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For anyone going to Greece this summer for the first time, kalos irthes (welcome) to the language laboratory! Most Greeks in restaurants and shops speak English, but a few words such as please (parakalo) and thank you (evcharisto – think of the Eucharist, ‘We give thanks’) won’t go amiss and will probably open wider the already open doors of courtesy.

What you don’t want is to appear like the apocryphal Englishman in Crete who rode down the village street on a donkey, waving to the locals and calling out Kalamari! Kalamari! He thought their hysterical laughter was their way of thanking him for his greeting. It was. But instead of – as he supposed – saying good day, (kalimera) he was actually declaiming ‘Squid! Squid!’, which isn’t the right thing at all, unless you are ordering your dinner.