I don't believe it - a heap of bulldozed dirt and bush blocking the track to White Beach, one of the many untouched gems of natural sand strewn treasures that abound the length of our Island. On the west side (the leeward side) of this Isle of Freedom there is a tarmac road, named (in deference to a previous national landlady) the Queen's Highway. On the east, the Atlantic side, however there was just this old overgrown track which land owners and surveyors have recently cleared to sow their markers. Presumably they are hoping that despite all the developments on the island on hold or worse, they can still sell their plots to desperate savers looking to turn liquid nothing into Terra Firma .
The good thing about this clearance is they have recreated a three mile track road through the bush - passing all types of verdant scrub, trees including the whistling Casuarinas and Silver top palms, the odd lake, ponds, egrets, herons, sea eagles - and for the dogs the waft of myriad scents. All this while the distant sounds of the sea clash with what are locally called blackbirds, yet apart from being black, look more like parrots and similarly screech warnings of your approach. So on Sunday here we where, the dogs and I taking in the cloudless skies, the sun and and the embracing warmth of southerly winds - walking and re-booting the tan. Meantime - on the same day in London our good friends who also have a house on the island were freezing their .... off pushing their one year old daughter around the frozen ponds of Regent's Park. So where would you rather be?
Well how about Athens. Yesterday whilst gazing out over the azure waters of our Sound, I found myself musing over the media coverage of the riots taking place there. My issue was their hackneyed use of it being the birth of democracy. For those of us whose history lessons included just a little substance and enjoy being contradictory - it would be fair to argue that far from being a Democracy the Ancient Greek form of governance could equally well be labeled the blueprint for facism and communism e.g. authoritarian regimes - with its three distinct tiers - the rulers or ruler (the Oligarchy) - the brown shirts, thugs, party leaders etc., (the fores) and the masses (the plebs) - the idea that it was benign sprung more from the awakening of perceived liberal rational thought and discussion amongst the rulers, for as Socrates and Plato both learned to their cost when taken too far was as feared then as it is today. Yet here we have the media brandishing such strap lines as street fighting under the very pillars (the Parthenon) of democracy.
Whilst mentioning these two ancient sages one should point out that it was they, in fact Plato, who first picked up on the greatest of media fault lines - namely the stuttering, spluttering yet wise expert stood little chance against the well versed well kitted out fool - and this well before the expediter of today's mental numbing - our TV - included the aberrations of full facial nudity.
No Athens may not be the place to be right now but over a couple of millennium years or so ago it would have been cool to be a citizen with all your wealth, power, servants and the reassuring belief that you were being democratic.
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