I’ve just got back from an idyllic few weeks in Crete, staying mainly off the beaten tourist track as my propensity for a Malia all-inclusive sun, booze and sex fest isn’t that of a teenager, or indeed those Malia-bound much older types always encountered at UK airports, typically wearing football shirts, jogging bottoms, sliders with white socks and of course all bearded and heavily tattooed (and that’s just the Grandma).
I thought it might be informative to describe some recently observed differences between post-Brexit Britain and masochistic still EU-loving Greece.
Firstly, Greeks on the whole don’t appear to think it odd that the UK chose to leave the EU. This contrasts markedly with the opinion of German tourists in Crete, who bizarrely all seem to think that the British no longer travel abroad, and that we have retreated to our fortress isle and now have nothing whatsoever to do with other EU countries. They seem genuinely surprised and puzzled to encounter any Brits. No doubt their confusion is EU / MSM induced – even bilingual, and otherwise intelligent people have fallen for it. Sound at all familiar?
The reason I personally believe that countries like Greece still seem to think membership of the EU is essential, is because individuals take no notice whatsoever of its bureaucratic rules and pronouncements, whilst loudly pretending to. Greece also has a small population of under 11 million, and is reliant on importing just about everything that isn’t edible. Additionally, the EU is a lucrative gravy train for local politicians, and a source of relatively easy infrastructure development money.
Greeks love bureaucracy – or rather they don’t because it seldom applies to them personally – and will make a meal of the simplest things. Having said that, if you dare to be a foreigner then you’ll be made to do everything by the book. Whilst Greek chemists, doctors, dentists and vets operate in ways that we in the over-regulated UK can only dream about, other ‘professions’ and ‘services’ operate with an iron fist, total inflexibility and at sloth-like speed. Obtaining a SIM card or buying a flight ticket if done via a phone shop or a travel agency takes forever (avoid), plus you’ll also need your passport and will be left standing if a Greek customer walks in. The simplest bank transactions also take forever; all banks have two electronic doors which often result in the hapless customer being stuck in a glass holding cage unable to get in or out again. Once in the bank, inevitably the queue will be long with only one teller working, while others pretend to be busy doing something far more important than serving customers (unbelievably far worse than UK banks). Try paying Euros into your own Greek bank account, all the banknotes are counted twice by a machine and then a large duplicate statement printed out for signature. This all seems reasonably hi-tech, but the teller is usually adept at making the automated transaction last as long as humanly possible, and the customer in front of you inevitably appears to be doing the annual banking for a multinational corporation and will receive, and slowly sign, so many statements that batches require stapling together, and of course, a long social chat is routine.
All this though pales into insignificance if you require any building, electrical or plumbing work. As if it wasn’t already difficult enough (as a foreigner) to source a contractor, they inevitably turn out not to actually be a contractor themselves, but an architect or someone who claims to be an architect. The (foreign) customer isn’t given the luxury of saying they just require X, oh no. They’ll be told that’s quite impossible as first detailed architectural plans are required, and planning permission must be sought and expensively paid for with an uncertain outcome and a very long decision time (even for minor repairs they, wrongly and fraudulently, claim). Query whether this is necessary whilst pointing to work happening just up the road clearly without any plans, permissions or building control standards and be prepared to be shouted at for your English stupidity.
Brexiteers abhor the £UK squandered by Brussels on infrastructure improvement schemes that were often OTT or ill-conceived. Whilst I don’t know with certainty if this was an EU funded project (most probably though), there is on the immediate outskirts of old Heraklion an extensive sea front development of promenades, water features, sculptures, gardens, play and seating areas including a forlorn shopping centre etc, all leading up to the 2004 Olympics Football Stadium and the city beach. Not only is this development virtually deserted, litter strewn and heavily graffitied, it’s literally already dropping to pieces. There is an impressive modern footbridge from the promenade over a disused mini-harbour of sorts, leading onto a short boardwalk to the beach – this is now blocked at both ends meaning a long detour to the beach (admittedly not really a tourist beach) through a residential development that one suspects may contain the Airbnbs that claim to be luxury city centre pied-à-terres, but which must surely be a no-go area on foot after dark(?). This development doesn’t exactly abut the beach though, next comes a derelict (presumably once industrial) site of an acre or more of crumbling concrete buildings predominantly, now full of household refuse and a few Roma squatters. Why the bridge hasn’t been maintained or this environmental eyesore disaster area bulldozed is a mystery that I certainly can’t fathom. Don’t though let me put you off, Heraklion proper is an attractive city break destination that is still greatly underrated, compared to the increasingly twee and now overpriced Cretan tourist charms of Chania and Rethymnon.
Martin Rispin has had a career in many different sectors, most lately in the fields of English Tourism and Heritage based Urban Regeneration. He now lives, retired, in Kingston upon Hull.
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Even in Greece there is of late a noticeable creep of officialdom, once chemists would sell customers just about anything over the counter – now some refuse and claim ‘prescription only, see a Doctor’, yet the one next door will happily sell you as many packs of x as you might require and frequently at a miniscule price. It’s always been unclear to me if this is because Greeks are predominantly hypochondriacs (they are, hence significantly more chemists than anything else) or just have a tradition of independent decision making when it comes to self-diagnosis. Most though willingly embraced masking and vaxxes (further evidence of hypochondria?).
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