Mr Lavish on the Eurozone
Mr Lavish has decided that the Greeks are really far too nice to be in the Eurozone – the free wine helped, of course.
Posted by Elderjuice
on August 3, 2012. Filed under Banter.
Posted with the tags:euro, Mr LavishYou can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Mr Lavish has decided that the Greeks are really far too nice to be in the Eurozone – the free wine helped, of course.
What with the Facebook IPO (I’ve no idea what that actually means but Binky tells me we got more than we expected) I’ve not paid much attention to what’s been going on over on the contingong. That’s what it used to be called in the good old days.
Debts
So when I read the headline that some Greek Johnny was saying that if no one lent them any money they would simply stop paying their debts, I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. If you don’t have the dosh, you can’t pay.
As ever with conundrums I popped along to see Binky at my merchant bank. He knows everything.
So I asked him what they were on about. It seems they’ve been borrowing short and then spending it without any moolah coming in – apart from more borrowings. Binky was pretty scathing about a lot of politicos and banks and how they had behaved, but naturally he had a strategy to profit from the situation.
Kicked out
Binky’s view was that Greece would be kicked out of the Euro shortly followed by quite a few other foreign types and that meant the Euro would rise.
He’d quietly been amassing a pile of the blasted things. As ever with Binky he didn’t just buy them and sit on them, he traded them, so every day we had more and more Euros tucked away at effectively no cost to ourselves (well to me actually).
I never understand why he does that – he’s always talking about being in for nothing. The last time I heard that was from a poker player who had gone all in and ended up with nothing. Of course, they may not be the same thing.
Lunch
Binky had another lunch appointment so I wandered off to find a place that had some decent wine. Actually, anywhere in the City has fairly decent wine if you are prepared to pay for it.
Quite suddenly an outlandishly dressed middle aged man jumped out in front of me waving his hands about and trying to thrust bits of paper at me.
Now you may think I am a bit of an old stick-in-the-mud, but in truth I am always up for an experience. So once I managed to convince the moustachioed chappie – who resembled nothing so much as one of those Spanish dancers with pom-poms on their arms – that I was quite prepared to take one of his bits of paper he calmed down a bit.
Free wine
Turns out he was a PR – at least that’s what he said he was. He wasn’t in the least like Max Clifford, but his job was to get people to go to a particular restaurant, and the bit of paper gave me a free bottle of wine between four for lunch.
Now call me a sucker but I do love a wee deal – comes from the Scottish grandmother I expect – so I told him I’d go. He pointed to a dingy doorway with steps descending, so down I went clutching one of the bits of paper.
Tavern
Turns out it was a Greek tavern that was having a tough time. City haunts are normally crammed at lunchtime, but this one only had a few elderly gents quietly grazing away.
Another pom-pommed moustache came bustling up and took my piece of paper. With a flourish he showed me to a table for four and asked when my friends were coming. I explained it was just me, at which his face fell.
I immediately felt sorry for him and explained that I would pay for the four meals in order to get the free vino.
I’d thought his face would light up but instead he started sobbing – great wracking sobs. I instinctively put my arm round him.
“I so sorry kirios. No one ever be nice to me since we left drachma.”
Disaster
Turns out the Euro had been an unmitigated disaster for the Greeks, because the politicos had simply grabbed every passing note and coin and flung it at the electorate, in order to keep themselves in power.
He also told me that the Greek political parties got ten times the money in total from the state that the German political parties did – and that in a country with a quarter of the population.
Of course, I didn’t get all this without a glass or two to help out – and my new friend (who didn’t have much else to do) sat and chatted away animatedly whilst helping with the vino – which, all things considered, was better than all right.
Dinner
After the second bottle, Kostas opined he would provide a slap-up dinner for four. I didn’t quite get the point of this until I noticed the place was now empty, and the PR had come down to join us. So that was three.
The only other person was apparently the chef, who proceeded to plonk on the table those lovely little dishes of stuff the Greeks do so well, followed by a kleftiko to die for.
Anyway, what with one thing and another Kostas was getting more and more excited as the third and then the fourth bottle disappeared, and all in all we were having a pretty good party with lots of laughs and eventually smashing the plates and the Zorba dance came on the tannoy and we all did that together.
We ended up expressing undying friendship, and I made my way somewhat unsteadily back out into the daylight.
Payment
Then I realised I hadn’t paid anything, so I staggered back down again and offered payment.
Kostas drew himself up to his full height. “Kirios Dooglass, it has been my pleasure to have you take food and drink with me.”
So there you have it – the Greeks are too nice to be in the Eurozone.
Related posts:
Recent Comments