In order to keep more ‘up-to-date’ and relative to current happenings, the idea of a Blog was mooted. My usual ramblings tend to have a pop at the RSGB or some other worthy cause and although this is all good fun, any comments or thoughts made are well out of date by the time they appear in print.
So the idea of a monthly Blog (where on earth did that stupid name come from?) was put to the Committee on the back of a €50 note and so here we are. This first offering is just a look at things from the bottom right-hand corner of the Med.
Let’s start with the weather: Despite what a lot of people think, the sun does not always shine out here – I wish it did, but it doesn’t. February, for example, was the wettest month here for over 60 years. Although this sounds bad, we do need the rain in the winter to see us through the hot summers. Although the coldest it got at the QTH one night this winter was 8C, it does get a lot colder up in the mountains. The snow up there usually lasts from November through to the end of May and the streams that run from the mountains are what are used in all the bottled water. Last year on one of my UK visits, I was down in Rye in Sussex. I was eating cod and chips in a restaurant and the bottled water came from Crete!
Even though it can get cool at night during the winter, daytime temperatures are usually around 15 or 16c which is not un-pleasant, and yes, we do get storms and gales as well – in fact a storm at the end of February brought down all my various poles and wires but overall the winters are far milder here than in the UK.
Television: We are not much into television or news programmes out here. Anyway, most of the news is boring, they only report bad things, and people like that Peston fella on the BBC just talk everything down, so when we eventually got the TV working out here, we tried to avoid anything to do with the news.
However, with the recent ‘trouble’ in some of the Arab countries (some quite close to us – see below) we found ourselves watching BBC World or Aljazeera for the news.
Only if you have lived in the UK and moved abroad can you really appreciate how bad BBC World really is! First, did you know that the BBC takes adverts? Yup, full adverts lasting from 30 seconds to 3 minutes. These are not for soap powders or Fairy Liquid but usually for airlines, banks or the industrial areas of various countries including Turkey, Indonesia and Russia who want you to move your company there. Currently Turkey seems to advertise all the time with promises of 100% tax deductable R&D costs.
Another thing that ruins BBC World are the ‘self advertising’ slots. You must have seen the ‘links’ prior to a news bulletin on the Beeb when they show various reporters in different countries while the clock ticks down until it is zero when the news starts – well, on BBC World this happens all the time. The timing of the programmes is so bad that these self advertising slots can run to three or four minutes!
On the radio front I finally received my Russian Digital Award last month. This was after my application (and money) went missing within the Russian Post Office. I have not been on PSK a lot recently as I have been on CW in the FISTS Activity Periods but with the warmer weather and visits from an extended ‘family’ over the next few months, it now looks like even this CW activity will be reduced quite a bit.
The old disused school in our village has been used as a ‘hospital’ in To Nesi (The Island), a TV series based on the book by Victoria Hislop. Filming has now ceased but when you watch the series it is strange to see ‘patients’ that you know quite well! The series has brought a lot of extra Greek tourists to Elounda and Plaka to visit Spinalonga, the actual island, and to the surrounding area. All good for the local Taverna and Kafeneon owners.
Oh yes, the closeness of some of the ‘troubled Arabian countries’.
If we sit in Ierapetra on the south coast of the island and about 45 minutes drive from here, we are closer to the Egyptian/Libyan border than we are to Athens!
Cheers.
Dick.. SV0XBN/9. Email: sv0xbn@lefars.org.uk
