God bless Eurovision! Yes, I might mean that sarcastically but I must confess I am of the Eurovision generation, which means I grew up watching it. I love to mock it and snort at the outright tackiness of this musically village idiot song competition, but deep down I love it! I love the blinding colour, the insupportable need it creates in one to imbibe drinks that barbie would drink, regardless if you are man or woman, it is camp and flamboyant and represents the remaining innocence and - every single day of the year apart from Eurovision Night - the inadequacy of 'Advanced Europe' in truly facing the brunt of modernity with a grayly rather than gaily adult mode de faire.
I took the photos posted above at the bottom of Ermou St, next to the tram "bedroom" that was brilliantly decorated by 4 young Brazilian spray paint artists on September 22 (European No Car Day) in 2005. The dancers in the pictures are being shot for a videoclip of the Eurovision entry star, Charpel, whose latino-Turkish plastic jungle beat song 'Maria' and unshaven cheeky, sexy, macho waiter look are representing the Greek nation this year! This area is often used for advert and film shootings, and especially in the last year since what is now the park area that runs down to Pireos St used to be a row of croggy, rat-infested shops and bars. The No Car Day spray art designs run all the way down Ermou on the walls of the tram station and round the corner on its tall walls along Pireos, right across Technopolis. This big block of in-your-face fantasy worlds with real messages only serves to laughingly, poignantly underline the fact that people will pay more attention to what needs to be considered when it is bright with colours and heartfelt ideas. AA
On a recent visit to the Athinas fish market I was fascinated to discover that the hall of fishy food has been nedecked with a row of television screens!! A fish-stall owner told a friend and I that each stall owner paid around 1000E for the screen, and the reason for these TVs is to bring the "new technology" vibe into the place, to show that fish sellers are just as "modern" as everyone else! What was wrong with those lovely white mobiles of fish hanging from the ceiling?? Why can't we at least get away from trashy, distracting, media messages while we're eyeing our red mullet or weighing our octopus? Bah, humbug! AA 
Another old house has been mauled in Pangrati, to be replaced by a generic apartment building.
