I fear the Greeks and can't cope with Latin

It took me years and years to realise that I wasn’t going to master Latin. An appalling language. For instance, the subject moves around the sentence and you have to track it down which means you have to recognise it. Since it has a different form in each of the six declensions, to say nothing of the sub-forms of the third, the task feels insuperable, at least to me. 

I’m not saying I didn’t get anywhere with it. In the eighteenth century, German or Nordic scientists, aware that no-one was ever going to learn to read their languages, used to write in Latin. In fact, at the time, not many could cope with English – Voltaire was exceptional in mastering it, since most of his compatriots couldn’t even be bothered to try, a tradition proudly kept alive by their descendants to this day. Even so, though English scientists also wrote Latin (viz Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica) they would occasionally stick to English (viz Newton’s Opticks with its interesting take on spelling).

It may have been that refusal of English-speakers to use an international language consistently that eventually forced the world to adopt ours. Helped a bit by the power of the US dollar, of course. And not a little by the power of the US bayonet.

Anyway, back in the eighteenth century, much scientific material was in Latin. So when I was working on eighteenth-century science I’d occasionally have to read Latin, which was always a curious experience. I could usually work out that the author was talking about planetary orbits, for instance, but couldn’t always tell whether he was saying that they were elliptical or that they weren’t. A little learning can sometimes be a frustrating thing.

Ultimately I’ve had to accept defeat. Now my knowledge of the language – until perhaps I get another chance to have a go in retirement (assuming I get to retire some day) – really comes down to a few half-remembered tags.

One of these is ‘Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes’, which seems to be saying ‘I’m timid when confronted by Danes and iron women’ but I’m reliably assured actually means ‘I fear the Greeks when they come bearing gifts.’

Well, last week was when the rest of Europe tried to make a gift to the Greeks. Or was it perhaps the other way round?

First the Eurozone offered Greece a pile of money, but only on condition it spent a lot less. Sounds like one of those ‘good news, bad news’ things, doesn’t it? ‘Have all this lovely money, just don’t use it.’ Then the soon to be ex-Prime Minister said he’d have a referendum and ask his compatriots whether they’d like a tad more austerity, reduced pensions and a lot fewer jobs, because people usually say ‘yes’ when asked that.

My first reaction to the idea of holding a referendum was one of horror. For God’s sake, I wanted to scream, there isn’t any other offer on the table. What if the electorate says ‘no’? You think Merkel and Sarkozy are going to say ‘well, in that case, we’ll dip a bit further in our pockets and come up with some more?’

So the moment I heard he’d withdrawn the referendum promise – or threat – I was relieved. But then I began to wonder. I mean, what if the Greeks had said ‘no’? Maybe it’s time someone did.

In a sense, that’s what the ‘Occupy’ protests are all about. They’re not demanding anything in particular – more money spent on schools, less on the military, or whatever. They’re saying ‘the way we’re going isn’t right. Let’s check the direction of travel before we go any further.’

And they’re right. What’s being imposed on the Greeks is just more of the same, which of course means a lot less. Less public health. Less education. Less employment. While the elite who got Greece into this mess in the first place will contrive to look sorry while hanging on to their loot. In Britain, bonuses in the Finance sector fell from £14 billion in 2008 to £12 billion in 2009 – only to go back to £14 billion in 2010. The pay of Chief Executives of our biggest companies rose by 49% last year. Some people are doing just fine in this crisis, mostly the ones who got us into the mess and then demanded we pay for it.

Those people in the tents around St Paul’s are saying that there must be a better way.

I’d have feared it if the Greeks had brought us a gift consisting of a ‘no’ in a referendum. But perhaps it would have been no bad thing to face that fear and deal with it.

Virgil's Aeneid warned us about the Greeks. I think.

Postscript. It’s not all bad news at the moment, is it? It looks like Berlusconi’s on his way out. Of course, I won’t believe he’s gone till he’s actually been replaced – he has a way, like the monster in a horror film, of re-emerging again and again when you think the hero’s finally got him. But I guess we can at least start to hope that this is, finally, the beginning of the end.

Mockery can unite us

What an edifying spectacle Europe presents for us these days!

David Cameron retains some residual popularity, in Britain, or at least England, though it stops dead at the White Cliffs of Dover.

Silvio Berlusconi is the butt of everyone’s humour, that being the only response possible, other than despair, at the idea that the fate of the Eurozone, so dependent on Italy, is in the hands of a man facing at least three separate trials on matters of fraud and moral turpitude.

No-one can stand Sarkozy, seen as a latter day Napoleon, minus the charm. To say nothing of the vision, courage, competence or ability.

Angela Merkel is running out of road. Even Barack Obama, celebrated to the point of notoriety for keeping his cool in all circumstances, seems to be losing patience with her.

As for George Papandreou, with his flip-flops between caving in to the pressure on Greece or resisting it, he has spent the last few days simply drifting inexorably towards the only solution on which his countrymen seem virtually unanimous: that he should go.

Now I’ve been a committed European for years, strongly in favour of turning the European Union into a single, federal state. 

Don’t the the present circumstances provide a powerful argument in favour of that position?

Surely, if only from the point of view of efficiency and cost effectiveness, it would make much more sense to have a single government for the whole of the Union? What on Earth is the point of having all those separate little chiefs to despise and drag through the mud? Why don’t we have just one?


Then we could channel our contempt at just one set of leaders and leave them to get on with getting up the noses of the Americans and Chinese on behalf of us all.

A convenient target for all our mockery?

Postscript – another train experience: This morning, sitting across the aisle from me, was a woman in her thirties dressed for power but with great taste and fine aesthetic sense.

As we pulled in to St Pancras station, she rose from her seat and from the luggage rack above her pulled an exquisitely tailored coat – one of those that swings through the air, like a cloak with sleeves. She wrapped it round herself in one graceful movement, hitting me on the side of my head and sweeping across my face in a way that would have sent my glasses flying to the ground had I been wearing them. Next came her handbag, large but finely designed, which she swung the other way – had I not ducked it would have taken me in the forehead. Finally, she floated gracefully down the carriage, as self-controlled and self-confident as ever, and completely oblivious to the injuries she had so nearly cause me.

At least, I hope she was oblivious. I can forgive the condescension which made her unaware of her impact, literally, on the people around her; I would find it more difficult to excuse her arrogance if in fact she knew what she’d done and chose to ignore it anyway. 

The Euro: dealing with teenagers

There are times when Europe offers the most wonderful political theatre, even against the background of the most solemn, painful difficulties. 


I’ve already talked about David Cameron being told to shut it by Sarkozy, providing a riveting display of the family-tension view of the political scene in Europe. Merkel and Sarkozy are the parents in this scenario, struggling to come to grips with most testing financial crisis the continent has seen for the best part of a century. Cameron’s in the role of the teenager with the baseball cap. 


‘Come on, Dad’, he’s saying, or perhaps ‘Daaaad’, ‘you’ve got to get this sorted, you’ve got to get the shed fixed up before the band comes to play in it at the weekend.’ You should never snap at a disturbed teenager, but surely we can sympathise when eventually harassed parents cracks and round on their whingeing offspring? 


‘Put a sock in it, son,’ Dad replies, ‘can’t you see we’ve got something slightly bigger to sort out here?’ 


But Merkel and Sarkozy have another troublesome boy. To their South, they have Berlusconi. He’s even worse than Dave because he thinks he’s funny. 


Isn’t it ghastly when a teenager starts trying to show off the wit he doesn’t have? You remember Silvio likening a German MEP to a concentration camp kapo? You only have to look at Silvio’s smile to know he thought he was being devastatingly hilarious. 


Then there was the time he kept Merkel waiting while he continued an apparently interminable mobile phone conversation. How stereotypical is that? 


Now the parents have actually put together a bit of a plan to get the family out of its hole. Will it work? It’s hard to say but it seems pretty clear that, without their latest measures, things would have been far worse, far sooner. 


Silvio’s comments? Yesterday he told us that the euro was a ‘strange’ currency because it can be ‘attacked on the markets.’ Does he mean unlike the lira, the pound or the franc? He’s the fourteen year-old who’s opted for the ‘Introduction to Economics’ course and hasn’t realised that reading the first half of chapter 1 doesn’t make him an expert. 


He also declared that the euro is a currency that ‘convinces no-one’. Now it must have been nice for all those people who laboured through all those hours of summit meetings to hear that from one of the major beneficiaries of their efforts. 


The parents have found a way that might help save the house. Dave is sulking in his room, playing his guitar with the amp turned up too high, refusing to contribute anything while still insisting on being fed. 


Silvio doesn’t think that saving the house makes much sense, because he doesn’t like the colour of the walls. Perhaps it’s no wonder that when Merkel and Sarkozy were asked at a press conference last week about the assurances Berlusconi had given them, they shared an ironic, and probably weary, smile before they tackled the effort of coming up with an answer. 

Merkel and Sarkozy struggling to stay serious-looking when
asked about the reliability of Berlusconi

That smile wasn’t well received in Italy. I can imagine that it caused even more pain than suffered by Cameron and his friends when he was told to shut up. 


But was it any the less deserved?

Murdoch: time to cut him some slack

Hasn’t Rupert Murdoch suffered enough? Is it time to show some compassion?

Everyone seems to have a knife into the poor fellow these days (you understand that I’m using the word ‘poor’ in a purely metaphorical sense)

My view: it’s time to stop. He’s had to withdraw his bid to buy the whole of satellite broadcaster BSkyB and with it his ambition to go from being a baleful influence in British broadcasting to becoming a veritable Sauron (OK, OK, Voldemort for the younger generation). That’s a hell of a blow and I say it’s time for decent Englishmen to stop kicking him. We just don’t do that sort of thing to a man who’s down.

Instead we should be offering him encouragement.  

Personally, I’d like to encourage him to enjoy the extended rest his long labours have surely earned him. Yes, Rupe, it’s time to get on with your retirement. In fact, why not see if you can’t share it with the only other man who can hold a light to you when it comes to lifetime achievement, that other great media mogul and present Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi?

You should retire together. Why, that would mean that a stroke you'd be immeasurably benefitting not just one counrty but two. At least.

Perfect company for each other and ripe for retirement

You could while away the lengthening evenings over a good bottle or two and have a laugh about all the people who made the mistake of trying to get in your way. I see the two of you doing that in some idyllic setting – I understand that Silvio has a lovely place, just right for the purpose, on the island of Sardinia. And it’s not just the spot that’s superb, I’m told that he’s a dab hand at making sure the entertainment leaves nothing to be desired. Or to the imagination.

What’s more, if a few Italian magistrates have their way, Silvio may not be needing to provide his own accommodation for too much longer. In that case, Rupe could have it to himself.

Of course, it’s true that Murdoch has his own minor issues to sort out with the law. But hey, let’s take these things one step at a time. Tomorrow can look after tomorrow’s problems – you know, sufficient unto the day and all that stuff.

I shouldn’t let the prospect of a judicial enquiry in Britain put you off at all from getting on with your retirement. My advice to you is get on with it just as soon as you can - it can't come a moment too soon.