Irish music and life in northern Greece
Hyperbole is a Greek word. And we have heard plenty of it recently regarding the detained Eva Kaili. First of all, her party (PASOK) disowned her instead of suspending her pending the results of the investigation. Not content with this guilty-until-proven-innocent manoeuvre, the leader of PASOK, Nikos Androulakis, levelled the ridiculous accusation that Kaili was... Continue Reading →
κάβος Two meanings. 1) a cape or headland and 2) the thick mooring rope used to secure a boat Παίρνω κάβο = to begin to understand, the penny drops I saw it used with the verb ξεπερνώ as in ξεπέρασε η κυβέρνηση τον κάβο… meaning the government had got round one problem. Not to be... Continue Reading →
ξενέρωτος – η – ο adjective meaning 1) sober and 2) boring A good word to start off 2023 after eleven days of Christmas. One more to go and the festive period is over. ξενέρωτος comes from the verb ξενερώνω which means to sober up or to sober someone else up. This conjures up images... Continue Reading →
5th January 2023: It continues to be a mild winter. I drove to Halkidiki yesterday. It was sunny until I reached Toroni. I went there to check our house. One of the most important jobs is to make sure the drains on the balconies aren’t blocked. The house was OK, fortunately. A harsh winter combined... Continue Reading →
As the year draws to a close, it is time to reflect on the past 12 months. Attempts to form a band have been a failure. There is too much conflation between band and session material and personnel. Finding a practice time and venue that suits us all has also been a huge problem. The... Continue Reading →
μόριο – a molecule A molecular biologist is a μοριακός βιολόγος and μοριακό βάρος is molecular weight. Less scientifically it can mean a ‘speck’. In grammar επιρρηματικά μόρια are adverbial particles (words like δε, θα, να, μεν). And now we return to biology because μόριο is a euphemism for penis. In the article below, the... Continue Reading →
Ah! The romantic smell of wood-burning fires permeates the village. Except it is anything but romantic. It’s the smell of fuel poverty. Over the past four or five years, Greeks have been abandoning heating diesel in favour of gas central heating, but this winter heating oil is cheaper than gas. Of course, it is not... Continue Reading →
On Sunday, 11th December, we had our last session of 2022. Ten of us were there. Personally, being a fiddler, I missed the other violins, but we delivered the full program. I change the music every two months, usually adding around five new items, but with Christmas and New Year coming up, I will recycle... Continue Reading →
Φόλα = poison, especially poison laid out for stray dogs The bane of my life. A lifelong cat-lover, I have been betrayed by both my children, who prefer dogs. My elegant daughter has an equally elegant King Charles. My son has a rough-and-tumble Belgian Shepherd cross, a bit like him! Both are beautiful animals, and... Continue Reading →
18th Nov. The good news is that I succeeded in getting through the 17th Nov without reading a Greek newspaper or watching Greek TV. For me the 17th is a horrible, depressing day. It is supposed to celebrate and commemorate the student uprising against the junta at Athens Polytechnic in November 1973. For an event... Continue Reading →
σουρτούκω Opposite the Dubliner in Katouni Street, Thessaloniki, there is a restaurant called Σουρτούκω. My wife told me σουρτούκω means a woman who doesn’t like staying indoors or being a housewife, and who likes going out all the time. It is a variant of σουρτούκα. The masculine form is σουρτούκης (plural σουρτούκηδες), but the feminine... Continue Reading →
The scheduled practice for Wednesday, 9th Nov had to be cancelled because the pub had some event booked. Plan B – to go to someone’s house – was rendered impossible by a 24-hour strike, so there were no buses or taxis on Wednesday. We like to use practices before sessions for a combination of band... Continue Reading →
κλούβιος 1) rotten, 2) stupid The word collocates with αυγό as in κλούβιο αυγό meaning a rotten egg. In this case it is not used metaphorically in the way ‘bad egg’ is used in English to describe a wicked or unpleasant person, which in Greek would be αυτός είναι κακιάς κοπής. Its second meaning is... Continue Reading →
24th October. A great afternoon in the Dubliner yesterday where Tir Fada played their first gig in quite a while. They were on form, the audience appreciative, the pub full, and I overdid it with draught Lagunitas, a Californian IPA. I’m suffering today. Practice continues to be a problem for the same reasons expressed in... Continue Reading →
Continuing from where I left off in LinNG 22/22, it must be said that sometimes in Greece there is no relief - even in death. Martha Karagianni, who died a couple of weeks ago, specifically requested to be cremated. My understanding is that her solicitor has her written request. Her cremation is/was being blocked by... Continue Reading →
ζουρλομανδύας = straitjacket The word came up in conversation, and it struck me as odd as the first part – ζουρλο – definitiely isn’t Greek. It isn’t even a word a student would use in a school essay. Apparently, it’s of Venetian origin. The second part – μανδύας – meant a woollen cloak in Ancient... Continue Reading →
μπάκα = a big belly, a paunch, a beer gut The word is of Albanian origin. A report in www.iefimerida.gr included a clip of a well-known TV presenter making fun of the tennis skills of Adonis Georgiadis, Minister of Development and Investment. The ‘development’ under discussion was Georgiadis's waistline. However, Georgiadis, not noted for his... Continue Reading →
On Tuesday 20th September, five of us plus our injured guitarist met in the Dirty Glass. The previous practice was intended as a run-through of new items for the monthly session in the Dubliner. This practice was more band oriented and more organised in that it was our first effort in a while during which... Continue Reading →
μπουρδολόγος - a bullshitter from μπούρδες = nonsense, bullshit, hogwash. Most often μπούρδες is used in the plural, though there is a singular noun: μπούρδα. Babiniotis says it comes from the French ‘bourde’, which he translates as ανοησία and βλακεία, both synonyms of μπούρδα. However, I’m not completely convinced. ‘Bourde’ in French means a lie... Continue Reading →
Neighbours – can’t live with them but can definitely thrive without them. Greeks tend to be very family oriented. In the 20-odd years I have been in this block of flats, I have never been invited to a neighbour’s flat. In fairness, I haven’t invited any of them either. But that seems to be the... Continue Reading →
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