St-George's today...

St-George kills the dragon... So, there were dragons after all!

Great day for Greece today, as on St-George's day the tens of thousands (if not hundreds) having George as their Christian name, in fact it's Yorgos (Γιώργος), celebrate their name day. It is indeed name-days that are far more important to us Greeks than birthdays (who wants to celebrate the day one adds another unit to his/her age count and grows older so lightening fast). My dad use to be called George (RIP) and a few lads I know, to whom I wish the best and many happy years, despite the country's borrowing troubles. Happy name day too to our poor-sod Prime Minister, who became an instant and infamous celeb recently, George Papandreou, who instead of laying back, enjoying ouzo and writing books or maybe lecturing (easy stuff), he decided to lead the country amidst the biggest financial clusterf**k in their (recent - do I need to add that?) history. Don't you worry Georgie boy. The Krauts and the IMF will be forced to help you after all... they got no choice anyway! Just keep those striker nutcases off the streets and everything's gonna be alright, eventually!

My best wishes for good health and prosperity to all Georges I know and those I don't. My special wishes go of course to George Manos, regular reader of my blog insanity, and my cousin in Volos, George Paterakis, whom I called this a.m. and wished him too, first time ever in my life, I'm ashamed to admit! Also, my eldest son is a George, but we had to adopt the local Flemish version of the name and called him Joris! Yorgo would have sounded too... unFlemish, the spouse thought... He doesn't care much about them name-days though, as he was raised a good Catholic (you wish) and he only minds the birthdays bit. Anyways, Χρόνια Πολλά to you too, son. And enjoy cycling on your vintage Brooks saddle in A'dam. It's gonna be a beautiful day today, sun and warm at last, so hit the pedals real hard and make the best of it!

And... above all, folks, I kid you not : Οπου Γιώργος και μάλαμα...

UPDATE: By popular demand from those trying to grasp the meaning of the four last works in Greek, well, that's the title of a 'classic' rebetika song from my early days in Greece, meaning, "Every George is made of silver"... I was told that in the George Papadopoulos dictatorship days, this was paraphrased into "Every George is a... jerk". Phonetically silver and jerk rhyme in Greek - both are three syllable words with alpha (α) as the vowel used... Anyways, here are the song lyrics (my translation):

As much as I have loved my mother, I have loved you too...
Whatever I owned you have wasted,
and you've left me broke at the end...

It doesn't matter, no worries, may you have it all,
one day you'll be blaming yourself for that,
But my own heart has no substitute
Every Yorgos is made of silver...

Only me it was that felt deep pain for you,
and I have given you everything I got,
And, although I had to taste bitter poison because of you,
if you asked my soul I would have given it to you...

It doesn't matter, no worries, may you have it all,
one day you'll be blaming yourself for that,
But my own heart has no substitute
Every Yorgos is made of silver...