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Athens – Mythology, Democracy – and Souvlaki
According to Greek Mythology, Athena was the goddess of skill and the arts (among other things) and was worshipped for her cunning, creativity and craft. However, this reverence was not universal. Arachne, a maid from northern Greece, was a weaver of prodigious precision and her ability was matched only by her conceit and hubris. She quickly amassed an army of acolytes convinced that her abilities represented the apogee of human endeavour but such acclaim was not enough for Arachne. Awash with arrogance, she ultimately challenged Athena herself to a weaving competition. Athena readily accepted and both set about weaving the most stunning work they could. While Athena wove a picture…
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Morocco: Care for the Desert Menu?
Morocco is one of the most chaotic countries that I’ve been to, and so it’s a touch ironic that its colonial past was indirectly determined by that uber-organised bastion of central Europe, Germany. As a recently re-unified German Empire gradually advanced its military capabilities at the dawn of the 20th Century, Anglo – French hegemony became increasingly insecure. In an effort to strengthen their relationship in the face of the Germanic Sword of Damocles, Britain and France embarked upon the ‘Entente Cordiale’ in 1904. This manifest itself as a series of political agreements to foster a ‘warm understanding’ between both nations. One of these agreements was the British allowing the French…
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Poland at Christmas: Walking in a Wroclaw Wonderland
Timothy Snyder’s ‘Bloodlands’ details the barbaric brutality imposed on Eastern Europe from the Second World War through to the end of the Cold War in 1989. Encompassing the entirely avoidable and heart-achingly tragic famine in the Ukraine and the nadir of Western Civilisation that was the Holocaust, it is a painful but necessary read for anyone intent on travelling between the Baltics and the Balkans. Poland is afforded more attention than anywhere else and having read it one would be forgiven for assuming it to be a country shrouded in its history’s shadow for eternity. Mercifully, this is not the case. My sojourn through Poland would last a week and…
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Berlin: Please Mention The War
“Yeah, Paris is nice, but I can bring you around the corner and show you where Hitler blew his brains out. You can’t say that standing outside the Louvre”. It was hard to argue with our sprightly tour guide, even if I was in a particularly argumentative mood. Standing outside the Brandenburg Gate on a brisk January morning I was freezing and numb to the wonders around me. That would soon change. The ensuing week would imbue me with a fascination for history, a reverence for Berliners (and a disaffection with EDM) which has sustained to this day. Perhaps no city on earth has facilitated as much horror as Berlin…
