Greek Drama with Euro-Neuro

Greek Drama with Euro-Neuro.

The unity of Europe with a common currency was a dream that was destined to become a nightmare. It was conceived in good faith but the genes were so diverse and far apart that the result could not have been but a mule, neither a horse nor a donkey, a sterile disambiguation at best.

The United States of America has at least a common language and common culture. Going from north to south there is a common architecture, language and common goals. Through work and credit card they hope to ‘make it’. A simple philosophy of materialism that more or less, (lately a bit less,) that has stood the test of time. And with Hollywood and Gridiron thrown it they have somehow achieved a kind of unity that by and large seemed to have worked for its population.

Just look at Europe and its diversity. The question should be asked; why this need for commonality? If anything, its diversity should have been encouraged and maintained instead of it artificial made homogenous with the push of the Euro.

The Greeks should have been allowed to remain the architects of democracy. Let them sit around cafes, it worked very well in the past. There is a need for the Greeks to do their own thing.

What would a common European culture be like? Should it be like the British, a hotchpotch of chasing something forever obsolete with their love of complicated tradition and dislike of the new? Should it be the simplicity of the Scandinavians or the thriftiness of the Dutch?  Or should it embrace the German method with its icy emphasis on order and meticulous organizational qualities? Perhaps the French way, with its food and love of fashion and truffles. Spain with paella. Oh, Portugal with its deliciously char-grilled sardines. Unforgettable.

The different work ethics, the different languages and above all the different cultures cannot make for a united Europe with all ambitions and its entire people being the same. Europe should celebrate its diversity and share the good but not at the cost of differences.

Years ago, train travel on the Continental express Genoa- Stockholm was an unforgettable experience, not least with all the pass-port controls and different currencies. Why did we ever think this needed weeding out? What is the benefit of this Euro efficiency when it all ends up being boring and monotonous? What are we alive for? Remember the custom officers (Douanes)? They all wore different caps and showed such different idiosyncrasies. Some would look you in the eye and try and determine levels of honesty, or, if capable of smuggling rare cheeses or African diamonds. Other would just nod and walk on. In Genoa you bought a small bottle of wine and half a chicken passed through the train window for 500 lire. In Germany, a Brodchen mit Kase or Bock-wurst.

What’s the point of going to Greece or any European country and not use a different currency? I went to Melbourne last week-end and ended up landing in a different kind of Sydney. Not one Iota of difference. I could just as well been in Perth. The same Harvey Norman frontages, the same large car parks with Big Macs golden arches. The sameness of a stifling all encompassing ennui of dreary monotonous architecture. Is that what the Euro-Visional behavioral architects envisaged? Surely not!

From Rambo Amadeus;

Euro skeptics, analphabetic, try not be hermetic. Euro-Neuro, not be skeptic, hermetic, neurotic, pathetic and analphabetic.

Forget all cosmetic, you need new poetic etc.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHnqF5PLP2w

Beef Tartare avec un oeuf

Boeuf Tartare avec un oeuf.

Posted on August 3, 2009by gerard oosterman

 

The walk around Montpellier resulted in needing to have lunch so we dove into one of those intimate little lunch and dinner places that seem to appear as soon as one gets hungry, especially in France and even more so in the south of France.

We were shown our seat and left to ponder the menu including a wine list. The atmosphere was intimate with lighting subdued and with all sound reduced to a sotto voce. The garcon in white jacket and with the right un-pretentious manner, putting even the most belligerent customer at ease, came around our table to take the lunch order. The choice by Helvi was a sound one, a piece of top side beef with vegetables and ‘Pomme de Frites’. She was asked for her preferred choice of the ‘boeuf’ to be rare, medium or well-done.  Medium was her choice.

I had chosen the ‘Beef Tartar’, and told the garcon to have it ‘medium’ cooked as well. He laughed heartily but I did not really understand the finer points of his laughter until after the dish arrived. A plate of raw minced steak with a raw egg in the middle of it was what finally turned up on our dimly lit table. There was nothing cooked about it, never mind the ‘medium’ part of it.

I bravely finished the plate but Helvi sensed my lack of enthusiasm and asked if everything was alright. I confessed my total ignorance of beef tartar and thought that the dish was a kind of steak done rare. A bit Russian perhaps, with images of horse riding Tartars doing the cooking of the meat on a fire after a fierce battle deep inside the Crimea.  This embarrassing dereliction of culinary knowledge has been a source of endless mirth and enlightenment to our friends when the tale of medium cooked ‘beef tartar’ at Montpellier gets re-told by my beloved wife. It has been an ice breaker at many a social evening.

In the case of readers being surprised by this embarrassment, please consider that so many of my friends probably think nothing of eating vegemite, a food so horrendous to look at, so terrible to contemplate inside its brown jar, that I feel justified in making slight of this minor slip up.

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Idealism in Chaos ( A Greek Tragedy)

χάος

Another big fall in world markets, billions will be wiped off and Greece is tottering on the brink of total economic collapse. Good morning!

Some European countries which were supposed to be examples of how society ought to distribute wealth more equitable are now being lined up to fall like a row of dominoes set up on the dining table of good and well intentioned but un- equitable sharing of the rich Euro baked pork dish with crackling good social security till the grave.

What went wrong? Was it the apple sauce?

The answer might well come from the dining table itself. The excessive ladling out of all those goodies without balancing it to an equal generous increase in taxation revenue was always dodgy. The expenditure didn’t match the income. A classic case of economic delusion that one can live beyond means was always a premier lesson at the kindergarten of economics. If you keep scooping the sand out the sandbox will finally be empty.

The lure of getting more with less income seemed to have overtaken the world of capitalism. Election after election the sound economic principles of setting expenditure to income was eroded away. The voters swallowed it like marsh-mellows on a stick held above the fire of greed and avarice. Right wing governments took over with the promise of more for less and we were all seduced by this ugly Judas kiss. And look at us now? Will there be blood on the streets once again?

With Portugal and Spain queuing up after Greece with youth unemployment at a staggering fifty percent it seems to be hovering on a similar precipice into economic collapse.

In Australia we keep rubbing hands together with glee in how we seemed to have escaped the GFC turmoil with our scooping up of mineral resources. In the process we seem to forget that this is due to luck much more than sound economics. Take out China, and we too would be lining up at soup-kitchens.

Are we too taken in by the lure of more for less? Notice the upheaval in the suggestion of raising taxation on our resource mining companies. Notice how the Three hot headed Musketeers of our resource companies have taken on Australia and its citizens daring to utter getting paid a fair share of the economic resource pie. Notice too, how the principal of taxing those that defile our environment is fought against tooth and nail. Millions are being spent in advertisement opposing this very sound and principled way of making the environment spoilers pay for it. We too are cruising for a bruising being taken in by the fairy floss of more for less.

At least in Europe there seems to be a return to the left with new governments willing to find a solution in bringing the rich back to the kitchen table of give and take.  In France, the rich will have to pay much more tax and many are questioning how anyone should have more than they can possibly need. Capitalism has gone berserk and the masses are paying for the sins of the rich. The poor, for too long have been denied a share for which they have worked just as hard as the rich, which, in the majority of cases inherited the wealth enabling them, with the regimes of lower and lower taxation, to keep on exploiting handy taxation loopholes and fattening themselves on the pork crackling of lenient taxation laws.

It is not for nothing that the collapsing economic capitalist world is looking anew at Scandinavia. They were always looked at askance and with suspicion. How could a taxation regime of over fifty percent continue to thrive giving its citizens a world of social welfare that would sooner or later end in total collapse and disaster? Well, the Scandinavians did not and now seem to own the only beacon of light and insight in perhaps having a solution for those countries on the brink of economic disaster.

We should perhaps look anew at those prophets of lower taxation being the only way forward. Just look how, with the new budget, we have delayed Foreign Aid? We have the top three wealthiest in our society owning over 30 billion. Or is it 40 billion now?

How just is our society and how moral when we can’t support foreign aid anymore and at the same time support not raising taxation for the obscene wealthy?

Boeuf Tartare avec un Oeuf

Boeuf Tartare avec un oeuf.Posted on August 3, 2009 by gerard oosterman

The walk around Montpellier resulted in needing to have lunch so we dove into one of those intimate little lunch and dinner places that seem to appear as soon as one gets hungry, especially in France and even more so in the south of France.

We were shown our seat and left to ponder the menu including a wine list. The atmosphere was intimate with lighting subdued and with all sound reduced to a sotto voce. The garcon in white jacket and with the right un-pretentious manner, putting even the most belligerent customer at ease, came around our table to take the lunch order. The choice by Helvi was a sound one, a piece of top side beef with vegetables and ‘Pomme de Frites’. She was asked for her preferred choice of the ‘boeuf’ to be rare, medium or well-done.  Medium was her choice.

I had chosen the ‘Beef Tartar’, and told the garcon to have it ‘medium’ cooked as well. He laughed heartily but I did not really understand the finer points of his laughter until after the dish arrived. A plate of raw minced steak with a raw egg in the middle of it was what finally turned up on our dimly lit table. There was nothing cooked about it, never mind the ‘medium’ part of it.

I bravely finished the plate but Helvi sensed my lack of enthusiasm and asked if everything was alright. I confessed my total ignorance of beef tartar and thought that the dish was a kind of steak done rare. A bit Russian perhaps, with images of horse riding Tartars doing the cooking of the meat on a fire after a fierce battle deep inside the Crimea.  This embarrassing dereliction of culinary knowledge has been a source of endless mirth and enlightenment to our friends when the tale of medium cooked ‘beef tartar’ at Montpellier gets re-told by my beloved wife. It has been an ice breaker at many a social evening.

In the case of readers being surprised by this embarrassment, please consider that so many of my friends probably think nothing of eating vegemite, a food so horrendous to look at, so terrible to contemplate inside its brown jar, that I feel justified in making slight of this minor slip up.

About gerard oosterman

Of Cheap Wine &Jigsaw of Apartment living

By gerard oosterman

 We were there at the tail end of summer and the wine vintage was in full swing. The region of the Languedoc is one of the largest red wine growing areas in the world. Apart from those working in shops or businesses, everyone else, during vintage, all and sundry are into grape harvesting and wine making. No matter where we went or where we stopped, the streets and kerbs were red with the flow of must and wine. We were stepping in it.

 The local farmers were immediately selling the freshly made wine and for less than the cost of a bottle of milk. The larger the quantity, the cheaper the price was. We ended buying the red wine in a five litre plastic container for which one had to pay a deposit. The drinking of those five litres had to be done fairly quickly because as air entered the container, the wine would oxidize and spoil rapidly. We would soon adhere to the routine of buying fresh trout with stick bread from the local boulangerie, fry up garlic in some very excellent olive oil, barbeque the trout and with the dipping of the bread into the oil and garlic mixture eat the trout washed down with copious quantities of the cheap wine.

 The Languedoc area is the largest wine producing area in the world and this region alone produces more wine than the entire United States. During its frenzied vintage height, while we were there, our shoes and car tyres were red from the flooded roadside kerbs and guttering with the spoils of the wine making. I don’t know how, but during the couple of weeks of trout and red wine consumption I found enough sobriety reading a book found on the shelves in the dining room. It was George Perec’s; ‘Life, A User’s manual’. A  great story that involves a large jigsaw puzzle with people and their lives living in apartments forming the pieces of the jigsaw coming together bit by bit, a marvellous story