19 December 2004

Fag Five

papastratos 5 packBoy, it's good to be hors des'Etats Unis and run a headline like that ...

I find a kiosk off Capodistriou and ask for a pack of Papastratos 5 ("numero pende"). The man looks blank and holds up a pack of puny pathetic 1.

I nod and pay and assume the good old throat wrenchers of yore have dissolved in the smoke of political correctness.

I look at the pack itself: gone is the proud name of Papastratos and in its place, the name "Assos".

Black bordered text advises me that, "To kapnizma borei na skotosei."

That's all very well, chum ... THen peerazee, and all that ... but, more to the point, boro na ekho ena stakhtoTHokheeo? (Where *is* that Saskia babe when I need her?)

A little digging and hacking and I learn that Homer's chosen gasper was bought out by none other than Philip Morris.

Oh woe! Banish the lyre! Sing not of the downfall of famèd Centaur Eurytion in the house of brave Peirithous during that fateful visit to the Lapithae!

Accursèd be the 15th day of October ~ Ass'o's, indeed.

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