Wu Wei

A Taste of Spice

Lotus reads has reviewed an Indian film all about spices (The Mistress of Spices), but she says it is not a recommended film.

Here's a better one about spices, Greek this time. Called Politiki Kouzina or A Touch of Spice in English, it is about a Greek family living in Constantinople (as the Greeks still call Istanbul), where the Grandfather keeps a spice shop. The shop serves Greeks and Turks alike. The grandson becomes a good cook even when he is only 10, and much of the film revolves around family cooking and which spices to use. The boy has a friend who is a Turkish girl. But the family is forced to leave Istanbul for Athens in the late 50s, leaving the grandfather behind.

Eventually the grown son returns to Istanbul and meets the grown Turkish girl who now has a husband and a daughter. I won't spoil the end for you. It's a sad story about exile but vivid about life and food in Constantinople. It's was very popular in Greece while we were there.

There's a DVD. It has English subtitles when they spoke Greek but later in the film the Turkish dialogue is rendered in English without subtitles.

Rubbish recycling

Before I left the UK in 1997, I lived in Taunton.  It was simple to recycle stuff.  You took bottles, cans, paper and plastics  to the local big supermarkets (which also recycled their plastic bags) and clothes, books, usable junk to the charity shops.  Garden waste could be taken to the recycling centre and exchanged for bags of compost.   I assumed everywhere else in the UK worked the same way.

So it was a bit of a downgrade when we arrived in Lithuania.  The arrangement for our flat was that we put the rubbish in a bag in a cupboard outside the front door and it magically disappeared within two days.  Eventually we discovered we were paying the mentally handicapped "boy" downstairs a few litas for delivering it to the refuse truck which came at 3pm most afternoons, which we never saw, as we were never home.  This arranged lapsed one day when we were having a party, when the "boy" came to the door with an axe and told us to be quiet.  It disrupted the party a bit, but not a lot.  Luckily the following week, rubbish skips were installed just down the road and we could take out our own rubbish, in a civilised fashion, whenever we wanted to.  Eventually we found some places where bottles and paper could be recycled, eg in the international school car park.  I forgot to check how far recycling has got in Lithuania recently, but the plastic bag problem is still solved by making you pay for every single one in the supermarkets.

In Athens, recycling was non-existent when we arrived.  This is what you would expect for a city with a horrendous landfill problem (I wrote about it here, I don't suppose it has improved) and a country with an EU Commissioner for the Environment! One of our pet hates was the supermarket bags, which were free, small and not very strong.  This encouraged you to use hundreds with every shopping trip. Anyway, recycling started with little canvas bags for each household for your bottles and paper and cans, which you were supposed to put (all mixed up) into a separate skip from the usual one.  But as the usual ones were normally full, people just filled up the ones for recycling with ordinary refuse.  Eventually our local supermarket got big containers for cans and paper and bottles, but these were usually full or blocked.  I suppose this proved recycling worked.  

In both Lithuania and Greece, we found that when we moved, it was easy to recycle the stuff which would have gone to the charity shops.  You just left it out by the skip and it was gone as soon as you turned your back. 

When we came back to Oxford, I found things appeared to have gone backwards.  None of the big supermarkets in Oxford seem to recycle stuff.  There are no skips for private houses, (probably because there is no common land to put them on).  Refuse collectors come round once a week to empty our house bins.  They won't take cardboard which has to be recycled.  Bottles, paper, cardboard but not plastics have to be left in a green bin ready for the recycling truck, which is separate from the ordinary rubbish truck.  More recently we were given green sacks into which we could put garden refuse and cardboard, but this had to be collected by a separate truck again. 

As if this arrangement was not complicated enough, we are now being issued with "green wheelie bins" and blue boxes (to complement the green boxes).  Ordinary rubbish in the wheelie bins will be collected one week and recycling from the green box, the green sack and the blue box on the next week.  New green wheelie bins have to be issued to each household because of the extra rubbish to be stored to compensate for collections being only every two weeks. 

In our household we find it hard enough to remember to put the rubbish out once a week, without having to remember which week is what, and which materials can be recycled in which box.

Which brings me to Slovenia, where all is simple.  Outside in the street are skips:

The green one is for glass, the blue one for paper, the yellow one for all manner of plastic packaging.  The small ones on the right are for so-called biological waste, stuff for composting.  Everything else goes into the big skips on the left. 

Collection is available every day, so there is none of that confusion about which day the rubbish is collected.  It must be cheaper to buy containers on this scale than for every house.

Oh why can't the English learn to ............. be like the Slovenians.

 

Technorati tags: recycling, lithuania, greece, slovenia, uk

Another NHS rant

Despite all my other grumbles about life in Britain, this is the first time I have felt the need to grumble about the NHS on the blog.  It's still free after all, and I haven't had any serious health problems in the 18 months I've been here. For some reason as I have a thyroid problem, all my prescriptions are free as well, so I don't have so much to grumble about.  But almost a decade spent using private health care in countries with terrible national health systems has made me examine the way the NHS is organised.  Here are some of the things I liked about my private treatment in Lithuania and Greece. 

First of all, a private family doctor does not spend just 10 minutes  dealing with you, no matter how many issues you need to talk to them about.  I realise it is one of the privileges of paying for the doctor's visit, but it does mean you have time to ask questions and feel comfortable about the answers.  This week  I went with Bee to ask about endometriosis, as it seems to run in the family.  My sister said that it always took a long time to get diagnosed so she should start now, just in case that was what the stomach cramps and pains were.  The doctor's response was to print off a fact sheet and say "come back when you have decided how you want to proceed with treatment".  Pardon me, but isn't it the doctor's job to do some diagnosis and propose the treatment, not the patient's?  I suppose we should be grateful that they see that their job involves providing information and actually giving it to you to take away.  On the other hand you can get a fact sheet off the internet any time.  You go to the doctor for a more personal advisory relationship and some reassurance.  We didn't really get that in our 10 mins, since the printer was rather slow. 

Secondly, it's a well-known joke that whenever you see the doctor you get told to take paracetamol for whatever the symptoms.  In both Lithuania and Greece I would come away from the doctor's with a prescription for about 4 things even for flu.  Admittedly they all had to be paid for, but what with the regular medicine I take I got to learn how much things really cost, and that was quite a surprise.  Medicines were not nearly so expensive as I had thought and quite often less than the prescription charge at home.  By the time we came back, many of the medicines were now sold over the counter without a prescription anyway.   

Further, it was possible to buy regular medicines without prescriptions, so you did not have to bother the doctor for repeat prescriptions.   This was a big help for me when travelling, if I ran out unintentionally, or had forgotten something in my drug cocktail I take every morning.  I can see that a lot of expensive drugs need to be controlled, as well as the narcotics, but do you really need a prescription for something to lower your blood pressure or cholesterol, or my thyroxine tablets?    People still go to the doctor for checkups and pharmacists ask enough questions to make sure you really have seen a doctor and been prescribed recently. It just removes an extra layer of paperwork.

When you did go to the doctor in Lithuania, everything happened very much faster.  Most blood tests could be done on the spot, some specialist doctors like gynecologists and the guy with the ultrasound came once a week to the surgery.  If you needed high tech tests you either went to the specialist doctor who had the equipment, or to the diagnostics centre.  Appointments were made in less than a week and you got the results back after the appointment, not six weeks later.

In Athens it was even more organised.  If you wanted one test, you were offered 10.  One year I needed a medical examination for insurance, which was paid for, so I had everything. It took most of the day, but I came away knowing I had no breast cancer, cervical cancer, urine infections, blood problems, my ears and eyes were OK, my heart was fine etc.  There were a couple of tests where the results took a couple of extra days, so I had to go back for those, but the basic results took one day. 

The following year, my doctor warned me that most of the tests weren't necessary and there was a scam going, but I fell for it anyway, and my ordinary health insurance paid. As a result my gall stones were detected.  All my results were handed back to me, so I was able to discuss them with my family doctor in my own time and in my own language, though it meant I was responsible for keeping the tests from one year to the next. I really felt I had left Greece with a clean bill of health, which is more than I can say now in the UK.

When I visited the doctor this week, I also wanted to know why the NHS only pays for mammograms every 3 years.  My mother had breast cancer and knowing that the NHS calls all women over 50 for mammograms, I have been having one religiously every year, however unpleasant it is.  At least when you carry the results with you, you can get a comparison quickly and be sure that they are really your results, not someone else's. 

I had been reading on the internet how the 3 year interval was determined.  It seems that research shows that once every 3 years is enough to protect women from the risk of dying of breast cancer.  That's not much consolation to any individual who finds out that she has had cancer for nearly 3 years.  My doctor admitted this.  It seems that even a previous family history does not get you better treatment unless it is more than one person with the cancer and unless the onset of the cancer was pre-menopausal, which isn't the case for me.  So despite this being the second most common cause of death after lung cancer, nobody cares except about preventing death.  Presumably that makes the targets look bad.  One could be very cynical and say that tests every 3 years gives more chance of detecting cancers than every year, so the targets are easier to meet. And what are the targets anyway these days? Certainly not number of women tested, or even equipment well utilised, or results delivered quickly.  

So I decided I would go off to Lithuania for my private mammogram as it would be cheaper, in case my health insurance wouldn't pay.  I can also get my hair done, and see the dentist and get some new passport photos from the man who manages such wonderful photos of everyone. 

But to get back to the NHS, is there any reason why diagnostic centres can't be local, to save travelling for patients?  For big really expensive equipment, it is obvious that this needs to be in big hospitals for really sick patients.  But for more routine tests, equipment cannot be that expensive if they can afford it in poorer countries like Lithuania and Greece.  In those countries, they just make sure it is used very intensively.  And is there any need for waiting for results?  Why can't they be done the same day, so they aren't left to get muddled up?  Somebody should really do a time and motion study on the proper location and use of equipment. And maybe some of the small hospitals that are closing could be recycled as diagnostic centres and outpatient clinics, so that people don't have to travel so far. 

Technorati tags: NHS, mammogram, diagnostic centres, Lithuania, Greece

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Rasendschnell internet

Copydude left a comment grumbling at the internet speed in the UK.

All I can say is he should have been living in Athens and he wouldn't grumble. Until June last year just before we left, ISDN was the best you could get. We used to drool at the Dutch adverts on the satellite TV, providing "rasendschnell downloaden and internetten". One particular advert was my favourite with a pair of moles downloading music underground in the tunnel (burrow?) and rocking to the music so loudly that they woke the people in the house above. I guess they had wireless. I wish somebody would put that advert on Youtube, it was really cool (not a phrase I use very often). Then two months before we left a telephone call (itself a novelty) from OTE (the Greek telephone company) which provided us instantly with not too expensive, but rather slow DSL. Still it was enough for us to gear into action, and get Skype and wireless and our lives were changed. I even used Skype to announce that dinner was served, rather than shout to teenagers 3 floors up.

Now in Britain, we are thankful for small mercies. I am surprised to find that BT is the most reliable, since it often has problems (which we are prone to solve by using the wireless of our neighbours (a choice of 3)). Actually we know more about our neighbours' wireless systems than we do them. The wireless exchange seems to be mutual. BT's daft arrangement with Yahoo to host their email is always causing problems. Yesterday I could receive but not send. Very useful the day I decided to try Thunderbird. This morning it is working again, but no BT apology.

Anyone see why amazon.theworld was down yesterday? It would be the day I placed an order expecting next day delivery. Now it seems even despatch has a 4 day delay for things in stock. Must have been serious.

Civilised parking

The Humble Observer is questioning Kiev parking practice. And Neeka's Backlog has a whole series of photos on Kiev parking on pavements in Flickr here. Humble Observer comments:

In fact I remember a traffic cop standing right by one day, and I asked him: "Let me get this straight, parking on the street there where you are standing is not allowed, but here on the sidewalk it is?" He answered in the affirmative in such a casual way as if I asked: "When I drive, are my wheels allowed to touch the road?" Of course you can park on the sidewalk! Are there some countries where you can't?

Your traffic cop is right. Other countries do park on the sidewalks.

It is very normal to park on the sidewalks in Athens. As a result the paving is always cracked and it is hard to not ruin your shoes. On the other hand why ruin your shoes when you can park exactly where you are going, anywhere and at any angle you can fit your car. Surprisingly few cars get their rear end smashed when you would expect they would.

The only reason Greeks don't drive on the sidewalk is that the sidewalks aren't wide enough to leave a lane for driving, or if they are, they are already full of cars when you get there.

An example of how bad the parking planning is in Athens: Just before the Olympics, a new metro station opened at Halandri near us. There were tiny designated parking areas (free of course) which filled up within five minutes in the morning. All further streets surrounding the metro were parked up wherever possible from day one. This is despite the fact that this station opening "encouraged" a whole new set of people to travel by metro instead of taking their cars into the centre. A normal country (with proper planning and free enterprise) would have set up car parking for a price on the derelict land round the metro station, or even built some offices with car parking. Even the mafia could have organised to rent the land and charge for parking, (which they do round a nearby hospital in Athens). But no, there was just chaos.

In fact Athens' car drivers are very creative, to cope with the awful traffic jams. When the government restricted traffic in the centre to cars with odd numbered registration numbers to odd numbered dates and vice versa, every family just changed their cars to have an odd number and an even number, so they could always use one car to drive into the centre.

The only concession Athenians have made is to buy large numbers of the very small Smart car, which can then fit into even smaller corners of the sidewalk. But this is probably to allow more members of the family to have cars.

Parking in unusual places is not a problem also. As the family granny lived in the basement of our house where the garage would have been, we were allowed to park in the basement of what in Ukraine 15 yeard ago would have been called "unfinished construction": a concrete shell for two houses, apparently abandoned by the builders for lack of money. Learning to back down a ramp and park amongst the columns and other cars was just good practice for squeezing into other spaces on the sidewalk.

A Tale of Two Education Systems

In Britain everyone is complaining that A levels and GCSEs are too easy, and standards are slipping
Too many students get high marks, so it is difficult to find the best students for university. Yet at the same time employers are complaining that basic literacy is poor.

In Greece we have the opposite story:

What purpose does it serve to have an tertiary education entrance system that allows a candidate to register at a university faculty with a grade of 1.53, when 20 is the maximum and 10 is the pass mark?

Since yesterday, this has been the question people have been asking those in charge of the country’s education system — politicians and academics.

This case (albeit exceptional) of a candidate being accepted into the faculty of German philology with such a scandalously low examination score average indicates all too clearly the degree to which the current university entrance system has diverged from whatever its original goals might have been, and marks the sad end of an age that all of us would definitely like to forget.

At least as of next year, an attempt will be made to take some tentative step towards averting a complete breakdown of the system, since candidates will have to achieve at least the pass mark in the entrance exams in order to be accepted into the country’s universities and technical colleges. more

This is the university system which refuses to allow any type of quality control or performance assessment, tries to prevent foreign universities setting up in competition in Greece and as only recently agreed to speed up accreditation of foreign degrees. So much for the European Common Higher Education!

At least in communist countries, the standards in the subjects that were taught were high, and schools were good. Greece couldn't even get that bit right!

And now there are further complaints about the quality of the education here:

Every year around this time, the announcement of university entrance grades paves the way for a new wave of entrants into our higher education system. Their journey often leads nowhere, however; not just when it comes to acquiring a profession, but even as regards the cultivation of knowledge. It is commonly known, after all, that neither our schools nor universities fulfill their mission adequately. The rare exceptions only prove the rule.

The matter is crucial, since the quality of education largely determines a country's level of cultural development as well as its economic capability. Investment in human potential is widely considered the most important and productive of all. Yet in Greece the education system has no solid internal logic, it makes insufficient use of modern technology, and it does not cultivate things like judgment and independent thinking among pupils and students. Everyone talks about the information society, but little is done to bring it about.

The fact is that we are champions at producing semi-literate graduates. Especially in large faculties, students can get a degree with little study. That does not bother anyone, because of the prevailing perception that a degree is a passport to a profession. But the Greek economy can no longer absorb the high number of university and technical college graduates. Restricting the number of university entrants is clearly not a solution, but degrees should be given only to those who deserve them.

This is why radical reform is needed, beyond the changes in entrance exams of past decades. Conditions are ripe for such a policy leap that will establish a new mentality, introduce curriculum changes and create a reliable mechanism to assess teachers and students at all levels. Public opinion has largely shed its prejudices and is ready to accept daring changes.

This idea that assessment is necessary or even useful has been a long time coming, and will be hard fought by teachers, as well as parents who expect to buy both education and exam results for their children.

But it is a sad conclusion of the government of a transition economy (for that is what Greece is) that it needs a less well educated workforce rather than a more educated one. When Greece is way behind the new EU Member States in use of IT in education and in society in general, to lower standards further can only push Greece further down the league.

There are plenty of jobs that graduates could do especially in a growing economy, but when badly educated older people with habits of corruption and cronyism have many higher jobs in government and industry, they will never get on the ladder let alone become senior managers.

Eastern Europe managed an exceptional transition between 1991 and 2004 to a market economy. When will Greece start?

Holiday Part 4 boating

After Epidavros I stayed on the boat near Poros while G and J attempted to sail. They had been trapped moored off Poros with repairs and a visitor from Houston who found everywhere too hot without a/c and had retired to a hotel. Here are some pictures of Poros.

So after the theatre visit we put to sea intending to cruise round the coast, mooring in small bays at night and taking the dinghy ashore for taverna dinners. At first all went well and we anchored off this pretty bay with some other boats. I managed a first for me: to swim in deep water round the boat which was great as it was really hot. We had dinner on board the first night. After that we watched for shooting stars, just the right time of year for the Perseids on 12/13 August.

For me sleeping on a boat at anchor was another first and though it was hot I slept like a log in the main cabin. Next day we were all lazy and then the problems started: the outboard motor would not start so we had dinner on board again. On Sunday we were not sure any shops were open and so Gerry rowed ashore in another bay where there was a taverna to get bread and bottles of water.

Finally on Monday we went for a sail out into the Saronic Gulf. J and C (their 11 year old son) followed G's instructions and I asked stupid questions as it was my first sailing trip. G was very patient with his answers. Although I wasn't able to be useful on board I really loved it. J and I discussed whether I was too old to take up sailing and how long it took to become competent. However I suspect that I was seeing it in ideal conditions: Greek weather in August. The reality of sailing in England would be wet and miserable. I know from experience that I am not good up Welsh hillsides which have the same problems. Still it would be a way of meeting some new people.

The wind was too strong for us to get back to moor easily in Poros so we ended up back in our bay again, using up all the food left on the boat for our last dinner. I slept out on the cockpit under the stars which took a bit of getting used to but I slept soundly and was glad of the cool breeze that developed in the night.

Next morning we dashed into Poros to have a hearty breakfast and watched the ferries coming in and out. I was sad to go as I would have enjoyed more sailing, but I needed to get back to arrange packing and moving. I set off just before noon, taking one of the water taxis to the mainland and retrieving my car. I drove along the windy road to Epidavros, making a false turn and ended up at Megana. Then I returned on the windy road to Epidavros but as I wasn't feeling in a rush, I stopped at the old harbour to have a lunch.

Holiday Part 3 Books

I managed to finish several books including

I started reading this before but got stuck as I wasn't awfully fond of Lolita as a book. In fact the literary criticism is not the most interesting since I had not read any of the other books except the Jane Austin. But it was very interesting as a memoir of the times in the late 70s and 80s and what changes there were for women after the fall of the Shah. Her descriptions of the lengths they had to go to, just to escape the morality police, and the effect of "policing" her lectures and discussions show what life is really like in Iran today. No wonder she finally left to go back to the States.

It brought back memories of my own Iranian friends of the time when I had just started my PhD in Birmingham: a young journalist and her husband who were studying too, and M, a young guy who my boyfriend at the time was teaching English. M seemed to be in England to escape SAVAK, the Shah's secret police, but it was never clear why. I remember him for his wonderful Iranian dinners, which I already wrote about here, but also for his set of essential skills which we no longer possessed. At our Brecon cottage, we had to stop him catching and killing one of the local sheep for a barbecue. He offered to clean my car by hosing down the inside, as a substitute for driving it into a nearby river. When I looked horrified, he explained that cars had plugs in the bottom which when removed let the water out, and of course he would remove the carpets first. To earn some money he did paintings of flowers on velvet which seemed to sell well in Moseley where we lived. In the end he went back after the revolution leaving me with a carpet (which I still have) in exchange for his fare. We wrote a few times since then and once I got an email from him sounding tired and sad. I regret that I never managed to get to Iran to see him.

My first Dan Brown! Haven't got round to reading the Da Vinci Code yet. It was the most popular book on the beach. I enjoyed the book but thought the ending a bit feeble.

Sloph spotted this in Athens airport so we had to buy it for our usual dose of string theory explaining the beginning of the universe (no we don't understand it any better now) and for her to understand calculus since she missed out in the IB syllabus. We both enjoyed it.

Sloph brought this to get ahead on her reading list. I realised that I had never read anything much on this period since school where history was taught in the "write down in your notebooks what I write on the board" style. When I got into it, I realised I could hardly remember which king was which and in what order, though it didn't matter too much. The first British Empire was shortlived, and Davies claimed that the problems of what to call it were solved by ignoring the Scots Irish and Welsh and their claims to independence by calling the whole four kingdoms England, which everone in Eastern Europe has certainly done ever since, knowing little about Wales and Scotland and only about terrorim in Ireland. For me it was interesting to look at history as a research subject and realise what sources could be used for that period. Learning to use sources properly is now part of high school education, but wasn't in my day. Actually it was an interesting and readable book for a layperson.

Holiday Part 1 Beach

The decision to go to Lesvos was made on the spur of the moment. Bee and Sloph were too lazy to make any decisions apart from: hot and a beach with sand. So decided to go for Lesvos rather than Crete as had never been before. Cost of boat and car was as much as plane with late booking so decided to fly.

Arrived Wed at 16.30 not knowing where to go and without transport and accommodation (very Greek). Mytilini was very hot after failed attempt to hire any car so sat in cafe trying to make phone numbers in guide book work (mostly without success, even with local help). In the end plumped for Petra (see the website with photos here) in the north on the grounds that the Women's Agricultural Coop (recommended by both Lonely Planet and Rough Guide) answered the phone and could find us a room. All the guide books said Lesvos was big and you needed a car to get about so we were surprised that a taxi took only an hour to get to Petra.

The Women's Coop was friendly and provided a room with two beds no a/c or TV and on the ground floor overlooking the street. A third camp bed was provided, but at 30 Euros it didn't seem good value or safe. So in the morning we found a much better one, nearer the beach for the same price and moved there.

Petra was just what we all ordered: long sandy beach, shallow water with waves, plenty of cafes and tavernas with good food. Prices pretty much like those in Santorini last year which was absolutely empty. Petra was busy but not overcrowded, and the tourist population mostly Greek and Scandinavian. Not too noisy at night but plenty of choice for dinner. Kids enjoyed the waves and I enjoyed not having to worry about food and meals.

In discussions over dinner, we argued about whether the moon rose and set or was fixed in the sky. They both claimed it was fixed in the sky and they had never seen it set. As a result several meaningless holiday snaps are of the moon in the sky from which it was not possible to prove anything.

We quickly established a routine which the kids refused to break. So no sightseeing, trips to the next village or to further afield. Getting a good tan and sleep were the only objectives. Later the kids progressed to riding the waves and I explored the back streets. I even climbed the 114 steps up the rock up to the church.

Here's the evidence!

Holiday part 2 Culture

Never could do things in the right order.

J organised for us to go to the Ancient Theatre of Epidavros for the first of my evenings on the boat. The theatre at Epidavros is the best-preserved example of a classical Greek amphitheatre and a person on the top row can hear a conversation being spoken in normal tones in the centre of the theatre, a remarkable feat since the theatre can hold 14,000 people. The Epidavros Festival takes place here in the summer months with programs of Ancient Greek Dramas.

Photos stolen from here and here (now can't find it again, apologies to the site I copied it from)and here. More photos here.

This meant rushing down (and up) a winding road for an hour or so, back the way I had just come. We set off late so arrived just as the play was starting and climbed to our seats in the upper part. By then I though I was wheezing so hard with my asthma I thought nobody would be able to hear the play.

J thought she had got tickets for a tragedy, but it was hard to believe it when the set appeared to be composed of huge phalluses making doorways. J's son was at the stage when this just caused embarrassment in front of parents. The programme was in Greek, no concessions to foreigners, and there was no time to get a quick translation of the plot. Eventually we realised that Aristophanes' was a comedy, and a musical comedy at that. The Greek was modern, the acoustics excellent without microphones, so the audience had no difficulties being amused, though in my case it was more from the pantomime (women pretending to be men etc) and the Kurt Weill like music.

After an hour and a half sitting in the dark with the stars overhead but stone seating underneath, we were glad the end came. We rushed off for the normal Greek dinner time of 11.00 pm in a nearby taverna and G explained what we had seen.

It seems that the play was about women taking over the Athens Assembly and trying to make a better job of it than men. However their idea was to share everything and so this was an experiment in primitive communism. It quickly became farce when the women passed a law making the men sleep with the ugly women first before the beautiful ones. The arguments and consequences are quite funny. You can find the full text of the play in English here.

Greece being the way it is about the internet, there are no photos to be found of the theatre company (Karolos Koun Art Theatre) or the performance. And where are my photos? At the beginning, there was a long lecture even in English about not eating drinking talking photographing and talking on mobile phones. Which everyone ignored (except the mobile phones), this being Greece, especially the drinking, since everyone but us had sensibly brought bottles of water, it still probably being over 30 degrees even at night. So it was only at the end I realised I could have taken photos since I had my camera with me. Needless to say the two I got, disappeared when the camera bounced later on the boat.

Just goes to show there is nothing new under the sun, and people could work out the snags of real communism without needing necessarily to try. Maybe if Lenin and Marx had read Aristiphanes they would not have been so keen to experiment.