Taki Taki

Lament for a learned friend

issue 03 June 2006

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Athens

On a sad trip to Athens for my friend Yanni Goulandris’s funeral. Throughout the years, mostly in these pages, I have always referred to him as Professor Yohannes Goulandris, mind you, mostly to annoy him. Yanni did not think much of the Germans, the reason being he was 15 when they occupied Greece, and, unlike me at five years of age, did not allow the glamorous uniforms and gallant tales of Teutonic knights to impress him. Yanni was an unusual Greek shipowner. He loved music, literature and art much more than business, and knew more about those three subjects than most professors. Hence his Speccie nickname. Yanni was no stuffed shirt. He loved wine and whisky, beautiful women, and was the first Greek to find those awful hippies of the awful Sixties quite interesting.

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