An Egocentric Guided Tour

In view of a couple of questions that Tracy asked, I thought I'd be horribly self-indulgent and give you a guided tour of my blog. It won't take long, because I try to keep it reasonably simple and clutter-free, and I wasn't planning to post today, so if you're not interested please feel free to skip straight to the comment section.


Let's start at the top, with my title banner. This is a photograph of the mantlepiece in my lounge. When I started my blog, I didn't have a camera, so I fairly quickly got one, and this was the first thing I photographed with it. The busts are of Bach and Beethoven, and the clock in the middle is a super modern radio controlled one, though it's very nicely finished and looks like an old Napolean clock. Usually my keys, phone and wallet live on that mantlepiece too. The unsightly wire is a speaker cable.

Moving to the first sidebar, we have a very unflattering photo of the blogger, together with my email address. Then there is my virtual clock, which I love. I don't know why more people don't have one.

Under the clock there is a link to Wiktionary, which was added for Bee, who complained that I sometimes use British words that she has to look up.

At the top of the second sidebar is Aimilia Kenevezou, who is the blog's muse. She reads the main weekday news bulletin in her own inimitable style on Cypriot state TV, my main source of information about what's happening in the real world.

Underneath is my blog list. I keep this short - in general it consists only of those blogs that I read on a daily basis. Bee and Jean Knee are at the top of the list, and although part of me would quite like to have everyone in alphabetical order, I can't bring myself to move them down the list. They have been faithfully reading, commenting and hijacking my blog from the very beginning, and are not completely of the opinion that it is my blog. They might be right...

I should also mention Klearchos, since he's not a regular commenter. He has a fantastic blog, which is in Greek, English and Bulgarian. He takes wonderful photos everywhere he goes, describing the places as well as any tourist guide. I don't visit his site anywhere near as often as I should.

Then there's the blog history thing.

Underneath that there are some Linux/Ubuntu logos. Contrary to popular belief, Ubuntu is not a town on the US/Canadian border, but a version of Linux, the computer operating system that I use instead of Windows. The penguin, Tux, is the Linux mascot.

The only thing I've not explained is the title. "o vretanos" is simply Greek for "The Briton", because I first started looking at Greek blogs, and I wanted it to be clear if I commented that I was British, so they'd know why my Greek was so bad. Instead I spent most of my time reading English (or rather American) blogs, and the rest is history...