Following in the steps..

This is being posted on 17th November 2016, the day after US President Barack Obama took a walk around the Acropolis in Athens during his "European Farewell Tour". Lots of photos in the press. He is now in Germany for a few days and I hope he gets a great reception and send off from the people of Europe. He has had eight years of office trying to do the right thing and being blocked at every step of his path. I liked the guys humour, style, compassion, good sense, decency and he and his family's serving the people of the USA, without to the very best of my knowledge, trying to enrich his personal pocket. He did a lot to repair the damage to the USA's foreign image that had been caused by George W Bush.

As to the Blip photo. My father had been assigned on a mission for British Petroleum Agricultural Division to do tests in Greece on new chemicals and  spraying techniques which didn't use DDT which asince 1962 had become the focus of an outcry from health and environmental groups. It was then banned in 1972. Loads of parallels with the 2016 continuing battle to ban glyphosate (Round Up), the UK being one of many EU countries rejecting a ban. Germany keeps abstaining, the people massively against it, the farmers for it and the biggest horror a German Company has just bought the wretched US concern Monsanto who own sole worldwide rights.

I digress:  So Dad went to Thessaloniki in spring 1970 and set up office in a hotel there and recruited two local agricultural engineers/scientists and set about trials in cotton fields throughout northern Greece. My mother joined him for much of the time, while I was at boarding school in Somerset. During the summer holidays I flew out to enjoy a good 6 weeks of holiday there.

We were also joined for a week by my German Uncle also a George or officially Georg. As part of this stay we also did a car trip through Greece with him ending up in Athens. I can't be 100% sure of the date of the Blip but suspect it was taken the day before Uncle Georg and I flew back to our respective countries from Athens airport. I do know the date and even the flight number of that journey and will post something when I re-find the appropriate photo.

So just like Barack we climbed the time-worn steps and were snapped by the Paparazzi. By my side it's my Mum, not Jackie Kennedy who had married the Greek shipping magnate Onassis two years before in 1968. And no that isn't a secret service agent at the top, nor is the hidden person behind me holding a weapon in his hand - that's Uncle Georg with his 8mm camera.

Well we enjoyed the day, no doubt spending some time looking at the replica Elgin marbles, the originals quite rightly (post-truth) residing in the British Museum since the British  vandalistic looting in 1801-12. No amount of world pressure not even from UNESCO has managed to get the UK government to hand back the booty.