Life's a beach, especially on Andros, Cyclades, Greece

MG is not a native Android (used here to denote persons whose family hails from the Greek island of Andros) but she has taken to the place like a duck to water for a variety of reasons. You, observant and loyal reader, know about this already, and how beneficial this has been to your scribbler. So when, once again, she offered to provide her kind hospitality at her small holiday flat I leapt at the chance, as the place comes with a major asset as far as I'm concerned - a spare room! This I am allowed to occasionally occupy as a valued guest, there to provide companionship and help about the place; in return I get ferried around to the best beaches, the best restaurants, the best everything. It's an arrangement that has given me many hours of pleasure wandering around this blessed island, at little cost.

Cost, as my observant reader knows only too well, is very important to me at this stage of my life, where money is not plentiful. Value for money, however, has always been a far more important concept for me over the years and is constantly on my mind. Being a relative concept means that sometimes testing it requires the generosity of others, when my limited funds prohibit me from enjoying something, but luckily over the years I have been able to discover many deserving places.

Ten days ago - don't quibble, it may have been twelve or fourteen - MG asked if I was available to spend a few days on Andros and help her set up her flat for summer, shifting furniture around etc. Well, I quickly accepted, what with the Greek summer on the doorstep and the sea cold but ever so inviting, impossible to turn down. And if you don't already know, Andros features some lovely beaches that, depending on the prevailing wind direction, offer thrills aplenty. Off I went, then, to explore, judge and report back to you, trusted - and trusting - reader, for your delectation and appreciation but in no particular order:

1. St. Peter's Beach, Funky Donkey Beach Bar
On possibly the best - possibly the most crowded but certainly the most conveniently located for visitors - sandy beach on the island, this friendly, hospitable Funky Donkey provides excellent sunbeds, shady umbrellas and a good mixture of snacks, coffees and drinks of all kinds, all served with a smile. The staff are helpful and look after all comers, some extremely demanding, yet many come back again and again, year after year.
There are two other beach bars on the same stretch but I find FD the nicest. I love this place and you will too, but perhaps not in mid-August, when everywhere is heaving and you have to queue for an umbrella!
2. Apothikes Beach Bar
At the end of a steep, half-dirt road this tiny beach provides excellent swimming and simple, friendly facilities for days when the northerly winds are blowing. The beach bar burned down recently and had to be rebuilt, so they are still finding their feet. Good music that occasionally becomes loud, lifts the mood and leads to a lively atmosphere and dancing.
Despite the daunting access road it is worth another look, with good, invigorating swimming, but may be a bit too crowded for my taste in August.
3. Vitali beach and Kampos Beach Bar
Twice in the past I have tried to get to Vitali beach and failed, once actually reaching the place but finding it bursting with visitors and having to turn back, particularly unpleasant as the trek there is long and in places difficult; the other was last year, when illness stopped me from joining the group heading there. This time we managed it and, surprisingly, it was worth it. A small beach with pebbles (many tiny, others less so) nestles between two rocky hills and leads to splendid crystal clear waters, a concert of different hues of blue. Protected from most extremes of weather it gets deep quickly, so perhaps very young children may feel intimidated, but it provides superb swimming and diving for almost everyone else.
Two beach bars compete for your attention here. We chose the one that we preferred the look of (Kampos Beach Bar) and found it friendly, reasonably priced and with a good (great?) selection of food and drink. Vitali beach can get overcrowded during busy periods, especially when southerly winds foul up the beaches on the other side of the island. A must-see, worth the trouble getting there.
4. Ateni Beach Bar
Ateni is another beach that hates northerly winds but is enchanting when winds are becalmed or southerlies. The beach bar here is a personal favourite, as the family that run it are hugely passionate about providing the best in food, drink and service, which they achieve by constant effort and the support of their staff. Their sandwiches and salads are first-rate, drinks too, and their attitude and willingness to improve a joy, making me long for my next visit, especially as their prices are not unenticing. Set at the left corner of a long, curving bay you have the illusion of being on a secluded beach in the middle of nowhere, but with all the comforts of an organised place.
This is a personal favourite, despite the fact that it's at the end of a long but not difficult drive, for the feeling of being away from it all that I get there, the great swimming, the good food, the endearing and satisfying hospitality. My comprehensive report will follow at some point soon, so long as you people - my faithful readers - promise not to all rush down there at once and crowd me out.

MG, if you are listening, my readers and I are waiting for the next invitation, more beaches, more sun and fun.

Wine for everyday drinking

The title may mean something different to you, dear reader, depending on your income level and your perceived level of sophistication but - and please don't take this the wrong way - forget about that shit. Wine is either worth drinking on a day-to-day basis or not, cost notwithstanding, so please do not be silly or pretentious.

Dear reader, I have been involved in wine for the best part of 35 years, having tasted most of the best wines that this world has to offer; I am not, however, a wine snob. Yes, there are wines that are exceptionally wonderful but, like complex, fine food,  are challenging and can be difficult to drink - first growth claret is, indeed, a good example, more approach with care than quaff away happily. There is a time and a place for everything and it is not a testament of your sophistication; rather, the ability to relax, taste and drink a variety of wines is.

Modern technology means that there is an awful lot of decent, gluggable wine in the world. True, this may not be award-winning stuff in any set way, but it is award-winning wine in the sense that you want it - and can afford to have it - on a regular basis. Wine for day-to-day consumption
does not need to win gold medals in contests, it needs to be good enough to drink - and enjoy - on a regular basis, with everyday food. It does not, DOES NOT, need to be expensive or poncey.

Forget labels and get tasting, dear reader, taste, taste, TASTE! There is no other way to understand and appreciate wine, or food for that matter. If you want an interesting life do not play it safe but explore, taste, reject, approve, grow to appreciate, love. The ancient Greeks had a god - Dionysos - whose whole raison d'être was to do with wine appreciation and enjoyment, however excessive, and what a good chap he was - in my estimation at least, because, if you remember, dear reader, I am a friend of Dionysos! Wine and food, that heavenly pairing (cola and food shows to me, at least occasionally, there must be a hell!) is there to make your life more interesting. And yes, even house wine is acceptable, provided it's good.

So be demanding : If your neighbourhood restaurant fails on house wine, tell them, show them how they are letting you down, ask them to do better, even suggest how. One of my favourite restaurants in the universe, the very simple, wonderful in its way Kossi's on Andros, Greece, listened to their clients' feedback and changed their house red wine, greatly improving things. After many, MANY litres of their house red I can tell - no, guarantee - that it is decent, clean, enjoyable and worth drinking. Sure, there are better options in the wine universe - a cru bourgeois at ten times the price springs to mind, but why bother, when something like this fits the bill (no pun intended...) nicely, quantity notwithstanding.

So don't drink shitty wine, irrespective of the price; demand decent quality. Simple wine can be clean and gluggable, it just won't be complex and alluring. Its role is not to be the star but a supporting actor, and this it should do well. If it does not, don't take it lying down - help improve the stuff - and remember, life is too short to drink bad wine. So seek out the decent stuff, avoid the crap stuff and enjoy.

Greece comes 1st, alas!

'Greece your Glory!' is a well-known saying - intoned with pride in the country of my birth, where most of us are convinced that our country is glorious in almost every way, even - or, especially - if we know nothing about the rest of the world and how it works. Some, fewer though, may repeat it with a sarcastic tone when something ridiculously bad happens, though we do not necessarily love our country any less.

So the news that Greece has rated first in a recent worldwide survey could have been the cause of celebration, were it not for the fact that the first place was negative - Greece came first in a 'which is the most complicated country in the world to do business in' survey by TMF Group (as reported in the reliable financial paper and website Naftemporiki on 12.6.19), a multinational professional services firm based in the Netherlands and whose description is international expansion experts, i.e. the very people who would guide companies to invest somewhere. As they also operate a Greek branch they, unfortunately, know the country and business environment well; their assessment cannot be dismissed as coming from ignorant, prejudiced foreigners whose interests are in doing down Greece and it's glory.

The article suggests that Greece is partnered in the top five by Indonesia, Brazil, United Arab Emirates and Bolivia, with the following five including Slovakia, Germany, Turkey, China and Peru. A glance allows us to see that Greece is in august company. Even if the judgement is harsh, it is not far from the truth whether we like it or not.

From personal experience I can tell you that doing business in Greece is, indeed, extremely complicated, expensive and made worse by the fact that the state is pitted against you. The state apparatus treats any business as a defrauding operation in progress and everything is geared to deter and punish this; little is in place to truly encourage or aid private enterprise. The legal framework is complicated, inefficient and expensive, with the goalposts shifting constantly at the whim of the government, and laws are applied or not to suit the purpose of the day. In that it, of course, mirrors the way Greek society in general operates - chaotically, inefficiently and with the use of 'incentives', infamously known as little envelopes - 'fakelakia'. Some of the 'incentives' required are not small, if the situation is complex, with many people in the appreciation pipeline...

And no, dear reader, thank you for asking, I never had to.

Unless systems are simplified, laws made clear and without lots of windows, are applied fairly, equally and 'without incentives' that allow anyone to bypass their obligations if they can afford it there will be little growth in Greece, and almost none coming from outside that isn't predatory. Foreign companies will not invest unless they are:

a. Multinationals of a certain size, where strategic moves require certain commitments.
b. Running some sort of predatory move or an outright scam.
c. They are investing for sentimental reasons, rare but unlikely in the present climate.

In the meantime the years go by, the country suffers and its best people move away in search of a career, or just a job. Greece, what could have been your glory is going elsewhere... Wake up! This is a national shame, and a national wake-up call... Heed it!

Garry J. Polled, an appreciation - In Memoriam

Last November I was due to meet up with my friend Garry at the Ibis hotel in the Heathrow Airport area. He was flying in from California, where he lived and worked, to his motherland, where he would visit his friends, from childhood, through work or others. We had done this twice before and had had a wonderful time catching up, talking about the performance parts industry and our mutual friends the world over. And Garry, no longer a spring chicken, was his old self, sardonic wit to the fore, intelligent commentary bursting out as always, his often well hidden kindness bubbling to the surface. This time, though, I let him down as, due to a combination of circumstances (including, of course, impecuniousness...) I was unable to make our long-arranged meeting, stuck as I was away from London. Well, I thought, deeply embarrassed and disappointed as I was, I'll make it up to him next time, or find a way to go and visit him in Santa Barbara.

Only I won't, I can't. Not having heard from Garry for a while I was preparing to write him a humorous email when something - surely not a premonition... - made me google his name. An obituary came up - my dear friend had passed away in February without me knowing, after a stroke. Now Garry had had a full and active life, had loads of fun and enjoyed himself a great deal, was in his mid to late seventies so it should not have been unexpected. But it was, kind of.

Garry and I had known each other since the late 1980s - over 30 years - when I first went to see him in Las Vegas at the 1987 SEMA performance parts exhibition. In 1986 we had started an air filter company, together with American and British partners/collaborators to try and service the high performance industry. Our American colleagues had ideas of their own about the course we should follow but wanted to do it with our money, so a falling out ensued which, together with the slowing down of the UK economy which had started in 1987, nearly killed the business stone dead. I had to do a lot of running around, legal manoeuvring, money juggling and what not to try and keep our fledgling business alive.

My memorable 1987 SEMA visit was a completely nutty adventure: I was in Scotland selling wine to my customers there, left my car at Glasgow Airport in the morning, flew to Heathrow, met my assistant there complete with air filter samples, caught a TWA flight to New York where I cleared immigration and customs, then another to Las Vegas via Phoenix. When I arrived at the Flamingo Hilton hotel in Las Vegas I had been travelling for 24 hours non-stop so, with something light to eat I went straight to bed. Early the next morning I went to the exhibition to see as many people as I could and was directed to a company called TWM and Garry Polled, its Managing Director; I was told he was THE man to strike a deal with. We had a meeting at his stand and he invited me to co-exhibit with him the following April at the SEMA East show in Philadelphia, to see how we got on. At the close of the exhibition I headed back to my hotel, had a bite with a friend from motor racing days (Sean Walker, if you must know!) and went straight to bed, as I was on a flight out the next morning at 7:25 to London via Saint Louis, all flying the cheapest possible way. Crazy or what?

Well, we did SEMA East, made a great sales double act, enjoyed Philadelphia and each other's company and agreed to work together. Our two companies collaborated for a number of years (TWM became our US importer and main dealer), we became firm friends, shared memorable times in Britain, the USA or wherever we met up, and I visited Garry in California on a number of occasions. We nearly created a mega performance company at some point, thinking about merging his company with ours and a couple of others but couldn't quite make it happen; after I left the air filter business in the late 1990s we no longer collaborated but stayed friends and talked on a regular, if slightly infrequent, basis.

Garry was an expatriate Brit who had gone to America with his first wife, stayed, and made a remarkable career in the performance parts industry there. He was a carburettor expert - his company name TWM means The Weber Man, after Weber carburettors - one of a handful in the world who knew the subject inside out, but was up to date with all systems; indeed his company was one of the first to produce throttle bodies to replace carburettors on specialist applications. An intelligent, no nonsense man, he was known in the industry in the USA as 'The Wizard'.

Above all he was a loyal friend, always fun to be with, always interesting to talk to, even when there were disagreements, charming, contrary, intelligent, encouraging. That he is no longer at the end of a 'phone, that the times we shared now exist in my head only, that I will never see him again to make up for the last time - these are all things difficult to concede, to accept.

I suppose I'll just have to get used to it.

I have included a photograph of a photograph of Garry (!) taken from his obituary in the Santa Barbara Independent which I found online, acknowledge it and thank them for the warmth of their article on my friend.

My birthday treat

On the morning of my birthday before the crack of dawn I had to leave my cozy sleeping place in Athens and take to the streets, walk to a bus stop about a mile away and take the special bus that goes to the airport; my task was to fly to Geneva  for a few days and visit my relatives there.  I am extremely fortunate that my good friend NDI puts me up and puts up with me whenever I visit there, and does so with signature kindness and immense generosity. So on the day of my birthday a few weeks ago, having safely arrived in Geneva, I made my way to his home for a four night stay, with my close relatives only a short twenty minute walk away.

In the evening and to help me celebrate, if that is the right word with old age rapidly creeping up on me, my birthday, NDI put a splendid Super-Tuscan bottle on the table, together with that ultimate comfort food - spag bol - a dish unknown in its native Italy and Bologna. Tasty homemade bolognese-style sauce, super pasta, plenty of parmesan cheese and lots of pepper made for an inauthentic but delicious birthday meal to go with the proffered bottle of Oreno 2015, serious stuff! A crunchy fresh salad accompanied this lot, yummy chocolate (this was Switzerland, after all!) helped close the meal, and a happy time was had by all, especially this getting-more-spherical-by-the-day birthday boy.

There is something about simple food served with superb wine that touches the senses, admittedly in a different way to elaborate fare - simple food provides no challenge, as ambitious elaborate dishes often will, purely an accompaniment that pleases, but allows us to easily accept the enjoyable combination but concentrate on the wine.

This Oreno wine is a biggy, in the luscious way some Super-Tuscans have; they are big but not aggressively tannic, providing multiple layers of seductive tastes and textures. A Bordeaux blend of Cabernet Sauvignon (40%), Merlot (50%) and Petit Verdot (10%), it had that Tuscan approachability and nuances not found in its French counterparts. Our bottle, from the 2015 vintage, was certainly young (do I hear you, observant reader, cry too young???) with a dark colour and an almost sweet, rich nose. Wines with bottle age are hard to find or impossibly expensive in Geneva, and my friend has no space suitable for a small cellar so he, and I, lucky so-and-so, had to make do... No hardship, I can assure you, with the rich red fruit (mainly black cherries and damson) singing on my palate, smooth tannins helping it along its long way.

Was it too soon to drink this beauty? Probably yes.

Was it enjoyable and a splendid thing to have on one's birthday? YES, YES, YES!

The end of the affair - Redd Coffee is leaving me!

'I'm leaving you' says your beloved, and your world crashes down around you, tears filling your eyes. Life will never be the same again for you, that sweetness in the morning, the gentle lift of your spirits at the first touch, the buzz afterwards - all gone. What could possibly have gone wrong?

Before you start weeping for me, let me make it clear to you that this involves not a woman but coffee, and it is deadly serious. My favourite coffee shop - Redd Coffee, as you well know, observant reader - is leaving its base and relocating to other parts of Athens, a victim to rising rents (I surmise) by landlords who, after several lean years, feel that it's time to recoup some of their 'losses'. Redd are abandoning all their local lovers, their loyal customers and moving far away, to start a new life in two new locations with new people - if that isn't like the end of a love affair, I don't know what is.

And, as in any break-up, I'm in mourning for myself and my loss of convenience, of amenity, of pleasure... ah, all the sheer pleasure I am about to miss out on! Dear reader, you who have read my post on Redd will know how good their coffee is, and remember its single biggest drawback - that other coffees taste rather flat and ordinary by comparison. In my enforced exile from London I have at least had the consolation of an excellent cup of coffee or three at Redd on most days, indeed I've enjoyed coffee better than almost any coffee to be found in London. Now this is all coming to an end.

Redd coffee is walking out on me and starting afresh with someone new - in fact, with many new 'others' - and it is a cruel blow indeed. Yet I am blameless! And don't we all think/say that when love affairs come to unhappy ends?

I will follow Redd to their new destination, spy on them as they create new relationships with new people while silently crying inside. If I can - and it's a very big if - I may even attempt to rebuild our relationship from a distance, to see whether it can be made to work again like before....

You may not hold much hope for me, but what else can I do? Can a love affair be allowed to fizzle out so cruelly? I think not.

There was so much more I wanted to ask you...

Most fairy tales have happy endings, we live happily ever after etc. etc. Well, it turns out not all do.

It was Sunday morning and I had just left the place that I was staying in in London when my mobile phone rang. Seeing it was a call from the Geneva PGT/KGT homestead, where I was visiting less than 48 hours previously - see my last post -  I thought that they were calling to find out if my trip to London went smoothly and if I was safely ensconced in my digs and on my way to see the relatives soon. The tone of KGT's voice, however,  alerted me that something was seriously amiss; after initial greetings she broke the news to me that her brother, our beloved PGT, had passed away the previous evening after a fall inside their home.

Two days before I had been with them, had gone for a walk with PGT, we'd talked and laughed, then talked some more, had lunch, had coffee with our friend NA, discussed the coming summer and Romania. When I said that I was leaving for London the following day he had seemed a bit surprised, but we confirmed that I would return to Geneva soon, or possibly see him in Romania during the summer like last year so we could pick up where  we left off. He was a man looking forward to at least the immediate future, and making plans. And, as always, he had wisdom and advice aplenty for whoever needed it.

Entirely selfishly, I miss him enormously already. He has been such a big part of my life since 1981 or so, when he first invited me to lunch in London so that we could meet for the first time; we hit it off immediately, to the great pleasure of his favourite cousin, my grandmother. We subsequently met on several occasions and, when I finished my Masters Degree at the London Business School, he offered me space within his London office so that I could start my own business. Along the way he offered advice, wisdom, contacts and kindness, together with some strict tellings-off when my youthful enthusiasm (stupidity???) got the better of me. He was not in the office all the time, as he constantly travelled around Europe and the rest of the world, bursting with ideas for new businesses and looking for partnerships to help start and run them.

PGT was an ideas man, constantly coming up with them in all the years I knew him, imaginative, positive, unquenchable ideas.  For most day-to-day details he needed and employed others and was perhaps not as lucky in some of his choices as he deserved to be, so that he was less successful than might have been. Within all that he also taught me the role luck played in success (something an arrogant young man in his twenties thought little of - remember the 'we make our own luck' mantra?) which he used as an explanation and never as an excuse. Even last summer in Romania he was planting ideas about new business activities in my head, or trying to!

Now he's gone, and I can no longer turn to him for information and wisdom about so many things, but mainly family and the past in Romania and elsewhere, business and life. There are so many things running around in my mind now that only he could answer; they will now never be asked.

While, of course, I celebrate PGT's long and fruitful life, filled with achievement, respect and real affection, and understand the natural cycle and the normality of death for people of a certain age, I grieve with all my heart the loss of this wonderful man.