Once upon a time

[Adriana]

If my memory serves me correctly, you actually submitted a story once - and we published it.

[Dave]

Indeed I did - Gail and I were discussing it last night as part of "are we going this year, or not?" type discussions. Amicable enough discussions - she caught me before the red wine caused me to speak in fluent scribble !

Showed a potentialy accurate piece of forethought, apart from saying at least Pachos will still be there. He took very well earned retirement the following year, if I remember !

No wonder I can't pick lottery munbers a week in advance !

[Adriana]

Oh I don't know - pretty prophetic if you look at some of the letters we've had this month!

ops:

[Dave]

You've had letters ?

I hope they were all signed!

I'm torn - I would never, ever want Symi to change from how it was on my first visit. But life marches on - it's not a museum piece to be preserved in aspic for my benefit, however much I would like it to be. I only borrow a little piece of it for a couple of weeks at a time !

A poor comparison, I know, but I can - when thinking of change - only compare it with how this area here has changed since I was a boy ..... indeed, how life has changed. Some for the good, some for the not-so-good. And it will continue to do so as each subsequent generation aspires to more than the present. ( okay pedants - I know you shouldn't start sentences like that but, hey - who really cares ?)

A responsibility of care has to be exercised, though - I'd hate it if my little flight of imagination came true. It would be selling your soul for tuppence. Eventually the big money moves on to the next 'in' place and leaves nothing in its wake.

If, as I have been lead to believe, the roads open up across the island, I hope long term thought has gone into it. Even though Greece in general has avoided the excesses of Spain in general terms, sometimes it can be too much.

It is also unavoidable to escape the current trend of political thinking within the E.U. where increased taxes ( for "Green" purposes) will help - amongst more serious concerns - to reduce the amount of air traffic and the financial means of the average person to travel.
On an island such as Symi, where income for half the year is tourist dependant, this could be disastrous to the economy if it moves further into the spider's web.

But it is a Symiot decision - if I lived there as an ex-pat (please, allow me my dreams), I couldn't exercise my "Euro-franchise" to vote (even on matters that serious) because the Symi people should decide it.

But great care is needed in what may be a difficult future in a dangerous world !

My God ! I've depressed myself that much I'm off to the wine rack - I'll teach that bottle of Croze Hermitage to behave itself !

[Sheila and Andrew]

Crozes Hermitage - an excellent red indeed. We always bag a few bottles on our trips over to France. Wine actually counts as part of your recommended daily fruit intake, so keep it up!

[Anthony]

Dave - re your "Do as I say, not do as I do" doctor, there was an interesting article in Saturday's Financial Times reporting that doctors are the second most likely group (after bar staff) to die from alcohol-related causes. (The next two are apparently seafarers - by which I assume they mean crew rather than cruise-ship passengers - and lawyers) The article was actually about the work hard / play hard ethos of lawyers in the big City firms: I never managed to move in such well-paid circles so for the moment I feel relatively safe!

[SueO]

Hi Dave

It's interesting that you mention Spain's excesses. We took a weeks walking holiday in the North and East of Majorca a few years back and were impressed with the amount of work being done to repair and reinstate the old footpaths and donkey trails. We were able to walk for miles on newly resurfaced (that's proper stone and cobbles not concrete) paths with decent waymarkers. This done, presumably, with the help of EU funds in a bid to boost a 'different' type of tourist trade.

At what government level the decision was taken to invest in paths rather than more roads I've no idea but I really hope that the 'powers that be' on Symi will look to other tourist destinations for inspiration before pushing ahead too quickly with a build roads and destroy paths policy.

We (and many others) have been tremendously loyal to Symi over the years but, as the bulldozers push on and the old paths disappear, Majorca is again becoming a very tempting prospect.

Maybe this argument has already been done to death but, as you say, the island relies heavily on tourism. Any future plans that don't take (potential) tourist's needs and aspirations into account seem likely, in the long term, to be of little benefit to the island.

Right, I've had my say...off to open a bottle now although I have to admit that my taste runs more to the Australian reds.

[Sheila and Andrew]

The path need not disappear. There could be a path alongside the road. That's what we've got in our street anyway.

[Kyriako]

Hi folks - I'm returning after an absence of a year and am getting used to the new format on here. Dave mentions Kojak, but he doesn't appear to be listed as a member. Is he still about?? I was last in Symi in June 2004, but hoping to return briefly in 2007.

[Mille]

Hi and welcome Kyriako.

Unfortunately Kojak chose to resign as moderator a couple of months ago , before the chatpage was changed.

We all miss him very much, but some of us are still on contact with him (- thanks to MSN !!)

Next time I chat with him I'll say Hi to him from you, ok?

[Anthony]

Apologies for returning to the subject of the Symi Visitor article that caused some offence, but I was never able myself to to identify anything in a recent Symi Visitor which to me matched the criticisms made. Sheila has now kindly informed me that it was the August article about the Dodecanese Pride, and in particular a comment made about Muslims.

I�ve read and re-read the article several times and rather like Millie still can�t see all that much seriously wrong. On the issue of whether the subject should have been covered by the Visitor at all, that would clearly have been correct if the article had been about the fighting in Southern Lebanon in general, and even more so if it was anything other than scrupulously fair and balanced on all sides. But it was not a general article � it was specifically about the role being played by the Dodecanese Pride, and as such a reasonable topic to interest Visitor readers and one which they were unlikely to find covered elsewhere. On the analogy of local v national newspapers, it seems to me it was that classic subject for local newspapers, �local boy (or in this case �local boat�) makes good�. Given the facts of what the Dodecanese Pride was engaged in, I personally think it would have been wrong of the Symi Visitor not to cover it.

On the comment about Muslims, I agree that the issue is at the least not quite so clear cut. I can see that to describe as �Muslim radicals� people who are defending their homes against the ferocity of the Israeli armed forces (which to me has certainly been grossly excessive) can be considered not quite right. �Ce chien est tr�s m�chant: quand on l�attaque, il se d�fend�. But who are these people who (according presumably to the man on the spot, Mr Roditis) are feared liable to disrupt the evacuations? Not surely in this instance the Israeli military, who appear to have agreed the evacuation plans. Possibly Hisbollah � though without knowing more than I do about the situation on the ground it would be unfair to suggest they were likely to disrupt an evacuation to which their leaders might well have agreed. Particularly as Hisbollah are having to wage a guerilla war against the might of the Israeli army, it seems more than possible that those who could try to disrupt matters would be Hisbollah fighters acting on their own initiative and without (or contrary to) orders. How should one describe them? If I were Mr Roditis speaking on the phone to the Symi Visitor, I might well say �Muslim radicals� simply to distinguish them from the Israelis. But when that phrase gets carried over to the Symi Visitor article I accept that ideally at least some better label than one simply combining their religion with their politics might have been found. But so far I�ve not been able to decide what.

[Dave]

Oi, Anthony ! I've told you before ! Stop that logic, stop the reasoning and well thought out position !
Blind Pugh - Black Spot ? Might be be metaphorical, but that way, character assassination (if not actual) looms by the people who don't have that depth of vision or clarity of thought ! Now, behave yourself or you'll have to stand in the "naughty corner".

[Kyriako]

"Crozes Hermitage - an excellent red indeed. We always bag a few bottles on our trips over to France. Wine actually counts as part of your recommended daily fruit intake, so keep it up!"

_______________________________________________

That was all the proof I needed. I'm glad the scientists got this one right. I'm off to hic . . .hic open another bottle. Was that 5 a day or . . . hic . . .6?

[Dave]

Sounds okay to me, Kyriakos - I go right now to put the grapes in my glass ! Pip, pip, old boy. Yammas !