Saturday 22 August 2009

Ooooh We're On Fire

It has become something like a tradition in Athens Greece, during the summer time –mostly during July and August- a fire to be spreading and burning a great extend of forest ground but also residences.

Same images on T.V every year around same time on the evening news, residents running amok trying to stop the fire and complaining of not having enough help from the authorities.

But I’m one of those who always see the light at the end of the tunnel. I always find happiness and reason to believe even in the toughest of the situations. Think about these facts: 1 Greece, 2 Athens, 3 fire, 4 evening news, 5 top story in 3 international channels…and number 6…of course…*drum roll* FAME!

1: http://www.newser.com/article/d99nlhe00/greek-firefighters-contain-blazes-near-athens.html

2:http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Greece-Forest-Fire-Villages-Near-Athens-Threatened-By-Growing-Blaze/Article/200908415367012?lpos=World_News_Top_Stories_Header_2&lid=ARTICLE_15367012_Greece_Forest_Fire%3A_Villages_Near_Athens_Threatened_By_Growing_Blaze

3:http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/08/22/wildfire-rages-outside-greek-capital/

That’s fame for us folks and don’t pretend you don’t just love it. We are the Greeks who own beautiful islands and charge crazy amounts of money for our famous greek salads and sell cheap impure alcohol to teenage English tourists and then complain about them passing out on the streets, we are the Greeks who became famous for the 2004 Olympic Games and our laziness (we are the Greeks who invented homosexuality as one might would like to add to that…); and to this wall of glory, the bush-fire and conflagration have been added as a “glorified” tradition since 2007.

Two years have gone by and we’re still keeping strong. Burning down the forests, building resorts and villas on the burnt ground. Let me reveal a secret here, that the news won’t tell…the fires and the residents running in panic trying to save the properties is not an accident. It’s another sort of Big Brother, it’s more like an emergency test for the end of the world. It’s an emergency test turned into a reality show which is broadcasted not as a television programme but through the news. Clever huh? Beat that if you can. Take it away Bruce...