Jobbernowl, Johnson and Tory

I thought you would find this interesting and hopefully fun. (Read to the end, and you’ll find some unrelated images.)
Up early as usual, sitting on the balcony with a cup of tea reading the online newspaper with the usual mix of outrage, hope and despair, and I started to wonder what my old friend Samuel Johnson has to say about his namesake. I only have a shortened version of his famous dictionary, and the word ‘Johnson’ doesn’t appear in it, but the nearest words to where it would be if it included are there, as is the word ‘Tory.’

Jobbernowl. (n) Loggerhead; blockhead.

Jogger (n) One who moves heavily and dully. (From Dryden: They, with their fellow joggers of the plough.)

Jotlhead (n) A dolt; a blockhead

I also looked in my copy of ‘The Vulgar Tongue’, a dictionary of old slang, but sadly, no Johnson. There was, however, a definition of ‘Tory’ which accords with Samuel Johnson’s:

Tory: (n) [A cant term, derived, I suppose, from an Irish word signifying a savage.] One who adheres to the ancient constitution of the state, and the apostolical hierarchy of the church of England, opposed to a whig.

That word comes between Torvous (aj) Sour of aspect, and Touchy (adj) Peevish; irritable; irascible. A low word.

At least Mr S Johnson knew what he was talking about and what he was doing. By the way, ‘The Vulgar Tongue’ has a slightly different take on the word ‘Tory’, describing it as meaning a vagabond, robber or rapparee.

In that dictionary, the word ‘Tory’ falls between:

Tormentor of catgut – a fiddler, and

Toss Off – manual pollution.

[Page 291 of the 2004 edition of ‘The Vulgar Tongue, Buckish Slang and Pickpocket Elegance’ if you don’t believe me.]

As a Ps: My name, Collins, can also be a noun. To write a ‘Collins’ was to write a thank you letter, but there’s no need for that.

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Lazy? Not around here.

I was out for a walk yesterday at 6.30, and on my travels I saw something that, at first, I thought was unusual. Yiannis from Lefteris kafeneion was coming down the hill towards me in a bobcat. Not seen that before. A wave, a kalimera, and onwards and upwards. It did make me think about how hard people work around here. Take, for example, his kafeneion. The patriarch of the family is always there setting up when I cross the square in the morning even when I go out at 5.00, as I do in the height of summer. His son works for the council, I believe, hence the bobcat because he was working to clear a section of beach by what used to be Kamaris in Pedi later in the morning, and that’s also why you see him driving the fire truck. His daughter-in-law works in a shop in Yialos, and with the grandmother, looks after the house and family. His eldest grandson comes to the café later to take over and run it through the day, afternoon and evening, until his father puts aside the bobcat after work and comes up to the village to take over running the café to give his son a break. His (the patriarch’s) middle and youngest grandsons work in restaurants on double shifts that may not finish until well after midnight and also come to the café to cover certain hours when they can. Remember that this kafeneion is also often open until well past midnight, and very often you’ll find the family outside their café, around the family table together or with friends, and the grandsons, strapping late-teens/early 20s lads, with their grandmother, shelling beans, or helping with the fishing lines, catching up with the family between shifts.

I just thought I’d mention that so when you hear people say the Greeks are lazy, you can point them this way and tell them to get a grip. And talking of hard work, here are a few images from that walk, with a couple showing you how the civil engineering project is going.

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Thoughts from the balcony

Another early start for me today thanks again to another early night (20.30 to 03.30, if you’re interested). I did spend a little time in this square after finishing work yesterday late afternoon, and it was good to meet a few couples who were visiting Symi for the first time, and loving it, I am pleased to say. The square tends to become busier later in the evening, but now the weather is cooling off a little, more people come up in the late afternoon, or stop off on the way back from the beach. During July and August when the temperature was up to and over 36 or 38 degrees, many people prefer to wait until the evening. Mind you, this year it wasn’t that much cooler then.

When I’m up early in the summer, I tend to sit on the balcony and have a cup of tea before firing up the computer and getting to work, and of late, I’ve had to wear a t-shirt out there.  I like the peace and quiet of that time of day. Well, I say ‘quiet’, some mornings there are still parties going on at some bars, as there was this morning. The sound doesn’t affect us, and I can only hear it faintly, bouncing off the wall of the property next door, depending on where it’s coming from. There is a club/bar/restaurant opposite us, and when the doors open the sound pours out, but again, that’s mainly during August. Other times, I guess the noise is coming from further into the harbour where we can’t see from our house; cheering, music and laughter ringing through the night.

I also get to hear more natural sounds and see some sights. The owls are regular background noise and last night while sitting outside we saw a barn owl flying overhead. I know it was a barn owl (there is a pair nesting somewhere in the village) because, well, I was once a young ornithologist and a barn owl is a barn owl. We also occasionally see the bats and little owls flying around the house, the occasional rat on the ruin wall, cats of course, and sometimes young people trying to get home in a straight line, taking a shortcut past the front of the house, following the torch of their mobile phones with varying degrees of success. And then there are the lights from boats and buildings, and the mysterious rising light over Turkey (must be some kind of weather balloon as it goes up in a straight line, waits, and then come down, fading as it descends). There’s plenty to see and hear on Symi even during the wee small hours.

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A new cantina

After posting yesterday, I went for a walk up to ‘picture corner’ as we call it. That’s up the main road, past the cantina and around the bend. (No silly comments, please!) After the first bridge, you keep going a few more yards, and at the next big corner you can stop and look down over the harbour one way and over Pedi the other. What I’ve been calling the ‘old cantina’ is now the new cantina, with tables and chair, a new van but still the same glorious view. I don’t know what time it is open, but now you have a choice of two on the main road, one lower down looking over to Pedi, and this one facing towards the harbour. Here are some photos.

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With no apology

One of the responsibilities of a blogger is to be honest, and I like to think I am, but sometimes I find myself covering up certain truths, or white-lying my way around them for the sake of my readers. People who come to my blog want to see photos of Symi and learn a little of what it is like to live here. Well, I can tell you that from my point of view, living here is currently not as attractive as it has been these last 17 years, and that has nothing to do with the island, its people or the country. It has everything to do with powers beyond my control, and when things happen over which one has no control, it’s natural to suffer a shift in emotions, from security to uncertainty, from contentment to concern, and from acceptance to frustration which leads to anger.

People often say to us, “You’re so lucky” [to be living on Symi], to which I politely reply, “Thank you”, but in reality, it had nothing to do with luck. It had a lot to do with saving money, planning, going without, taking a huge risk and then making sure it paid off. It was also my right backed up by certain fundamental securities; access to health care, the freedom to come and go, the state pension in which I had invested would one day be paid and meanwhile, contributed to by contributions made here, to name three.

Now, I have no say in what happens to my future, I have no control over it, and that’s not a very secure place to be. By moving here, one of the rules I agreed to abide by, one of the things I understood, was that after 15 years of permanent residency, I would no longer be eligible to vote in the UK. Fair enough, I understood that, although I don’t agree with it and never have, but at the time, I saw it as a reasonable pay-off for having the choice to live in another country without hassle. Back then, of course, no-one expected the Spanish Inquisition, but it has happened, and it’s only going to get worse for me and millions like me who are denied a say in their futures, or who have simply been forgotten by their country of birth, the country that one relies on for protection. One’s homeland. Well, if you’re a Brit who exercised their right to live elsewhere, you can forget all that.

“No-one knows what’s going to happen. It’ll be alright,” and other platitudes. I hear and read these daily. “It’s scaremongering. We just don’t know. I shouldn’t worry about it.” Not helpful. One of the worst things about my current situation is not knowing; the other one is knowing that whatever happens later this year, my future would have been decided for me by other people, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Yes, we don’t know what’s going to happen, but the way things are going, I can’t see how anything’s going to be coming up roses for the likes of me. Something’s going to change, and what’s so frustrating about that is that things are perfectly fine as they are.

To help you understand these honest thoughts of mine, I’m going to borrow an analogy from a post I saw on Fakebook. I’ll try and keep it brief.

Imagine Kent is the UK, and the rest of the country is Europe.

I was born in Kent. When I was in my 20s, I moved to Wiltshire for work, and later to Lancashire. I’m now living in Lancashire, working, paying my taxes, backing up my state pension for later life, paying into my state health insurance scheme the Kent government runs, popping across the county borders to see the family from time to time, and considering a job in London. Then Kent decides it doesn’t want to be part of the UK anymore. Well, a few rich people from Orpington don’t because a local newspaper and a few others lied and persuaded everyone they’d be better off going it alone. Kent sticks to its guns no matter what and there you go, it’s now no longer part of the country.

No-one at Kent County Council is bothered about me because I am living in Lancashire. They keep my health insurance contributions and pension fund payments, but won’t let me benefit from them, and it doesn’t matter that they’ve reneged on our deal because there’s nothing I can do about it. Then Lancashire says that to carry on living and working there, I need to magic up a large sum of money and put it in the Co-Cop bank of Preston, and because I am from Kent, I can’t benefit from the county health scheme, so I have to provide my own. Even though I’m married to a Wiltshire lad under Lancashire law, I’m still not from the county, and that might become an issue. “We’re not sure yet, but don’t worry about it, you can always move back to Kent.”

Except if I do, Kent won’t protect me for at least six months because I haven’t been living there, and their living costs are far higher than they are in Lancashire, so I can’t afford to live in Kent anyway, but that’s okay, as it “Was your choice to move away, so it serves you right. And, by the way, unless you find a way to live in Kent, we’re not giving you your pension. Thanks for the money, but it’s ours now, serves you right, traitor.” (And other insults.)

If you’re in the UK and live outside the county you were born in, I am sure you can imagine how you would feel if forced to return there, leaving behind everything you have now. I am not saying that’s going to happen, I am trying to point out how worrying the possibility is, and how frustrating to have no say in the matter. And please, no platitudes. “They won’t kick you out. It’ll be fine. Wait and see.” These are as helpful as, and almost as insulting as, “You chose to live there. Serves you right. Traitor. Remoaner.”

I’ve not put that as eloquently or with as much detail as the article I read, but I hope it makes things clearer, and you start to see why so many of us immigrants from Kent to other beautiful parts of the country are worried, frustrated and angered by the behaviour of those old men in Orpington.

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