Because Manners Matter/Net etiquette

Manners matter everywhere. They make our life pleasant and facilitate our social communication. So there are some rules and standards how to communicate in the cyberspace . The author of these rules is Virginia Shea. You will find more information and details in her book "Netiquettes" published by Albion books.

Let’s keep any eye to her suggestions about how to behave in the cyberspace then. Enjoy it!

Rule 1: Remember the Human :The golden rules our parents taught us was pretty simple “Do not do to others what you don’t want the others do to you” Stand up for yourself, but try not to hurt people’s feelings.
Rule 2: Adhere to the same standards of behavior online that you follow in real life People some time forget there is a human being on the other side of the computer. Some people think that a lower standard of ethics or personal behaviour is acceptable behaviour in cyberspace
Rule 3: Know where you are in cyberspace What is perfectly acceptable in one area may be dreadfully rude in another. Netiquette is different in places. It is important to know where you are
Rule 4: Respect other people's time and bandwidth . Bandwidth means storage capacity of the host system. You are not the center of cyberspace !!!
Rule 5: Make yourself look good online. As in the world at large most people who communicate on line just want to be liked. So the only characteristic that you can be judged by is by the quality of writing!!
Rule 6: Share expert knowledge . Don’t be afraid to share what you know. Sharing your knowledge is fun and makes the world better place
Rule 7: Help keep flame wars under control . Flaming is what people do when they express a strongly held opinion without holding back. The Netiquette does forbid the perpetuation of flame war
Rule 8: Respect other people's privacy The moral of the netiquette is failing to respect other people’s privacy is not just bad Netiquette. It could also cost your job
Rule 9: Don't abuse your power . Some people in cyberspace have more power than others. This doesn’t give you the right to take advantage of them
Rule 10: Be forgiving of other people's mistakes . If you decide to inform someone of a mistake point it out politely and preferably by private e-mail than in public. Give people the benefit of the doubt!

Penelope's Amsterdam

What a coincidence, I and Ian Mc Ewan were at the same place, month and weather. On a chilly February McEwan set up the plot of his novel ‘Amsterdam’. I, I was gliding through the narrow streets along the canals with my 4x4 bicycle. The bravery of doing this was probably flowing from my Greek genes(absence of self-consciousness). Amsterdam is a friendly, relaxed, cosy and at the same time cosmopolitan city with underneath seething problems created by the second generation immigrants mainly Moroccans and Turks. In Amsterdam, there is a relaxed approach about everything, somebody doesn’t need to be pop star to get easily drugs and sex, despite this, the latter trade is shrinking. One part of Red Light District is converted to shops; probably the shopping is getting more hedonistic and profitable in the 21st century!

There is a controversial issue as well, they seems to care about saving the Earth by using bicycles everywhere, but on the other hand, the lights in their houses are permanently on. The apartments are like theatrical scenes lightened without curtains. They like to see and to be seen, it has to do probably with the Calvinism, no sin to hide, or no curtains to buy!

Plenty activities for the children, the best science museum (Nemo) I have ever seen. The building was like a boat and inside a lot of fun. Learn about science by doing. The new National Library is an exquisite library model to see and the traditional Museum of Van Gough and Rebrandt... for some more culture.

It was a nice break in this relaxed humane environment after the formal structured society in England.Whatever concerns Athens is very exotic to be compared with! But we have put our stamps everywhere, in the window of a central bookshop the Grave's book about Greek myths. Click a snap of it and Johnny will be the happiest man ! And .... Greeks everywhere..we are starting to be travellers!

VANITY

On the roads again Johnny and I. We went to ‘town’ to the National Portrait Gallery in London to see the glossy selection of the ‘best’ Vanity Fair portraits of celebrities by famous photographers , Helmut Newton, Annie Leibovitz, Mario Testino....etc. They had captured with their lens the vanity of 'la crème de la crème' of Hollywood , Royalty , Politicians .... In the entrance was Diana, behind, her son William, opposite him , Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley (which I managed to take a photo, very naughty) and many others.
On the way back, Johnny said “I didn’t see any Greek person around or among the famous photographers or photographed?” phishing for a naughty response.
“Darling Johnny , we don’t do Vanity the Greeks!!!” If only ....

Love is in the air. Athens by night by day and for ever!

Yessss!! Yesss!! I wanted to shout. I felt the same euphoria as somebody feels after a good orgasm. The reason was not Johnny who was lying next to me unconscious but James Owen. It was early in the morning and Johnny was still sleeping and I was reading the newspaper which the paper boy had just delivered. Despite his unconsciousness I couldn’t resist to ask him “Do you know James Owen”. Johnny woke up after my persistence and said “why you ask?” “Because I just found the right Englishman I should have married”. Johnny answered back “What a coincidence, me too the right woman, see Carla Bruni.” Johnny is an expert to answer back like a flush.
The reason of the above feelings towards James Owen was nothing more than his article in Financial Times. The best thing I have ever read from an English person about Greece and specifically about Athens, my city. He wrote an article about Athens without irony, caustic remarks, bitterness, and snobbery. Everything is in moderation and sympathy and a bit of love. You can’t but love him.
Enjoy then, bits of the article: For the full article see http://www.ft.com/ james owen)
“What I love about ... Athens......Where they still throw flowers
Winter is not the season one associates with Athens, but this is when those who love this dishevelled and ageing beauty reclaim her. ...There is nowhere like Athens, I find for self-examination. “Know yourself, “advised the Delphi oracle, “nothing in excess”.....
For me, its jumble of streets and the happy aimlessness of the crowds that flow up and down then still lends it the exoticism of an Ottoman city...
A race, I thought, of merchants and hypochondriacs. I grew to know and love them better.
About Zonars..This is the new Athens all about seeing and being seen.The society matrons are still there, with their fur wraps and gossip..
The Athenians like spectacle, catching a show, or some bouzouki music. It’s quite glitzy, very Greek.........”

P.S. I got my laptop and I started my research about James Owen, age, look...etc. I got a glimpse of Johnny with a worried expression and gently I handed on the Sunday Times to him with the picture of Carla Bruni!

I have a dream

H Δέσποινα μου ζήτησε να γράψω κάτι για τα δικά μου όνειρα ! Και εμένα μου ήρθε στο μυαλό ό περίφημος λόγος του Martin Luther King στην Washington το 1963 "I have a dream"
Απολαύστε λοιπόν κομμάτια από το λόγο του Martin Luther King
I Have a Dream

"I have a dream today"
"Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true."

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
"I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream"
"I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character".
"I have a dream today."

P.S.The Art of Rhetoric! The repetition and the anaphora of the the same sentence makes a simple speech powerful to convey a message to the mass of people.

Υ.Γ Ολα είναι συνειρμικά λοιπόν, Ονειρο Δεσποινα Ουάσινγκτον Ομπαμα Μαρτιν Λουθερ Κινγκ!!!!!

Johnny or Newspaper

I love to read newspapers or better I am addicted to reading them! I am not sure yet, what attracted me first, Johnny himself or the newspaper he was reading! The first time I met him it was in the University’s restaurant, he was sitting next to me but I could not see him very well because he had buried himself in the Guardian. Some of my thoughts then, I don’t know which was first or second, were “how dare this man ignore me!” “hm.. nice opportunity to have a quick look at the news by the infamous way of lathranagnosis”. The Rest is History! After so many years I have distinguished my favoured journalists and I follow them, one of them is Andrew Marr, an authority in British journalism who knows very well the ‘trade’ and he gives some suggestions how to read a newspaper:

1. Know what you’re buying. Who owns the paper and who it is being published for.
2. Follow the names. For the Whitehall matters, Peter Riddell of the Times and Richard Norton Taylor of the Guardian, for Books Robert McCrum of the Observer (interestingly ,he says almost everyone in the media publishing world will read him!) For restaurant Deborah Ross of the Spectator, she is the funniest restaurant reviewer!
3. Read the second paragraph; and look for quote marks. The key facts are always in the next to the first paragraph
4. If the headline ask a question try answering ‘no’
5. Read small stories and attend to page two...
6. Suspect ‘research’. Hundreds of dodgy academic departments put out bogus or trivial pieces of research to impress...
7. Remember the news is cruel! Reading the awful things that people apparently say about each other.... can be depressing.
8. Believe nothing you read about newspapers sales-nothing. Newspapers sales have been falling in Britain for a long time.

P.S So if you are a newspaper worm keep the above tips in your mind!