Barefoot erudition
Patrick Leigh Fermor wore his vast learning lightly, as real scholars often do. Here he more than meets his match...
Pickled inside and out
Here is a novel form of the elixir of youth - no magic potions, just preserved in brine and other...
Pard-like stubble
I can only imagine this refers to a patchy or spotted colour combination, as 'pard' means leopard or panther, or...
Sun-smitten wilderness
Few writers (Lawrence Durrell, for example) manage to convey the blinding heat and light of Greece as well as Leigh...
Time-dimmed benevolence
This makes me think of grainy photos of harmless-looking old men whom you then discover are former Nazi or other...
The lobsters of Skopelos
Hyperbole, nothing like it when suitably blatant, creative and outrageous.
You couldn't possibly eat one of these, only engage them...
One for the microbe
A charming variant of 'one for the road' justifications for one more drink. May you enjoy all the optimism, vigour...
Cormorant-haunted castle
An abandoned fortress, occupied only by cormorants. No wonder, the human inhabitants probably fled an atmosphere described as the 'architecture...
Mamma turns up
A few signals to keep an eye out for so you don't miss the moment a god may show up:...
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',...
Cobalt polar lapis blue
A dazzlingly variegated Greek sky. It was under such a sky, which for me also includes hyacinth blue and lilac,...
Career choices
Here Zorba points out the choices his boss has to make, since you can't prattle about socialism and be a...
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