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  • Amok Mama: Advice for Griechenland

Politics

Amok Mama: Advice for Griechenland

Last week, everyone's fave tabloid, Bild, wrote this, like, fairly provocative (but really quite funny, actually) letter to the Greek nation, telling them to get up earlier and stuff. Well, in the pursuit of truth and justice, Rico, Ben and myself hotfooted it to Thessaloniki to check out the current sitch for ourselves.

Last week, everyone’s fave tabloid, Bild, wrote this, like, fairly provocative (but really quite funny, actually) letter to the Greek nation, telling them to get up earlier and stuff. Well, in the pursuit of truth and justice, Rico, Ben and myself hotfooted it to Thessaloniki to check out the current sitch for ourselves. And I wish the Bauarbeiters working on the roadworks right outside our hotel and the hotel next door hadn’t taken this advice quite so literally. SIX-THIRTY in the fucking morning they started drilling this morning. Drill, drill, drill. I mean, chill out, Greek Bauarbeiters. Can’t you just eat some grilled feta or something?

But, God, they’re kid-friendly over here. Oh. My. God. I accidentally bought Rico a laser gun. It is very loud. It spins around and flashes menacingly and makes this penetrating whirring noise which they could basically use at Guantanemo Bay as part of their music torture. I mean, if I sent them this gun in the post the Colonel in charge of thinking up new music torture policies would grin, cheekily, and say, merrily: “That’ll come in useful.” And Rico keeps on shooting it at people. All people. Bauarbeiters, old grannies, teenies, businessmen, trendy students, young mums. And all people – ALL OF THEM, with no exceptions, react in the same way. Okay, first of all, think of what the Krauts would do. They would do one of the following four things: either a) their heads would explode, or they’d b) anzeigen you c) slash their throats or possibly d) throttle Rico. But mostly their heads would explode. But all Greek people, all of them, do the following thing: they look at him, pretend to be scared, put their hands up in the air like they’re in a robbery, grin, laugh, say something to me in Greek, and then stroke his head affectionately. ALL OF THEM! They need to write a letter to the German nation about it.

Rico’s having a whale of a time. He started dancing in the queue at the supermarket yesterday, and a Greek grandpa joined in. Also a man came up to me and told me that Rico was good-looking, handsome and good. He said it in French so I had to translate. As we walked away, Rico whispered: Was he gay or did he just like me? And it’s hot. Okay, it’s not hot, hot but it’s not Winter anymore, man. Rico keeps on walking about in his little cardie, like a True Brit. You can always tell the Brits on holiday from their little cardies. “I can’t believe this is meant to be winter, Mum!” He says with great gusto. “If they think this is winter, they should come to Berlin,” he called out to the sea. “They’ll think we live in the North Poland!”

And later on, he said, thoughtfully: “This is my first time in a land which isn’t Germany or England, huh, Mum?” Yeah, I said. “And now I know,” he continued, “that Germany and England are both a little bit rubbish.”