(Intro & piano music)

There is an ancient fruit that grows in Greece and it's the food that sustained thousands of Greeks, including my grandparents, during the second world war. It's called ΧΑΡΟΥΠΙ (charoupi). In ancient Greek it was called ΚΕΡΑΤΙΟΝ (cerateon) meaning 'little horn' because, it looks like one! The ancient Greeks discovered that the weight of each seed of the fruit never changes so they used it as a measure of weight against precious metals and stones. The Romans used to measure their gold with it as one seed was 1/24th of their gold siliqua coin. They, of course, used the Latin word for it that passed on to the French and came to English in the 15th century but the measure for gold purity remained 24 ΚΑΡΑΤΙ/CARAT

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(Intro & piano music)

In ancient Athens there were many philosophical schools of thought that one could join. The main philosopher of each school would gather everyone in the Agora (a place under the Acropolis where you can still visit today) and there, they would have their own spot within it, to hold their teachings and debates. One of the most misunderstood philosophical schools today, was formed by Zeno of Citium in 300BC. He'd gather everyone in his Στοά Ποικίλη (stoa pikili)- stoa means 'porch' and pikili in ancient Greek meant 'colourful' . So, a painted porch. In this case depicting the famous battle of Marathon. He would teach, not detachment from emotion as many might think but, moderation in owning material goods, deep thinking before acting, the celebration and caretaking of one's life as there's no afterlife, reason and, inner peace.
Because not everyone had a porch and Zeno's was colourful, the school was named after it. ΣΤΟΙΚΙΣΜΟΣ-STOICISM

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(Intro & piano music)

As we're moving into this new year, there's one thing I hope to be able to keep doing both as a human and an actor.
Μετά (meta) in both ancient and modern Greek means 'after'. Μορφή (morfi) means 'shape' . The combined word was first introduced in English in 1447 by Osbern Bokeman, an English poet and friar who travelled to Italy a lot. The word in Latin sounds exactly the same as the Greek but the spelling is Latinised and it means 'the process of becoming something new', 'constantly changing', 'transforming', 'reshaping' .
ΜΕΤΑΜΟΡΦΩΣΗ/METAMORPHOSIS

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