Taleporistan, a country in the south-east of Europe sometimes known as Greece. Ταλαιπωρία [taleporia] is a word one learns comparatively early when living in Greece. It means hassle or hassle plus, the shite we all have to deal with when queuing in banks, government offices, hospitals, or merely trying to survive the day in Greece. So many things can go wrong suddenly and unexpectedly.
Last Friday afternoon I went into town. It started well. The bus came quickly, the connection was waiting and set off quite promptly. A pleasant walk down Dimitri Gounari where I dropped off x-rays at the doctor’s. Next stop a music shop to buy strings for my fiddle. Done. Then down to the Dubliner for a pint of Murphy’s. That was the last good moment.
I walked to Egnatia to get the No. 14 to Ano Toumba. A couple of buses stopped. Not mine. I looked up at the electronic display. No. 14 in two minutes. Great, the smoothness of the evening continues. Another bus came and went. Then nothing. The display still said two minutes, 5 minutes passed, and the display still said two minutes. Then it went blank. Eerily, for such a busy street, there was no traffic. A passer-by then shouted that there was a march. That was the only notice we got. I was low on cash. Only a few taxis have POS installed, so I looked on Google maps to see if there was an Ethniki Bank ATM nearby. There was – back in the direction I had come from. I put the card in and the display said, “Card not recognised”. Tried again. Same result. Foolishly I asked a taxi-driver if he had a POS. Of course, he didn’t. I didn’t make the same mistake again. I just stepped into a taxi and told the driver to take me to Ano Toumba. I called my mother-in-law and told her I was low in cash. She’s not very mobile these days, so I called her again a couple of minutes before arrival. When I got there, she threw €5 from the balcony. Nightmare end to what had been a decent afternoon.
Tomorrow (16th March) is another write-off. Several strikes – including a 24-hour bus strike – and demonstrations have forced us to cancel our much-needed sound check in the Dubliner. What is frustrating is that disruption does not achieve anything.
What is clear is that there is very real anger over the 28th February train crash, which is the reason for the current marches and demos. At least 57 people were killed – mostly students returning to Thessaloniki from Athens after the Clean Monday weekend. I don’t know how many survivors will have life-changing injuries. As is inevitable, the tragedy has been politicized and recriminations, accusations and counter-accusations are flying all over the place. I’ll try to get more information but the following truths are likely to emerge:
- The stationmaster’s appointment was dodgy.
- Some personnel left work early
- The computerized control-system wasn’t working properly
- Systems had been out of order for years
- The faults in the system will be the responsibility of several governments, maybe going back at least 10 years.
- The feeding frenzy over who gets contracts to build or repair would have lasted years.
- The rail unions won’t be blameless either
Finally some good news: Thessaloniki’s own uptown girl, Eva Kaili, is still in the slammer. She has just lost her latest appeal to be released wearing a tag. Thank God she’s in Belgium. Had she been in Greece when the shit hit the fan, she would have been released on “humanitarian” grounds, allowing her to look after her daughter while using burner phones to contact other corrupt EU officials in an attempt to bury evidence.