Greece Is The Word

Anybody Seen John Travoltaopolous?

Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON

Okay, there's a bottle of ouzo at stake if you can tell me where this picture was taken. On the main street in Athens, perhaps? On one of the sunny Greek islands, maybe? Perhaps Corfu, the place immortalised in Gerald Durrell's description of about his childhood in `My Family And Other Animals'? It was just a photograph waiting to be taken, I reckon. Whitewashed shop front. Blue slogan painted across it - nice patriotic touch there. Early afternoon shadows. And I loved the blue-grey sky, there as if almost by accident. And the pigeons. So, where was the picture taken? In Melbourne, which is said to be the city with the greatest population of expatriate Greeks outside their own homeland. Just for the record, it was shot on Sydney Road, Coburg, in the city's north. And don't try dialling the number - because it should have a 9 in front of it! Melbourne's had eight-digit phone numbers for more than a decade.