrants. Disruptive they may be, but by dint of their commercial activities and entrepreneurial drive, they are bringing life back to derelict districts.

          So, the spirit of Christmas does pervade Athens and we didn’t get off scot-free – I did hear Noddy Holder at the supermarket – but the filter of foreign-ness has diluted the seasonal frenzy to an acceptable level. There’s just New Year’s Eve to dodge now.

Greek Oddity

          Because we’re staying in Athens for a month, I thought it a good idea to decipher the Greek alphabet and to master at least a few phrases, if only to show willing. But, even after a few days here, I remain tongue-tied, fearing that if I say so much as kalimera, I will be overwhelmed by an unintelligible response and the exchange will fizzle out. So, I keep shtum. Speaking Greek seems futile, anyway, as the locals can sense a foreign presence from a hundred paces and are quicker to slip into English than I am to muster my meagre vocabulary.

          We left the dis-United Kingdom two days after the election of a new government and the die was cast for Brexit. So, now that battle is lost, I am showing early symptoms of a Remainer-coming-to-terms-with-the-inevitable. Whilst I am still convinced that the EU makes sense as a powerful bloc for the purpose of global trade agreements (withstanding the bullying tactics of USA and China), I have begun to ponder the validity of oft-quoted negative aspects of the EU. I observe the Athenians smoking in cafes, riding around without helmets and seatbelts and I reflect on the futility of Europe-wide rules that some member-nations regard as optional. Then there are all those stories of corruption and waste to which I gave so little credence, not to mention the expensive layers of bureaucracy, the finest expression of which is the regular, unnecessary migration between Brussels and Strasbourg of council members and their entourages. Last, but not least – and the reason I am here – is the case for vive les differences.

          To make the most of this experience, we have rented someone’s apartment via Airbnb. We chose a neighbourhood away from Tourist Central, where we hope to get a fix of living somewhere different from our home. This is a recurring behaviour that stems from a desire to avoid getting stuck in habitudes that can lead us into intolerant mindsets: in other words, not getting too mired in comfortable complacency.

Our landlady met us at the door and remarked how little luggage we had, which, as it turned out, was just as well. Her apartment is as charming and homely as it appears in the online photos but there is a snag: it is so homely that there is no room for visitors and their gear. Although she had let the place to us, she had not troubled to move her toothbrushes from the bathroom shelf, nor her vast collection of cosmetics, shampoos and medication from the cabinets. She had cleared two feet of hanger space in the wardrobe for our use, but every drawer elsewhere overflows with stuff too personal to bear scrutiny. In the lounge, there are so many ornaments and knick-knacks that useable surface is hard to come by. On the walls is a photograph collection that tells her family history. She has enough stuff to set up a small bric-a-brac shop.  Considering that all she knows of us comes from a skimpy profile on Facebook, she is remarkably trusting of us not to ransack her personal life.

          When she left us, we cleared out the fridge so that we could jam a bottle of wine into it and photographed the lounge before rearranging her things so that we could spread out – both actions being symptomatic of our need to superimpose our familiar routines on our new environment, counterproductive to the purpose of our being here as it may be.

          Tomorrow, I shall try at the baker’s to order bread without pointing at it, though it occurs to me that Greeks don’t really want outsiders poking their noses into their language: we tourists have intruded so much into their lives already, it may be the last bastion of dignified privacy they have.