Windy Symi
It was what you might call windy on Sunday. The sea was white with a hint of blue (do they still make those paint colours? ‘White with a hint of something nondescript’ etc.) and you could see the surface water being blown along over the sea. The patrol boat was out and about turning around constantly and ready for action, and it must have been pretty cold out there. It was pretty cold up here with the roof rattling and the wind blowing in under various doors. The new quilt curtain in the sitting room held out most of the gale and then doubled as a cover on the bed at night.

I spent some time pottering around with old CDs at the weekend, looking through that old pile of backups to see what was in them. I came across a couple of old plays I’d written, first draft of at least. One of them looks finished and tells quite a cute little story, I may use that again sometime. The other is a farce but I’d only written act one and a lot of very detailed notes. It’s called ‘Vile Bags’ and is about two old friends, in the musical theatre world, trying to practical joke each other all the time. All good fun until things go wrong of course. I am not sure I will do anything with that one as I haven’t studied farce structure and I know it’s not just a case of writing in a vicar who loses his trousers.

I also fed our strays, as we do just about every day. The only day they have to fend from the bins is when it’s raining as they are sheltering and their food would get washed away. But every other day one of us goes up there with leftovers and some biscuits and a tin of food. We regularly have around 10 bin cats and three chickens each day, the most we have seen there is 20 cats, two hens and a cockerel. I found some old bird seed I’d bought by accident so the chickens got some specialist food one day. We bought the huge sack of cat biscuits from Michaelis as the Symi Pet Corner, down at the bottom of the Kali Strata. He delivered it up to Georgios on his moped for us; next time we’re going to work on getting him to deliver it right to our door.

And then Monday came along and after a good night’s sleep, I was ready for the pump-repair man who came to fix our water issues. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t, and it sounds/feels like there is air in the system. Actually, as I am writing this he is still here, so I will have to let you know the outcome. I’m needed in the other house as our own cat wants feeding. Again. He’s looking at me with that stare of: ‘It’s been over half an hour since we last checked the kitchen what are you waiting for?’ Now he is starting to look really fed up, so I will stop typing and go and see to the master.

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The joy of names – and some photos from the weekend to show you the changing weather

It was a weekend of changing weather with May-like temperatures and sun on Saturday (and other days recently) and a storm overnight followed by cloud and wind, but blue skies and certainly not cold, on Sunday. We were outside at a barbeque on Saturday in t-shirts, getting a tan and enjoying the view of the hills around the village, and some other malarkey.

Last week’s lesson in commas went down a lot better than I expected, and thanks for the comments. I’ll do more about that kind of grammar thing in due course, and there will be more discussion on the ‘Brexit’ referendum as time goes by too I dare say. Now that it’s official and a date is set, as I understand it, there is only one good outcome I can see from a ‘Yes’ (leave Europe) vote, and that is that David Cameron would probably have to resign. I’m not living in the UK so I don’t get all the details but from what I pick up from others in social media and on some news pages etc., it’s currently a close run thing between yes and no, but once word gets out that Cameron would resign if the country voted to leave Europe, then I can see everyone rushing to vote to leave, just to get rid of him.

The same that I see a lot of people wanting to vote to leave, thinking that it will mean an end to the immigration problems in Calais, the ‘Stack’ on the M20, and things like, ‘no more straight cucumbers, yippee!’ As if the answer to the ills of the world lay in the shape of a vegetable. These are, I think, pretty near-sighted reasons for leaving and come from folk who believe 100% what they read in their daily newspapers. And you know my thoughts on them! Particularly in regard to the old question, ‘Who is running the country?’ Answer: the gutter press, it seems. As for us; well, Neil is registered for a postal vote, no hassles there and me… Well, my story is a complicated one due to my name and variations thereof. I’ve just had a friend complete an ‘Attestation’ form for me to confirm that I am who I am. Why? Well…

I’m not going to go into details, but often people ask me why I am called James and I say because it is my name, and it is. Unfortunately I have two others and one of them has a variable and that variable was long used as my first name (which it isn’t) and so, when starting out at 18, I used it for banks, doctors, work, everything really, and also signed my name with it. Then comes along something called the Greek tax system and associated authorities and the issue of explaining that the name I am known by is not actually one of the names in my passport; so I reverted back to the real first name. In Greece, you see, not only do you need a first name (which comes second) and a last name (which comes first) you often have to use a family name as well. Example:

The barge working on the new jetty

At the Alpha Bank I am Collins James Richard (not my name, my father’s name). In the IKA system I was Collins James Richard Sar- party of my mother’s name. And in other cases I have been Collins James Edward Tobias Richard Sarah – just to add to the confusion. (Neil’s a Gosling Neil Ethel on at least one piece of official documentation.) So, when I applied to register to vote in the up-coming debacle, I was told that my info given did not match the info on file at Department of Works and Pensions. I assumed this was to do with my names. So I tried again, moving from putting my full name, as on my passport, to using the shortened version of the last name; still no good. I then wondered if it was a case of me having used the short version of my third name as my first name as I was always called by that name… But who knows? No one can help unless I fill out another form and post it off, which I will do this week. The joy of names, eh?

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Vote to stay in Europe – or else
As I mentioned the other day, I am in the midst of finding out whether I am legitimate or not. That is, legitimate to vote in the upcoming British referendum on leaving the European Union. As I write I am waiting to hear which side of the cusp I am on; I may or may not be able to vote as I left the UK 15 years ago. Well, to be exact, we left for a year’s trial in August 2002 and I finally ‘signed off’ from all things official (tax, house, utilities etc.) in April 2004. However, the last time I filled out an electoral roll form was in 2001 before that year’s general election. I think (and am waiting to hear) that my 16 years could count from that date, and, as it would have been before June (when that general election was held, on June 7^th) my official ‘16 years since last registered’ might well start from, say, January 2001. Bottom line: I may not be eligible to vote in this vital referendum and, thus, need all my readers to do it for me.

Bear in mind that my view is a distant one; I’ve not lived in the UK for a disputed 16 years (actually it will be 15 years come August this year). I am picking up worrying thoughts and opinions from such unbiased (a-hem) places as Facebook, The Daily Mail (I DON’T read it but others do and comment on it), online news and websites and the impression I get is that some short-sighted folk in the UK are going to vote to leave Europe. That, in my opinion would be a disaster.

Why? Well, all of this is purely my conjecture and may well be wrong, but if British citizens are no longer European citizens there are going to be travel restrictions at best, loss of jobs and income, loss of labour, loss of funding, health care and all kinds of other things besides. Expats, for example, may find themselves in the same boat as, say, our Afghan friends on Symi who have to clear visa requirements and travel to Athens regularly to sort out paperwork. Same as any Americans, or Australians would. Okay, so local powers-that-be may be able to put in procedures for that; perhaps we will only have to register once per year, but that might mean that the authorities say ‘No’ you can’t renew and so, away you go, back to the crumbling UK, or another country who might take you.

A few other possibilities:

• House owners could be forced to sell their foreign property back to that country, no doubt at a much reduced price.
• Business owners could have to sell their business, or have a local ‘representative’ act for them and sign said business into their name. (Remember the scams and fraud of years gone by?)
• Euro-businesses in the UK would probably leave the country, taking jobs and some tax income with them.
• Those working UK citizens abroad who contribute to the tax system would go and the countries they leave not benefit from their contributions. (It’s often said that it’s the foreign business and residents who are the first to pay their taxes; none of us want a run-in with the Greek tax office).
• What happens to families from the UK whose children were born in another country, who are at local schools, have all their friends around them and are bi-country as well as bi-lingual? Kids can stay, parents have to go?
• Who pays to get all the expats home with all their belongings (the expats do)? And who helps them relocate? The Government? Not heard anything about that as yet. 600,000 new housing benefit, social housing and welfare support cases coming home all in one go? We’d be stopped at the border and put into a camp in Calais by tabloid reading nutters who would seaze the opportunity to declare the country full up.
• And then there are all the travel restrictions and border patrols, the British passport becomes no longer the passport to have to get you everywhere and anywhere. And so on.

And as for the leaving Europe argument? As far as I can see it’s only some tabloid newspaper readers who are being sold the idea that without EU membership there would be no more migrant workers, no more refugees (because, after all, Britain is already ‘full up’ isn’t it? (Malakies!)), no more Johnny Foreigner coming over and taking the jobs that the disaffected youths and grownups of the country can’t be arsed to do… Again, and so on.

Just thought I’d get those thoughts down before I forgot them. I’ll come back to this in the future no doubt, particularly as I am just off to check what a few reputable online sources have to say on the matter and better educate myself. Meanwhile, if you could do me a favour and vote to stay in Europe I would be grateful. Else I shan’t be here when you come to visit Symi in the future, bringing your expensive visa, your currency changer and your private health insurance premiums with you. Ta.

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Changing weather and websites
I was standing on the balcony yesterday, watching the Blue Star come in and go, closely followed by the Dodcanisos coming in and going out, and there was a definite smell of spring in the air. Usually in February we are bemoaning the cold and damp, the dark days and darker nights, but this year things feel different. Perhaps winter will return but, at the moment, people are out and about enjoying an early spring. Some businesses were already preparing for the summer when we down in Yialos on Tuesday, and we even took advantage of the sun for a quick drink on the way home at lunchtime, sitting outside the kafeneion for an hour. The first time we’ve done that this year so far.

Perhaps the climate is changing, as predicted. Something else that seems to be changing this year are financial websites. I went to my PayPal account the other day to covert some money that was in there from one currency to another and could I find the facility? Could I buffalo. (As Julie Walters once said in a Victoria Wood Sketch.) They’ve changed their site look and it’s now all clean and fancy and much more up to date. But a right old pain to use. I also had to look for an invoice that someone had sent me for some extra postage needed on my orthopaedic office chair that I ordered a few weeks ago. I went to see where this invoice was and couldn’t find that either. I wrote to PayPal about their new look and asked for assistance… And never heard back. Their help department online was not much good either, as all their instructions seemed to relate to the old look site, which I had mastered and which was much easier to use. I found what I wanted in the end by trial and error.

Then I went to check something in my Alpha Bank account online only to find that they have also changed the way they look. Not only that but the site now no longer seems to remember your access details so I have to punch them in every time. Once inside, things were in a different place and also hard to track down. What is it with sites this year? It’s very annoying not to have instructions with these new looks, though there are probably forums and other places where answers can be found, if I have time to look around.

But, as you can see, Symi Dream, is still the same as it has been for a while and I have no intentions of changing things here.

In other news, and relating to the film, The Thirteenth, The Judas Curse as was, based on The Judas Inheritance novel of mine (click link for your copy) which is based on Symi, even though Symi is not mentioned by name: The film is still in the post-production stage but now the music is nearly finalised. I have heard it and seen some of it set against the basic visuals, and it looks good and sounds great. While that is being tweaked, the guys are also working on the other sound, the ‘Foley’ and soundtrack generally, improving the voice recordings and making them suitable for all kinds of sound set-ups. And while that is going on, the colour grader is also adding the colour and cinematic overlays of grain and filters. I’ve seen a couple of images, stills, from this process and though the film looked good before it is starting to look even belter now. And the colour grading also includes making the file suitable for letterbox format and others; so a bit of work for that person to do still lies ahead.

I have suggested another Kickstarter update be released and I hope it will be, maybe even with a couple of shots so the original investors can see what’s happening. If you are a backer you will know when you have an update as it should come in in your email. (If you have changed email addresses, please let 1066 know – you can always let me know and I will pass your message on.) Along with that, other members of the post-production team are working on the end credits, another stage to complete before the film is finalised. After that comes the legal stuff and the hunt for a distributer, so there’s a long way to go still before we see Symi in film anywhere online or elsewhere. It’s a case of sticking with it.

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Quick Tuesday note
Yesterday’s post containing a little grammar lesson seems to have gone down quite well with readers, so I shall post more of those in the future, when I can’t think of anything else to write. The nest ‘lesson’ will be about the appropriate use of the comma. Can’t wait.

Went down to Yialos yesterday and had one of those days that doesn’t go according to plan. It was like summer down there, and up here to a certain extent. It was more than possible to walk around in just a T-shirt (and trousers) and everyone was saying ‘kalokairi einai!’ (It’s summer) and it sure felt like it. There were only mundane things to take care of yesterday, like the banks and post office, before heading home to finish decorating Neil’s office room, something which ended up being postponed until today or tomorrow due to the TV scheduling on Netflix and sheer laziness on my part.

Today is a day for catching up on work amid the smell of paint and the mess of a displaced room, followed by an evening out at Georgio’s, if all goes according to plan. And that’s about all I have to tell you on this Wednesday morning with clear skies and calm seas. The photos today were taken yesterday while out an about in Yialos; you can see how summerlike it was.

If you’ve ever been to Symi (or elsewhere in Greece) and seen these yellow stickers on doors (see below) and wondered what they are… They are left behind by the electricity meter reader on his rounds. If he doesn’t find anyone at home when he calls to read the meter, he leaves one of these on your door; they can be very hard to remove. I’m pleased to say we’ve never had to try and get one off, I make a note in my diary of when then visit is due (it tells you on your bill) and then just leave the courtyard gate open for him on that morning as our meter is in the courtyard. Just thought you’d be interested. Have a good day.

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