Greek debt: parallels and contrasts with the US

Greeks who remember the German occupation, according to the BBC, are now talking about another invasion by Germany without a shot being fired.

Greece will, it seems, stay in the Euro. At least for the moment. It will do so at the cost of measures that apparently represent more severe austerity than the terms rejected by Greeks in a referendum just over a week ago. It feels like Greek voters have lost, but German politicians – apparently the fiercest critics of Greece and the harshest in their demands of them – have won.

Merkel may have avoided this destiny so far
But certainly not be being gentle with Greece

This reminds me of how the United States dealt with a similar crisis, when it faced debt problems not unlike those of Greece within the Eurozone.

The original constitution of the United States was deeply unsatisfactory, giving almost no power – certainly no power to raise funds – to the national government, and leaving most authority in the hands of the States. It became increasingly clear over just a few years that the situation was untenable and something with a more serious Federal government at its centre would have to be set up.

A Convention met and drew up the Constitution of the United States that we know today (though at that stage without any amendments, of course). George Washington became the first President and, among an all-star cast of Ministers, he appointed Alexander Hamilton as his Secretary of the Treasury (Minister of Finance).

Now there’s little on which I agree with Hamilton, particularly his views of popular sovereignty, but that’s for another debate. On finance, he was something of a wizard. And one of his first major measures concerned what came to be known as Assumption – not a religious moment, except for those whose God in Mammon, but the initiative by which the Federal government would take over the debts incurred by the individual States in fighting the War of Independence.

That was great news for Massachusetts and South Carolina, which were saddled with heavy debts (viz Greece) but not so good for Virginia and North Carolina which had cleared most of theirs, and didn’t appreciate having to pick up the tabs for the others (viz Germany). There was a battle royal. James Madison, destined to become the Republic’s fourth president, was a Congressman at the time and led the campaign against Assumption. He defeated the proposal.

The story has it that Alexander Hamilton met Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State but destined to be the third President, in the street outside Jefferson’s house. He was distraught and Jefferson invited him in. Hamilton explained that without Assumption, certain States would be driven towards bankruptcy, and also the Federal government would be shown to be powerless to face up to dealing with a financial crisis (viz the Eurozone).

What’s more, Hamilton maintained the apparently paradoxical view that the Federal government would be accepting a “national blessing” by taking on the debt: it would oblige it to collect taxes and establish it as creditworthy (viz the Eurozone again).

Jefferson was a close ally of Madison’s and increasingly an opponent of Hamilton’s. But he allowed his then-colleague to convince him, and took it on himself to win Madison round.

The two allies came up with a compromise solution: Madison would not block the question of Assumption coming up again in Congress; he would vote no, but would not speak against the proposal. That’s what happened, and Assumption was adopted, over the silent opposition of Madison.

At the time, the US had a population of under 4 million. Even the UK had 8 million, and France 20 million. GDP was around $200 million, corresponding to about $4.5 billion today – when US GDP is about $17.7 trillion. The US was, in other words, a minor sideshow in geopolitics back then; today it is the wealthiest and most powerful nation on Earth.

There is no need for Europe to aspire to that status. European nations have been massive global players in the past, and places like Amritsar or Algiers testify to how badly that went. But it strikes me that Europe needs to get its act together if it is only to defend its status in a world increasingly dominated by huge nations, such as the US, China and Russia.

The success of the US wasn’t naturally entirely down to acceptance of Hamilton’s proposals on handling debt. But they certainly contributed: they set up the notion of the Union has owing a duty to all its components, and therefore being more powerful than any of them, capable of playing a full role on the world stage.

So the US passed its test over Assumption.

I’m not sure the Eurozone has done anything like so well over Greek debt.

Time to listen to the Greeks?

The thing about a crisis is that it’s a great moment to re-examine some fundamental assumptions about what on Earth you’re up to. And when it comes to the European Union and, in particular, the Eurozone such an examination is badly overdue.

No one in authority in the European institutions will see it that way, but what this means is that the Greeks may well have done them a service.

By voting massively to reject the austerity package being forced on them by the Troika of the European Union, European Central Bank and the IMF, the Greek people have sent us all an important message. It is that though the Greeks may be in serious trouble, and the difficulties there have to be addressed, it can’t be done exclusively on the backs of those least able to cope with it.

It is almost unthinkable that a modern economy should shrink by a quarter over five years. 26% of the workforce is out of work, and that figure reaches nearly 50% for the young. Pensioners have seen their pensions cut in half – pensions to which they had loyally contributed throughout their working lives. To behave in that way is to break any kind of covenant there may be between government and people – it is to say that even if you do what we ask you to do, and the law requires of you, we reserve the right to refuse you the reward we’ve promised, even if that plunges you into penury.

To say “no” to that kind of action is practically an obligation.

Guardian photo of young Greeks celebrating the "no" vote

Nor does it matter only to the Greeks. Austerity politics are being pursued in a great many countries, particularly across Europe. And yet we know they fail. Back in the 20s, in the last great crash of the proportions of the current one, the immediate reaction of the Right was to tighten belts and impose austerity – though, as ever, not on themselves, only on the poor.

The result was mass unemployment and back-grinding poverty. In Britain, we had the Jarrow Hunger marches, starving workers converging on London from the North. In the US, we had “buddy, can you spare a dime?”

Fortunately for all of us, the US had the genius to find a man of Franklin Roosevelt’s calibre to replace the austerity incompetent Herbert Hoover. He applied policies of public investment in large projects to stimulate the economy and return it to growth. And at last the problems of the slump began to be solved.

This time round, we’re dominated by people of the Hoover persuasion once more, and they’ve made Greece the test bed of their policies. Where, unsurprisingly, they’ve failed again. Even the IMF has admitted as much, in a report that was leaked last week: they conclude that even if it applies the austerity policies precisely as prescribed, Greece cannot sustain its debt.

What Greece needs is help not austerity. It needs debt relief so that it can start to invest in itself, and get itself back to growth.

And by the way – a lot of economic activity these days is in services, where you’re not manufacturing, you’re not even consuming an intolerable amount of energy, you’re just using people to provide service to other people. Growth, in other words, does not have to be environmentally disastrous.

The irony is that the entire Greek government debt works out at $630 per inhabitant of the Europe Union. If the EU took on half the debt and cleared it over ten years, we’d be talking about just over $30 a year per inhabitant. What’s that? The price of a cheap shirt?

In any case, no one’s asking for that extent of debt relief. The question we should be asking, though, is if we can’t make that level of sacrifice for a member of our own union that is in desperate trouble, then what is our union for?

The Greek referendum result poses that question starkly, to us all.

And we too should be asking it, of our governments. In Britain, for instance, government is about to take £12 billion out of the benefits bill. That may sound like a necessary retrenchment at a time of economic hardship. But what it really means is that £12 billion of demand will go out of the economy: recipients of benefits spend what they receive, so every penny goes into generating demand.

Is Britain really saving anything by making those cuts? Are other European nations or the US doing themselves a favour by seeking austerity solutions? Or are we making things worse?

The Greeks have given their answer. It might be a good idea to listen to them.

Greece and the EU: who's been betrayed by whom?

It seems that Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, feels betrayed by the behaviour of the Greek government.

The purpose of a union is to create something that is greater than the sum of its parts. By pulling together, the nations of the European Union agree to work together, giving up some of their individual freedom of action, because they believe that in joint effort they can achieve more.

Within the Eurozone, the bonds are even closer, since the countries have given up control over their own currency, a major sacrifice when it comes to combatting financial difficulties.

Part of the bargain is that if any constituent of the Union gets into trouble, the Union as a whole rallies round to help. Now, following the financial crash of 2008, five EU nations, all within the Eurozone, were particularly harshly affected. These were the so-called PIIGS: Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain.

Several years on, all but Greece seem to have weathered the worst of the pressure. That’s not to say that they’re doing well. No one in the Eurozone is doing well. It’s stagnating as a whole,but that’s a not unexpected result of the austerity economics it has imposed on itself. Austerity cuts people’s spending power, so demand goes out of the economy and, as day follows night, the economy fails to grow.

Greece however is in a far worse state than the others. The EU, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank, clubbed together to provide it with funding and to buy it some debt relief, but only at the cost of an even harsher austerity programme than the other nations underwent. As a result, unemployment rose to one in four of the workforce and, far from growing, the economy has shrunk by a quarter. A catastrophe.

Instead of banding together to help its weakest member out of the mud, the EU has inflicted on Greece policies that could only drive it far deeper still. While its membership of the Euro denies Greece the classic solution of devaluing its currency, as Larry Eliiott explains in The Guardian.

Guardian photograph from Athens:
graffiti expressing increasing anti-Euro feelings

So the EU has achieved precisely the opposite of what is intended in a Union.

The result is that it now looks increasingly as though Greece will, as long feared, have to leave the Euro, and perhaps the EU too, if only to have any chance of working its way out of the mess it’s in, with even a shred of dignity left to it.

Make no mistake about it. It would be extremely painful for Greece if it came to that. But it would be a disaster for the EU and the Eurozone. Greece is the first test of the capability of the Union to stand by a member that is in real trouble. They’re on the brink of failing that test. That inevitably raises the question “what is the EU for? If it can’t even rescue a relatively small member from penury…”

Angela Merkel enjoys a high and deserved reputation for her statesmanship. But it is she, and Germany more generally, that has led the campaign to inflict the harsh regime on Greece which it is now rejecting. If she can’t magic some solution out of the chasm in front of her at the moment, her legacy may be that of the leader of Europe who saw the experiment of union founder.

Larry Elliott’s article calls what we are facing now a “Sarajevo moment”. The assassination of the Austrian Archduke in Sarajevo in 1914 initially seemed to be a relatively minor event in a distant place. But within weeks it had engulfed the whole of Europe in the torment of the First World War.

The exit of Greece from the Union might be another minor event, but it will be a critical step in causing the EU project to start to unravel. The Eurozone will have shown that it is incapable of solving a problem within its membership. And the EU will have shown that it can’t look after its constituent nations.

Those of us in Britain who want the country to remain a member of the EU will find our arguments for staying in weakened in the run up to our promised referendum. And Eurosceptic movements in other European nations will also gain momentum. The impact on the Union could be lethal.

Someone has certainly betrayed the ideals of the European Union here. But, Mr Juncker, I’m not sure it’s Greece.

The Labour leader and the Greeks: it's not the answer that matters, it's the question

Last Wednesday, one of the BBC’s flagship programmes Newsnight hosted a debate between the four candidates for the Labour Party leadership, made vacant when Ed Miliband stood down following his crushing defeat in a General Election on 7 May.

One of the questions from the audience was whether getting a budget surplus was the most important economic objective for the British government. That was a great question, especially in a week in which we moved closer to the wire on Greece defaulting on its debts and possibly being forced out of the Euro, if not the European Union itself. The crisis has been caused by the rest of the Eurozone, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, all insisting that Greece continue to pursue austerity policies to reduce its deficit and ultimately its debt.

Jeremy Corbyn was the last candidate to get onto the ballot for Labour leader. Any candidate needs 35 MPs to back him; he got 36, the smallest number of the four, and it’s known that some of those nominating him wouldn’t actually be voting for him: they wanted him in the running just to ensure a wide-ranging debate, and Corbyn certainly does that, since he comes from the traditional Left of the Party. His answer to the question was an unequivocal “no.”

The most important thing, he said, is to ensure our community has a health service, has an education service, people are decently housed and young people have abilities to go into work and develop themselves.

Then the question was put to Liz Kendall. She was only elected an MP in 2010, making her the least experienced of the candidates, as well as (just) the youngest. She’s personable, apparently likeable, articulate and intelligent – all four qualities that one would regard as pretty much the minimum requirement for any politician, but this is the Labour Party where we’ve just gone through five years with a leader who was outstanding on intelligence and, I suspect, likability, but had a terrible tendency to blunder and mess up in communicating those qualities.

Kendall’s also a woman, and it’s time Labour had a woman leader.

So what did she say to the question?

People didn’t trust us on the economy and with their taxes. I believe in strong public finances, because, you know, unless we balance the books, live within our means, and get the deficit and debt down, we can’t do all the things that we’re passionate about like tackling inequality and homelessness.

Well, the passion I like. But that emphasis on strong finances? Isn’t that just more of the austerity rhetoric?

The sad thing is that austerity seems to be the consensus position across most of Europe today. Consensus can be good, naturally. A consensus emerged in Europe in the first part of the twentieth century that women should have the right to vote, and in nation after nation, a terrible abuse was tackled and done away with. But consensus can also be stifling and deeply damaging, as was the case, for instance, with the generalised view that the European powers had the right to carve themselves out empires from the poorer areas of the globe.

When it comes to austerity, the case of Greece rather seems to run counter to the received wisdom that it’s good for you. Five years on, the economy has shrunk appallingly – by a quarter – and 26% of the workforce has been thrown out of its jobs. And there’s no sign of a return to growth and therefore of any real progress towards solving the problem of indebtedness.

Gavin Shuker, our local MP, chairs a meeting with Liz Kendall

So when I heard that my local Labour Party had invited Liz Kendall to come and talk to us this afternoon I popped along to hear what she had to say. I met her outside, and she gave me a beaming smile and shook my hand; I wonder whether I was ungracious, because when she told me “I’m Liz Kendall” I couldn’t help myself replying, “I know, I recognised you.” I hope she wasn’t offended, since she was, as expected, pleasant, personable and apparently likeable.

Of course, she probably forgot the whole event within minutes in any case, but I still don’t like to be brusque.

That, however, didn’t stop me putting the question I’d come to ask her: what was her view of austerity economics, particularly given its apparent failure in Greece?

Well, I had a fairly firm expectation of how she’d answer. She’d already told us that she was a “fiscal conservative” and believed in “sound finances.” And indeed she assured us that:

We have to live within our means and get the debt and deficit down.

Certainly, that is the view espoused by most fiscal conservatives, including those in the present Conservative government.

She rammed the message home with a comment specifically on the Greeks:

They need to stick to their commitments.

Interesting. I can’t help feeling that if the answer is chucking one in four of your workers out of work and shrinking your economy by a quarter, then someone’s asking the wrong question. And I’m not sure that I want that to be happening at the top of the Labour Party.

Personable. Likeable. Intelligent. Articulate. A potential woman leader. Liz Kendall’s all of those things.

But the one I want to vote for? I’m afraid not.

Europe: remembering past tribulations, facing today's

Strange to think that 68 years ago today the French Chanel coast was facing a massive onslaught by American, British, Commonwealth and indeed French troops. Ranged against them were the tenacious defenders of German domination of the European Continent. 

Strange because given how well those nations are all getting on these days, it’s hard to believe there was a time when so much as a hard word passed between them. 

My father, in the Royal Air Force at the time, flew over the landing beaches. His comment? ‘I was bloody glad I wasn’t in those German defences under that naval bombardment. Even from 10,000 feet it looked fearsome.’

6 June 1944.
Nice if we can avoid the violence next time we decide to get closer

These days the stakes are different. Far from trying to drive the Germans out, the French toady are trying to lock them in.

‘You’re the ones with the money,’ they’re saying, ‘and a lot of it you made from trading on favourable terms with the rest of us. Time to give some back by helping us stop the collapse of our banking sector.’

Of course, that does beg the question of why we’re so keen on the banking sector. When the coal mines went in this country, in the days of Thatcher, no-one said ‘hey, can’t we find a few billion to keep them open and protect those jobs?’ For bankers, it seems, things are different.

Actually, I’m particularly bemused by the argument that bankers’ bonuses have to be kept obscenely high on the basis that we might otherwise lose the best ones. I mean, if those were the best – and look at the mess we’re in – what could the worst possibly be like? Wouldn’t it be great if we just regulated the banks into a corner? Then if ‘the best’ of them decided to slope off to Shanghai, we could just say good riddance. I don’t think we’d miss them.

But still, let’s allow the premiss that European banks do need baling out. It does seem to make sense that the wealthiest nation in the Continent acts as everyone’s banker. It’s a welcome consequence of the election of François Hollande in France that more people are beginning to say the same and even Angela Merkel is moderating her stance a little.

At this rate, they might save the Euro and even keep the Greeks in it. A long shot, but who knows, if things go the way they’re suggesting they might just pull it off.

Which is why The Guardian has been taking the position over the last couple of days that we are at the start of a crucial three-week period for the Eurozone. That’s a pronouncement that I’d take more seriously if I could think of a three-week period in the last few years which hasn’t been crucial for the Euro.

The result of moves towards closer economic and even political cooperation is that we might see more of a union between the 17 Eurozone members, something beginning to look like a United States of Europe.

But that means another great tradition will have been maintained. Because when those troops landed on the Normandy beaches, back on 6 June 1944, it was only the second successful invasion across the Channel in a millennium, the previous being William the Conqueror’s in the opposite direction in 1066. So the Channel has been a pretty effective obstacle down the ages. And since Britain is not in the Eurozone, if the new European Federation really does begin to form, that branch of sea will remain its frontier. 

If the United States of Europe emerges and we want Britain in, we’ll probably need something pretty well as spectacular as my father witnessed 78 years ago, though it would be a great relief if it could be undertaken with less violence.

So there are many fine traditions to celebrate on this anniversary of the Normandy landings. Still, I can't wrap up without mentioning one that is particularly British: the weather on this day in 1944 was lousy and so it is again today. Which, since I’ve just got back from Madrid and proper summer temperatures, is a shock to the system.

‘Welcome home,’ the rain and wind seemed to say me as I hunted through my suitcase for a jacket.

Still, no reason not to have a happy D-day anniversary, everybody. And if you’re in Britain, wrap up warm.

So you want to know what's going to happen in 2012?

As a public service, here are my predictions for the new year:

• There will be a lot more talk about the likelihood of the Euro failure. It will either fail or it won’t fail. The Eurozone will still be in crisis at the end of the year.


• The London Olympics will take place. Everyone responsible for organising them will describe them as an outstanding success. Everyone caught up in the jams in London will describe them as a major pain in the backside.


• Obama will be re-elected to the White House in November. Or he will be beaten by Mitt Romney. The US will still be in crisis at the end of the year.


• The ratings agencies will make a whole series of baseless judgements about different national economies. Because the people who make the markets will slavishly follow the ratings, they will all be proved accurate. Governments will continue to allow the agencies to dictate their policies.


• The Chinese will discover the hard way that ‘overheating’ really is a phenomenon and you can’t sustain unsustainable growth indefinitely. Or they will have another boom year and that painful but salutary lesson will be postponed again.


• Germany will win the European football championships. Or they won’t in which case one of the other teams will. It might be Spain but then again it might not.


• In other football-related news, a leading star, faced with his 25-year old supermodel showing her age, will make a fool of himself with a seventeen year old mesmerised by his figure - the athletic one he shows on field and bedroom or the one in his bank account. He will try and fail to block publication of the story. Eventually he’ll find it cheaper to pay off the teenager, who will make the easiest 300 grand of her life, and the wife will stand Tammy Wynette-like, by her man’s earning potential.


• The Queen will celebrate her diamond jubilee. It will all be jolly wonderful. People in countries round the world who take joy in poking fun at the British monarchy will be glued to their TV screens to enjoy the pageantry. 


• David Cameron will do all he can to take credit for the jubilee as he’ll have no other achievements to his name. He’ll get a three-point bounce in the polls.


• The pope will piss off the followers of one of the World’s great religions. It might be the Catholics.


• The Tea Party in the States will continue to delight us by achieving that ideal and elusive balance, sought by our best dramatist in some of their finest plays, between side-splitting caricature and and naked menace.


• Sticking with the States, the day of rapture will be announced, will be prepared for by believers and will pass without their leaders offering a word of apology or learning an ounce of humility.


• And on the ounce of humility front, starting in mid-December forecasters will tell us what’s going to happen in 2013 without the slightest mention of what they previously told us was going to happen in 2012.

Happy New Year!

Cameron takes on the Eurobullies: a cabby's view

Emerging from a London restaurant recently and looking for a taxi, Danielle and I were delighted to see one for hire just across the street. I hailed it, but with no luck: the driver simply didn’t see us and drove on.

It was no great blow since there was sure to be another along in a moment. But as we started walking we were surprised to see a young man running towards us.

‘Did you want that cab?’ he asked.                              

‘Well... yes,’ I told him a little perplexed.

‘It’s waiting for you at the corner,’ he replied.

And it was. The young man had flagged it down for us. A completely gratuitous act of kindness that was as pleasant as it was surprising.

That however proved the high point of the experience. We’d barely been under way a minute or two before the driver asked us, ‘So that Cameron, eh? Were you pleased with what he did?’

There's a question I’ve never been able to resolve to my satisfaction about London cabbies. I mean, they take that immensely taxing qualification the ‘Knowledge of London’. If you see somebody travelling the streets of the town on a small motorbike with a clipboard fixed to the handlebars, it’s almost certainly a trainee cabby ‘doing the Knowledge’, trying out all the routes, noting the one-way systems and the hold-ups, cramming for a tough exam. It can contain questions such as ‘it’s 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday. You have to get from Claridge’s Hotel to Liverpool Street Station. What’s the quickest route?’ and the candidate has to provide one that takes account of likely traffic difficulties, road works and the time of day.

I’ve always admired London cab drivers for having got through such a gruelling test, though the real value of it was only brought home to me in the back of a Paris taxi. I had just watched the driver spending ten minutes leafing unavailingly through a book of street maps, only to end by asking me ‘do you know where it is?’

What I haven’t understood is whether the ‘Knowledge of London’ test also includes questions designed to weed out anyone marginally to the left, politically, of Francisco Franco. There was a time when London cabbies, if they saw white faces in the back of the cab, would open a conversation with some overtly racist statement. These days they’re more circumspect, preferring to use code and talk about ‘immigration’ instead. And certainly on matters of economics and finance their admiration for Thatcher is only limited by a sense that she was a little too pink for them.

So the driver was calling on us to join him in unbounded admiration for David Cameron’s courage in standing up to the bully boys of Europe. There seems to be a fairly general view in this country that by exercising Britain’s right of veto against plans to amend EU Treaties to allow fiscal harmonisation within the Eurozone and save the Euro, Cameron has taken a position somehow analogous to that of Britain in 1940: you may remember the David Low cartoon of a British soldier on a rock in a raging sea shaking his fist at a stormy sky and shouting ‘Very well, alone’. Ah, glorious days.

Spirit of Cameron?

Trouble is, back then Britain really was standing alone against a vicious dictatorship that had violently broken the bulk of Europe to its will, and followed up its triumph with further brutality at least the equal of any previous tyrant’s, backed by far more effective technology.

What Cameron has done is say ‘no’ to a group of partner nations who are in desperate financial trouble and have at last woken up to the need to do something serious about it. Most of my compatriots seem to think of this act as heroic; all I can say is that their idea of what makes a hero is very different from mine. 

At any rate, I’m pleased that there’s been some decision by the Eurozone nations to act. Not that ‘decision’ and ‘action’ are exactly the same,  and it’ll be interesting to see if they can really take the plunge. If they do, they’ll have demonstrated the old truth that crises can be opportunities: it was always a matter of some doubt whether you could have a common currency without political union. The Eurozone may at last be moving towards some degree – maybe a sufficient degree – of political union in a way it probably wouldn’t have had the courage to do without the crisis.

The ideal would have been to act with Britain; to fail to act would have been disastrous; to act without Britain is only a second-best solution, but a good second best, and it at least has the merit of getting a disruptive and obstructive presence out of the process.

And what about Britain itself? Cameron said he wielded his veto to protect the City of London. So here’s one irony: the City is doing just fine, paying its leaders the kind of eye-watering bonuses that should have gone out of fashion with the financial crisis – for which they were among the chief culprits. And the other irony? If the Euro comes through its current problems, with fiscal union of its member states, it will be immeasurably strengthened. And the financial centre of the Continent will be drawn inexorably to Frankfurt.

So Cameron, by ensuring that Britain will not be represented at the meetings where this future will be planned, has sealed the lingering decline of the City of London he was ostensibly defending.

Our driver felt that Cameron deserved congratulation. Proof, if any were needed, that though the cabby’s Knowledge of London may well have been excellent, I certainly wouldn’t turn to him for advice on either politics or economics. Even though he seemed to expect it.

Back to the quiet life...

Such a relief to be out of the woods at last.

No, no, I don’t mean that the Euro crisis is over, or that Italy is back on an even keel. On the contrary, Italy’s new Prime Minister is going to have to live up to his name: Monti has some steep hills to climb.

What is finally over is the bad time for poor old Janka, our black-haired, rasta-curled dog. 


She and I have a ritual of slipping out at the end of each evening for the final walk of the day. It’s a precious time for us both. Conversation is, I will admit, limited but she trots along perfectly happily sniffing the curious smells she comes across, while I listen to an audio-book or a podcast on an i-phone. We may walk in silence, but it’s a companionable silence, which helps us drain the last of the day’s stress before settling for the night.

But between mid-October and mid-November all that gets seriously subverted. It starts with Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, enlivened with its fireworks. It builds from there to Guy Fawkes Day, when we Brits lay on a special feast for our young children, to celebrate the torturing to death of a Catholic dissident four centuries ago – and we celebrate with fireworks. In between, there’s Halloween which has nothing to do with fireworks but, hey, if you’ve been letting them off for Diwali before and will be letting them off for Guy Fawkes immediately after, you might as well keep letting them off for Halloween too.

Since the people who set off fireworks seem to feel the need to get some serious practising done in preparation for the major festivities, no night goes past without bangs occurring somewhere.

And as a result, at home Janka cowers at our feet, while on the street she turns and bolts for home, only restrained by her lead, by which she drags me back towards the house.


This evening, however, we had our walk without incident. As we strolled home, I realised, with blessed relief, that we had emerged from our bad times for another twelve months. 

Janka: able to relax again at last

Janka has regained her composure. And we can enjoy our evening ritual again, in perfect contentment. 

Next: how we got Italy back to stability and solved the Euro crisis.