HARRY KLYNN ON LINE



SOME OF HARRY’ S LINES THAT WERE INCLUDED IN HIS FREE PROGRAMMES: Even an onion can make you cry, but only a good comedian can make you laugh. Rap up with your laughing please, I have no time to waste. Have you seen what they’ve done with sesame rolls? They’re so small that in the end they won’t be selling us the roll, they’ ll be selling us a hole. What’s the story with social security services? You go in with tonsillitis and they operate you for prostate! A friend of mine had a problem with his bladder and when he went to the social services doctor, he asked to be operated for his appendix. The fun part is that his little bluff worked… They fixed his bladder! The last forest inventory in Greece came out quite optimistic. It seems we have four pine trees left in Vermio and three poplar trees in Konitsa. We have a serious overpopulation problem in the prisons now –a-days, no one wants to escape any more. Where else can you get two meals per day for free? And a word of advice: be kind with your mother in law, baby sitters cost a fortune. It has been announced that the civil servants all over the country will break their eight our strike for a three hour warning labour… Civil servants now-a-days have to go to work early if they want to find a place to sit. Those who are late have to stand and grab the hand hold! In the rate that we burn our forests in this country, pretty soon all the plants we’ll have left will be our politicians You call the Plummer on Monday, 5 p.m to fix the tap and he comes at a 4.45. Same day , same time. If only it were of the same month! Greeks always buy two cars. One to park and one to drive. This way they always have a parking space. A friend of mine quit drinking so that he wouldn’t get a liver cirrhosis, quit smoking so that he wouldn’t get a heart attack, quit sex so that he wouldn’t get AIDS. In the end he got hit by a car! Things have changed a lot since the age of Christopher Colombus. He set out for the West Indies and found himself in America. With Olympic Airways if you set out for India, that’s where you’ll land. But your luggage will end up in America! We are not the kind of nation who will sell out its heritage in monthly installments. Cash however is always acceptable. Any banker can write a poem of no effects. But if a poet writes a cheque of no effects then you’ve got a problem…. There’s talk about a government re-shuffle. What does that mean? As they are all gathered around the meeting table they’ll just move a place on. This Easter there was an ad in the newspaper: A clerk with a spit is looking for a clerk with a lamp for a most promising collaboration. The other day, a car crashed in a store’s main window and the owner said, it’s about time a customer walked in… We have bought a price fixer for products and when we go to the supermarket, we take it of the bag and price the goods ourselves. Every time a go in a department store I remember that novel by Francoise Sagan “ Goodmorning Sadness.” Even the banks have learned to economize! On New Years they gave me a diary with six months! It seems the fire raising came with the sales period this year. Probably that’s why for every three fires we got one for free. Never ask a doctor for a receipt before the operation. There’s always the chance you might wake up later with something missing. New measure have been taken for our water supplies. They’ve connected the water mains to Coca –Cola tanks. If half of our population knew how the other half lives they would also be hustlers. They through molotof bombs at windows and then they pretend to be anarchists. Have you ever considered how much these bottles cost? With the gas price ut to 90 cents a liter, they should they should have their tax returns examined! You call this a new set of tax measures? I call it a whole new ball game! I read a sign that said “First General Hospital” on my way home. Someone had added “And Last” on the side. It’s one thing to be a rocker and another to be a joker. Some women feel that new bathing suits are daring to the point of indecency. The others just have a hell of an ass. Greeks may not Know what they want but they won’t rest until they get it. Rumor has it that he has put a mirror on his bathroom ceiling just to watch himself when he gargles with Listerine. Organized crime holds many different names over the world. In Italy they call it the Cosa Nostra, in America they call it Mafia. Here we call it government! There must be something done really fast about the smog. This morning the birds were not singing they were coughing. Under no circumstance do I mean to imply that with “ Nea Dimocratia” in charge things arent’ going to be any different than when we had PASOK. I just happen to know a few party members who are very sorry they have only one mouth to eat. Advertising is taking control of our lives. I read an ad in yesterday’s paper saying “Tomb for sale in the first cemetery. A bargain for any one named John Papadopoulos.” What have we become? You can’t walk the streets anymore! Even crooks walk in pairs! Thank god for the new police security measures! Last night I was walking home when I realized someone was following me. When I turned he simply asked “Hey mister, have you seen a cop around?” I said no and then he said “ That’s good. Put your hands up!” It’s a miracle how the financial services have been modernized with the new government. Apart from computers, revenue offices now hold ER units as well. It’s true that our European partners are extremely advanced and highly civilized but let us not forget that when Europe fed on roots Greeks had cholesterol problems. They one who laughs last is the one still trying to figure out what I meant. They say that once excommunicated by the church, your corpse won’t melt in all eternity. I had my shoes and suit excommunicated last year but it didn’t work. Nothing lasts for ever except for a bad performance. We live in a very harsh but strange world. Today you have to be extremely brave in order to be a coward. It’s plenty of times that I’ve seen two dogs fighting over one bone. What I’ve never seen though is two bones fighting over a dog. If only the young ones Knew and the old ones could. If it is true about the human body being 92% made out of water will someone get me Claudia Shciffer and a straw please? Today equals tomorrow as we feared it yesterday… Socialism is a system that believes in things must be changed right away, just not right now. I rarely fail, just postpone my success for later. Stupid politicians and mindless voters are usually born for each other. Do you know why we have such a high accident rate in Greece. Because today’s drivers ride tomorrow’s cars in yesterday’s roads. New liberals are the ones too coward to fight and too fat to run. We must admit that we are quite spoiled as a nation. The bad thing about it is that we’ve spoiled our children too. They don’t appreciate anything anymore. Not a good house, neither a good school nor a good life and its modern comforts. You put an air condition unit in their room and they say “So what, that’s essential…” What can you respond to that? “I was sweating when I was your age you little shit!”? It’s bad luck to see a black cat, especially if you’re a mouse. My younger son looks just like his father but that’s Ok, as long as the kid has his health… The only way to avoid the army is to join the Navy or the Air Force. What can you say about Greek people! We need two hours to have an instant coffee. Not all men are idiots. Some just stay single. Comparing to what Adam and Eve had to pay for an apple, fruit is pretty cheap today. The man who invented the alarm clock either thought that people slept too much or worked too little. A girl in your car is worth ten in your phonebook. Nobody wants to die but we all dream about going in Heaven. And then we talk about the high cost of life… pretty soon we’ll forget how to swallow! A steak is an object made of meat that after you’ve heard its price you order spaghetti. There are many accessories to a car most important of which is a fat wallet. Rents are going up, food is going up, fuel is going up, clothes are going up. The way things are going I see a new social class rising in Greece the “poorjois”! I’m so glad the power company is on strike. I haven’t seen my wife for a week. With two watches on your wrist you’re never sure about the time. I go crazy each time I see the parliament meet. Someone is going up the podium talking half an hour without actually saying anything while have the members fall asleep and the other half is going to the mens room. They all disagree in the end. The finest sample of Greek language you can hear on TV. “ The victim took a stab in the back on the chest” Democracy gives you the right to speak your mind even if you don’t have one. Crime activity is way out of control in Athens. The other day a hooded man robbed a bank and while leaving with the money in a plastic bag he got robbed! For those of you who wonder what I’m going to vote in the upcoming election, I can say it won’t be the party that pledge to do the greater good for this country, it will be the one that pledges to do the less harm. The cheaper the politician the more he costs for his country. In Greece we call ignorance an example of a cool head. Unfortunately, the guy who makes bank commercials isn’t the one who grants the loans. Who wants to know anything about the Greek – Turkish Issue or the Greek – Balkan Issue. Biggest problem we have in this country is the Greek –Greek Issue. Nobody does a real job in Greece we just pull a job on each other. We live in a country that is rich in questions and poor in answers. Macedonia belongs to the Greeks, Cyprus belongs to the Greeks, the Aegean Sea belongs to the Greeks… If I hear that Peloponnesus also belongs to the Greeks then I’ll start to get really worried. Modern Greek is the person who has two TV sets in his house, two cars in his garage and two euro in his wallet. The two big problems Greeks have to face today is how to loose ten kilos and where to find parking. When women lay eyes on me they simply fall down. That of course goes for the ones with no feet. In Greece the government has a problem to every solution. It is estimated that within the next three years there will be ten million cars riding in the basin of Attica alone. So who ever wants to cross the road he’d better do it now. With the new measures taken, the only thing circulating freely in the city center will be the smog! With all the exhaust fumes we’ve been breathing I don’t know if we need a doctor or a mechanic… I’m afraid things with our National Telephone Company are only getting worse. Now you need double the time to get a wrong number. Please keep Athens clean. Throw your garbage at Piraeus. There’s no end to technological progress. Yesterday I bought a microwave TV set so I can see one hour programmes in six minutes! The things that happen only in Greece… Now there interrupting the special news bulletins to go into the regular ones. Things are not as bad as they seem… they’re worse… Three columns that have been hosted in the Sunday Edition of “MAKEDONIA” Newspaper. GOODNIGHT COMRADE I see our prime minister on TV always looking at me in discontent, as if it were my fault that his tormented nation stumbles its way to the socialist path of European completion! As if it is my fault that inflation ( and I mean the real number not the one manufactured just so that we are able to stay in the European community rate game) is rising and the unemployment problem is getting totally out of hand… He looks at me always in anger as if it was I who asked for the Olympic Games and the parades and the fiestas. As if it was by my will that ten or fifteen families are now managing all the money in this country leaving out of the share all of those who are now busting their heads trying to figure out a way to squeeze themselves in the game and grab a piece of what’s left of those famous financial aid packs that all had a taste of apart from the poor working man who is now sinking day after day deeper in the morass of financial despair… The other day I was watching a story about a car accident in Argentina that took the life of a few cows giving at the same time food to dozens of poor devils!!! In Greece, government policy accidents always passed, and still do pass food only to those clever sharpers who play the game in both ways (left and right wing style) just as long as they can milk the state cow to the last drop. Yesterday I happened to run into Dinos, a friend from the old days. I was with the left at the time, he was with PASOK. But he said he was with the left, as did PASOK… The poor man was not the kind of person who would squeeze himself into a situation in order to make money. He was in it for the ideology as was the majority of the Greek people who where fed up at the time with the right wing charade and believed that PASOK would actually change things. I liked him because he was pure and each time I cornered him with my leftish mottos he got angry and said that when PASOK would come to power I would see the error of my ways. After the 1981 election he was as happy as a small child. He cried and cheered and shouted “ The people don’t forget what the right wing felt” and other slogans of the sort… I just looked at him and smiled… I knew but he didn’t’… and we kept fighting and disputing over several glasses of ouzo and kept remembering glorious old stories of sacrifices and struggles of the working class! All of a sudden, I lost him around 1993. He left Athens, following the trend of the time: decentralization. He went someplace around Patra and planted peanuts. That’s what the EEC used to say… the future lied in peanuts!!!! I met him yesterday outside a large supermarket, like one of those which squashed the small grocery stores of each neighborhood, the stores that used to be the beating heart of its local society. “Harry…” I heard the voice calling from behind. I turned and gave him an inquisitive look. I didn’t recognize him. An old man now, with white hair and holding a half empty bag in his hand, he looked at me with agony painted all over his face. He realized that I didn’t know who he was and identified himself. “It’s Dinos…” We fell into each others arms and stayed there for a while. “I’m sorry Harry” he whispered with tears in his eyes. “Come on mate” said I, “What’s this now, we’ re a little bit old to be emotional don’t you think?”. “You were right my friend” he said as we clinked our glasses in the nearby ouzeri. “About what?” I asked. “You were right, they sold us out cheap… You always told me and I used to call you pretentious… Where are the better times we were promised? Where is the movement we dreamt? What happened to the proud youth and the honored elders? For who did I fight, Harry, for those imposters that have sat on our necks and suck our blood out with a straw? Did you ever feel this country belonging to the Greeks?” And the tears kept rolling down his face… “Calm down Dinos” said I “ you’re going to get a heart attack”. He felt betrayed as so many others who believed that things were going to change and are now left in anger. I saw that in his eyes. I see it everyday in the market where the middle class housewife thinks of how to get what was once her everyday meal… I see it in the eyes of the clerks whose salary is now no more that two or three bloody euros… I see it in the eye of the university graduate who works at fast food places to get by… I see it in the withering commerce… in the captives of the credit cards… In the slaves of the 0 advance payment and the captives of the 60 installments. I see it in the eyes of those who believed once, but won’t buy now the tale of prosperity of arithmetic… They don’t buy your discontented look, Mr Prime Minister… They don’t buy it because they know. As you do too. Goodnight comrade… THE WEEKLY THOUGHT We may not be bankrupt yet, but we sure do live in the worst period of prosperity that Greece has ever known. MAIL Dear Harry Klynn There’s a lot of discussion going around lately on psychologists, psychoanalysis and psychology in general. Can you please explain to me what psychology is? Dear Friend Psychology is the science which tells us everything we already know but in a way that we are unable to understand. CRISIS When we talk of market crisis, we really mean it. People can’t afford but half a pair of pants! TRUTH AND LIES I can’t understand why a politician meaning to harm his adversaries resorts to lies when he knows he can cause them much greater harm if he just tells the truth. CULTURAL BARS After thousands of years of civilization we have now reached a point where we have security doors in our homes and bars and alarm systems while in those uncivilized countries, people still sleep with their doors and windows wide open… ABOUT DIET I have a friend who has never been on a diet, he eats like a lion and he has never gained a kilo. His lunch is usually about 3 bowls of soup, half a loaf of bread, three pork steaks, 5 greek salads, twelve beers, two pieces of cake and a bowl of vanilla ice cream… and he always weighs the same, 210 kilos… THE HORSES AND THE DONKEY For the dozens of people who lose their life on the free way every weekend, you can certainly not blame the 150 or 200 horses in their car engines. Just the stupid donkey who sits behind the stirring wheel. MONEYTANIC The only difference between the stoke market and the Titanic is that on the Titanic they had a band. SALES How high are prices going to go in this land? Yesterday I went to buy a pair of shoes. “How much is it ?” I asked the girl and she said “ 250 Euros”. I went out of my mind! “How can it be?” I mumbled “ I wonder how long will this price situation last” “Till tomorrow” she answered “it’s the last day of sales”. THE WEATHER It’s high time we realized that politicians do not consider themselves to be a part of this country because they think this country is a part of their selves. GREEK NOIR It was a wild night…. The sudden storm and my almost empty pockets had kept me glued to the old armchair of my ever so filthy office. I owed three months rent and the landlord had already started to groan about it. The cleaning lady walked out on me about a month ago. The central heating was never lit at night so I took my last bottle of brandy out of the paperback and filled up my dirty glass. It was about six in the morning and dawn was slowly breaking. By the second sip I really started to relax. Pulled back my armchair, lowered my hat to cover my eyes and stretched my legs… My mind took a trip down memory lane… to the good old days… Our people in power, the most beautiful girls laying at our feet, the best clothes in our wardrobes and permanently reserved seats in the best clubs… There’s nothing left out of it now… Despina Vandi is about to sing in Aristotelous Square for the bargain price of 111.500 Euros. In parliament, Kedikoglou is accusing Giannopoulos of being a traitor and Giannopoulos retaliates calling him mentally insane. Thermaikos is polluted with petty bourgeois urine, Mikis suffers from exhaustion out of so many “honorary” ceremonies, rumor has it that Labrakis has been bought by EUROBANK and Panathinaikos is close to hitting rock bottom in the Champion’s League! How did we end up to this? I was sure that it was all because of the Americans and their New World Order. But the profound analysis of Mr Tzanetakos and Mr Nikos Dimou on the TV had shaken my faith. I lifted up my collar. Won’t the landlord ever light up that central heating? This third and last sip should keep me warm. My eyes stare at the small globe situated on my desk. I cannot see Greece… There it is… Tiny… No more than a dot… next to nothing… I’m thinking that we’ve got giants collapsing here, looking at the size of the former USSR… What will happen to the great Russia of Vladimir Ulianov Lenin, I wonder. Will the newly founded democracy experiment work? Cause if you have eggs you can make an omelet but if you have an omelet how can you make an egg? Time on my CASIO QUARTZ strikes 7.00. I need a double coffee, black, with no sugar. I slowly went down the stairs, rapped my scarf around my neck, pressed my hat against my head, lifted my coat’s collar up and stepped out the door. It was still pouring. I stopped at the arcade news stand to take a peak at the athletic newspapers. “A mixture of Maradona and Gidane are the two new French players of PAOK”. Imagine what great players they must be, I thought. It was good thinking on the president’s side to get them. Having taken my taste of sports I turned to the political daily press. «A message of victory was the speech of Karamanlis in Karditsa” wrote the headline of “Eleftheros Tipos”. “Vradini” seemed to be a bit more reserved- “Karamanlis got them by the balls”. I bought the current issue of PLAYBOY as I did every month to cure my depression. I sat at “GOODY’ S” to enjoy my double espresso since my wallet contents kept eggs and bacon out of the question. Coffee and reading, the best breakfast in the world. “As long as we live, we’ll hope” is what my old man used to say but I don’t think he had Simitis in mind. My weary eyes popped out at the sight of “Big Brother’s” contestant, Mary on the cover. I finished my coffee, put the PLAYBOY under my coat to avoid getting Mary wet and headed for the office. I knew of course that no one was expecting me. I gave a quick nod to the landlord and moved on. The atmosphere was milder now. I left Mary on my desk and hanged my coat and hat on the hall stand. I laid down on the armchair and closed my eyes. How did everything get so old, so quickly… The people, the ideas, the slogans… Greece belongs to the Greeks… The successful experiment of modernization… Greece can be better… Proles of the world unite… Simitis, Karamanlis, Papantoniou, Gianna Aggelopoulou – Daskalaki, Damanaki, Mitsotakis, Papariga, the syndicalists of the workers union… These people must have been old even when they were young… And those weary voices on the radio… Imagine, we discovered the free radio at a time when we have nothing to say! Then you have television on the other hand with its tv games and soap operas and Big Brother… That’s also a problem… it’s tough to find something pleasant to broadcast in between the commercials… In Greece, nothing ever changes… I think that was the case from the very beginning… We just didn’t realize it… Or maybe we didn’t want to… We got comfortable living with lies at some point… After all isn’t that what kept us going all these years? I opened my eyes. Mary was still on my desk only now she was smiling at me… THE THOUGHT OF THE WEEK We sail to the unknown with hope as our boat And now that the boat is sold we’ll just try swimming there. TV TORTURE The torture of the average viewer. They strap you to a chair and then they start showing you from Big Brother to no matter what…. SQUARE REASONING The church holds an irrefutable logic. When you talk to God you’re supposed to be praying but when god talks to you, they say you’re insane. HURRY UP… If you want to send Christmas cards for 2003 you’d better send it now if you want to them to arrive on time. REGULARS AND TEMPS These things happen only in Greece. Temporaries assigned to the public sector remain temporaries for ever. That would make them regularly temps. WHO CHEATS ON WHO My wife thinks that half a kilo of feta weighs three hundred grams. WITH A FAIR WIND Have you ever stood in an underground pass after a rainstorm? There is no way you can pass. But if you have your raft with you, you can just drop the car, through the raft in and if the wind is fair you can go all the way to Nea Krini! BETTER LATE THAN NEVER Traffic in the center of Thessaloniki is a killer. Some poor chap was trying to reach the hospital because his wife was going to labour and by the time he arrived the baby was changing teeth! MARK ON THE FOREHEAD Pretty soon we’ll all be going around with a stamp on our forehead so that we know who did his income statement and who hasn’t…. Thank God for Andreas and his promises… THIS IS THE BALKANS HERE There’s chaos in the Balkans... The Albanians are killing the Serbs, the Serbs are killing the Croats, the Croats are killing the Muslims and the Greeks kill each other. THE WEATHER It’s high time we understood that if politicians were paid according to their qualifications they would be starving to death! YOUR MIND AND A POUND Athens: The proclamation of English as the secondary official language of Greece suggests Ms Anna Diamandopoulou – our Social Affairs Delegate in Brussels- in an interview published in “Kathimerini” daily, as she believes that the multi-language issue will be a major one for the European Union especially after its expansion. That’s right Annie, there you got it! Good for you, as we simple folk put it, because this story’s full of holes and god knows who can mend it. But that’s ok, you did your job. The bosses said, feed them this bullshit to see who’s buying and then we’ll take it from there to polish up the edges. So you took a big breath, told your story and let the chips fall where they may. And that’s good for you, professionally speaking of course, since you wouldn’t believe in such fame even in your wildest dreams, when you were starting out from your little village, where the doorman wouldn’t even say hello… And since the subject came up, it seems you’ve taken great pride in this Delegate business… Delegate my arse, as if we don’t know that others pull the strings and then make stalking horses like yourself believe that they are in charge… But of course how could such a thing pass through your mind, that the high and mighty fancy having an aron boy to do the dirty work and then laugh at him on top of it… So here come the powers that be and say, well since we’ ve got these stupid fools dying for glamour and life style and Mary Skordou from Kolonaki to Trikala, why don’t we have our stooge break the news and then we see what happens… And thank god for them that there exist nice girls of good upbringing and piano lessons like you to do the job while they milk the cow. You see, my dear Annie, people like the Serbs, the Albanians, the Roumanians, or the blacks, they can manipulate any time they please. But how can you handle, Plato, Aristotle, Epicouros, or Thoukidides… We chewed Marx and Engels to the last bone so let’s get down to those Greek bustards before they give birth to another trouble maker and waste all our good work bringing the world were we like it. Take their language away from them , and consequently their thought and conscience and then let them stare like sheep at the supermarket shelves and drool over the naked chicks on the idiot box, drool over Big Brother and Small Sister… In thirty, forty years tops we’ll be done once and for all with this “slavery of the Greek Spirit” issue, as one of those in power had put it, and for that they named streets after him and shopping malls. The part I like most is that you act philhellene on top of all, my dear Annie, trying to convince us that you want to protect us from the humiliation we’ll feel when we won’t be able to buy 3 kilos of salty tunny and 2 kilos of apricots because we won’t be speaking English fluently. Check out, people, what this modernized brain has perceived and all of this time we, poor suckers, believed in the old motto “The wolf chases the lamb and the lamb goes to the temple” You’re right Annie, first thing tomorrow από αύριο πλακώνομαι στο how do you do και στο your mind and a pound and the painter's brush… IGH COST The way things are going I wouldn’t be surprised if I see people selling their jackets for spare parts CORRESPONDENCE Dear Harry, I’m forty year’s old and have a weight problem. All my attempts to go on a diet have failed and my friends and family suggest that I should go to visit one of those health and fitness centers. What do you think I should do? Dear Friend In a little while there will be no reason to visit such a center and spend your money in loosing weight. When you hear what we will have to pay next year in taxes you’ll be forced to go on a diet whether you like it or not. Dear Harry Is it true that they intend to put tolls in the entrances of Athens in order to gather the money to build the metro and the new ring road? Dear friend What can I say; I wouldn’t be surprised if they placed parking meters in front of our houses so that they can get 100 drachmas for every half hour we stay in. SUGGESTION Here’s a good suggestion to deal with car accidents on the freeway. They can increase the toll rate to 200.000 drachmas. This way we’ll be needing one month’s paycheck to drive to Athens so the plane ticket will cost cheaper. MAJORITY In one of the last parliament sessions a few of the members felt cold so they asked the chairman Mr Kaklamanis to light up the central heating. His answer was: “We can’t light up the heating just for four people, you’re not in the majority” THE WEATHER The other day we were watching the weather forecast on TV and as soon as it was over the spokesperson stated emphatically “After the end of the forecast we bear no responsibility to its verity”

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