IT WOULD BE FAIR TO STATE that at the moment the eyes of the world are firmly on Greece now that the country has the scruffy heathen Alexis Tsipras as its Prime Minister. Although it appeared, as recently as a few days ago, that there were those who doubted his ability to run a country, there can no longer be doubt in anyone’s mind that Mr Tsipras is a man of his word.
THE PROMISES HE HAS SO FAR managed to keep may only be that he swore he would never wear a tie, sounding like some petulant teenage boy who is being forced by his parents to attend the wedding of a distant relative, and that he would never swear on the Bible, but at least he is sticking to his guns, as they sometimes say.
YET IT MAY PROVE SLIGHTLY MORE DIFFICULT for him to live up to his promise to treat the hated Angela Merkel “the same as anyone else” and to speak to her only if and when he “feels like it”, given that Mrs Merkel is the real person calling the shots (just to continue the metaphor) under the skies of Hera nowadays.
BY A STRANGE COINCIDENCE the election of Mr Tsipras as the saviour of the most debt-ridden corrupt country in the inept European Union took place only mere hours before Artemios Ventouris "Demis" Roussos passed away. Although Mr Roussos was not Greek strictu sensu, if I am allowed to mix my classics, he, along with Nana Mouskouri, the bespectacled Greek singing sensation, gave the more serious countries in Europe a view of what Greece had to offer.
THEY WERE ALWAYS EXTREMELY POLITE on television and to journalists, and deferent to their betters who were giving them a chance to make a bit of money in hard cash such as the Bank of England issues on a regular basis. Not so, however, with the modern Greeks, who may end up, once again, slipping into the realm of the "soft currency unit" so enjoyed by countries which cannot feed their own children. Let alone buy them such dignified apparel as a tie. But now for those of us who live in the real world it may be goodbye, not to Berlin, but to Greece.
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