BEGONE, DULL CARE!

I hope it is not considered too irresponsible, while summer still warms the cockles, to escape for a while from the burdens of the world and enjoy some simple pleasures. I wish temporarily to ignore my own worries (some rude locals, a defaulting tenant, financial turmoil and the daily influx of refugees) and instead share with you a sociable week or so in balmy Samos. I am sure many of you will also have been doing stimulating holiday things, appropriately without a trace of guilt.

Two birthdays were celebrated, one a landmark birthday for genial and ever-welcoming Apostoli, manager of Hippy’s, the delightful restaurant and busy bar beside the Potami beach in Karlovasi.  That evening the bar was adorned with soft lighting, candles and flambeaux, delicious home-made taramosalata and pitta bread were first proffered, followed by pork souvlakis from the barbecue, washed down by the fragrant Roya locally blended white wine. An accordionist and a guitarist sang and played evocative old favourites. The crowd was cosmopolitan and well-heeled, all-in-all a most civilised occasion.

Hippy's garden restaurant and beach-bar

The second birthday was a more private affair, that of our friend and neighbour Theofilaktos. He would normally do a BBQ with his Christina but the night was hot and we decided just to eat together with another couple of friends and we had souvlakis and gyro delivered. Lots of chat and joking finishing off with a splendidly rich chocolate cake and candles to blow out. We were sitting in our painted courtyard surrounded by the aromatic plants and blooms of which Theofilaktos is the master. He was moved that he was so appreciated and honoured.

Birthday Boy Theofilaktos

My lovely wife Betty received a great boost when some outside spotlights were fitted enhancing the appearance of the house at night; more importantly for 17 years the fine view from our second floor veranda of the sea, the mountains and the cathedral has been marred by an obtrusive large water tank on a neighbour’s roof. She managed to substitute a new, low-slung tank, gifted by our architect friend Kiki, and a crane removed the old excrescence. A blissful moment – our view to the sea is now unimpeded and we are able easily to see the large church of the Panagia Theotokos at Meseo, floodlit at night.

Culture is not entirely neglected as last Thursday we took the high and winding mountain road to the South of the island and The Heraion – the archaeological site of the Temple of Hera. Much excavated and documented, the glory of the site would have been the vast temple erected in the 6^th century BC by the Samian tyrant Polycrates and the 6 km Sacred Way, packed with statues. Not much is left as temples were built upon temples and only outlines survive. A huge Kouros in the Museum at Vathi gives a flavour of the ancient richness.

To Kyma restaurant, Ireon

In the heat we adjourned to the nearby village of Ireon and discovered a lovely restaurant, To Kyma (The Wave,) perched over the sea where we ate alfresco delicious stuffed peppers, fried calamari (squid) and tsipoura (sea bream) and were warmly welcomed by chef Giannis and family owner Panagiotis. Even better, Betty espied some vibrant orange directors’ chairs in the bar, which were just right for our painted courtyard, and bought 4 for a song. She was thrilled as we drove our packed Smart home. We returned on Sunday with Theofilaktos and Christina, swam happily in the warm Aegean, ate well again and bought another 2 chairs!

As a token of thanks for her gift of a new water tank, we invited Kiki to the charming mountain village of Manolates, Kiki driving us up the precipitous road in her open Wrangler, the perfect vehicle for Samos. We dined at the Three Alphas, an old favourite of hers, where the marinated grilled mushrooms and toothsome mousses and cakes were a particular joy. Manolates has commanding views over the nearby forests of plane-trees and the sea beyond and has a relaxing ambiance.

We made good use of our cool high veranda, its view much improved, as a venue for sipping ouzo and nibbling bits and pieces, first with an Anglo-Greek couple we like and another night with our neighbours with meatballs an optional extra. How pleasant it is on a warm night to chat quietly and maybe listen to some music too in the painted courtyard.

This gives you a glimpse of our Aegean pleasures, a rustic Idyll rather than a riotous Bacchanal. I walked to the Archangels’ Chapel through the vineyards, now being harvested – not a great crop, a farmer friend told me, thanks to a blight and too much rain in the winter. The olives, collected from November or so, are crying out for rain – we have really seen none since May. I still find time to write and polish my effusions, to swim in the local hotel pool nearby and to snatch a siesta after all these agreeable exertions!

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/hippyss

www.tripadvisor.co.uk › ... › Samos › Ireon › Ireon Restaurants

www.greekislandtraveler.com/ManolatesSamos.html

SMD

27.08.15

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015

LEFTIES AT WAR

The imminent election as the Leader of the Labour Party, and putative UK Prime Minister, of loony-Leftist Jeremy Corbyn will make for a great comedy and probably ensure another Tory win in 2020. In Greece, nominally Leftie Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has been doing handsprings and back somersaults to keep inside the Eurozone and to outmanoeuvre 25 dissidents in his own SYRIZA parliamentary group. He has called for new elections for 20 September which should rid him of his extreme Marxist millstone and allow the government of Greece to be carried out in a more-or-less rational manner (some hope!).

Struggles between the factions of the Left tend to be blood-and-thunder affairs and if a climax involving an ice-pick á la Trotsky is unlikely these days, we can be sure the brothers will be anything but fraternal and there will be none of the politely hypocritical “after you, Rupert” which characterises Tory power-pitches. Jeremy Corbyn is a throwback to a much earlier Labour generation, wanting to nationalise the commanding heights of the economy, sack the Governor of the Bank if he declines to print money to order, disarm unilaterally, end Osborne’s mild version of austerity and soak the rich. Even Michael Foot would have swallowed hard before promulgating such an insane programme, containing elements of Red Clydeside and envious trades union triumphalism.

Jeremy Corbyn rallies the faithful

The coronation of Jeremy seems inevitable in a shambolic election marred by entryism and chicanery – mind you the other candidates Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham and Liz Kendall (who? who?) hardly set the pulses a-racing. Labour seems to be succumbing to a death wish, shrinking into a dismal sect like the erstwhile Tribune Group or even The Levellers.

And yet……Politics is a notoriously unpredictable business and elections are a lottery if the public is fickle. Expect the unexpected – the SNP swept Scotland earlier this year, maybe Corbynmania will one day afflict the South like an outbreak of rabies or St Vitus Dance and the bearded wonder will be adored by the WI in Surrey and in the banking parlours of Moorgate. Stranger things have happened.

40 economists, including Danny Blanchflower, ex-Bank of England, have supported Corbyn’s anti-austerity stance, which they describes as “mainstream”. The same kind of economic accolade was bestowed on Tsipras’ defiant policies towards the Eurozone by two Nobel laureates and Tsipras duly won his referendum denouncing austerity. Yet within days he realised that kissing the hem of the robe of Wolfgang Schaeuble was a price he had to pay to stay within the Euro and he duly abased himself. Tsipras and his demonised Finance Minister Yannis Varoufakis may well have been “right” but the rest of the Eurozone were unpersuaded and surrender to the majority was unavoidable.

In Greece Tsipras remains very popular. He is admired for standing up to rich Europeans and his failure is seen as almost heroic. Reforming Greek pension schemes, cutting state spending and tackling the omnipotent oligarchs can maybe only be done by a relatively clean man of the Left like Tsipras. Hope remains that substantial Greek debt will be written off, a pet scheme of Varoufakis and now of Christine Lagarde from the IMF. Schaeuble may revive his idea of Greece “temporarily” leaving the Euro if this were to be done – a good Grexit deal in my view but not one with appeal to the Greek electorate.

The Greek political landscape is fragmented. The conservative New Democracy has an uninspiring interim leader Meimarakis, socialist PASOK has a new unknown lady leader and is weak, Potami is terminally ineffective – only the new SYRIZA splinter party Popular Unity, led by firebrand Panagiotis Lafazanis (another beardie!) with 25 members has much talent but their policies of leaving NATO, cosying up to Russia and the Arab world, nationalising the banks and dismantling capitalism are electoral poison and make Corbyn sound like Abe Lincoln. Popular Unity will simply disappear.

Radical Leftists Tsipras and Lafazanis

So I believe Tsipras will win the forthcoming election and will move more clearly towards Social Democracy. He may need a new coalition partner (Greeks do not easily do compromise) but he could give Greece the stability it has lacked in recent years. There are serious questions to answer all over Europe – how to narrow the gap between the very rich and the others, how to cater for an ageing population how to deal with mass immigration from the East – and above all how to get Europe economically prosperous again. Let the politicians show their mettle!

SMD

24.08.15

Text Copyright ©Sidney Donald 2015

DIFFERING PERSPECTIVES

I often become impatient when the person to whom I am speaking (otherwise “haranguing”) fails to agree with propositions I consider self-evident. In my elderly serenity, I now appreciate that I am not always right (what a momentous and delayed discovery!), that my perspective on events is largely a conditioned reflex and that there are a thousand ways of looking at our complicated and perverse world.

Cameron visited by Thatcher, keepers of the flame

I was brought up, largely unconsciously, with the Whig version of history as purveyed by Macaulay and Trevelyan. This saw the Civil War as the triumph of Parliament over Absolutism, confirmed by the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the gradual increase in the power of the Commons in the 18^th century, the British leading and becoming prosperous in the Industrial Revolution and the foundation of a great Empire (even after foolishly losing the American colonies). Victory over dangerous Napoleon ushered in parliamentary reform, free trade and the heyday of Victorian settled government.

The tragic bloodshed of the Great War weakened all Europe materially and financially creating slump and Fascism, but Britain stayed democratic and played a heroic role in defeating Hitler. After WW2, socialism was tried and mainly failed though the bi-partisan Welfare State endured. The Empire morphed into the Commonwealth, our economy slowly revived – more dynamically under Thatcher - and Britain, a staunch ally of the USA, is a semi-detached if uneasy member of the EU. I imagine this is the underlying narrative to which David Cameron and many in the centre of British politics subscribe. It is true that aspects of this narrative are nationalistic, self-deluding and complacent.

Quite different would be the historical perspective embraced by Jeremy Corbyn, probably destined to be the new Leader of the Labour Party and of Her Majesty’s Opposition. His adherents’ mind-set would regret the dominance of Cromwell over the Diggers, Levellers and other radical sects in the Civil War. The 18^th century would be seen as a brutal struggle suppressing the landless peasantry and the exploited new industrial working class. Victorian politics would be characterised as a pre-occupation of a selfish, wealthy and often aristocratic elite with civil rights for working people only grudgingly conceded. The seminal influence of Karl Marx with his anti-capitalist analysis would be emphasised and the subsequent policies of Russia’s Lenin and Stalin admired.

 The convulsions of the 20^th century would be put into the context of a struggle against imperialism and racism in Germany and neo-colonialism in the USA. Liberation movements in China, Africa, Latin America, and currently Syriza in Greece, Sinn Fein in Ireland and Hamas in Palestine would deserve uncritical support. Their idols would be Gandhi, Ho Chi Minh and Castro. The current British government would be branded as irredeemably reactionary. Traditional socialist policies such as nationalisation, disarmament, imposing high taxes on the rich and increased welfare would be ardently proposed. Clearly there is a wide gap between Cameron’s and Corbyn’s worlds; personally I have much sympathy with Cameron and I see only fleeting flashes of insight from Corbyn, but there are many nuances in the comprehensive positions of both. I am reminded of W.S. Gilbert’s lines:

And Party Leaders you may meet, in twos and threes in every street,

Maintaining with no little heat, their various opinions.

Jeremy Corbyn in his Dave Spart outfit

The perspective of supporters of the SNP, UKIP and the Greens will be equally diverse and it is surprising there is ever any national consensus. Yet politicians do broadly agree on many individual issues even if philosophically there is a deep abyss between them. If even British politicians disagree on fundamentals, how can the world seen through the eyes of Barack Obama (not to mention Donald Trump!), Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel and Xi Jinping ever be peacefully reconciled?

The secret is Spin, Fudge and Compromise. Thus the ignominious surrender of Greece to Europe is sold in Brussels as the EU being “tough” and in Athens as a cleverly negotiated settlement that could have been much worse.  Russian military incursions into Ukraine are ascribed to “volunteers” and her seizure of the Crimea ignored. Chinese expansion in the islands of the South China Sea are justified as “security concerns”. The nuclear ambitions of Iran set off an elaborate diplomatic dance and bred a doubtful agreement. In Britain devolution is an unholy mess, staggering on with illogical stitch-ups and perilous concessions.

The truth is we all have to rub along somehow and there is no spectacle so wearying as a politician proclaiming his irrelevant principles, often a luxury his country cannot afford. A basic ethical foundation is necessary to underlie all actions but, as the man said The road to Hell is paved with good intentions!

SMD

13.08.15

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015

HANDY AND HORRIBLE HERBS

I suppose Adam dispensed some balm for Eve’s troubling snakebite and a doting cave-woman rubbed a healing potion on the bruised bonce of her troglodyte mate. Herbal remedies have been with us since time immemorial, yet their status is lowly and it seems somehow regrettable that the modern medical profession and the gigantic pharmaceutical enterprises spend so much time and money denigrating these modest competitors.

Herbs are often far from safe, famously illustrated by the death of Socrates, condemned for impiety and sentenced to drink Hemlock, a highly toxic little plant extract – chewing six leafs will do you in.

The Death of Socrates by Jean-Louis David in the MMA, New York

My first remembered encounter with herbs was as a cavorting Scots laddie brushing against, or worse, falling into a stand of nettles. The recognised cure for nettle stings was rubbing quickly with a Dock Leaf, a common enough weed – and it worked beautifully!

Stinging Nettle and soothing Dock Leaf

One of the suspicious features of herbs is the wide range of their claimed benefits. Thus Camomile, much used in the Mediterranean as a tea for those off-colour, supposedly helps treat insomnia, anxiety, hay fever, menstrual disorders, gastric attacks and piles. Modern drugs tend to be precisely targeted and the general elixir is not much favoured, though surely much sought. It would be ideal if a single cup of some natural potion could cure a wide range of complaints. A mixture of Wormwood, Anise and Fennel creates the highly alcoholic spirit Absinthe, to be treated with much caution, though fennel, deliciously crunchy in a salad, is reckoned also to be a cancer inhibitor.

An 1898 poster for Absinthe

The medical profession and Big Pharma pooh-pooh herbs and spread scare stories of their possible ill-effects. Of course, herbs have a direct influence on their profit and loss accounts. Why pay a doctor to treat your bruises when a squirt of Arnica from the local witch will do the job just as well? Big Pharma pays many $millions to have their drugs tested and accepted by the FDA and similar regulatory bodies, so I suppose they deserve some sympathy if a simple OTC mixture like Dr Collis Browne’s (the opiate morphine and peppermint oil) muscles in on their market.

My good friend and neighbour here on Samos, Theofilaktos, swears by St John’s Wort oil and makes up his own supply. The plant itself grows wild all over the Med and is much used to alleviate the aches and pains of too much, or too little, activity.

St John's Wort

The oil, made with the buds, has a pink hue and is rubbed all over a strained muscle or an aching limb. My dear wife says it is instantly effective: Theofilaktos claims the Spartan warriors used it to staunch their wounds. Certainly a very obese local called a day or two ago clutching his cherished bottle and needing a refill - (not a Spartan warrior, more a stranded walrus). It is used to relieve muscle pains but it is also said to relieve depression, much needed by Greeks these days!

Inevitably sex comes into the world of natural remedies. Spanish Fly, a powder made from crushed emerald-green Lytta beetles, irritates and stimulates the genital-urinary tract and is claimed to be an aphrodisiac. Ginseng, especially the Korean variety, sets the Orientals agog supposedly possessing aphrodisiac qualities and I knew a 70-year old lady who ingested it daily – a classic case of the triumph of hope! We get into darker waters when we consider the Coca leaf, chewed and brewed traditionally in South America but the basis of cocaine, the perilous hallucinogenic recreational drug.  Controversial too is the Cannabis plant, source of marijuana, the recreational drug which 50% of Americans are said to have smoked, which can deliver a euphoric “high”. The legalisation of cannabis is regularly debated and may happen in due course.

The Cannabis Plant

A much worse threat is the Opium Poppy, from which is derived useful medicines like Morphine and Codeine (and the 19^th century favourite Laudanum) but also the highly addictive drug Heroin now produced on an industrial scale by Afghanistan and Mexico, underpinning financially many an Evil Empire and causing untold human misery.

I am well aware that I have merely scratched (apply Aloe Vera, soothes skin abrasions, treats constipation and depression) the surface of the world of Herbs. I had started out with a cocksure contrarian attitude towards the medical profession and Big Pharma. But on sober reflection I believe that Herbalists deserve to be ranked with those well-meaning but deluded groups including Homeopaths, Osteopaths and Chiropractors, likely to do as much harm as good. Medical and Pharmacological science progresses with properly controlled tests and a thorough understanding of the chemical interactions of medicines. Consign the old wives’ tales, which we sentimentally cherish, to the cold dustbin of history.

SMD

8.08.15

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015

GREECE: LACKING THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT

This is the time of year I normally write a sun-kissed update on the good life in Greece among the olive trees, the blue Med, the tasty kebabs and the chirruping cicadas. This year of 2015, there is palpable unease; a middle-class Greek friend of ours, reading about production collapses and stock market slumps, lowered her eyes and groaned “We are drowning!” Greece has been in difficulties for at least 6 years, but usually in early August the Greeks forget all that and concentrate on enjoying their blissful summer holidays. Bitterly divided themselves, surrounded by hostile states and beset by their creditor/”partners” in Europe, the outlook this month has seldom been darker or more hopeless. Everything is going wrong.

The sick charade of “discussions” between Greece and the Troika about the 3^rd bailout stagger on. Greece has already totally surrendered to the Eurozone and passed the enabling legislation. But as usual, the devil is in the detail and the Troika team is now led by Romanian iron lady Delia Velculescu of the IMF fresh from sucking the blood of Cyprus. She has been piling on the agony, demanding deeper cuts and much tighter impositions than had first been announced.

Delia Velculescu, the new scourge of Greece

There is a surreal aspect to these discussions in that Tsipras of Greece has stated the terms are much too onerous and unworkable and the IMF has already said it will not participate unless there is a substantial (30%+?) write-off of Greek debt. The Eurozone, especially Germany, refuses to consider any debt write-offs and will not participate in the bailout unless the IMF does so too. So deadlock and the collapse of talks seem inevitable. Greece will be forced willy-nilly out of the Euro despite her love affair with this wretched currency.  Germany will be shot of Greece, which is what she really wants. The ensuing period in Greece will be fraught, the leftist SYRIZA will be blamed, unjustly, and the panicked electorate could easily turn to the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, noisily nationalistic while her leaders are gradually released from custody. Let us hope that wiser counsels somehow prevail.

It is not easy to whistle in the dark. Despite extravagant claims, I cannot believe Greek tourism is booming. The modest hotels here on Samos have plenty proletarian Eastern European tourists on inclusive terms, but they hardly spend a bean. The usual open-handed Greek tourists are absent, the restaurants and tavernas are empty, the cars for hire immobile. Capital controls prevent Greeks from accessing their savings apart from €420 per week in cash, not much for a family in high season; so they stay at home dismally. Tempers are short, money is elusive and fear for the future stalks the land. Maybe things are better in the up-market resorts like Santorini, Mykonos and Corfu but the summer will soon end and grim reality intrude.

The world around adds to the problems. Every day at least 50 immigrants, mainly fleeing from Syria, arrive near us in Karlovasi in leaky boats from Turkey. They are allotted door-steps at the port and tiny patches of ground. They wash their clothes and depend on the locals (nothing from the municipality, NGOs or Europe) to give them food and water and milk for the many children. In the heat, generously people rally round. After a day or two they get temporary papers and a ferry passage to Athens. They are pointed in the direction of the Balkans and some get to Italy, some to France, most to Germany or Scandinavia. Greece can afford nothing: the problem is immense and insoluble.

Of course life carries on. The vineyards will be harvested in August – no problem about accessing the local wine, thank heavens! The Feast of the Assumption on 15 August marks the climax of the summer; there will be processions, conviviality and a few day’s break. The sea will be warm well into September, often a balmy month. By October, many seasonal places will close, the university students will have returned, hoping against hope for a decent job in Greece but making contingency plans for heart-breaking exile elsewhere.

The bay of Avlakia, Samos, where we eat heavenly food at Kosmos

So the problems abound in 2015. But the beauty of Greece is eternal and the spirit of her people will surely revive as she creates her own destiny.

SMD

4.08.15

Text Copyright ©Sidney Donald 2015

THE GOOD DOCTOR

The term “The Good Doctor” seems to be applied widely to anyone who can claim the title of doctor and does not belong to any doctor in particular. St Thomas Aquinas is sometimes thus named, in honour of his saintly life and profound theological writings, so influential in the medieval Catholic Church though much disputed elsewhere. My preferred Good Doctor is Dr Samuel Johnson, whose trenchant opinions (“Sir, I tell you the first Whig was the Devil”) and highly competitive conversation (“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, but to make money”) enliven Boswell’s pages, even though initially he had a curiously dim view of Scotsmen! (“Oats: A grain used in England to feed horses: in Scotland it supports the people”)

Dr Samuel Johnson

Doctors come in all shapes and sizes, fact and fiction, good and bad. Dr Faustus, burnished by Marlowe’s memorable poetry, made his fatal bargain with the Devil, just as in real life Dr Josef Goebbels made his Faustian pact with Hitler, living and dying with his hero. In Germany anyone with a post-grad degree can call himself doctor and thus we have a procession of Chancellors, Dr Adenauer, Dr Erhard, Dr Kiesinger, Dr Schmidt etc, although Angela Merkel, also a doctor, does not normally use the title.

Doctors in British politics are rarer, but I recall Dr Charles Hill, the one time Radio Doctor, whose plummy bass tones used to warn of constipation or offer remedies for lumbago, who became a Tory minister, while Cameron favoured convivial Dr Liam Fox, charged with running Defence on a shoestring. Ulster provided a platform for Dr Ian Paisley. I always had a soft spot for the late Big Ian, despite his 17^th century opinions, who, with his family once sat down beside me and mine at London Airport at the height of the Troubles in the 1970s, he genially drinking tea, while I glanced uneasily around for machine-gunners.

The United States is fond of doctors. Dr Strangelove, the chilling amalgam of several scientific advisers in the nuclear-obsessed 1960s, was portrayed brilliantly by Peter Sellers in Kubrick’s movie. Nixon’s eminence grise Dr Henry Kissinger pulled off diplomatic coups in Vietnam and China and I recall taking the Circle Line boat trip around Manhattan and the guide broadcasting a cheery “Hi, Hank!” as we passed the Kissinger apartment on the Upper East Side. Jimmy Carter used distinguished but unpronounceable Dr Zbigniew Brzezinsky as his geostrategist, to rather less positive effect.

Dr Henry Kissinger

Trouble often arises when doctors potter about in their laboratories, swallow some bubbling phial and upset the laws of Nature. A case in point is conventional Dr Jekyll, whose potion made his face age horribly, sprout hair, grow fangs and claws, making his alter ego Mr Hyde rather tiresomely homicidal. Dr Frankenstein was another meddler, creating a monster whose only merit was that he could not run fast, so you could evade his fearful clutches, if you were not already rooted to the spot. Dr Who time-travels happily enough in his Tardis as long as those scary Daleks keep out of sight. Dr Dolittle needed no lab and merely had to master the language of animals and preferred the company of parrots, pigs and ducks, quite understandably.

The criminal world is replete with doctors. Dr Fu Manchu was the Yellow Peril incarnate, with his sinister drooping moustaches: during the war Hollywood was asked to drop their film series as the Chinese were important allies and must not be offended. Earlier The Cabinet of Dr Caligari was the first silent horror film; where the protagonist used his hypnotised sleepwalking slave as an assassin – the more far-fetched the story, the better. As for Professor Moriarty “The Napoleon of Crime” (he must have had a doctorate too!), it took a desperate struggle at the Reichenbach Falls to put paid to him and, as first thought, to Sherlock Holmes too, but the detective reappeared at those Baker Street lodgings to the great relief of his faithful friend Dr Watson and the entire British reading public.

Real life villainous medics are not unknown. Dr Crippen’s actual 1910 murder was not so remarkable, but his capture through use of the new-fangled Marconi wireless was. Dr John Bodkin Adams was never convicted of anything other than failure to keep a proper poisons’ register, although suspected of 160 suspicious deaths in Eastbourne between 1946 and 1956. The 2000 horrifying case of cold-hearted Dr Harold Shipman – probably at least 215 victims – emphasises that bearded doctors in single practice are a danger to the community. His suicide in Wakefield jail was one of his few decent acts.

Omar Sharif as lovelorn  Dr Zhivago

But surely there are doctor-heroes. Who can forget Omar Sharif as Dr Zhivago gazing raptly with those glistening dark eyes at lovely Julie Christie as Lara? Then there was the real-life commanding figure of Dr Albert Schweitzer, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, ministering selflessly (if paternalistically) to the African in his hospital in Lambarene, Gabon, wearing his distinctive solar topee. His penetrating theological work The Quest for the Historical Jesus and his organ building and playing of Bach and Widor would have singled him out as remarkable, let alone his brave efforts to preach brotherhood and peace.

Dr Cameron, Janet and Dr Finlay

My final glimpse of doctors is from the world of fiction. Dr Finlay’s Casebook entranced 1960s Sunday BBC TV audiences. Straight talking and idealistic Dr Finlay (Bill Simpson) practised in the Scottish country town of Tannochbrae in the late 1920s: his enthusiasms had sometimes to be restrained by his older partner, wheezing, avuncular and wise Dr Cameron (Andrew Cruickshank). They grappled together with the contemporary scourges of diphtheria, rickets, ignorance and poverty. They were fussed over by their receptionist-cum-housekeeper at Arden House, Janet (Barbara Mullen) - “Oh doctor, you’ve nae eaten up your porridge!” Each episode was well-scripted and literate, the period detail was faultless and the outcomes spoke well of the competence and humanity of doctors, which is what we always want to hear but do not always get.

SMD

8.11.11 and 3.08.2015

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2011 and 2015

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

I have always enjoyed nicknames, as do most people, as long as they are good-natured and in no way malicious or insulting. The kind I mean are those encountered on the matchless pages of P G Wodehouse – Pongo Twistleton, Tuppy Glossop, Bingo Little or Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright, usually denizens of the Drones Club, members of Bertie Wooster’s social circle, and “up to a lark as a rule” in Betjeman’s phrase. Somehow their names are appropriate to their genial adventures in love and confrontations with an array of formidable aunts.

These names are, alas, fictional and when harsh reality butts in, the good-natured nickname tends to fade away. History has a full house of nicknames. The Emperor Gaius Caligula (Little Boot) acquired his nickname as a young boy, but he grew up to be a very naughty boy indeed, and so atrocious were his atrocities that the moment he shuffled off this mortal coil had to be accelerated by his Praetorian Guard in 41 AD.

Malcolm McDowell as manic Caligula

At least the church hierarch St John Chrysostom (Golden-mouthed) had a complimentary nickname in honour of his alleged eloquence, but his talent was often used in anathematising Jews and alleged heretics. On his death in 407 AD he left behind hundreds of homilies and many treatises. These, together with his ascetic lifestyle, make it unlikely that St John, despite his nickname, was a fun person to my shallow tastes and indeed all the furiously disputing early church fathers were a rum bunch, getting into a lather about Arianism, Homoousios and the True Essence, when they should have been taking a relaxing dip in the Med.

The Byzantine historians dished out nicknames, often posthumously. Justinian II The Slit-Nosed earned his moniker by being restored to the throne after suffering the unlovely Byzantine custom of mutilation by his enemies. Later Leo The Iconoclast started a controversy that bedevilled the Empire for over a century. His even more enthusiastically iconoclastic son Constantine V Copronymos (The Dung-Named) allegedly excreted into his baptismal font, but this is perhaps a later libel spread by the iconodule faction, who revered icons. Iconoclasm finally ended in the reign of Michael III The Drunkard and emperors turned to more conventional activities like Basil II The Bulgar-Slayer, who restored the empire’s fortunes for many generations and cruelly suppressed the vulgar Bulgars, once taking 15,000 prisoners and blinding 99 out of every 100. Charming!

Basil the Bulgar-Slayer

Further west the nicknamed flourished. The Norsemen were particularly fond of them and with the likes of Thorfinn Skull-Splitter on the rampage, I have much sympathy for sad Ethelred The Unready, caught on the hop by the axe-wielding horde. I believe it is an Icelandic saga which sings of Herjolf Hrokkineista (Wrinkled-Scrotum), whose best long-boat days were probably behind him, and whose little secret evinces wry recognition from many males of a certain age.  Rather later Edward I  Longshanks was far from lovable, especially towards the Scots – his unlucky son got the comeuppance his father deserved at Bannockburn in 1314.

The 18^th century gives us Turnip Townsend, the inventor of 4-crop field rotation, then usually wheat, barley, turnips and clover which greatly enhanced the productivity of British agriculture.  This useful comestible was put to less agreeable work when the red-top press unfairly vilified England football manager Graham Taylor with the sobriquet Turnip-Head after a run of dud results, complete with a mock-up misshapen face and sprouting ears. We Scots enjoy turnips too, with haggis, bashed neeps and tatties a Burns supper staple as someone recites hilarious Holy Willie’s Prayer.

Oscar and Bosie

Late Victorian sensibilities were offended by Lord Alfred Bosie Douglas, a nursery nickname, though Nanny would certainly not have approved of his louche lifestyle -the notorious liaison with Oscar being one of the more respectable. In our own time Boofy Gore, 8^th Earl of Arran, was a newspaper columnist who crusaded in the Lords with bills to reduce the age of homosexual consent and to stop the culling of badgers. On his deathbed he said “I could never understand why my buggers’ bill got overwhelming support in the House and my badgers’ bill hardly any” A friend remarked “Boofy, is it possible that there are not many badgers in the House of Lords?”

The current crop of nicknames would include John Two-Jags Prescott, once deputy prime minister but reduced now to displaying his boxing skills in a TV commercial for car insurance. Fred The Shred Goodwin, erstwhile infallible master of RBS, now keeps a low profile after running his bank and his own career into the ground and no doubt many other careers too on the way down.

I return to memories of boarding school nicknames and most were genial enough. I recall Busters, Barrels and Beefers (usually the better-upholstered), a Stinker – indicating caddishness rather than malodorousness- Shorty, someone tall, or Speedy. Masters acquired names like Bonkers and the more etymologically obscure Zeep or The Oincks. I do cringe at the occasional prep-school cruelty. I recall an entirely inoffensive muddy-complexioned 9-year old. This hapless lad was known ignominiously as Fart.

SMD

9.8.11 and 1.8.15

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2011 and 2015