Athenian taxi-drivers are definitely a gamble. I well remember the one who sprayed his battered cab and me with sesame seeds as he munched a bread circle of koulouri, and swerved this way and that: I kept my eyes fast shut.
That man drove with one hand, but there was another who steered with his knees while conducting a very secretive conversation on his mobile phone. Then there was the one who assured me that cigarettes cleaned the whole body, the one who thanked God he had sons and no daughters, and the one who adamantly refused to let me wear a seatbelt, but crossed himself at every church we came to: what could I do but tell myself we had different ideas about road safety?
I had warmer feelings for the man who complimented me on my Peloponnesian accent, the one who said he thought I'd been out of the country for a short time because every so often I made a lathaki, a little mistake, and a recent favourite was the one who said he went to Adelaide to visit his businessman uncle. He'd planned to stay two months, but liked it so much he stayed six.
But then last week I met the taxi-driver: sort of like a Platonic Form of Taxi-drivers, he was. Tall and good-looking, with iron-grey hair and a notable and praiseworthy absence of scruff (he wore a tie!), this man was the soul of courtesy and helpfulness. I always talk to taxi-drivers: you learn all sorts of things when you do, as Barry Humphries has noted.
So I learned that this man's grandparents were from Ithaca, the storied isle, but that he himself had always lived in Athens. I also learned he had not been driving a cab for very long, but had taken to it when his business failed because of the continuing financial crisis.
A familiar tale in the Greece of today, alas. But he acknowledged he was lucky to have a job at all, and went on to say that he had no complaints, because he had realised his ambition.
Naturally I asked what this was. He smiled and said, simply: 'I have educated my children.' And I thought of the vast number of times I have heard Greek parents say: ?λα για τα παιδια. Everything for the children.
This notion is deeply ingrained in the culture, and most people here make great efforts, to the point of