Looming bankruptcy, thousands on the streets in protest and general strikes, there are probably better times to visit Athens. That said the purpose of my trip was to work on the Greece-Croatia fixture in the EURO 2012 Qualifiers and there’s nothing like a vital football match to distract the masses. In between work there was a chance for a spot of sight seeing, but to avoid swathes of loud, badly dressed American tourists I checked out a couple of the lesser know destinations. Being a sucker for football grounds of all shapes and sizes, when I visit any country the ‘to do’ list often features the name of some ramshackle stadium. This time was no different and I soon made my way to the Apostolos Nikolaidis Stadium. Built in 1922, it was until recently home to one of the cities three big teams, Panathinakos. In England, old stadiums rich with history and memories soon get torn down for luxury flats or a supermarket, but ‘The Leoforos’ as it is also known still stands proud. With it’s urban location slap bang in the Ampelokipoi district of the city, it’s very much a surprise that the Greeks haven’t followed the route of many in this country. It took me an hour just to walk around and appreciate the exterior of the stadium such was the variety and detail in the many displays. Even the club have got in on the act, placing huge photos of great moments in their history along the top of one of the stands. When you’ve played in a European Cup Final and been managed by the great Ferenc Puskas, there is much to be proud of and supporters and the club have joined forces to makes sure visitors are aware of times gone by. Alas there seemed to be no way in and unfortunately I didn’t get to see the interior, but even from the outside you can tell it would’ve been something special to see a match there. If football is my number one passion, military history runs it a very close second. Whilst it won’t be on many visitors to Athens list, the Greek War Museum a couple stops down the excellent and cheap metro system was next. As a regular visitor to the excellent Imperial War Museums both in London and Manchester the benchmark was high. That said whilst the Athens version is more traditional (artefacts behind glass cases) than the modern experiences available in England, it’s no less interesting or enjoyable. Such is the sheer number of weapons, medals, pictures, uniforms on show there is almost too much to see. Whilst I’m a partial for anything related to the two World Wars in the 20th Century some of the older material going back hundreds of years were just as fascinating. And not everything was behind a glass cases including a set of fighter jets outside! Certainly worth getting off the well-beaten tourist track if you’re ever in Athens. During the course of work over the next few days I did see the popular sites such as The Acropolis, The Ancient Agora and The Panathenaic Stadium but give me a War Museum or an old football stadium any time. The Greece- Croatia fixture was billed as the Cup Final. A win for the visitors Croatia and qualification for EURO 2012 would be confirmed, but a win for Greece would see them overtake the group leaders and be in pole position with one game left. A red-hot atmosphere spilled over into violence in the first few minutes when this happened….
Seems a group of 100 masked PAOK Athens fans wanted to extract some revenge on the Croatians after an incident in Zagreb in December 2010. Order was eventually restored and until the 70th minute that was as interesting as things got both on and off the pitch. But then Georgios Samaras slammed home a rebound from a corner and the 30,000 Greeks went mental. They did so again soon after, when Fanis Gekas headed home from yet another corner. The sheer elation of both goals was reflected in the wall of sound emanating around the stadium – it was very noisy and for the first time in a while the Greeks were the ones with smiles on the faces. Despite being from deepest darkest Somerset, I’m very much a City boy and if it’s hustle and bustle with a bit of tourism thrown in then Athens is worth a visit. I’ll be honest once you get past the cheap but delicious chicken or pork pittas available seemingly on every street corner, the food isn’t all that. It’s also probably not the best time to assess a city on its nightlife when it’s in the depths of an economic crisis. I’d definitely go back for another football game, one of the Athens Derbies maybe, it’s just a shame it won’t be at the Apostolos Nikolaidis Stadium. Word and pictures: Seb White.
This one has been some months in coming. It's on the way now. Another in our collaboration series - this time with Ben Lamb. And it's a special one! Our first snippet of the piece is Jack and he's had a refill from Lloyd the bartender, but who is he in conversation with? Stay tuned to find out…YHN
Well, after last weeks surprise heatwave it's back to our typical British weather, leaves on the floor, all day drizzle and going dark dead early, it's cold, it's miserable, it's great! The Autumn is well and truly upon us, time for the big jackets, hats, scarves (ours out soon) and boots to come out, we can all pretend to be Bonington and Brown as we nip out for a paper. With that in mind we turn our attention to covering up, and hailing from a town that knows more than a thing or two about hats we'll be doing our bit to carry on the tradition with our winter hats on the way, our signature 'Weir' bobble hat is into it's fourth year, doesn't time fly? we have two installments of three colours, all deliberately limited to just fifty per colourway and as always made in the UK. To accompany the Weir we will this year be offering the 'McMurphy' hat, no prizes for guessing where this takes it's name, this is a premium ribbed woolen hat, or watch cap to give it's proper name, with nice speckly bits of colour yarned in, made for us by Midland based quality hatters Highland 2000. COMING OVER THE NEXT MONTH.
Some amazing photos and a great experience out on safari from a fellow Connoisseur, words and pictures from T25. We arrived in Nairobi after a rather long ten hour overnight flight and were transferred straight to Wilson airport. After about an hour we were on our way, in a small twenty seat Otter single prop aircraft we arrived in Samburu National Park on a small airstrip. We were met by Sebastian a driver for intrepid Samburu. Within a twenty minute drive to our camp we had already seen a number of different antelope, baboons and some water buffalo, and although dry, very hot and with not much flora to talk about we could see that the animals looked to be in abundance. After our briefing and being shown to our luxury tent, we had an amazing lunch, and with an hour or so to get our bearings we were on our first ever game drive. Dominic our driver took us for what seemed like miles. And on it we saw elephants, giraffe and a wealth of birds and antelope. We arrived back just before dark, and with a quick shower it was off to a presentation by a warrior from the local Samburu village. 'Son of Red Bull' or Steve to his friends, gave an informative presentation about his village and the people it inhabited, we hung back to talk to Steve about a potential visit to the village. We took a hundred pencils to donate to a school which he had mentioned the village school, we thought it would be great to visit the village and donate the pencils to a school that relied so much on donations. Five courses of quality food and a decent bottle of red to wash it down with. Bed by 10.30 as we had tea brought to our tent at 6am ready for our next AM game drive. The following day Steven caught us on our return from the afternoon game drive and asked if we would like to visit the village the following day. The event was a man to warrior ceremony, where one goat was sacrificed for each warrior and butchered ready for cooking. Some of the meat was taken and delivered to the elders in another part of the village where a similar ritual took place, the rest was draped over a sacred tree, ready for cooking. Around the tree was a series of fires/BBQ where the ribs and legs were cooked and then placed on acacia branches around the sacred tree. The cooked meat was then cut into edible size portions and skewered on long sticks and offered to each warrior. We too ate meat as the warriors accepted our being there and even posed for photos. We later visited the school and met the Headmaster. Gave him the pencils, signed his signing in book and had a guided tour. There were no kids there. The teachers of Kenya were holding a national strike. Then we were invited into an elders house, a wooden structure covered in dried cow dung, we sat around on goat hides and talked to the woman whose house it was about the village and her kids. Steven was a great interpreter. After a successful game drive bringing us our 1st Lion, he was enjoying a sleep when a rather vexed elephant chased him into a bush. We returned to the camp to meet Steve and Sebastian and made our way to the village. Steven informed us that there was a ceremony taking place which only happened every six or seven years and whilst he would have to negotiate with the leader of the warriors we may be able to see it unfold. He believed no visitors had ever been allowed in and no woman had ever been allowed in and as far as he was aware. Late afternoon we went to the main part of the village where the warriors and young ladies of the village danced and sang, we left about 6.30, apparently the dancing would go on until the early hours next morning. Amazing day. The next day after our morning drive and breakfast we were transferred to the airstrip where we flew to the Masai Mara, again in a small Otter, we landed on airstrip and were transferred to Mara Intrepid which was a two minute drive, instantly the difference in habitat was very evident, much more lush and green almost tropical, and not quite so hot as Samburu. After a short briefing we were shown to our tent, luxury again, with a stunning view up the Mara river. A large Hippo was basking in the sun. We arrived at the game drive meeting point to be met by Sammie our driver for the next three days. 20 years in the job his enthusiasm was very evident and rubbed of on us very quickly. Our 1st afternoon drive and we saw a pride of lions a maned lion cheetah and a leopard. The cats were top of my list to see and over the next three days they didnt disappoint. We also saw elephants, hippos by the truck load' zebra, giraffe, wildebeests and the elusive rhino. On our very last drive we saw a cheetah kill. Top of my list of want-to-sees. And it didn’t disappoint 3/4s of and hour from start to finish possibly the single most exciting thing I have ever seen. After three days in Mara we flew to Mombasa where we relaxed at leopard beach resort for four nights before flying back to Nairobi and then overnight to Heathrow. T25
Artist Peter Root‘s latest work ‘Ephemicropolis’, is pretty astonishing. A metropolis made completely from stacks of over 100.000 metal staples. The stacks of staples were broken into varying sizes from full stacks about 12cm high down to single staples. These stacks were then stood up and arranged over a period of 40 hours. CD
Our 'Midtown' Five Panel Caps are now available to buy, with a choice of three all taking their name from boroughs of NYC, we have the Stuyvesant in indigo Denim, the Caldwell in Grey flannel and the Fairview in a hunting plaid. Made in New York by renowned hat manufacturers, one size fits all and in very limited numbers, these won't hang around. *SOLD OUT in just a few hours, watch this space for more. CD
