Election Fever spawns feverish humour

You might have heard the saying "Fact is stranger than fiction", well it appears that this is one of those situations. The Minister of Transport and Communication has released an official press release regarding the timing of the imminent elections - precise date unknown.

Roughly translated it reads;

"You're asking me? Can't you see? Can't you hear? Aren't you listening?
Why are you asking me?"

Fantastic! Thats what i say.
The man is obviously a clown, the question is, "Why is he still there?"

This follows on from a recent law which 'legalises' over 3000 stremmata of land and brings them into the city plan. By legalising these illegal houses and property the government has effectively green lighted continued illegal housing and as a consequence, the burning of forests (and the death and destruction it causes) upon which more illegal houses can be built and eventually legalised. If there are no ramifications for these actions, why shouldn't they continue to burn and build? It's cheaper than being legal.

One point you may have noticed is that they bring these newly legalised property into the city plan. But surely you ask yourself, first comes the plan, then the building. Unfortunately this is not how things generaly work. Buildings go up first and then public services and utilities are taken to the buildings. That's why Athens sometimes appears to be jumbled up. Roads that suddenly narrow from 2 lanes to one half, plots of land that are 40 square meters next to another which is 100. Some roads with footpaths, others with telephone poles. That's all because city planning has not had a chance to be implemented, with the exception of a few suburbs (such as the Olympic village and land set aside for civil servents [judges, military/police officers] etc). All this haphazard building of course raises the cost of public utilities as these haven't been budgeted for, nor planned in the most efficient manner which takes this issues into account.

We may not have the most organised of cities, but at least we have a funny government we can laugh at - thats something to wipe away our tears.