May 25, 2012
Shortly under a year ago, Greece's third bailout was going through, worth €120bn. I went to Moscow Road, site of St Sophia, the oldest Greek Orthodox church in London, and a clutch of picturesque Greek cafes and delis, populated by émigrés. I thought then that the atmosphere was one of a kind of pre-traumatic shock. People were transfixed but not distressed by what was happening.
Saki, a big-hearted raconteur who runs Byzantium café, told me that you could nuke the whole of Europe and the two things that would survive would be Greeks and cockroaches. A lot of people blamed the politicians, and a lot of people blamed the Germans. But nobody seemed all that worried or particularly angry.
In the intervening year of can-kicking, you could argue that nothing's changed in terms of the options offered, from Brussels and Frankfurt, to Athens: they are still cordially enjoined to stick with the programme or leave the euro, and that programme is still one that nobody with a real choice would ever vote for.
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