Forthcoming Exams - kpg

It has just been announced by the Ministry of Education that the Exams for A (A1 & A2), B (B1 & B2) and C (C1 & C2) levels of KPG will take place on the 10^th & 11^th May 2014. You can register from Tuesday, 4 March to Friday, 14 March. As for the exam fees, you should pay 60 euros for A level, 80 euros for B level exams & 100 euros for C level exams.

For more information please visit:

kpg-May2014

The highwayman - A love story

As a treat on Valentine’s day I’d like to remind you of Alfred Noyes’s poem talking about a doomed love.

You can watch it…

You can read …

The Highwayman (by Alfred Noyes)

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.   

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.   

The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,   

And the highwayman came riding— riding— riding.

The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

He’d a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,   

a coat of  claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin.

They fitted with never a wrinkle. His boots were up to the thigh.   

And he rode with a jewelled twinkle, his pistol butts a-twinkle,

his rapier hilt a twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard.

He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred.   

He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there   

but the landlord’s black-eyed daughter,Bess, the landlord’s daughter,

plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked

Where Tim the ostler listened. His face was white and peaked.   

His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,   

But he loved the landlord’s daughter,The landlord’s red-lipped daughter.

Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say—

“One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I’m after a prize tonight,

But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;

Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,

then look for me by moonlight, Watch for me by moonlight,

I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.”

He rose upright in the stirrups. He scarce could reach her hand,

But she loosened her hair in the casement. His face burnt like a brand

As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;   

And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,

(O, sweet black waves in the moonlight!)

Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the west.

He did not come in the dawning. He did not come at noon;   

And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise of the moon, 

when the road was a gypsy’s ribbon, looping the purple moor,   

a red-coat troop came marching—marching—marching.

King George’s men came marching, up to the old inn-door.

They said no word to the landlord. They drank his ale instead.   

But they gagged his daughter, and bound her, to the foot of her narrow bed.

Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!   

There was death at every window; And hell at one dark window;

for Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.

They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest.

They had bound a musket beside her, with the muzzle beneath her breast!

“Now, keep good watch!” and they kissed her. She heard the doomed man say—

Look for me by moonlight;

         Watch for me by moonlight;

I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!

She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!

She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!   

They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years

Till, now, on the stroke of midnight, Cold, on the stroke of midnight,

The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horsehoofs ringing clear;   

Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?

Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,

The highwayman came riding— riding— riding.

The red coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still.

Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!   

Nearer he came and nearer. Her face was like a light.

Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,   

Then her finger moved in the moonlight,

Her musket shattered the moonlight,

Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death.

He turned. He spurred to the west; he did not know who stood   

Bowed, with her head o’er the musket, drenched with her own blood!   

Not till the dawn he heard it, and his face grew grey to hear   

How Bess, the landlord’s daughter, the landlord’s black-eyed daughter,

had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

Back, he spurred like a madman, shouting a curse to the sky,

With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high.

Blood red were his spurs in the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat;

When they shot him down on the highway, down like a dog on the highway,

And he lay in his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace at his throat.

And still of a winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,

When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,   

When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,   

A highwayman comes riding— riding— riding.

A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

Or you can listen to Loreena Mckennitt singing it

In Our Time

In Our Time is a successful radio series on BBC Radio 4. Melvyn Bragg, the presenter, and his expert guests discuss the history of ideas, and explore subjects in culture and science.

Apart from being really interesting to listen to the show in real time, an important feature is that you can go back and explore the archive of all the previous discussions. So you are actually given the opportunity to download previous episodes and listen to them when and where you want. Finally, while on a topic, you are offered a list of related links and further reading suggestions.

If you want to get an idea, click on the following link to listen to the episode that the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm are discussed.

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, The Brothers Grimm

A unique and weird painter

Giuseppe Arcimboldo (also spelled Arcimboldi) (1526 or 1527 – July 11, 1593) was an Italian painter best known for creating imaginative portrait heads made entirely of such objects as fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish, and books – that is, he painted representations of these objects on the canvas arranged in such a way that the whole collection of objects formed a recognizable likeness of the portrait subject.

At a distance, his portraits looked like normal human portraits. However, individual objects in each portrait were actually overlapped together to make various anatomical shapes of a human. They were carefully constructed by his imagination. Besides, when he assembled objects in one portrait, he never used random objects. Each object was related by characterization.  In the portrait called The Librarian, Arcimboldo used objects that signified the book culture at that time, such as the curtain that created individual study rooms in a library. The animal tails, which became the beard of the portrait, were used as dusters. By using everyday objects, the portraits were decoration and still-life paintings at the same time.

His portraits were greatly admired by his contemporaries and still remain a source of fascination today.. 

The "Four seasons" and the "Four elements" are among his best known paintings.

Here you can watch a short video about Arcimboldo and his unique style of portraiture:

Οἱ Γάτες τ᾿ Ἅι-Νικόλα - Γιώργος Σεφέρης

Τὸν δ᾿ ἄνευ λύρας ὅμως ὑμνωδεῖ θρῆνον Ἐρινύος αὐτοδίδακτος ἔσωθεν θυμός,

οὐ τὸ πᾶν ἔχων ἐλπίδος φίλον θράσος. ΑΓΑΜΕΜΝΩΝ. 990 ἔπ.

«Φαίνεται ὁ Κάβο-Γάτα...», μοῦ εἶπε ὁ καπετάνιος δείχνοντας ἕνα χαμηλὸ γιαλὸ μέσα στὸ πούσι τ᾿ ἄδειο ἀκρογιάλι ἀνήμερα Χριστούγεννα, «... καὶ κατὰ τὸν Πουνέντε ἀλάργα τὸ κύμα γέννησε τὴν Ἀφροδίτη λένε τὸν τόπο Πέτρα τοῦ Ρωμιοῦ. Τρία καρτίνια ἀριστερά!» Εἶχε τὰ μάτια τῆς Σαλώμης ἡ γάτα ποὺ ἔχασα τὸν ἄλλο χρόνο κι ὁ Ραμαζὰν πῶς κοίταζε κατάματα τὸ θάνατο, μέρες ὁλόκληρες μέσα στὸ χιόνι τῆς Ἀνατολῆς στὸν παγωμένον ἥλιο κατάματα μέρες ὁλόκληρες ὁ μικρὸς ἐφέστιος θεός. Μὴ σταθεῖς ταξιδιώτη. «Τρία καρτίνια ἀριστερά» μουρμούρισε ὁ τιμονιέρης. ...ἴσως ὁ φίλος μου νὰ κοντοστέκουνταν, ξέμπαρκος τώρα κλειστὸς σ᾿ ἕνα μικρὸ σπίτι μὲ εἰκόνες γυρεύοντας παράθυρα πίσω ἀπ᾿ τὰ κάδρα. Χτύπησε ἡ καμπάνα τοῦ καραβιοῦ σὰν τὴ μονέδα πολιτείας ποὺ χάθηκε κι ἦρθε νὰ ζωντανέψει πέφτοντας ἀλλοτινὲς ἐλεημοσύνες. «Παράξενο», ξανάειπε ὁ καπετάνιος. «Τούτη ἡ καμπάνα-μέρα ποὺ εἶναι- μοῦ θύμισε τὴν ἄλλη ἐκείνη, τὴ μοναστηρίσια. Διηγότανε τὴν ἱστορία ἕνας καλόγερος ἕνας μισότρελος, ἕνας ὀνειροπόλος. «Τὸν καιρὸ τῆς μεγάλης στέγνιας, - σαράντα χρόνια ἀναβροχιὰ - ρημάχτηκε ὅλο τὸ νησὶ πέθαινε ὁ κόσμος καὶ γεννιοῦνταν φίδια. Μιλιούνια φίδια τοῦτο τ᾿ ἀκρωτήρι, χοντρὰ σὰν τὸ ποδάρι ἄνθρωπου καὶ φαρμακερά. Τὸ μοναστήρι τ᾿ Ἅι-Νικόλα τὸ εἶχαν τότε Ἁγιοβασιλεῖτες καλογέροι κι οὔτε μποροῦσαν νὰ δουλέψουν τὰ χωράφια κι οὔτε νὰ βγάλουν τὰ κοπάδια στὴ βοσκὴ τοὺς ἔσωσαν οἱ γάτες ποὺ ἀναθρέφαν. Τὴν κάθε αὐγὴ χτυποῦσε μία καμπάνα καὶ ξεκινοῦσαν τσοῦρμο γιὰ τὴ μάχη. Ὅλη μέρα χτυπιοῦνταν ὡς τὴν ὥρα ποῦ σήμαιναν τὸ βραδινὸ ταγίνι. Ἀπόδειπνα πάλι ἡ καμπάνα καὶ βγαῖναν γιὰ τὸν πόλεμο τῆς νύχτας. Ἤτανε θαῦμα νὰ τὶς βλέπεις, λένε, ἄλλη κουτσή, κι ἄλλη στραβή, τὴν ἄλλη χωρὶς μύτη, χωρὶς αὐτί, προβιὰ κουρέλι. Ἔτσι μὲ τέσσερεις καμπάνες τὴν ἡμέρα πέρασαν μῆνες, χρόνια, καιροὶ κι ἄλλοι καιροί. Ἄγρια πεισματικὲς καὶ πάντα λαβωμένες ξολόθρεψαν τὰ φίδια μὰ στὸ τέλος χαθήκανε, δὲν ἄντεξαν τόσο φαρμάκι. Ὡσὰν καράβι καταποντισμένο τίποτε δὲν ἀφῆσαν στὸν ἀφρὸ μήτε νιαούρισμα, μήτε καμπάνα. Γραμμή! Τί νὰ σοῦ κάνουν οἱ ταλαίπωρες παλεύοντας καὶ πίνοντας μέρα καὶ νύχτα τὸ αἷμα τὸ φαρμακερὸ τῶν ἑρπετῶν. Αἰῶνες φαρμάκι γενιὲς φαρμάκι». «Γραμμή! Τί νὰ σοῦ κάνουν οἱ ταλαίπωρες παλεύοντας καὶ πίνοντας μέρα καὶ νύχτα τὸ αἷμα τὸ φαρμακερὸ τῶν ἑρπετῶν. Αἰῶνες φαρμάκι, γενιὲς φαρμάκι». «Γραμμή!» ἀντιλάλησε ἀδιάφορος ὁ τιμονιέρης. Τετάρτη, 5 Φεβρουαρίου 1969

But deep inside me sings  the Fury's lyreless threnody;

my heart, self-taught, has lost   the precious confidence of hope . . .

                                                                          Aeschylus, "Agamemnon"

'That's the Cape of Cats ahead,' the captain said to me,

pointing through the mist to a low stretch of shore,

the beach deserted; it was Christmas day —

'. . . and there, in the distance to the west, is where

Aphrodite rose out of the waves;

they call the place "Greek's Rock."

Left ten degrees rudder!'

She had Salome's eyes, the cat I lost a year ago;

and old Ramazan, how he would look death square in the eyes,

whole days long in the snow of the East,

under the frozen sun,

days long square in the eyes: the young hearth god.

Don't stop, traveller.

'Left ten degrees rudder,' muttered the helmsman.

. . . my friend, though, might well have stopped,

now between ships,

shut up in a small house with pictures,

searching for windows behind the frames.

The ship's bell struck

like a coin from some vanished city

that brings to mind, as it falls,

alms from another time.

'It's strange,' the captain said.

'That bell — given what day it is —

reminded me of another, the monastery bell.

A monk told me the story,

a half-mad monk, a kind of dreamer.

'It was during the great drought,

forty years without rain,

the whole island devastated,

people died and snakes were born.

This cape had millions of snakes

thick as a man's legs

and full of poison.

In those days the monastery of St Nicholas

was held by the monks of St Basil,

and they couldn't work their fields,

couldn't put their flocks to pasture.

In the end they were saved by the cats they raised.

Every day at dawn a bell would strike

and an army of cats would move into battle.

They'd fight the day long,

until the bell sounded for the evening feed.

Supper done, the bell would sound again

and out they'd go to battle through the night.

They say it was a marvellous sight to see them,

some lame, some blind, others missing

a nose, an ear, their hides in shreds.

So to the sound of four bells a day

months went by, years, season after season.

Wildly obstinate, always wounded,

they annihilated the snakes but in the end disappeared;

they just couldn't take in that much poison.

Like a sunken ship

they left no trace on the surface:

not a miaow, not a bell even.

Steady as you go!

Poor devils, what could they do,

fighting like that day and night, drinking

the poisonous blood of those snakes?

Generations of poison, centuries of poison.'

'Steady as you go,' indifferently echoed the helmsman.

                                    Wednesday, 5 February, 1969

(Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)

                          

Happy Halloween!!!

Halloween is celebrated on October 31. Its pagan origins can be traced to the Celtic festival of Samhain, celebrated in ancient England and Ireland to mark the beginning of the Celtic new year. The souls of the dead were supposed to revisit their homes on Samhain eve, and witches, goblins, black cats, and ghosts were said to roam abroad. The pagan observances influenced the Christian festival of All Hallows' Eve, celebrated on the same date. The holiday was gradually introduced into the U.S. by the late 19th century. Still associated with evil spirits and the supernatural, it is celebrated by children in costume who gather candy by ringing doorbells and calling out trick or treat, trick referring to the pranks and vandalism that are also part of the Halloween tradition.

For more information and some really scary stories you could visit:

http://www.americanfolklore.net/spooky-stories.html

Food glorious food!

“Tell me what you eat, and I’ll tell you who you are,” wrote the renowned gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin in 1825.

The type of food we eat, how we prepare the ingredients to make a certain recipe and even how we consume and share it, they are all very telling of the actual essence of who we are and where we are from. Indeed food is an intrinsic part of our cultural profile.

Food encompasses everything that is important to people; it marks social differences and strengthens social bonds. It is common to all people; yet it can signify very different things from table to table.

If you want to get a taste, you can visit About.com Food where you can find recipes, tips and articles about whatever relates to food and drink.

Cheers!