Keywords: Greece
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Gillian Bouras
- 25 June 2014
9 Comments
Ignoring the Greek tradition of family names, my son and his Cretan wife called their son Orestes. The name means 'he who can move mountains', and it is almost as if some instinct informed the young parents of 'naming power', and of the possibility that such power might be needed. The first mountain resembled Everest: the operation on the day of his birth, which was necessary to correct a malformed oesophagus.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Gillian Bouras
- 04 June 2014
17 Comments
Here in Greece we are still digesting the results of last week's Euro elections. Worry about immigration has contributed to the continuing rise of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, which polled 9 per cent, and has won seats in the European Parliament for the first time. And what of Australia? Frankly, I'm baffled, so baffled that visiting Antipodeans take me to task. 'The Australia you grew up in has gone forever.' So it would seem.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
He has two hobbies: playing the bouzouki, and reporting cars for parking infringements. We don't see much of him, but sometimes we hear plunka-plunka-plunk from the other side of the fence. On a night of storms, our gum tree splits and falls, and, at 3am, orange-suited SES men and women climb onto our roof with chainsaws. Our neighbour emerges in a dressing gown, waving his arms. 'Don't damage my lemon tree!'
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Gillian Bouras
- 07 May 2014
7 Comments
My mother's recipe book has been part of my life for 60 years. Every entry is handwritten, and the handwriting conjures up the person. But the book is a historical document for other reasons, for in it my mother has also written out the recipes she learned in my Greek mother-in-law's village kitchen. Yiayia was illiterate, so my mother had to observe and make notes. The book is, in a sense, part of the story of two mothers.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Gillian Bouras
- 30 April 2014
8 Comments
While Dickens, staunch champion of the poor and of children, reportedly hoped that A Christmas Carol might encourage the restoration of social harmony, his narrative line can also be seen as a convenient plot device. It is a deeply Christian story, not just about Christmas, but about life itself, about actions and their consequences, the need for wrongs to be made right, and the desire for hope and potentiality of renewal.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Gillian Bouras
- 26 March 2014
6 Comments
The 'Lenten Lady' has no mouth, because Lent is not a time for eating. Her hands are demurely crossed on her breast, for it is a time for prayer and self-examination. And she has seven feet: every Saturday, with one week elapsed, housewives would cut one foot off, with the last cut off on Holy Saturday. This custom is very old, and supposedly Greece-wide, but neither I, my Peloponnesian children nor my Cretan daughter-in-law knew of it.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Gillian Bouras
- 05 February 2014
10 Comments
London journalist Adrian Gill refers to the 'incremental shutdown' of old age, British Prime Minister Disraeli, who died at the age of 77 after a life of great and varied achievement, stated that old age was a regret, while noted Hollywood star Bette Davis roundly declared 'Old age is no place for sissies.' In rural Greece, it is considered shameful to instal an old relative in a home, and most aged people see their days out amid their family.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Gillian Bouras
- 11 December 2013
7 Comments
I knew nothing about Kavafis until I came to Greece, but his presence in my mental and literary life is one of the many presents migration has given me. He was part of the cultivated Greek diaspora in Alexandria, where he spent most of his life working at his day jobs: those of journalist and civil servant. He was a relentless perfectionist who polished and reworked his 154 poems, which were read initially only by his friends.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Gillian Bouras
- 13 November 2013
9 Comments
Although the tourist season in Greece was better than expected, there is otherwise not much cause for cheer. PM Antonis Samaras says recovery will take six years: other people are more pessimistic. Suicide rates have risen alarmingly in a country where formerly they were very low. The youth continue to seek opportunities elsewhere. Strikes and demonstrations occur regularly. In the midst of it all, a new statue appeared in the city of Kalamata.
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AUSTRALIA
- David Stephens
- 11 November 2013
12 Comments
Remembrance Day has always been for Australians a quieter affair than Anzac Day, particularly as Anzac Day in recent years has taken on a brassy, bragging style. The historian Ken Inglis described Anzac as Australia's civil religion. Although we were the first country anywhere to come together under a national constitution after a mass popular vote, we downplay Federation and venerate instead a failed military campaign in Turkey in 1915.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Gillian Bouras
- 02 October 2013
12 Comments
The International Day of Non-Violence on 2 October coincides with the birthday of Gandhi, who pioneered the concept of political non-violence and the notion of passive resistance, and paid the highest price for his moral choices. A great many people, like Gandhi, desire a non-violent world, in which whistleblowers and thoughtful, idealistic individuals are honoured rather than punished.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Gillian Bouras
- 21 August 2013
6 Comments
Forgiving and forgetting are weighty matters. It is unlikely, for example, that Judith Tebbutt and Nigel Brennan, both of whom were held hostage in Somalia, will ever be able to forget their experiences of prolonged isolation, near starvation, and threats of death. Yet both have achieved a kind of forgiveness via the effort to understand their captors' lives.
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