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So the Greeks voted for the left, yet will never escape the debris field of their and Brussels”€™ making. Wurst and feta make for a dreadful combination. Meanwhile Greek citizens continue hastily to grass over their swimming pools in order to escape aerial snooping and a levy on such luxuries: they are compulsive tax-dodgers, but no fools. Few could ever have imagined the original Common Market would end like this; still fewer perceived the fissures and contradictions that might lead to total ruin. A 1000-year reich always seems to end prematurely and with hubris and downfall.

There are few things in life that are certain”€”death, taxes, creationists being hatched from dinosaur eggs, and conspiracy theorists being educationally and intellectually challenged”€”and one of them must be that the Euro will fail.

You might dismiss the ongoing wrangling as teething problems; you might believe that constantly reworking the currency and kicking recurring issues down the road is an adequate response. After all, too much political and financial capital has been invested to permit this totemic emblem of unity to die. Yet there will come a moment when the markets run out of patience, the creditors decide to cut their losses, and Europe itself runs out of quick fixes and fudge. Those great Europhile architects of ever closer integration would turn in their graves. Except by then, their bodies will probably have been dug up by vengeful crowds.