It's rather nice being stuck on this nice comfortable Blue Star ferry, on a grey day and a flat calm, with 6 hours to kill until we get to Piraeus. I've done all my emails, updated blogs and photos, more or less eliminated the last of my alcohol free beers from Vassilopoulos, filed all my scraps of paper, and found my return bus ticket from Chas de Gaulle to Bercy, to catch my bus to Poitiers tomorrow. Which makes me feel better about the €31 it cost, which turns out to have been rather good value. Even if I do have to walk 2kms from the Gare de Lyon to the Flixbus depot in Bercy.
I can't quite get my head around the fact that I'm returning to Bonnevaux. It's not that I'm not looking forward to it, it's just, it's not 'home', yet, maybe, so it's like going to another new and exciting place, more of my holiday or big adventure. And I've been so immersed in being on Naxos, and talking about my project to anyone who'll sit still for longer than 30 seconds, and struggling along in Greek, that Bonnevaux seems like another universe. I felt like I'd been there for a year after 4 or 5 weeks, and now I feel the same about Naxos.
Blue Star catering have excelled themselves. €6.30 for a stale bread salad, and €3.30 for a teaspoon of Nescafe. Someone needs to tell someone that croutons are 1cm cubes of bread, very possibly stale, fried in oil with garlic and herbs, until a lovely golden brown. They are not lumps of stale bread. And it shouldn't need two sachets each of salt and black pepper, to make something taste of anything.
Reading this blog, you might think I was obsessed with money, food, attractive women and alcohol free drinks. I could not possibly comment.
=======
Dear Piglet
Fucking c----s at Aegean bounced me off the flight. Because I didn't turn up at Mykonos, they cancelled my through ticket, and claim to have sold my seat on the Athens - Paris leg - pretty good work given they only had 2 hours notice that they had a spare seat. So I turned up at the gate all ready to go and I get the 'Mr Simpson would you come over here please . . . blah blah' routine. No refund, no alternate ticket, nada. Go fuck yourself Mr Simpson, it's the rules. I actually sent them a detailed message through their website explaining what I was going to do, after I had checked in, which they replied to (a computer type reply, but no hint there was a problem). Anyway, apparently, even though everything (original booking, check in etc) was done via the web, I was supposed to telephone them to tell them there'd be an empty seat on the Mykonos flight. How these companies make money screwing over customers like they were so many cattle in a truck God alone knows . . . . mutter mutter mutter
I knew you'd think my illustrated mss idea was a good one. B'stard. Last time I make an interesting suggestion . . .
I'd go and stay in my favourite hotel (Les Amis in Dilofos) but it seems silly when I'll have to get a taxi back here at 4am.
I have now bought an Air France ticket at 6 tomorrow for €245 - about what my original round trip ticket cost. And missed my bus to Poitiers (endless stream of frustration / rage / expletives follows). S'nuff to drive a man to drink.
yours mournfully
Eeyore
=======
The 'old so you think you're giving up alcohol, well try this' sort of takes the biscuit tonight. Actually I'm not tempted in the slightest. The one thing that will make the next 24 hours a lot less pleasant than it might be is if I decide to get pie-eyed now.
I've bought myself a set of cheap head phones (my rubbish ear plugs have bitten the dust) and am listening to the News Quiz by way of a treat, whilst having a fag outside. At least it's warm.
I haven't mentioned the tee shirt Stuart gave me (he said he didn't like the collar, but he was probably just shocked at the state of the polo shirt I was wearing. It's a rum do when even people who are actually poorer than me start giving me clothes). Anyway, it's very nice. Pale green (so both not my colour, and I never wear tee shirts a.k.a. vests) with the legend
'waste nothing but time
take nothing but pictures
leave nothing but footprints'
which is almost a personal manifesto. Although I feel it's a little negative - I'd like to leave something more than footprints. Lee said that's just ego. She's probably right.
Apostolis said that when there's a royal wedding Liverpool get to the final and the Pope dies. I must visit Paddy Powers and place a bet (on the Pope dying, I think Liverpool have already made it).
I did (visit P Powers). No bets on popes allowed, dead or otherwise, but they have £43.33 of my money, which I have paid out to myself. Nice. I think that must have been Mr Trump.
To Unherd re: Giles Fraser on Pelagius and Jordan Peterson
Dear Unherd
As nothing I send you ever seems to go anywhere, I don't imagine this will either. I can only assume that Unherd refers to your readers (pun intended) as much as it does to your writers. Nevertheless . . .
I've always been a fan of Giles Fraser, on Thought for the Day, the Church Times, the Guardian - less so on the Moral Maze, but more because of the company he keeps and its essentially combative approach to apparently everything. And I am a more recent fan of Jordan Peterson.
I think Fraser gets it wrong on this occasion. I've been through the AA school of self hatred/abasement, relying on a higher power etc. Also Nietzsche's fierce attack on the Christian God. Also Zen and Buddhism's denial of the existence / significance of the self. I accept what Jesus said - unless you give up everything, you cannot enter the Kingdom. But meanwhile, this body, and this world, continue. Here, as Krishna said to Arjuna, action is necessary, the enemy has to be defeated, evil overcome. Both Pelagius and Augustine were right (not either one or tother) and Peterson's message is not in opposition to the Christian virtues of self denial and self sacrifice - quite the reverse. He is precisely arguing that we need to be better than we are, by turning our backs on our vices and weaknesses. If we do it with God's help (as of course any believing Christian believes we do) so much the better. But God helps those who help themselves.
The point is, there needs to be a balance, and the point Peterson is making is that the balance has swung too far in the Augustinian direction, and it's time for a bit of Pelagianism. One of the best things Peterson has said, in my view, is 'don't compare yourself with others' (judge not, that you be not judged), 'compare yourself with yesterday'. There is nothing wrong with effort - it is in fact good for you.
yours hopefully
David Simpson
I can't quite get my head around the fact that I'm returning to Bonnevaux. It's not that I'm not looking forward to it, it's just, it's not 'home', yet, maybe, so it's like going to another new and exciting place, more of my holiday or big adventure. And I've been so immersed in being on Naxos, and talking about my project to anyone who'll sit still for longer than 30 seconds, and struggling along in Greek, that Bonnevaux seems like another universe. I felt like I'd been there for a year after 4 or 5 weeks, and now I feel the same about Naxos.
Blue Star catering have excelled themselves. €6.30 for a stale bread salad, and €3.30 for a teaspoon of Nescafe. Someone needs to tell someone that croutons are 1cm cubes of bread, very possibly stale, fried in oil with garlic and herbs, until a lovely golden brown. They are not lumps of stale bread. And it shouldn't need two sachets each of salt and black pepper, to make something taste of anything.
Reading this blog, you might think I was obsessed with money, food, attractive women and alcohol free drinks. I could not possibly comment.
=======
Dear Piglet
Fucking c----s at Aegean bounced me off the flight. Because I didn't turn up at Mykonos, they cancelled my through ticket, and claim to have sold my seat on the Athens - Paris leg - pretty good work given they only had 2 hours notice that they had a spare seat. So I turned up at the gate all ready to go and I get the 'Mr Simpson would you come over here please . . . blah blah' routine. No refund, no alternate ticket, nada. Go fuck yourself Mr Simpson, it's the rules. I actually sent them a detailed message through their website explaining what I was going to do, after I had checked in, which they replied to (a computer type reply, but no hint there was a problem). Anyway, apparently, even though everything (original booking, check in etc) was done via the web, I was supposed to telephone them to tell them there'd be an empty seat on the Mykonos flight. How these companies make money screwing over customers like they were so many cattle in a truck God alone knows . . . . mutter mutter mutter
I knew you'd think my illustrated mss idea was a good one. B'stard. Last time I make an interesting suggestion . . .
I'd go and stay in my favourite hotel (Les Amis in Dilofos) but it seems silly when I'll have to get a taxi back here at 4am.
I have now bought an Air France ticket at 6 tomorrow for €245 - about what my original round trip ticket cost. And missed my bus to Poitiers (endless stream of frustration / rage / expletives follows). S'nuff to drive a man to drink.
yours mournfully
Eeyore
=======
The 'old so you think you're giving up alcohol, well try this' sort of takes the biscuit tonight. Actually I'm not tempted in the slightest. The one thing that will make the next 24 hours a lot less pleasant than it might be is if I decide to get pie-eyed now.
I've bought myself a set of cheap head phones (my rubbish ear plugs have bitten the dust) and am listening to the News Quiz by way of a treat, whilst having a fag outside. At least it's warm.
I haven't mentioned the tee shirt Stuart gave me (he said he didn't like the collar, but he was probably just shocked at the state of the polo shirt I was wearing. It's a rum do when even people who are actually poorer than me start giving me clothes). Anyway, it's very nice. Pale green (so both not my colour, and I never wear tee shirts a.k.a. vests) with the legend
'waste nothing but time
take nothing but pictures
leave nothing but footprints'
which is almost a personal manifesto. Although I feel it's a little negative - I'd like to leave something more than footprints. Lee said that's just ego. She's probably right.
Apostolis said that when there's a royal wedding Liverpool get to the final and the Pope dies. I must visit Paddy Powers and place a bet (on the Pope dying, I think Liverpool have already made it).
I did (visit P Powers). No bets on popes allowed, dead or otherwise, but they have £43.33 of my money, which I have paid out to myself. Nice. I think that must have been Mr Trump.
To Unherd re: Giles Fraser on Pelagius and Jordan Peterson
Dear Unherd
As nothing I send you ever seems to go anywhere, I don't imagine this will either. I can only assume that Unherd refers to your readers (pun intended) as much as it does to your writers. Nevertheless . . .
I've always been a fan of Giles Fraser, on Thought for the Day, the Church Times, the Guardian - less so on the Moral Maze, but more because of the company he keeps and its essentially combative approach to apparently everything. And I am a more recent fan of Jordan Peterson.
I think Fraser gets it wrong on this occasion. I've been through the AA school of self hatred/abasement, relying on a higher power etc. Also Nietzsche's fierce attack on the Christian God. Also Zen and Buddhism's denial of the existence / significance of the self. I accept what Jesus said - unless you give up everything, you cannot enter the Kingdom. But meanwhile, this body, and this world, continue. Here, as Krishna said to Arjuna, action is necessary, the enemy has to be defeated, evil overcome. Both Pelagius and Augustine were right (not either one or tother) and Peterson's message is not in opposition to the Christian virtues of self denial and self sacrifice - quite the reverse. He is precisely arguing that we need to be better than we are, by turning our backs on our vices and weaknesses. If we do it with God's help (as of course any believing Christian believes we do) so much the better. But God helps those who help themselves.
The point is, there needs to be a balance, and the point Peterson is making is that the balance has swung too far in the Augustinian direction, and it's time for a bit of Pelagianism. One of the best things Peterson has said, in my view, is 'don't compare yourself with others' (judge not, that you be not judged), 'compare yourself with yesterday'. There is nothing wrong with effort - it is in fact good for you.
yours hopefully
David Simpson
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