The people have spoken. In Greek. And what they said was: WE DON’T WANT NO MORE OF YER SODDIN’ AUSTERITY; WE WON’T BE HELD TO RANSOM BY ‘EUROPE’ AND FORCED INTO POVERTY, NOT NO MORE. WE WANT THE GOOD LIFE BACK AND WE WANNIT NOW.

So they elected the Syriza party in who have sworn to end the austerity and bring back ‘the good life’. Which, for Greeks, has always been paying very little in taxes and retiring on over-inflated state pensions when they get to about 45. Whilst the rest of the world was busy with toxic loans, sub-prime mortgages and screwing up the entire global banking system, the Greeks were cool and laid back and notched up their own debt (320billion Euros) by sheer indolence.

So its all very well for gobby commy Alexis Tsipras to declare ‘an end to auterity!!’ but how is that going to work, exactly?

The only way for it to work is for him, his party, his nation, to stop paying back the money they borrowed. We don’t like this, so we’re not paying you back any more. We want to have the resources to buy more Ouzo, and we can’t do that when saddled with all this Eurozone debt, so you can all just fuck off, we’re not paying you any more. Or, as they put it, they wish to ‘renegotiate’ their austerity package. Sadly though, they have nothing to put on the table. If you borrow 50 quid from your mate ’til payday’ and then don’t pay him back, you’re a bastard. And he probably won’t lend you another 50 quid next week. Where’s the room for ‘renegotiation’? When you need to keep borrowing but refuse to pay what you already owe?

Of course the Greeks don’t like austerity; its horrible and has left thousands of them in poverty with no jobs and no sign of jobs on the horizon. But I simply can’t see how refusing to pay back what you owe is the answer.

So on the eve of the elections I went to see Birdman, the movie about a failed and forgotten superhero movie star, played by failed and forgotten superhero movie star, Michael Keaton, the ‘first’ of the modern era Batmen, and the best of the tongue-in-cheek ones by some distance.

This is no superhero movie. Quite the opposite. Whatever that may be. Its very surreal, quite dark, interestingly confusing and raises many interesting points that you’re not aware its actually raising. It leaves you dazed and puzzled. But the ‘journey’ is such a great one that it doesn’t really matter. The acting is fantastic, the dialogue totally brilliant and the filming really beautiful. Its different. And that ain’t no crime when movie success is now measured in terms of financial performance as compared to Comic Hero movie franchises.

Happy Monday

A xxxx