Thursday, June 11, 2009

Euroelections, bats and the cinema

Hello little one.

June 7 was a big day for democracy in Europe - well, it would have been if the citizens had bothered to turn up.

Mummy and Daddy went to vote for the Euro-elections because not to do so would be quite properly idiotic. Did you know that the word idiot comes from the Greek word: idiotes, which means a person who concerns themselves only with their own business. People who did that and did not concern themselves with the common business used to be considered bad citizens - hence idiots! Mummy and Daddy are not idiots and we took you with us to show you how you can also avoid being an idiot in the future. It's not that hard to vote three times every five years.

You attracted quite a lot of attention in your sling at both polling stations. One of the people who took an interest in you was from one of the big political parties. She came up and said to Daddy that she hoped that you would grow big and strong and one day you too could become a member of the Greek parliament. Daddy expressed his opinion that he would rather not see you in parliament, especially the way parliament is staffed at present. When Mummy came back from voting Daddy told her about the lady and Mummy said to him that she would rather see you dancing saucily in a cabaret than having a seat in parliament.

Although Mummy and Daddy are not idiots it seems half the Greek voters decided that this year was the time to become idiots, little one.

When we came home, we put you in your seat and Daddy played around trying to make you look at the bat doll he was holding, with varying degrees of success.




Later that evening, Mummy and Daddy did something daring that they did not expect to be able to do for a long time after your birth. You were now 36 days old, you were happy to be in your sling and so Mummy and Daddy took your changing bag and set off for the "Palas" cinema on Hymittou.

The lady at the entrance said there is no problem for you to go to the cinema without a ticket, so we got two tickets and went up the stairs to the rooftop where they have an open air summer screen. The film we saw was a rather better re-telling of the Angels and Demons story than anyone could have hoped for. Given how difficult it had been for him to finish the novel, Daddy felt quite impressed with how much more interesting the story was when turned into a film. He did, however, have some problems with some out of character behaviour by the cardinals that made it really quite hard for him to continue to suspend disbelief. It seems that you also found it hard and you noisily demanded food about 10 minutes before the end of the film. Mummy fed you and then you slept through for quite a few hours after we got home!

This brief video is from the intermission when you were still soundly sleeping.

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