I will survive

A little over 41 years ago a young Greek man left his home and headed to the United Kingdom in order to pursue a dream. The young man, little over twenty three years of age, wanted to become a motor racing driver, a champion no less. He had his dream, was intent on pursuing it and was prepared to make any sacrifices as needed along the way.

You, observant and regular reader, have already spotted it - that was me, younger, hungrier, full of piss and vinegar. Boy, was I determined and prepared to suffer in order to reach my target, do what was necessary, get out of my comfort zone; getting to the dream was all that mattered. And, as luck would have it in about March or April of that year Gloria Gaynor appeared on stage at the London Palladium for an amazing concert that I was fortunate to witness, when her song 'I will survive' was at number 1 in the UK chart.  I didn't just go to see her and dance along to her rhythms, I listened to her words, took courage and belief that I could cope with my suffering, acquired new determination.

Suffer I did, in many ways, some of which seem almost amusing today, spending weeks sleeping in my car, with only the occasional friend's sofa bed  as a luxury break, little money for anything other than a quick bite at a fast food place, survival only important as it allowed continued dreaming, and the effort needed to achieve The Goal (spoiler alert, it never was, fully).

Of course I could never have managed even a fraction of what I did without the support of some wonderful people along the way:

1. My parents, despite their misgivings for my chosen goal were able to provide crumbs to help me stay alive.
2. DH and IM-H gave me a base in London and allowed me to help in their enterprise, learning about London and survival skills while meeting interesting people along the way.
3. My two volunteer mechanics of 1980, Graham and ... (apologies, I have forgotten), whose unpaid if unskilled support helped me race for pennies.
4. My wonderful friend Vic Holman, still a friend today, who trusted me when nobody else, including myself, had any reason to, and allowed me to race while owing him a not insubstantial amount of money.
5. All the people whose names I rarely knew who offered me their support every weekend, with kind words, smiles and encouragement, helping me believe in myself.
6. The great Bob Geeson, the best race engineer I have ever known, whose support, cynicism and humour - not to mention unrivalled technical ability - allowed me to seriously dream of the top, and to show my best colours.
7. All the other racing car manufacturers, engine builders and the financial supporters large or small who, in so many ways allowed me to spread my wings, show my potential and fly. And dream.

Some of the above are no longer with us and may never have known how grateful I have been for their support. Others know, or knew. The adventure took place, the result was not what was hope for though I did achieve quite a lot with very little, but I did survive.

I'm still surviving, Gloria, if only just, but instead of dreams I now have memories.

Food, passion and coronaviruses

You, dear regular reader, know that I am a person for whom food is extremely important - and not just as a means of survival or existence; I love good food and the culture that goes with it. But good food depends on passion, as every form of it, from wonderful fruits and vegetables to exquisite restaurant dishes, require hard work and sacrifices with relatively limited monetary return.

Passion for great food is rare, wonderful and always worth supporting. Through this we preserve food traditions that may be centuries-old or create new ones, make better foodstuffs of every description, help celebrate life by sharing little glories, help share joy and the life-giving qualities that food, decent food made with love, brings. To me there is no greater pleasure than breaking bread and drinking wine, all made with care and love, with people you care about.

I was recently looking at something on YouTube, where a young man was summarising why he has gone back to his small, unsexy, family food-smoking business to be the 6th generation involved: 'I did a lot of fancy things with a lot of fancy people' he said of his previous career in big business in a big city 'but there was no heart. So I came back' (I apologise if I have somehow paraphrased him). To many of us, you see, money is not everything, passion is, and those of us involved in food and wine use this passion to lead us to great products, great moments, great pleasure.

As a professional voyeur on the periphery I am constantly amazed and pleasantly surprised by the number of people who share this outlook, this feeling. Few, if any, are world-renowned and famous, other than within their field, and - do you know - they don't care one bit. The reason they work hard, lose sleep and sacrifice creature comforts is because they are passionate about their craft, their products, their chosen field; the appreciative nod of the knowledgable buyer is all they need. I am in awe of these people, in awe of their passion, grateful for their very existence.

Life is about passion, creativity, dreams, at least as much as it can be about comfort, luxury and material things. Life is about the little things that make it special, the ones that someone else's passion has brought about and allowed you to get to know and appreciate. Life, whether through our passion or someone else's, can be extraordinary, even if due to external circumstances (hello coronavirus!) we now have to put it on hold and wallow in boredom.

At least that's what I think, dear reader. Feel free to disagree...

Riding on Greek buses

With all the scary stuff about viruses I very much doubt that you guys will be out there, hurrying to catch a ride on a Greek bus in Athens. In a way it's a pity, as buses are one of the last great bargains, with rides costing as little as 90 eurocents for ninety minutes of bus/metro/tram hopping in the greater Athens area, allowing the user extraordinary freedom in getting arounf.

Alas this doesn't seem enough for many Athens residents, particularly the young, who choose to trade without validating their tickets. While it may be an exaggeration, or even a statistical aberration of when I happen to observe, but eight out of ten bus passengers appear not to either have tickets or to properly endorse them according to the rules, with the young being the chief miscreants. It seems that a large number of people think that they just don't need to pay for using public transport in Greece.

Does it matter? Is it a problem? Oh yes, it is a growing, painful problem, as the bus company just cannot afford to pay for spares for its buses and being forced to cannibalise older vehicles for spares to keep the fleet moving a much as is possible. This is a serious, massive problem, neither acknowledged nor discussed presently, as it is leading to an impending collapse of public transport in its present form. Yet we persist in this reckless abuse - only this evening I witnessed fewer than half the people boarding a bus validating a ticket or travel pass.

Why is this? Well, one of the reasons is that these days there are very few controls on public transport, with the few existing being on the underground railway - I have not seen a ticket inspector on a bus in years - so the people feel that there is a free for all. What is even more worrying is that the people doing this, whether they are greek citizens or immigrants, do not feel that they are doing anything wrong as so many of their fellow users are doing the same.

Yet what they are doing is not only wrong, it is outright theft! They are defrauding the Greek state of the small fare that it has determined should be charged, a cost far below most other European capitals, and are doing so cheerfully and without any scruples. It doesn't matter if they are using the buses for one stop or many; if they cannot afford the fare they should walk instead of the current underhand practice.

Some people I have heard blame the immigrants, but in my experience that is generally not the case, though some are copying indigenous behaviour and benefiting illegally. More often than not we Greeks are our own worst enemies, cheating ourselves to feel clever. Bliah!

We need to grow up! We need to understand that this is not a victimless crime, that the thousands of law-abiding, ticket-paying citizens are not fools subsidising our immature, illicit behaviour. We need to learn that inline you need to pay your way, properly and fairly, in order to live in a decent society.

And in order to reinforce it we need to reintroduce regular, strict checks, however unpopular they may be in the short term, so that the burden is shared by all users, with those who cannot conform being forced to walk. It may even help with the obesity crisis...

Dionysos you rascal, you've done it again!

Dionysos was up to his old tricks again, with his friends putting on an exceedingly good show in a suburb north of Athens on a February evening, a Tuesday. Being one of them, a philos no less, I had to be present, both to participate and to help with the show. Dionysos himself was absent, you understand, leaving his friends to get on with festivities and, obviously, busying himself with his godly duties.

A pleasant evening following a lovely, bright, almost summery day was a good prelude to this dinner which not only featured some achingly superb wines from Greece and beyond, but matched them with food of a high order indeed. Menoo restaurant is situated in a small shopping precinct next to a bookstore, doubles as a cafe during the day and, at the same time, has an ambitious kitchen; this should not come as a surprise, as its late founder was for many years one of Athenian society's foremost caterers, Mr. Platis.

But tonight was truly about the wine, which was as splendid as it was unusual, at least some of it. Three Greek wines, ranging from rather special to wonderful, and a rare French masterpiece were served for our delectation, and we lapped it up with great grunts of pleasure, at least I did. Unusually the food played second fiddle, serving as a teaser and able supporter, even a palate refresher.

The first wine was a full-bodied rose from the Negoska grape and the northern appellation of Goumenissa. Somewhat reminiscent of full-bodied Provence roses of the past, this had a certain chunky elegance and weight to match our starter, a small cup of 'bouillabaisse' that kept us wanting more.

The white wine was from the Argyros Estate on Santorini, one of that unique, volcanic island's biggest but still top rated producers. With a rich history of over 100 years, care and attention, their wines, from old vines with low yields, have a distinct, characterful, style, managing to balance the ingredients to perfection while bursting with flavours that show terroir and grape variety in perfect harmony. This Assyrtiko 2006 was a textbook example, metallic notes blending with white fruit and citrus, rich yet dry, intense yet restrained, long and seductive. It matched the seafood starter perfectly, but then it was so good it could match-up well with almost anything.

My observant reader - was it you? - will remember that a few months ago I wrote a piece on Economou and called him the wonderful winemaker of Crete. If anything I understated his place in the Greek wine firmament, for he is unique, ingenious, dedicated and wildly eccentric in a way that ensures his wines speak to the heart of any true wine lover. His 1999 Sitia red wine largely from the Liatiko grape served from magnums was just stunning - delicate red colour starting to brown, multi-layered ripe red fruit and spices on nose and even more so on the palate, complex, entrancing, long, long long. I strongly urge anyone who comes across Economou wines to taste them (guzzle them???), as they are unique and quite wonderful but, beware, they are not easy drinking but highly individual. The braised Black Angus brisket was an ideal accompaniment (of course, not the other way around with a wine like that!), though some pieces were excessively glutinous while others were perfect.

Sweet wine is not fashionable at the moment, and I pity the poor fools who spurn it because they can never appreciate a wine as fine as Philippe Foreau's stupendous Vouvray moelleux 2005 from Clos Naudin.  Top sweet wine is luscious but not cloying, intensely sweet but delicate, a balance of flavours that showcase terroir, grapes and winemaking, something this wine demonstrated in abundance. Rich exotic aromas and flavours (mango, papaya, pineapple and ripe melon) with perfect acidity and exquisite balance in this masterpiece of finesse that is a tribute to Foreau's complete understanding of his art in every way. The mango tart tatin with a passion fruit coulis and vanilla ice cream was a successful match, though quite honestly I couldn't care less - the wine was enough perfection for me.

Nearby I could feel Dionysos sighing with pleasure and Pan contentedly playing his pipes and no, it was not because I was totally inebriated. In fact, I was not inebriated enough to accept gracefully the disappointment of once again not winning the prize in our traditional annual New Year's Pitta!

The heroic winemakers of Switzerland

You'r probably confused already, dear reader, as you either never realised that there was such a thing as Swiss wine, or had tried it years ago and decided it was a bit of a joke - and not a particularly good one at that. The wines made were - and some still are - made from grape varieties not deliriously happy in the rather bracing Swiss climate, thus giving a thin, acidic, graceless liquid that no amount of skill can legitimately turn into nectar.

There have always been a few hidden gems, of course, and some perfectly drinkable stuff, especially in situ, but little to get excited about. Anyone who has visited Switzerland and has even a basic understanding of viticulture and what it takes to make a good wine would see that it would not be an easy task; rather, careful variety selection and a lot of hard work, coupled with a bit of luck, would be required to come up with the goods, i.e. a wine that could be served anywhere in the world and hold its own. And no, I'm not talking about winning prizes but winning hearts.

Recently I happened to be in Switzerland briefly and had the good fortune, though it did not feel like that at the time, to travel on Swiss trains back and forth between Saanen and Geneva with time to gaze out of the window, something that I am not able or inclined to do when driving a motor vehicle. Near the train tracks, even in steep and rather inaccessible parts of the route I discovered vineyards, incredibly well-tended, some tiny, well-organised vineyards.  These mainly face Lac Leman, the big lake between Lausanne and Geneva known to the english-speaking world as Lake Geneva.

You would not believe the effort needed to look after these plots of land, to protect the vines from both the weather and animals and then to harvest the grapes. This is a labour of love, of passion, nothing less, as commercially it makes little sense irrespective of the price of the finished article. These vineyards, or at least most of them, I'm reliably informed are now protected as World Heritage sites by UNESCO, for they are wonderful to behold. And the wine these days, you'll be pleased to hear, is no longer to be laughed at, with many extremely well made, deeply satisfying bottles around.

I have often ranted, dear reader, about the passion needed to produce decent wine not of the purely commercial, high volume variety. Wine needs this passion because it involves lots of hard work, risks with the weather and intense competition; these Swiss winemakers have it in spades. There is no chance you will make lots of money making wine in Switzerland - you probably have a better chance of winning the lottery - but you are doing something you love, ancient yet advanced, simple yet complex, pride-giving and quite adorable.

I salute these brave, passionate men and women, winemakers of Switzerland, true heroes, am pleased that their products have improved and continue to do so, and will back them in whatever tiny way I can. And you should too!

Something special

Many countries around the world make wine, with some of it actually being jolly good and extremely well made. In this day and age the supremacy of Europe is challenged, even disputed, by some of the newer producers around the world, sometimes even successfully. Yet in my view if I had to choose the best, most interesting wines in the world I would look to Europe - and, more often than not, France - to provide the excitement.

Luckily YT agrees with me and last night laid on three vintages of the rare Jura 'vin jaune' wines for the enjoyment and appreciation of some of his friends, me included. These we tackled - and believe me, if you know vin jaune at all it is something one tackles, not an easy-drinking sipping wine - with great pleasure to accompany some Greek country sausages from the south of the Peloponnese and my family's erstwhile home town, Kalamata. These were artfully prepared and served with leeks, onions, peppers and potatoes, superbly enjoyable dinner bursting with taste and combining textures. Gorgeous stuff, if not exactly light and easy to digest, especially as I overindulged...

The three wines, all from the same Jura producer (Domaine Philippe Vandelle from the L'Etoile appellation), were from the 2001, 2000 and 1999 vintages, showing the overall vin jaune character but also showing the differences of nuance in each vintage. For those of you not in the know, the Jura wine producing region is small, in some ways old-fashioned and quirky, slightly cut off from the flow of the modern wine world - and all the better for it. They hold on to the good things from the past while at the same time developing superb wines for the present and, indeed, the future. Their chardonnays currently seem to me to be particularly good, though as the world discovers them their prices are changing, unfortunately rapidly climbing.

The wines last night were good examples of the style, complex and powerful, nutty caramel and alcohol. These are chunky wines yet at the same time have a delicate complexity, power with finesse, full of personality, scary to the uninitiated but an occasional delight to true wine lovers. Expensive to produce and idiosyncratic, these are jewels of the wine world worth preserving and enjoying on the odd occasions when we have the good fortune to come across them.

The next wine was a far more commercial, straightforward bottle, coming as it did from Bordeaux, an excellent cru Bourgeois and a superb vintage - Chateau Sociando Mallet 1996. This is a wine that I first tried in the 1980s, was impressed then and traded in, and it has been improving further. Last night's example had a sweet, rich, spicy plum and red fruit nose, a beguiling and balanced fruit and spice palate and a long, long finish - really batting at a very high level, charming and impressive at the same time, and a perfect accompaniment to the cheeses we were served - what else, you might say, from YT.

Then came dessert with ice cream, chocolatey bits and pieces and a green Chartreuse from those skilful monks of the Carthusian Order, who have been producing their elixirs since 1737 for the enjoyment of all, non-catholics and irreligious individuals included. This is a sweet, spicy, herbal liqueur, a touch medicinal in character and, in its green form, quite strong in alcohol (55%), rich but not cloying, a unique, strong and enjoyable digestif. I have tasted it several times in different form and I am always surprised at how much, after the initial 'gosh it's sweet and herby' reaction I really, really enjoy it. This doesn't change whether it's served on its own or as an accompaniment to something...yum!

To those of you who feel that France and its wines are past it, think again; the best in wine and gastronomy is still largely to be found here, despite the changes everywhere, positive and negative.

To those of you who think I'm incredibly lucky to be able to taste wonderful stuff time and again I have only one thing to say: you are absolutely correct!

2020 or something

Well, it's here, this crazy date that seemed so remote when I was a child, featuring in futuristic prediction TV shows and novels pretending to know and understand what was to come. So many impressive ideas appeared and seemed like sensible predictions, only to be consigned to the 'daft ideas of history' bin along the way.

In fairness 2020 is only one of the dates used - and there were many - but the most attractive, symmetrical one, perhaps, and a very nice one it appears to be. And now it's here, with the first month nearly at an end and the days growing longer.

But what of our world, which is still without air scooters, fishbowl helmets and the like, even without aliens as far as we are aware (though I am suspicious of a couple of the neighbours where I'm currently living...)? How has it evolved and where will it be after this year?

For one the world seems like a very humdrum progression from, say, 1960; there is very little that is truly revolutionary and unrecognisable, for all the amazing technology surrounding us. Cars still have four wheels and function in a similar fashion to the contraptions of the time, if far more efficiently, with electric vehicles perhaps the only major differentiation, with the same being largely true of motorbikes, even though some of today's machinery would have left the younger me salivating; the principle is largely the same, but evolved.

Our homes equally are more advanced but easily recognisable and fairly similar, even if their equipment is far superior - there are very few 'space pod' type homes around - with a simple layout. Fashions may affect our clothes and personal stuff but they too wouldn't completely confuse a visitor from the previous century, apart from yes, computers and their power, which have given rise to all sorts of convenient and fun gimmicks but little that is essential to humankind's existence or, indeed, survival. The i-pad (or similar) is fun and even useful, true, but not really life-changing if we choose to be honest.

Look around you with an open mind, then go back to 1960 either in your memory if, like me, you are an aged creature, or in archives and their photographs. Many of the clothes we wear today are similar if not identical, furniture also, though mass production has provided us with lighter materials, sleeker designs and cheaper prices.

Under the surface a lot has changed, of course, mainly for the better. The 'futurists' of my childhood, however, imagined a radically different world which has failed to appear; in many ways I am grateful for that. Perhaps our children will go around with fishbowls on their heads and travel to the Planet Zog (or wherever) for a holiday or, indeed, to work!