Not yet fully formed
A wonderful comment by Zorba regarding the mental development of his boss. Not, perhaps, a line to try on your...
Barefoot erudition
Patrick Leigh Fermor wore his vast learning lightly, as real scholars often do. Here he more than meets his match...
Of wine-blue water
The first time I read of the wine-blue Greek sea, I was baffled. However, I took a second translation to...
Sun-smitten wilderness
Few writers (Lawrence Durrell, for example) manage to convey the blinding heat and light of Greece as well as Leigh...
Pickled inside and out
Here is a novel form of the elixir of youth - no magic potions, just preserved in brine and other...
Rising like a damp-stain
In addition to the infiltration of Christianity, seeping into Hellenic culture, as this historian memorably puts it, 'like a damp-stain',...
Strategic consideration
The wild card of ancient Greek military planning was the existence and randomness of divine intervention. You never knew which...
Ouzo-swilling fisherman
Leigh Fermor at one point starts day-dreaming he has discovered the rightful Emperor of Byzantium in the form of an...
Cobalt polar lapis blue
A dazzlingly variegated Greek sky. It was under such a sky, which for me also includes hyacinth blue and lilac,...
Mamma turns up
A few signals to keep an eye out for so you don't miss the moment a god may show up:...
Bad news down the toilet
A kindly act by a local girl helping Lawrence Durrell with his housekeeping during his idyllic two year stay on...
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