time, page-11

erso... time... ancient...modern

Kallay emara- (not, good calamari)I didn't get as far as Kronos polli.I've forgotten most of my Farsi, but I remember at New Year well dressed & laughing Persians used to jump over brightly burning fires & and wish everyone blessings for the coming New Year, with the snow lying all around. (Just a country ozzie who lived there a few years in the 60s &70s &had to leave when the killings started.)The only
international fixer I saw was Governor General Kerr greetng the Shah on a windy day at Teheran Airport with a gaggle of Ozzies- and he had the same effect on the Shah,s prospects as on our own dear Queen's, I think ,in retrospect.

I used to get the train & bus actross to Constantinople & one of the saddest things used to be to see
columns,statues, heads of Constantine lying about in the rubbish & traffic with absolutely no concern for their historical value. And to see Aya Sophia as a museum with Arabic (& other discordant notes) everywhere was very distressing & I,m not even a churchgoer. The eviction from Smyrna was monstrous. I always thought if one side got old Byzantium & Adrianople
(?) the other should keep Smyrna as a very minimun. Who to blame- Churchill or Venezelos?
From Xenophon I vaguely remember the 1000 soldiers
fighting their way against the hairy savages of the forests
- so many stadia or parasangs- in Persian controlled Cappadocia from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea.


(Apologies to impatient punters- we should have organ musiic playing in this too long interval while Margaret Rutherford in cap , apron & tray goes around serving chocs & ice creams)