Is
there anything more wonderful on a sunny spring morning than a
blackbird singing its heart out at the top of a nearby tree? Maybe a
song thrush, but I think these tend to specialise in twilight
warbles.
And
is there anything more crazy that a group of twenty-two white-clad
men playing cricket at 8.45pm of a cold spring evening, when the
light has long since more than dimmed? From the sublime to the bloody
ridiculous, then.
As
I've said, no one really knows what's going to happen either in
Greece or in the wider eurozone. There are increasing signs that a
Plan B is being put together, probably not to 'save' Greece but to
ensure that Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain don't follow in
whatever its wake turns out to be. As of now, we can only wonder if
there are unknown as well as known unknowables; and, if Greece really
is to go its merry way, will this be in an orderly or disorderly
fashion; and is the former at all possible once folk believe that
Greece really is a goner and headed for the door.
Meanwhile,
the inestimable Simon Jenkins gives his take on the eurozone and its
travails here. To whet your appetite, here's the opening paragraphs:-
A looming black cloud is
hurtling forwards over the European horizon. It is called economic
nemesis, driven to a fury by a quarter century of the naivety and
greed of most of the continent's rulers. In Berlin and Brussels this
week the high priests and wizards of euro-finance gazed at the cloud
in horror, muttering imprecations: it was "unacceptable . . .
unthinkable . . . unmentionable". The cloud took no notice and
raced on.
Newspaper financial pages nowadays read like satirical
spoofs. No one has a clue what is happening, so analysts play with
words. Would a Greek exit from the euro be a catastrophe or a
calamity, or is that what happens without an exit? Is unimaginable
worse than abhorrent, is contagion worse than wildfire, is apocalypse
worse than Armageddon?
Markets indulge in no such fantasies. Money
talks straight. Computers are already being fed "Grexit"
algorithms, and modelling a disintegrated euro. Default swaps are in
place. Spanish and Italian debts are being devalued de facto through
soaring yields. Politicians panic, but money merely adjusts.
And here, to warm the cockles of Alfie Mittington's heart, is his
final paragraph:- The peoples of
Europe are made of crooked timber. They have always fought back
against hubristic rulers seeking undue authority over their affairs.
While the old Common Market knew its limitations, the euro was a step
too far. It required a degree of union that Europe has never
tolerated, from the Holy Roman Empire through Napoleon to the Third
Reich. It always ends in tears. Kipling remarked after one such
conflict: "We have had no end of a lesson; it will do us no end
of good." Today's lesson has yet to be learned.
On
a lighter note . . . There's been a lot of scoffing in British
newspapers at the sort of text messages sent by Prime Minister
Cameron to the (ex)Chief Executive of News International, Rebekah
Brooks. The Times today carried a spoof message reading:-
R.
For
G's sake,
F
O + D
Sincerely.
DC
I
do hope that F O + D doesn't mean the only thing I can come up with.
Interesting
Historical Fact: At the 1948 Olympics - also in London - the
organisers were prevailed upon to let the French and the Spanish
competitors bring in wine. Something that was (like everything else)
in short supply in the UK in the post War years. As the writer of one
official memo put it - "Wine is part of their normal diet and in
their view it rates as a foodstuff." Quite.
Finally
. . . . The Wisdom of Dr Osler
The
philosophies of one age have become the absurdities of the next, and
the foolishness of yesterday has become the wisdom of tomorrow.
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