Naval Architect. Dad. Interestred in maritime environmental issues, sustainable lifestyles, British & Greek politics
Feb 18, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This gives the whole grim picture of Greek trains as old unreliable cars are touted as the next big thing:
-secret contracts, no transparency on mod. works
-understaffed operators, limited know-how
-maintainance hub (Thessaloniki) away from manufacturer
>> investigate-europe.eu/en/2022/etr470…
-high-maintenance, complex cars of respectable age
-very bad track record in DE, CH, and IT.
-poorly maintained infrastructure
-rough terrain, more similar to that of the Aples
Feb 18, 2022 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Smoke is coming out of the entire length of the vessel. Uncofirmed reports of 11 missing. Although the weather conditions and the location are much, much more favourable than those in the Norman Atlantic tragedy, it remains to be seen if those defficiencies found on the NA will
also be reported here. Worth remembering that after the NA tragedy, the Italian CG issued a Circular with instructoins to prevent situations where the lists of embarked people provided by Greek ports were not matching those of the ferry operators.
Aug 7, 2021 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
According to this piece: 1) Greek fire brigade vehicles are old (half of them 30 to 40 yo), and get knocked out with the first fires of the season. 2) the funding requested by forest management agency was 2 to 3 times what they were given. And even that came through
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with delay. 3) the union of forest managers used to be 1200 strong, now it's less than 500, last hires of permanent staff were in 2008! 4) fire services are understaffed by about 4,000 fire-fighters! 5) the average age of the fire-fighters is rather old at over 45 yo (wtf!)
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Aug 5, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
There is quite a lot of anecdotal evidence that fire-fighting resources have been allocated in places that are regarded as "priority" leaving other places, incl. villages exposed. Both in cases of the N Evia fire which was concurrent with the Athens fire and on the fire of West
Peloponnese where the archaelogical site of Ancient Olympia has been prioritised. It is very hard to criticise these decisions, especially at this point in time. I hope we can see independent investigations (i.e. not from SKAI TV) on this issue once we are through the crisis.
Feb 19, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
The more you read about the case of the pedophile (now former) director of the Greek national theatre, the more infuriating it gets. Besides the obvious traumas and pain he has caused, there are huge political responsibilities that lie with the current goverment.
This guy was appointed in the post by Culture Minister Lina Mendoni: 1) with no public job post opening or transparent hiring procedures, 2) while there already were rumours about him being abusive against children (!) 3) despite his past record of being fired from
Jan 18, 2021 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
Νήμα 100% βιωματικό για ΕΙΟ.
Κάθε Φεβρουάριο η Ελλάδα οργανώνει το Athens Eurolymp. Για τους Έλληνες αθλητές είναι εξαιρετικά σημαντικό γιατί μαζί με το πανελλήνιο πρωτάθλημα καθορίζει την κατάταξη (ranking list) και πρόκριση για εθνική ομάδα.
Είναι ανοικτό όμως και σε αθλητές από ομοσπονδίες κρατών της Ευρώπης αλλά υπό κανονικές συνθήκες πασχίζει να προσελκύσει αθλητές εκτός Ελλάδας. Συνήθως έρχονται μόνο αθλητές από Βουλγαρία, Τουρκία, Ρουμανία, Ισραήλ, Κύπρο, Ιταλία. Το 2004 όμως ήταν διαφορετική χρονιά,
Jan 18, 2021 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
This is a very interesting chart and analysis indeed. The negative correlation is, of course, expected but the scatter is surprisingly huge. The countries in the bottom left are in the spotlight here; the worst of all by far seems to be Greece.>
The authors give two valid points: "Possible explanations include governments’ preference for directing emergency funds to support the rest of the crisis-hit economy and of course the possibility that in some of these countries the intensity of the pandemic was relatively weak.">
Aug 31, 2020 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
What a flawed analysis by @nytimes EdBoard:
"An attempt by Germany [to mediate] foundered when Greece announced an energy deal with Egypt that effectively claimed rights to a broad area of the sea, which it did in response to a similar accord between Turkey and Libya." 1/x
In other words, the @nytimes equates the Greece-Egypt martime boundary deal with the blatantly illegal Turkey-GNA deal.
[Article link: nytimes.com/2020/08/30/opi…]
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