Athens
The birthplace of selective democracy is looking better than it has since the Fifties, when the modernists took over. The ancient capital will be ready on 13 August, the Games will take place, and the American basketball freaks will stay home, which is the best news I’ve had since Bill Clinton was impeached. (His tedious, long-winded 957-page self-indulgence is typical Clinton. Bill Clinton and Ahmad Chalabi, two of a kind, both desperate to win the title of greatest liar ever.)
The Games are way over budget, but then they always are. Athens has been transformed by them, and in some miraculous way so have the people. Ten years ago I had had enough. The socialists had come to power in 1980 and class revenge was on their mind. A friend of mine had asked a taxi driver to drop him off at Kolonaki, the ritzy part of town, and the driver had thrown him out. Businesses were being threatened with nationalisation without compensation, others had their loans suddenly called in by the central bank on government orders. There was spite, malice, envy and downright rudeness in the street. Manners had disappeared quicker than you could say Andreas Papandreou, the architect of class warfare in my country.
One of the first victims of these anti-capitalist purges was Karolos Fix. Karolos is Greek for Karl, and the Fixes had come to Greece in the small Bavarian c
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