Madam Rallou is agitated. “A Greek komboloï is not a worry-bead” she insists. It’s a mistranslation. Write it down”. I’ve arrived in Nafplion, one-and-a-half hours out of Athens, below the ancient Mycenae and Argos. It’s December, there is an astonishing 20C outside and I’m visiting Greece’s first and only worry-bead, sorry komboloï, museum. Madam Rallou […]
The church of Notre-Dame-des-Malades, Vichy
The clear highlight of my last visit to the Auvergne was the church of St-Blaise/Notre-Dame-des-Malades in Vichy. Vichy was for centuries France’s prime spa centre with sulphurous and mineral waters which are still prescribed – to be drunk or to be bathed in – for many maladies. Indeed, it was the town’s number of hotels […]
What do you call someone from..
We all know Londoner, Parisian and New Yorker. But what are the names for the citizens of other cities and states? Or, as we call them, demonyms? Easy to make up one by adding -er or -ian (or -ois in French) to the name. But I’ve been long interested in the more obscure appellations and […]