The World

Lucas Papademos – should we have said 'au revoir', not 'goodbye', when he left office? Photo Reuters

Perhaps the blazing sun is affecting my mental faculties, but here in Athens I am forming the impression that people in other European capitals are misreading the political tide ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary election in Greece.

There has been much loose talk, for instance, to the effect that the Greek armed forces, which seized power in a 1967 coup and ruled for seven years, might once again step in because of the failure of the nation’s traditional political classes and the apparent radicalisation of the electorate.

Here is what one minister in Greece’s interim government, formed after the inconclusive May 6 election, told me: “There is zero possibility of a military coup. The lesson was learnt from the military dictatorship.” Read more

Günter Grass. AP

I’ve always thought Günter Grass writes better novels than poems. Remember The Tin Drum, Grass’s hilarious 1959 novel, with its dwarfish protagonist Oskar Matzerath? Of course, you do. Remember What Must Be Said, the dreary, Israel-bashing prose-poem that he published two months ago? Er, not really.

Grass’s latest poem, the subject of which is Greece’s debt crisis, does nothing to change my view that, at the age of 84, he really ought to stop trying to mix politics and poetry. It’s called Europas Schande, which translates as Europe’s Shame. The title gives the game away, doesn’t it? Read more