Carl Nilsson-Polias

Greek-style

The last few days we spent on Rodos largely involved being at the beach and being horrified by the parade of flesh that passed before our salty eyes. But we did also have time to meet some fully-clothed people, aka family members, for dinner one balmy Grecian eve. As one would expect, we went to an Italian restaurant (”Greek food? Why would we go OUT for Greek food?”). And, as is almost always the case when opinionated Greeks get together, the conversation turned to the Orthodox church, Greek politics and various truly astonishing racial prejudices. All this in Greek, bien sur, so I just sat and stuffed my face with pancetta (as is my wont).

One thing about Rodos that I have neglected to speak about is the Italian influence. The folks from that other Mediterranean peninsula occupied many of the Greek islands between the First and Second World Wars. The Italians had quite the imperialistic ambition going on there for a while (what with the whole invasion of Abyssinia and all) which eventually corresponded with the rise of Mussolini and all the grand old parading, marching, chanting and saluting that goes along with the fascist aesthetic. The kind of thing John Howard must have daydreams about, but i digress …

The Italians wanted to reinstitute a great Romanesque (that word can’t be used in this context can it?) empire and, to do so, they needed to have a glorious set of colonies. So, during the occupation of the Greek islands, they poured in money for new infrastructure (roads, public buildings), for the restoration of castles (like the big Errol-Flynn-movie-set one on Rodos) and for anything else that appealed to their notions of imperial grandeur and their taste for a well-graded camber.

In case you think I’m making all this up, I had it all confirmed for me by a raisin-skinned Italian tourist on Symi. I was down at ‘our’ little pier, drying from my swim, when three Italian retirees arrived. Now, in any other context (ie if i hadn’t had a charming chat with them) these people would be politely labelled as Eurotrash (you know, skin you could make a Fendi bag with, dyed yellow hair on one of the ladies, smoking like chimneys, gaudy sunglasses). Anyway, as I gave them tips on swimming spots around the island we ended up talking about Italian colonialism and what a complete bloody mess they make of it. “We aren’t like the British. We go in, we build some roads, spend some money, and then ‘fffftttt’ we’re out of there. Stupid.” Said with Roberto Benigni-like exuberance and accent.

Madrid

Going to Spain for a couple of days is the kind of thing you do when you can, so I did because I could. All I knew about the Iberian peninsula before now was derived from Pedro Almodovar films and various other semi-pornographic pieces of cinema that SBS occasionally gets past the censors (titles like “Tie me up, tie me down” and “Orgasmo”). So, I was expecting a country where “cogno” is used as often and as indiscriminately as “fuck” is in Australia. It is with bitter disappointment that I report never hearing the term while in Madrid … maybe it’s only in Barcelona that the tradition lives on. Ah well, another innocent dream shattered. However, Madrid?s linguistic interests do extend beyond the iniquitous. It is the centre of the deliberate Castilian lisp that turns “cerveza” into “thervetha” and “gracias” into “grathias”. It’s really quite good fun …

As always, food played a vital part in our affairs. The Spanish generally do coffee for breakfast. Three courses for lunch at about 2pm (followed by a siesta) and three courses for dinner at about 11pm. They then think about going out for a drink at about 4am. The kind of place where jetlag is a good thing. After trying a couple of crappy little tavernas, one of which was run by the most fawning, obsequious little man I’ve ever had the embarrassing privilege of being served by, we eventually found some really tasty paella and some even tastier tapas, which was nice.

The rest of my brief stay involved seeing even more truly awe-inspiring art. The Prado Gallery was crammed with some great old-school gear. There were Velasquez’s masterpieces, the gruesome “black paintings” by Goya that marked the beginning of modern expressive painting, Ribera’s dark, carnal images of religious suffering, and Hieronymous Bosch’s triptychs of sin and suffering that damn the sin while revelling in its depiction (as Aimee Mann would say: “Hate the sinner, but love the sin”). Basically, if you want impressive, morbid, gruesome representations with a Catholic bent, buy a book on Spanish art. There was also one canvas by Carravaggio that was worth the price of entry. The lighter material that filled the less important rooms involved a bit too much display of “dandies and their consorts” (as the audio guide kept repeating) for my liking but, hey, dandies need some love too.

The second major gallery in Madrid that I found time for was the Reina Sofia. BIG! Three special exhibitions were on, one on Roy Lichtenstein, one on Salvador Dali and one on the history of monochromatic art (very effectively laid out in different sections for each colour). The Dali exhibit was monstrously huge (almost as monstrously huge as the man’s ego but not quite). Some 500 of his works had been gathered, including “never-before-seen” images from a cartoon he was devising for Walt Disney (the fascist pig!). While I respect Dali’s technique and some elements of his humour and aesthetic style, he really doesn’t seem to push himself very far once he hits on the whole Freudian surrealism gambit (in contrast to, say, Joan Miro). Plus he was a publicity-whore in the same sense as Warhol. I mean, he printed a newspaper that had articles purely about himself and ended up doing ads for Alka Seltzer and Datsun (puh-leeez!). There was a lot of other brilliant stuff in the gallery but the cream on the proverbial cake was Picasso’s epic “Guernica”. I could have stood there for hours but I got bored … no, I didn?t, I went back to it three times.

Paradise Lost

My petit voyage had to come to an end at some point. And, in a final gesture of Mediterranean hospitality, Iberian airlines delayed my flight from Madrid by an hour so I had more time to enjoy the departure lounge with its semi-cultured décor and ill begotten carpeting. Great! On the flight I sat next to a real dandy (and I thought they only existed on BBC drama series and 19th century paintings). English, wavy blonde hair brushed back over his head like someone out of the Forsythe Saga, white knitted Ralph Lauren jumper, polo shirt, beige cargo shorts, boat shoes and a Hemingway novel. I wanted to punch him in the mouth (three of you might get the Woody Allen reference).

The delay also meant that my concise transit-stay at Heathrow would be a little too terse for my liking. On landing in London, I was treated to a Spanish flight attendant trying to pronounce my name over the intercom … good times, Santori times. Anyway, they were kind enough to tell me that I had a flight to Hong Kong that I had to catch (no shit!), that I needed to get there straight away and that someone from the ground crew would assist me further. At this point I was thinking: “great, I finally get to go on one of those little airport buggy-thingos with the flashing orange light”. No. The ground crew guy just told me that I had a flight to Hong Kong that I had to catch, that I needed to get there straight away and that there was a bus to Terminal 3. If I was making this up, my flight would have been leaving from Terminal 4, but I did actually need to get to Terminal 3. Anyway, I run through the maze of my arrival Terminal pass three security guards and no one else and arrive at the bus stop. I get on the bus (all alone) and am soon joined by my driver, Sanjeev, who sits down on his beaded chair cover. Now, I thought having a whole bus to myself was a bit excessive but it turned out that half the bus must have been made out of speaker cones because it wasn’t long before Sanjeev and I were cruising along the tarmac, pumping out some phat jungle beats from the 30-inch sub. I might have lost consciousness for a while or been hallucinating due to sleep-deprivation but I’m sure we stopped for a doner kebab and scoped out some honeys down by gate B31 before finally getting to Terminal 3. In any case, I got on the plane but my luggage did not. Eh, who wants to do laundry on their first day back at home, anyway?

Adelaide of course welcomed me with open arms … it was 11 degrees and raining. Bugger.

See the photos