50 years ago today - 5th June - Britain voted 2:1 in a Referendum in favour of remaining in the Common Market (as we used to call it)

I am pleased to say my poem 'Beirut' has won the Mist and Mountain International Poetry Prize 2024-25 mistandmountain.co.uk/mist-mountai...

A professor was lecturing to his English class: “In English, a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, a double negative is still a negative. However, there's no language where in a double positive can form a negative.” A voice from the back of the room piped up, “Yeah, right.”

The film A Complete Unknown has brought Suze Rotolo back to our attention - she is the girl on Dylan's arm on the cover of his Freewheelin' album. Today is the 13th anniversary of her death. I wrote the lyrics for this song by Mike Cohen. It is our 'YouTube hit'! (19,000+ plays) youtu.be/FIrvtjtHy9w

An excellent lecture yesterday by AE Stallings, Oxford Professor of Poetry. What These Ithakas Mean: Cavafy, Translation, Influence and Imitation. She explored each of these aspects with great insight and understanding. I will post a link when it becomes available on the Faculty website

Greece became the last European country to adopt the Gregorian calendar on this day 1923 - which seems surprisingly recently

80 years ago tonight, the Allied bombing of Dresden killed 18,000-25,000 in an efficient combination of incendiary and high explosive bombs. A 'trial run' of the technique at Darmstadt killed 11,000 - 12,500 on 11-12 September 1944. A day to ponder the moral arguments.

Today is World Greek Language Day

Pretty much whatever language we speak, we are all using Greek words many times a day

Arthur Stevens, inventor of the first portable hearing aid, died 30 years ago today. An alumnus of Jesus College, Oxford – he was Welsh. continued

The long-serving Lodge porter at Jesus, Fred Realley, who on seeing Stevens when he visited Jesus after 40 years said 'Hallo Mr Stevens, Sir, haven't seen you for a while'. Stevens was so touched that he gave the College £1m there and then rather than leave a legacy

karma's just
lining
POTUS
up

Well said that woman www.bbc.com/news/videos/...

stay listening to the end for Trump's response

So long as I remain alive and well I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take a pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information.

George Orwell who died 75 years ago today

George Orwell died 75 years ago today. His essay "Politics and the English Language" (1946) includes this advice:

Never use a long word where a short one will do.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use the passive where you can use the active.

50 years ago today, Bob Dylan released Blood on the Tracks
open.spotify.com/album/4WD4ps...

Yesterday was the birthday of Vassilis Tsitsanis, a leading figure in rebetika music and a wonderful bouzouki player.

A cloudy Sunday today.

During the Nazi occupation of Thessaloniki, Tsitsanis wrote 'Cloudy Sunday' that became a sort of unofficial national anthem.

youtu.be/wJDg_aXS_7U

www.anglohellenicleague.org/news/runcima... The long list for this year’s Anglo-Hellenic League #Runciman Award has just been published. Lots of great books here!

What’s the point of senators making laws now?
Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.

My collection Echoes from the Cave - a fifty-year love affair with Greece - is being published this month. It marks the 50th anniversary of when I first set foot in Greece.

I'd like to find some interesting Greeks to follow - in English or Greek. Any suggestions, please?

Musk has driven me here