Rant about Greece and politics in the so called techno scene

[Hades]

........ beggars can't be choosers...............

I don't want to get into an argument and re-hash the last 16 pages. I think we may disagree on the way out of this mess, but I think we both agree on the fact that the poorest members of the greek society should be the ones to suffer the least (but that never happens).

this isn't an argument, this is a healthy discussion with healthy input,
unlike mr decode who just talks to himself.

edit : just realized the word "argument" has a more different meaning in Dutch than in English, so changed that one into "input".

Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument an exchange of ignorance

[Lost to the Void]

apologies for the pics not having the right size apparantly.
I almost never care to post pics of my life on my FB page, so I'm very unfamiliar with all this uploading and resizing shit.
it doesn't interest me in the slightest !

however, that's all because I've been around Greeks too long and decode knows for sure : they are LAZY !!!

I can't do hotels on holiday, much prefer total privacy, and we can afford it as we don't have kids.
Secluded villa, skinny dipping in the pool at sunset with the missus, cocktails in the jacuzzi etc.
We wanted to be in the foothills for Crete, done beach holidays to death, we tend to do stuff rather than lay in a beach, the sea always looks like the sea....
Saying that we did have a crazy villa in Spain last year over looking the sea from the foothills (again).
Nice house up in the highlands of Scotland next time I think.

the mountains will always look like the mountains too



but I understand, you're big and loud, and as we all know now from a very reliable source : always totally drunk,
so of course it's the north coast for you...
and it's very gentleman-like of you to save the others at the beach the view of you skinny dipping at sunset

We had a very quiet holiday away from everyone, which is generally what we always want, well away from anything loud, the north coast isn`t just holiday resorts you know, there`s a lot of quiet inbetween the two main shitholes. I`m not saying the north coast is better (though it is at least accessible), we actually toured most of the east and central side of the island, north and south, and spent time at an observatory on the south east that we rented. The south has a lot more building work and degredation/dilapidation, but also large expanses of quiet. The north has it`s areas of resort hideousness but also spots of true beauty well away from them. The main thing I liked in the south was that the sea was quieter/calmer, as I am a keen snorkler/diver, though crete is pretty dead for that anyway.
It was the last greek island to visit for us, my 2nd fave after Cephalonia, I think me and the missus have done enough of greece now.

But don`t you ever get bored of beaches?, like when I was younger I thought that was what holidays were, beaches and beach views. And you see everyones holiday pics and it`s just fucking beaches and sea horizons. My in-laws just do beach holidays, twice a year, all over the world, but just fucking beaches, and when we ask how it was, they basically just tell us about the hotel, and the beach they spent the majority of their time on.... Such a waste of money, you can sit and cook on a sun bed in any salon. All you need is a picture of a sunset and a flat watery horizon and you are done.

[Lost to the Void]

I don't want to get into an argument and re-hash the last 16 pages. I think we may disagree on the way out of this mess, but I think we both agree on the fact that the poorest members of the greek society should be the ones to suffer the least (but that never happens).

There is no way out of this mess, Neo-liberalism runs the west, the poorest WILL be the ones to suffer the most.
And there is no end in sight.
I`m reading a really good book about the way that democracy has been captured and overcome by Neo-Liberalism and Post Modernism, what the author calls Capitalist Realism, and why the consideration of any alternative at all is gone from the public and political mind.

I recommend it.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Capitalist-Real ... 1846943175

[Hades]

We had a very quiet holiday away from everyone, which is generally what we always want, well away from anything loud, the north coast isn`t just holiday resorts you know, there`s a lot of quiet inbetween the two main shitholes. I`m not saying the north coast is better (though it is at least accessible), we actually toured most of the east and central side of the island, north and south, and spent time at an observatory on the south east that we rented. The south has a lot more building work and degredation/dilapidation, but also large expanses of quiet. The north has it`s areas of resort hideousness but also spots of true beauty well away from them. The main thing I liked in the south was that the sea was quieter/calmer, as I am a keen snorkler/diver, though crete is pretty dead for that anyway.
It was the last greek island to visit for us, my 2nd fave after Cephalonia, I think me and the missus have done enough of greece now.

But don`t you ever get bored of beaches?, like when I was younger I thought that was what holidays were, beaches and beach views. And you see everyones holiday pics and it`s just fucking beaches and sea horizons. My in-laws just do beach holidays, twice a year, all over the world, but just fucking beaches, and when we ask how it was, they basically just tell us about the hotel, and the beach they spent the majority of their time on.... Such a waste of money, you can sit and cook on a sun bed in any salon. All you need is a picture of a sunset and a flat watery horizon and you are done.

ow, but this will probably be like only the 5th time in my life that I do a beach holiday.
my youth was exactly the opposite from beach holidays.
I grew up only 20min. from the Belgian coast and I always hated it there the older I got.
Now I truely despise it. Not so much the sea, though it's a boring sea, but the crowd, and how 50% of the retired people of Belgium goes to live there permanently...
hell, when my mother-in-law died, we inhereted an appartment there and one in the mountains.
Guess which one we put up for sale asap ? yep, fuck the Belgian coast one.

but here's the stitation : my oldest will turn 8 in november, my youngest 4 in a few days.
you can't really do much more with kids that age than a beach holiday. At least with my youngest.
I was always the youngest of 4 kids, and had lung problems as a kid, so my parents always took us to the mountains in Livigno untill I was 9 years old.
Then I went to Canada for the first time, and then it all started...
They literally dragged us all around Europe and North America.
I swear I've seen pretty much any decent museum there was to see back then.
Of course the biggest part of my "cultural" education was done in Italy and Greece, but they took us to exhibitions of Monet, Van Gogh,
even once drove down to the house of Monet (loved his Japanese garden, hated his French one), visited a concentration camp,...

Trust me, I never ever even had a single beach holiday before I went to Rhodes with my mrs when we were like 22.
And even then we still visited stuff cause there were no kids.
And I hope to "educate" my kids as much as possible later too,
but I can't drag my youngest to a museum of any kind now, or it's gotta be the toy museum.
I once visited Karen Blixen's house in Denmark when we had only our oldest.
The only thing she liked about that day was building a snowman outside...
I think she must have been the age my youngest is now.

Also, the last few years I've worked so hard in my house in my free time all I do in Crète is 5x nothing, cause it's probably the only time I am forced to sit still.
I'm a duracell-rabbit with extra solar panels installed, and the result of not listening to my body is I have a burn-out now.
I've been at home the last few months and yet I still barely had the time to sit still.
I swear one of these days my wife will have to chain me to sit still and relax.

I do read a lot on those holidays, and I try to cut down the internet to a bare minimum, and even though I take along a laptop (and field recorder of course),
I usually hardly make any music at all.

[Lost to the Void]

Belgian coast, the grim grey North Sea.
It's similar here in the UK, a lot of coastal towns have a high percentage of retired folk.

Well, we won't be holidaying for the next few years anyway, just buying a place in London at the moment, I think currently the most expensive city for property in the world again, so as you can probably guess, a frightening amount of money.
On top of that I intend to build a new mastering studio from scratch in the garden, and finishing converting the loft in to a production studio.

So holidays will be a mere dream for the foreseeable future.
On the plus side, there is a big park with a lake 1 minute walk from the front door, rare for London.

[Hades]

Belgian coast, the grim grey North Sea.
It's similar here in the UK, a lot of coastal towns have a high percentage of retired folk.

Well, we won't be holidaying for the next few years anyway, just buying a place in London at the moment, I think currently the most expensive city for property in the world again, so as you can probably guess, a frightening amount of money.
On top of that I intend to build a new mastering studio from scratch in the garden, and finishing converting the loft in to a production studio.

So holidays will be a mere dream for the foreseeable future.
On the plus side, there is a big park with a lake 1 minute walk from the front door, rare for London.

I don't know Steve, skinny dipping nude at sunset in your local park's lake.
even in a place like London people might take offence.

I can see you howling too if nobody notices enough...

[Hades]

btw, just heard the news :
he's handed over a proposal :
no more special deals for the isles and shipping firms,
tax cuts for government employees and a couple of other very reasonable proposals that should have been done way earlier...

but I'm not sure if this is good news or not, to me this sounds like less chaos,
but in reality it still means that the land is getting sold more and more under the table,
and the Greeks (as usual) are paying for it.

[Lost to the Void]

Belgian coast, the grim grey North Sea.
It's similar here in the UK, a lot of coastal towns have a high percentage of retired folk.

Well, we won't be holidaying for the next few years anyway, just buying a place in London at the moment, I think currently the most expensive city for property in the world again, so as you can probably guess, a frightening amount of money.
On top of that I intend to build a new mastering studio from scratch in the garden, and finishing converting the loft in to a production studio.

So holidays will be a mere dream for the foreseeable future.
On the plus side, there is a big park with a lake 1 minute walk from the front door, rare for London.

I don't know Steve, skinny dipping nude at sunset in your local park's lake.
even in a place like London people might take offence.

I can see you howling too if nobody notices enough...

Nah it's fine man, people just assume an ape has escaped from the zoo, if I'm lucky I get a free shot of tranquilliser.

[Hades]

if that's all it takes, I'll join you !

better grow some more body hair though.
I've always had more chest hair than beard, but apart from my chest I'm (thank god) rather unhairy...

[Hades]

some people say they can't stand men with too much hair,
and I thank whoever it is that I'm not the body-hairy type,
but my god, have you ever seen those bodybuilder guys that shave their entire bodies ???!!!
uuggghhh !!!!
that looks sooo gross !!

[Lost to the Void]

Oh I`m not a hairy man, naked ape I should have said.
Hairy shoulders and stuff freaks me out, I think I would bathe in Nair if I was one of those men.
Could never do that full wax that body builders so. Back sack and crack.

[Lost to the Void]

Greece is fucked!!! let`s talk about hair men!!

[Hades]

[Hades]

this is the derailment Pedro was sectrely hoping for right from the start when he began this topic,
I'm fucking sure of it...

[jordanneke]

http://extremehairymen.tumblr.com/

I recommend it.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Capitalist-Real ... 1846943175

Looks good. I'll pick it up. Thanks

[Lost to the Void]

Holy shit

[msl]

Fuck me thats a lot of hair....


.

[msl]

...and why the consideration of any alternative at all is gone from the public and political mind.

Well the possibility is still there, we just need some good examples. I'm a positivist at heart. Fuck Maggie and her no other way bullshit, people are seeing it I think, we've had 30 years of this shit and its only getting worse by the day.


.

[Lost to the Void]

Well part of the argument of Capitalist Realism (or postmodernist capitalism) is that capitalism embraces anti-capitalism as a method of catharsis that makes no difference as mostly it is about redefining elements of capitalism, but never about overhauling the system or looking for any radical change.
It allows it and even uses it as a form of marketing to "sell" the idea of anti-capitalism to those who need it, but on capitalist terms.
The right to protest is used as a distraction to a right to change or have freedom from the system.

Check the book out I linked, it`s incredibly interesting.

[Hades]

Well part of the argument of Capitalist Realism (or postmodernist capitalism) is that capitalism embraces anti-capitalism as a method of catharsis that makes no difference as mostly it is about redefining elements of capitalism, but never about overhauling the system or looking for any radical change.
It allows it and even uses it as a form of marketing to "sell" the idea of anti-capitalism to those who need it, but on capitalist terms.
The right to protest is used as a distraction to a right to change or have freedom from the system.

Check the book out I linked, it`s incredibly interesting.

god damn, just picked up "confessions of an economic hit-man" at the shop yesterday,
together with 2 books of Napoleon.
how fast can one read ?

but yeah, that "protest" thing as a distraction thing doesn't surprise me in the slightest.
like the "free trade" agreements that are nothing but protectionist to the bone...

hey Jordan, how did you manage to steal that pic from Pedro's ass+back from my secret HD ?
I'm just happy you only stole the one without the yoghourt stains...
some of us still have kids walking in and asking "ugh, daddy, what's that ? a monkey ?"
"no honey, just Pedro, don't worry, move on now, nothing to see here..."