Athens chief fumes at US 'lewdness' claims

I did a Victor Meldrew on this one: "I don't BELIEVE it!". (One Foot in the Grave fans will identify.) And I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments expressed by Angelopoulos.

"Athens (Reuters) - A clutch of complaints by U.S. viewers that the Athens Olympics opening ceremony featured lewd nudity has incensed the Games chief, who warned American regulators to back off from policing ancient Greek culture...

"Complaints focused on a parade of actors portraying naked statues. Among them were the Satyr and the nude Kouros male statues, both emblems of ancient Greece's golden age ...

"'As Americans surely are aware, there is great hostility in the world today to cultural domination in which a single value system created elsewhere diminishes and degrades local cultures', she [Gianna Angelopoulos] said in her commentary.

"'In this context, it is astonishingly unwise for an agency of the U.S. government to engage in an investigation that could label a presentation of the Greek origins of civilisation as unfit for television viewing'."

Full text