Don't go all wobbly!

http://news.yahoo.com/venezuelan-rivals-rally-supporters-four-people-reported-dead-150350204.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9999148/Francois-Hollande-faces-austerity-revolt-from-own-ministers.html

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100024122/debunking-austerity-claims-makes-no-difference-to-europes-monks-and-zealots/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9985673/Tobin-Tax-is-madness-for-Europe-and-economic-war-against-Britain.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/10004726/Cyprus-bail-out-vote-stirs-fresh-jitters-as-slump-fears-grow-in-Europe.html

Zut alors, it took only a few hours for the Cyprus bailout deal to fall apart; when the black hole widened by some mysterious €5 bn, which was the number nobody first thought of. The Troika immediately screamed “not a cent more, Cyprus will have to find the difference”. One assumes, by following the rainbow under sofa cushions all over the island. To any sentient being, the conclusion, even throwing all the Archbish’s beautiful monasteries, icons and gold chasubles into the pot, is that Cyprus doesn’t have a prayer. (Poor Christostamos’ Ortho-Church has already taken a €100 mil hit on his bank deposits). Anastasiades is clearly hoping to wake up to find he’s had a nocturnal visitation by the tooth fairy. His only other available remedy is to utter endless Troika commissioned platitudes and make like Nero.

Not so fast – now the fat is really in the fire – the Cyprus AG has opined (very late in the day) that Parliament must endorse the bail-out deal. The very same body that voted “Nyet” by 100% the last time they were asked to select which Nicosia lamp-post to select for their own hanging. Any PM worth a hill o’beans should of course have joined his ex FinMin by immediate self-ex-fenestration. Credibility now less than zero. Forget the three line whip. It’s sauve qui peut time. Now this could possibly be the traditional Euro-vote-until-you-get-it-right routine. But what appears to be dramatically different this time is that the lovely Christine of the IMF is starting to go very wobbly on her seat in the Troika. It’s careening, swerving, listing to port and starboard and it appears Christine wants off. Whoa there!, but Frau Angela and Mario still have the whip. Maybe M. Le President François back in Paree has been burning up the wires to DC and letting Christine know that DI Clouseau over at the Deuxième has found the smoking gun, entres ses foulards d’Hermés. Enough with the austerity already! She’s also been hob-nobbing with little Georgie O in DC and telling him his wheels are coming off and he’s entering a death spiral. And the UK still has Sterling to let slide (thanks to the late and much lamented Maggie). Subito la chemise aux cheveux allemande is starting to feel very uncomfortable and seems to be breaking a lot of Club Med china. When even Paris is sounding strident alarums, the IMF (France prop) has to pay attention. Why else would une Française have been allowed to succeed the charming DSK as MD? It’s a cluster folks, of a magnitude we haven’t seen since the Gold Standard collapsed (and we don’t have John Maynard Keynes nor Uncle Milton F to pick up the pieces). Christine is smart enough not to wish to be the MD who brings the wrath of the world down on the IMF. It’s also entirely possible that she has lost control of her IMF Secretariat and economists and they are putting out the word that the Euro-Zone is right off its trolley. No external payments adjustments can succeed without the IMF’s favourite devaluation medicine. Perhaps they are briefing furiously against the Troika with the great and the good of the financial world all assembled in DC at the IMF's annual knees-up.

Cyprus of course is de minimis, merely a rounding error in the paradox of large Euro numbers, notwithstanding which, if its Parliament doubles down with a repeat Nyet, the Troika knows its bluff will have been called. Christine is looking for her ejector seat controls because she’s seen the cards and they aren’t worth the bluff. She’d much prefer to be standing looking over the cliff at the Troika on the rocks below and not be responsible for the run on Portuguese, Irish, Spanish and Monte dei Pasche di Siena banks that might follow. Mario Draghi cannot run the presses fast enough to contain that flood. Even the toothless European Parliament is trying to create some distance from the Teutonic train wreck which is unfolding. Make no mistake, this is going to be Frau Angela’s Little Bighorn. When the smoke clears she and a few sycophants will own it free and clear.

What is also true is that the monetary union of the Euro Zone is not just a de jure, but also a ghastly de facto irreversible process. Far more agonizing than the simple expedient of John Major being forced by little Georgie Soros to let Sterling crash out of EMU. (How bizarre that Reuters should inadvertently have run Georgie’s Obit today). From which one must conclude that tonight Europe is very much twixt Scylla and Charybdis and the Sirens are singing mightily from rocks aplenty. If Cyprus goes, because its sovereign Parliament summons the intestinal fortitude to vote that it is indeed sovereign, all Club Med, Troika and Uncle Tom Cobley’s bets are off. There will be rending of garments and gnashing of teeth and Die Kaiserin will be left standing without her frumpy frock gazing out from her Berliner Bu-Bunker at the devastation wrought again on the benighted Continent. Another Euro-Rocky-Horror-Show brought to you by greater Germany; just when it was assumed the Bundesrepublik no longer threatened anyone. Not bad for an Ossie Hausfrau. I guess she means well.

Ambrose’s monks and zealots could be in for a very bumpy ride.

And we haven’t even mentioned the post Hugo Chavez crisis unfolding in Caracas. Poor Christina, and poor Fidel and his little bro Raul, desperately trying to run Maduro from Havana to keep the free oil flowing. Too many puppet-masters, not enough strings. Maduro is entering half-life of a prawn sandwich territory. Castro Bros will soon need to find a new Commandante Quisling.

Simon

Islands in the Stream

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9957999/Cyprus-has-finally-killed-myth-that-EMU-is-benign.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9960610/Slovenia-faces-contagion-from-Cyprus-as-banking-crisis-deepens.html

Some rambling thoughts from Ambrose E-P. Including the idea that the EU is not benign. (Shurely not – Ed). And some thought it was essentially a French-German post WWII construct to establish joint Hegemonie throughout Europe (and beyond) without the need for another Franco-Prussian War. If Serbia (or was it Austria-Hungary) can start a really big war that outflanked La Ligne Maginot in a heartbeat; think what mighty Slovenia might wreak.

The haircut to Cypriot bank depositors – at least those plutocrats whose balance exceeds €100,000 in the two big Cyprus Banks - is definitely not going to be a careful trim around the ears, even a short back ‘n sides. It’s going to be the full Monty and a shining bald pate. Not least because “capital controls” still apply to the remaindered balances. Which means that “we’ve taken a big chunk of your money; and the rest we just may let you have back, sometime, maybe, but only when Angela, Christine and one of the Mario’s says it’s OK”. The silence from Moscow is deafening. The Troika gallops on, corpses to left of it, corpses to right of it, all the way to the Russian artillery. Mi’Lords Raglan and Cardigan would be proud.

According to officialdom, all is as well as can be in Euro-Fantasyland, post Cyprus. (It is a template, it is not a template – we’ll keep you guessing). The Russian dodgy depositor/crooks are serendipitous collateral damage. However, Francois the sauce Hollandaise is screaming about too much austerity (and his corrupt, mendacious Minister of Anti-Corruption), the Dutch are dumping on the Luxemburgers as no better than Cyprus with European dodgy-money, and the rest of Club Med is in a total funk; waiting for the Cyprus style other Jill-boot to drop on their weakest banks. The Cyprus FinMin has wisely ex-fenestrated himself, on the advice of the Archbish of Nicosia or on his own recognizance that he has beggared his people on an unprecedented scale at the diktat of the terrible Troika, after comprehensively failing to get his Uncle Vanya to double down. Mr. Anastasiades obviously now has the half-life of a Gerald Rattner prawn sandwich. Life in Cyprus is going to become very, very unpleasant, as the privations and recriminations build. The witch hunts against those wise enough to try to get over the moat before the drawbridge was raised with their folding Euro’s and reach the sanctuary of a Swiss bank will rise to a crescendo that will rend the polity along wholly new non-Ottoman fault lines. Misery will be relentless, pending an ignominious Eurexit as the terms of all the Troika’s new hard money are serially breached and the infamous debt ratio tends to the infinite as the denominator approaches zero. In the meantime there is stunned silence from the people of Cyprus as the wasteland is surveyed. There’s no doubt now that Metropolitan Chrisostomos should emulate Makarios and combine church and state, and help the poor souls who live in the Cyprus sun. Maybe even make nice with the Ottomans to the north.

We confess we were totally wrong about the fragrant Christine at the IMF being a shill for the French FinMin. Clearly she has become the Bu-Bank’s fifth columnist and resident in DC. Another poke aux yeux for M. Trierweiler. (Hell hath no fury like a Ségolène dédaignée). She’s signed up for the full-on austerity cheveux-chemise à l’allemande. Looks beautiful aux crinière d’acier et un foulard d’Hermès. Maybe because, like her former boss, shorty Psychozy, she’s having her collar felt by M. Clouseau of the Deuxième over some dodgy financial dealings back in the halcyon gay Paree days of hanging out at L’Elysée with the lovely Carla. Safer in Berlin with new bff Frau Angela and her Bu-Bank chorus line; all singing about bail-in’s to the strains of the Horst Wessel Lied (at least when viewed from a Nicosia point of view).

The other fragrant, lovely Cristina de la Casa Rosada continues to bang on about Las Malvinas Argentinas, (while busily trying to stiff her few remaining foreign creditors in New York). Not nice for the President of friendly, neighbouring Uruguay to have called her "an ugly hag" and the late, lamented and adulated Nestor "the one-eyed one". With her buddy Chavez having metaphorically left Caracas in a box, she and her other friends in Havana, Castro Bros. are looking a trifle isolated. Next stop Pyonyang to ask the Callow Leader how it’s done.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/9964441/Theres-no-match-for-Angela-Merkiavelli.html

I’m not sure Frau Tante Angela doing some lederhosen slapping with Vlad, Vlad and inspecting Ukrainian lady protesters naked to the waist is good for her image as Machiavelli mit Schaftstiefeln. Die Prinzessin weiß zum Besten, ich schätze.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9981837/Vast-Greek-war-claims-against-Germany-explode-like-a-time-bomb.html

Well, I guess it was only a matter of time. After all the Nazi name calling and Hitler effigy burning nach Athen, it had to be expected that the Greeks would put their finger on a new way to embarrass the Teutonic Goths. One wonders why it took them so long. Is there an example here for France? Back rent from the Gestapo for four years in the Ritz a la Place Vendôme. Perhaps the USA should call in the Marshall Plan advances too. Sorry Italy, Il Duce probably messed up jumping on this band-wagon. In fact the Cypriots have a claim for some bombing by Rome and the Abyssinians have run out of abacus beads totting up their invoice. The Greeks might also want to charge Italy (Rome branch) for the sack of Syracusa and the assassination of Archimedes. Mighty little Malta MC is staying below the parapet for the moment, waiting for the bank run shoe to fall once Slovenia goes down in flames and should be totting up the bill for Berlin’s 1940’s ministrations. What a lot of Euro-accounts to be settled. And the mighty € was designed by Dictator Kohl to ensure war never returned to fractious Europe. Democracy at work Prussian style.

This Euro-Farce is set to run and run.

Simon

A Very False Dawn

It appears Monday in Europe will dawn in the fullness of time and the skies over Nicosia will be tinged mit Feuer und Schwefer. A fun Spring (enforced) Bank Holiday is not in the cards. Especially as it will be the culmination, nay the dénouement of ten (count ‘em) continuous days of the banks staying shuttered. Cyprus has reverted to a cash and barter only economy.

There will be no Helicopter Mario dispensing unlimited clouds of Euro’s come Tuesday, no Euro-Solidarity Manna from Brussels, just the contrails of the Luftwaffe escorting the dejected Cypriot PM and FinMin back home from a tongue lashing at the hands of the Troika, a piece of paper signed by Die Führerin herself inscribed with “monetary peace in our time” and “Glüchlich mit dem Sparprogramm Dingem”. Without the Luftwaffe, Anastasiades and Sarris might have headed straight for Athens and requested asylum. It won’t be pretty showing up in Parliament tomorrow to lay down die neue Gesetze; to be passed or else. Signing up will guarantee Quisling status and the "or else" bit looks equally unappetizing. A tactical small heart attack and a few days im Krankenhaus could look very attractive to all alternatives. Either that or a quick application to the Cyprus Chiltern Hundreds. It’s not going to be a paragon of parliamentary democracy at work.

It will rightly be very challenging for any thinking Cypriot to wonder why they ever signed up for the Euro in the first place. Idle and blasphemous speculation wonders how things in Cyprus might now be, had they remained a British Crown Colony (see Bermuda, Cayman Islands) and allowed Sterling and the Greenback to circulate freely. Liberated to pursue all the dodgy, island tax haven deals in their wildest imagination, under the protection of HM Royal Navy (do they still have any boats in the Med – Ed?) and the light touch regulatory eyebrows of the Old Lady of Threadneedle St.

It’s not turning out to be such a good weekend for the Russkies. Looks like it could be a 40% Affens ‘aircut for Vlad Vlad’s boyos in the Cyprus banks. Of course that won’t come out of Putin’s vig. Meanwhile Boris-in-exile-in-London of Berezovsky fame seems to have been found in his bath, with extreme prejudice. Is this another strike by Vlad Vlad’s hard men with their Polonium 210 trick or did Boris just tire of this harsh and unrelenting world. And still in his prime. It seems to be getting very dangerous to go to the potty. First Alfred H had the idea, then sad Whitney Houston, then the Welshman from GCHQ/MI6 in a holdall, followed by poor Reva Steenkamp and now Boris. Not to mention Lenny Bruce and King Elvis himself. The other Boris of London has had his pants taken down on TV in humiliating style, but not while in the bathroom. What a shame Lord Paddy of Pantsdown already claimed the title. Even Georgy Markov’s umbrella assassin has surfaced 40 years later. But that was just the Bulgars free lancing. If you’re a buddy of Messrs. Litvinenko and Berezovsky it may be time to stay under the covers, or ask Roman if you can join him in his box at Stamford Bridge. At least Mikhail Khodorkovsky is getting at minimum two squares a day of borscht and vodka for free. Just shows how important it is to keep up paying the life insurance premiums to the ZAO Putin Life Co (Moscow).

How are the Cyprus cookies going to crumble over the next 36 hours? Will the Russians take their medicine and go quietly? Going is probably not in the cards; since after the ‘aircut, what’s left still attached may be subject to that infamous euphemism “exchange controls”. Which means we multiplied the number you first thought of by 40%, debited your account, but the remainder is now constituted into Cyprus government bonds yielding three fifths of not very much; payable when the gas starts to flow. In the secondary market they’ll float (sink – Ed?) to Kopecks on the Rouble. However the spinmeisters dress it up, there will then be (at least) two kinds of Euro’s. One you can fold up and use to buy a Bratwurst und Weissesbier in Berlin and one you can leave sitting in a Cyprus bank gathering dust. Some will say that Consul Angelicus Merkelus has taken her Hunnish legions across the Rubicon and has set her cap at Rome itself. Heresy is afoot.

Plucky Cyprus may have showed the way for Rome to ease its pain. The Orthodox Archbish of Nicosia has generously offered all church property in Cyprus as collateral for the national solidarity fund. Some very pretty monasteries. Does this offer an idea for the new Pope Francis SJ to show his commitment to poverty in worldly goods by offering up a mortgage on all 44 hectares of Citta del Vaticano, together with all chattels and ceilings therein, as security for a new issue of Italian government bonds? What a magnificent gesture that would be. He is after all, of Italian heritage. Lovely Christina de la Casa Rosada can eat her heart out.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9951680/Cyprus-agrees-10bn-bail-out-deal-with-eurozone.html

Well Monday did dawn on time across the Euro-Wasteland to the sight of pitiful Cypriot ministers blinking in shock at what they just agreed (or pretended to agree). Including we learn that, in true Euro-Dem style, no further Cypriot parliamentary approval, debate nor endorsement is needed to implement the Gauleiters’ diktats. Frau Tante Angela, Die Fürhrerin’s Jillboot is planted firmly on the ministers’ windpipes. Humiliation does not come more abject. The “laws” are already in place to allow mass expropriation of anyone foolish not to have kept his Cypriot Euro’s in the mattress and for “capital controls” to apply to the meager crust that the Huns from the North have deigned to allow to remain un-plundered. Of course, the ECB’s Target2 claims are sacrosanct and must be transferred to the Good Bank. If this is solidarity, it looks a lot like Hegemonie. No indication of how long it will take Cypriot (unpaid) bureaucrats to turn all this into a well oiled machine and allow the banks still standing to “reopen” – aka allow anyone access to what’s left of his Euro-funny-money.

Will the Cypriots and their Russkie pals take all this with a bang or a whimper? Not hard to imagine some big gas pumps across the Ukraine to go suddenly on the blink. We will wait and see with great expectations.

Simon

Job Opening - Cypriot Quisling

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/cyprus/9941478/Cyprus-turns-to-Russia-after-parliament-rejects-levy-on-bank-savings.html

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jeremywarner/100023510/cyprus-should-do-what-iceland-did-and-just-conviscate-the-russian-money/

Eh bien, Tante Angela, how about those crazy Cypriots? Was für ein Plan B, habst du?

They (at least those outside Mr. Anastasiades administration) were smart enough to figure out that ‘stability levy’ equals ‘daylight robbery’. So they called deinen Bluff, and mailed in den mittel Finger. Parliament punted hard for the long grass.

Mr. Michaelis Sarris, the Cypriot FM, took on the message loud and clear and left subito on the first non-stop Antonov to Moscow to see every Cypriot’s buddy, Vlad Vlad (waving another middle finger to Angela, who had expressly said Nein to any truck with the Russkies); leaving the central bank Guv, Mr. Panicos OMGicos to do what he eponymously does best. Which is to stay away from Berlin und Frankfurt AM. Of course, this is not an unalloyed source of cheer for Uncle Vanya. He has a bunch of Euro’s owed already and due soon and is surely being asked for a lot more over forever at minimal vigorish; with keine Bundesbank Guarantie it now appears. Plus all that oligarch loot held in trust for his old age in Cypriot banks. Not an easy call for Vlad. In for a Kopeck, in for a Ruble, Rouble or Rumble. A long lease on a naval yard at Limassol and parking some big Bear nuclear bombers at RAF Akrotiri is looking better every minute. (They may need tugs to bring the boats from Latakia).

So Angela, how does your new pal Dodgy Dave in London feel about your Cyprus squeeze play now?

There’s a lot that could happen in the next few days and it probably will. Angela, the lovely Christine (the one in the Hermès foulard, not Christina de la Casa Rosada), and their buddy Professor Mario 2 Draghi are going to have some fat to chew. It could be very unpalatable. No doubt they are savouring the delicious irony that a Troika is a Russian conveyance propelled by three horses (arses). On second thoughts, since Christina de Kirchner is nearby in Roma, why not invite her over to Nicosia. Her experience in stiffing foreign creditors and threatening small islands could be invaluable. The Teutonic last name inherited from nasty Nestor can’t hurt.

As a small footnote of history, Cyprus, unlike Greece, Crete and other Aegean islands was invaded neither by Italians nor Germans during WWII. The Axis dropped a few bombs and the Cypriots joined the Cyprus Regiment and fought valiantly as Allies, as did many Greeks; spurred on by visions of Enosis that did not materialize at the war’s end, in spite of turning their guns on the British in the 50’s. Independence from Britain arrived first (with the Archbishop becoming PM – an idea for Justin Welby OE?), but threats of enforced Enosis from post coup Athens in 1974 brought the Ottomans back to occupy much of the northern part of their erstwhile island, where they remain to this day. (Always get your retaliation in first). A sad divided island, the Greek side now petitioning the Russians for succour. There’s one born every minute.

Can brave little Cyprus defy the Euro-Axis again and send the Prussians home or will Parliament be frog-marched and dragooned back into session to “re-vote right this time” in true Euro-tradition and embrace Deutsche Hegemonie in accordance with Clausewitzian doctrine? Maybe, but shooting the Russian bear where it hurts may also be a high risk strategy. They can usually find kneecaps with the first round. Who will the Cypriot Quisling be?

Simon

But Richard, for Cyprus!

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100023466/daylight-robbery-in-cyprus-will-come-to-haunt-emu/

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100207625/the-extraordinary-thing-is-that-there-hasnt-yet-been-a-bank-run-across-the-mediterranean/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9938342/Cyprus-the-rescue-plan-that-backfired-on-Brussels.html

The psychology of bank runs is fascinating. See Mary Poppins. Frau Tante Angela has decided to step out und Schlittschuh laufen over the thinnest of ice. The only prerogative in the Berliner Kanzerlei Bunker today, to which Der Bundesbank is clearly subordinated, is that she be re-crowned as Die Königin in September. Das Vertrauen ist eine Trücke. Poking Vlad Vlad in the eye is a delicious bonus via Nicosia. He’ll get his retribution in when a cold snap hits the Ossies again – his friends in Minsk and Kiev will be only too happy to raise the price of gas/close the taps for Der Vaterland in return for a few free nights in Moscow with Anna Chapman.

Hum er Ärmster,  Herr Anastasiades zwischen Baum und Borke sitzt. Should have called Die Frau Angela’s bluff after asking Vlad Vlad for his best offer; to include bringing his naval units from Latakia to Larnaca and Limassol for an indefinite stay, with free tots of Ouzo. Now he’s going to have to try to back-track or the parliament will do it for him. Either way this dog/Hund has barked/gekläfftet hat and the Euro in your pocket will never be the same.

Wonderful how a sovereign nation can receive a diktat aus den Norden to expropriate its own people. At least when FDR did it to gold holdings he was President of the USA. It helps blur the line between a tax and the government helping itself to the Euro in your pocket. Oh, to be in Nicosia now that the bail-out is there.

Should help concentrate minds in Rome – woops I forgot, they’re too busy placing bets on The Argentine Pope v Christina the Glamorous v Dodgy Dave. At least Dave had the good sense to stay out of Rome while there is a) no government there, and b) Christina is in town and ready to box his ears again à la G20.

Will the Cypriots wake up tomorrow and smell the Retsina? Another day in the death of the Euro. Long live the Euro.

Apologies for the pidgin-Deutsch but we must all practise for the day Die Königin rules as Hegemon of all the Hegemons.

Simon

Once more unto the Euro-breach ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9920666/Germanys-anti-euro-party-is-a-nasty-shock-for-Angela-Merkel.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9913837/Italys-Bersani-on-collision-course-with-Germany-and-ECB-over-austerity.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9930196/EU-leaders-to-clash-over-austerity-measures-at-summit-as-unemployment-accelerates.html

It’s been a long cold winter in the EU and Eurozone; during which the hiatus in your poor scribbler’s offerings have been to allow the emergence of a trend beyond that of Mario 1 Draghi declaring “it will be enough”. Enough at least to outlive the long cold winter of the Europolity’s discontent, for Richard III to be exhumed from his 600 plus year slumber ‘neath a Leicester car park (still in want of a horse), for Mario 2 Monti’s star to go into permanent eclipse behind the Beppe Grillo comet, for an anti-Euro party to become nascent in Germany und für Die Kanklerin, Frau Tante Angela, to contemplate her demise in a mere six months, even for Cyprus to acquire a non-Communist government and to request a bail out from Greece, and last but by no means least, for Eurozone unemployment to grind inexorably upward to 12% and for youff (sic) discontent at its drowning prospects to go on a slow boil. If this is Eu/Zone success then may the new régime in the Vatican save them from a real crisis.

Who will govern Italy, if indeed any part of it is governable at all? A nation state malgré lui. Can ever more of the great Italian economy go off the books or be coöpted by the various divisions of the Mafia. How many divisions does the Pope have? Can Francois the Dutchman save himself with adventurism on the road from Timbuktu? Can Rajoy stay out of jail? Can Barroso and Van Rumply repeat their mantra one more time and retain even a semblance of credibility (I do know the answer to that rhetorical flourish)?

We are on the road to discovering whether Uncle Milton (Friedman not John) was nearly correct about the Euro or whether the Champs Elysée will become the sunny uplands of the great project. Were I a bettor, it would not be hard to choose where to place my last few Euro’s.

The can kicked down the road, into the long grass, the dénouement, Armageddon and Götterdämmerung are all back in play. Ariadne ist auf Naxos, Angela is ref but ihre Pfeife may no longer be audible. Remember that the putative policy of the new German party is to allow the Neue DeutscheMark (taking the Orangemen, the hardy Nordics, the Luxemburgers and the Austrians with them) to float upward against the rump Club Med Euro. How will they poll?

Meanwhile, back in the AA UK, the rickety Coalition of Dodgy Dave and Nick Cloggy looks to be tottering on its last legs, as the Huhne’s go to the pokey for their sins.

We will be watching and offering facetious thoughts; though that hardly seems appropriate for such a calamity as our European friends have visited upon themselves. The CHF and the NKr remain attractive funk-holes for all that dinero the tax man allows to escape his sticky embrace. They will hold up better than Beppe’s Nuova-Lira.

Simon