History is littered with tales of heroic last stands, usually against forces much bigger than the defenders, there was Rorkes drift, The Battle of Gandamak and The Battle of the Imjin River all fought by British troops, the Alamo and Battle of the Little Bighorn by our American cousins and the immortal Camarón which established the Foreign Legion as one of the world's elite fighting forces.
Predating all of these was the Battle of Thermopylae in Greece when King Leonidas and his Spartan soldiers, accompanied by a force of allied Greek city states, held back a much larger Persian force under Xerxes for three days in one of the most memorable and eulogized last stands in classical antiquity. Well now we have another last stand on the island of Greece to rank up there with the battles of antiquity.
Bimbo Bishton, who we occasionally work with, has for a number of years provided Victorian carousels for the Christmas event in Athens. A venture which has proven both lucrative and enjoyable over the years. This year however there was the little problem of a major riot taking place after the shooting dead of a young Greek boy. The rioters went berserk in the city square and flattened pretty much everything, setting fire to hotels, shops, cars and anything else that took their fancy. Slap bang in the middle of this stood alone the slightly portly figure of Bimbo armed only with 3 fire extinguishers, facing a crowd which Bimbo estimated at 100,000, but the BBC world service claimed to be around the 10,000 mark (I suppose when you are facing them alone it looks more like 100,000).
I spoke to Bimbo about the events and he explained one particularly tense moment. It seems a young Greek man was holding a petrol bomb in one hand and trying unsuccessfully to strike his lighter in the other, all the time Bimbo was trying to convince him not to set fire to his ride, (Bimbo told me at this point he was debating wether or not to kick the said young man in the testicles), the potential arsonist appeared to be taking no notice of Bimbo when his lighter suddenly flared to life, he looked at Bimbo, shrugged his shoulders and promptly threw the bomb at the giant Christmas tree, so really it is Bimbo's fault that the Athenians lost their famous tree. As the night wore on our intrepid hero was stoically holding his ground when a cloud of teargas drifted his way and proved to him why it was so named, Bimbo said that at this point he was more interested in water for his eyes than in guarding the carousel, but luckily for him one of the rioters explained that water is no good for tear gas, you need lemon juice to neutralise the chemicals and obliged by providing some I can catagorically state however that roumors Bimbo is thinking of setting up a Jif lemon stall at future events are untrue.
Thankfully both Bimbo and the Carousel survived the evening. Bimbo even remarked at how civilised the rioters were, as he put it, there were very few injuries and signs of violence against people, it all seemed to be directed at property, indeed one vendor in a street kiosk remained open throughout the riots and wasn't molested in any way.
|
Predating all of these was the Battle of Thermopylae in Greece when King Leonidas and his Spartan soldiers, accompanied by a force of allied Greek city states, held back a much larger Persian force under Xerxes for three days in one of the most memorable and eulogized last stands in classical antiquity. Well now we have another last stand on the island of Greece to rank up there with the battles of antiquity.
Bimbo Bishton, who we occasionally work with, has for a number of years provided Victorian carousels for the Christmas event in Athens. A venture which has proven both lucrative and enjoyable over the years. This year however there was the little problem of a major riot taking place after the shooting dead of a young Greek boy. The rioters went berserk in the city square and flattened pretty much everything, setting fire to hotels, shops, cars and anything else that took their fancy. Slap bang in the middle of this stood alone the slightly portly figure of Bimbo armed only with 3 fire extinguishers, facing a crowd which Bimbo estimated at 100,000, but the BBC world service claimed to be around the 10,000 mark (I suppose when you are facing them alone it looks more like 100,000).
I spoke to Bimbo about the events and he explained one particularly tense moment. It seems a young Greek man was holding a petrol bomb in one hand and trying unsuccessfully to strike his lighter in the other, all the time Bimbo was trying to convince him not to set fire to his ride, (Bimbo told me at this point he was debating wether or not to kick the said young man in the testicles), the potential arsonist appeared to be taking no notice of Bimbo when his lighter suddenly flared to life, he looked at Bimbo, shrugged his shoulders and promptly threw the bomb at the giant Christmas tree, so really it is Bimbo's fault that the Athenians lost their famous tree. As the night wore on our intrepid hero was stoically holding his ground when a cloud of teargas drifted his way and proved to him why it was so named, Bimbo said that at this point he was more interested in water for his eyes than in guarding the carousel, but luckily for him one of the rioters explained that water is no good for tear gas, you need lemon juice to neutralise the chemicals and obliged by providing some I can catagorically state however that roumors Bimbo is thinking of setting up a Jif lemon stall at future events are untrue.
Thankfully both Bimbo and the Carousel survived the evening. Bimbo even remarked at how civilised the rioters were, as he put it, there were very few injuries and signs of violence against people, it all seemed to be directed at property, indeed one vendor in a street kiosk remained open throughout the riots and wasn't molested in any way.
|