Apparently, the right way to talk to strangers is with caution and humility according to Malcolm Gladwell – a man who gets a lot of things right.

Sometimes it works brilliantly and sometimes it doesn’t.

Especially on holiday, I don’t exercise the cautionary principle much. 

We got talking to one taxi driver and as a result, he  spent quite a lot of time slowly driving so he could dictate into Google Translate what he wanted to tell us about basketball – did you know that there was a Greek basketball player in a top league in America? No, nor did we.

Despite the BB’s grandson being a school and weekend basketball player, we soon ran out of conversation to dictate back into Google.

So, to change the subject I said, So what is this part of Athens?

It is toxic, he said.

And then there was, not bothering with Google, a one-sided ‘conversation’ about ‘toxic’ Bangladeshis and other immigrants.

Now, there is no denying that Greece has taken more than its European fair share of refugees and immigrants.

But this was not an easy listen.

The next day, I went out from our hotel and bought some water. From, it turns out, a Bangladeshi man.

He asked where I was from.

England.

You are so very lucky, he said.

Greece? I asked.

Not England, he said. Not so good. Not so good. 

There are a hundred things to unpack from these ‘conversations’.