The need to write a document including words in ancient polytonic Greek (i.e. with accents and spirits) is not the exclusive prerogative of Greek scholars or classical philologists: citations, philosophical concepts and technical terms expressed with letters of the Greek alphabet occur repeatedly in both humanistic and scientific disciplines. Since computers used for writing English do not have a keyboard with keys for specific letters of the Greek alphabet, various alternative systems have been created over the years to input texts in alphabets other than Latin.

The need for occasional words in Greek is often resolved by an individual in a ‘homemade' way, inserting the letters one by one from the symbols chart, or by changing font and using a Greek one. The real problems arise when the text leaves our own computer and is sent to another, and suddenly becomes something else: a series of little squares and odd symbols takes the place of the Greek text, and we find ourselves with unusable material.

The main problem of the ‘transferability' of documents is tied to the non uniform way in which fonts are codified using sets of characters used by processors to represent letters. This essay examines the origins and the history of codes for fonts, and supplies helpful instructions to equip one's own computer for writing in Greek.

Evocations of the classics of realistic bourgeois painting in the advertising campaign of a private radio broadcasting company

‘The extraordinariness of the ordinary' is the concept of an advertising campaign (thought up by Red Cell agency), that emphasises the ability of the broadcaster to transform normal people into ‘Very Normal People'.
Ordinary people are captured in poses that recall old Flemish paintings, classics of bourgeois ‘high art', and realistic art in the style of Caravaggio. One of the subjects, as the advertising agency itself confirms, is a take on two works by Velasquez both entitled El amuerzo. The idea of noble normality is also reinforced by a pseudo-heraldic emblem that accompanies the images.