Taki Taki

Sun-drenched days and too much wine: my summer on Patmos

The still-civilised island of Patmos in the eastern Aegean. Credit: Patrick De Wilde/Gamma-Rapho/Getty 
issue 06 August 2022

 Patmos

Judging by the news, the world is finally coming apart: Chinese lab escapee Covid is still going strong, monkeypox plague is afflicting gays, record heat waves are crippling Europe and America, mass shootings are becoming a way of life in the US, there’s a war of attrition in Ukraine and Taiwan is being threatened by China. Gloom and doom are everywhere but here in the holy island of Patmos, where Saint John wrote the Apocalypse 2,000 years ago, the backward natives are still using pronouns such as ‘his’ and ‘hers’, and they even identify women as a biological reality.

And it gets better – or worse, actually: the only conflict on this beautiful isle is the one between your intrepid correspondent and a young woman who demanded my table at Vaggelis, in the square where the elite meet to eat.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in