Let The Games begin

Seven years after the bid was won – a day that seems, if not like yesterday, then the day before yesterday – the Olympic dream for London comes to fruition.  It will be an overused word in relation to itself, but it cannot be denied – the opening ceremony was a triumph and Danny Boyle, the artistic director, deserves all the kudos he will undoubtedly receive.  From Bond to Bean to Beckham, Kenneth Branagh reciting Shakespeare and J K Rowling reading J M Barry and the whole overall spectacle was immensely enjoyable and, at times, awe-inspiring. 

The lighting of the Olympic Bowl was evidence of genius at work.  Making us think that it was Sir Steve Redgrave that would be making the much vaunted final step was clever in throwing our expectations.  Having seven young athletes selected by seven sporting legends summed up one of the key parts of the bid – inspiring a generation (how much of that generation is another matter).  The way the torch was brought together was outstanding.

I was very fond of the love shown for the much-maligned NHS.  Given that this was going out at prime time across the USA, this was a slap in the face for all the commentators there who criticised it.  I wonder how this section was received more widely from sea to shining sea.

In a three and a half hour extravaganza trying to cram in as much Britishness as possible, there will inevitably be parts queried as to why they were left out.  From a person who once trained for the priesthood, I would have preferred to see a little bit more of an explicit nod to the country’s Christian heritage beyond the three hymns and the national anthem, say a parish church in the bucolic village at the start, but that may have been too much of a minefield.  Why Barry but no Charles Dickens or Chaucer, no Robbie Burns or Dylan Thomas?  As with the music, there is such a wide variety and quality that it would be impossible to include everything.  With regard to the melody medley, there are many bands that didn’t make the cut but I would still have liked to have had ten-second snatches from Radiohead and The Smiths (there are up-tempo if not always upbeat songs to be found in the playlist), though, even with the presence of other anti-establishment music, Morrissey might have been enough of the contrarian to veto any of his old band’s back catalogue.  I noticed that space was found for Irish band U2 in the athletes’ parade.

Regarding that parade, it was a lovely touch by the French squad to wave union flags as well as tricolours, despite Paris losing out to London all those years ago.  The BBC wasn’t entirely referring to the now Russian prime minister as ‘President Medvedev’ (though it wasn’t Huw Edwards but Hazel Irvine who made the slip); they noticeably were very uncomfortable saying anything about the Syrian team, preferring to riff on Switzerland’s Roger Federer’s match. 

It was very generous of IOC President Jacques Rogge to call Britain the birthplace of sport vis-à-vis the codification of many rules and British sporting fair play.  All in all, a wonderful evening.  The world in one city indeed. The 30^th Olympiad has begun in spectacular style.

Intriguing web

Spoilers are the nature of some film commentary and this shall be no exception, delivered in a semi-flow of consciousness as it is.  The trend for superheroes continues with a certain webslinger back in action.  Although Sam Raimi’s Spiderman was satisfying, especially in the pay-off at the very end, The Amazing Spiderman, directed by the aptly named Marc Webb, felt more of a grown-up package, making its indirect predecessor shallow by comparison (it will also appear first in film anthologies – alphabetically).  Here we care more for all the significant characters involved.

Andrew Garfield’s age (28) has been an issue of some controversy but in a generation weaned on watching over-age teens in series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, etc, to my mind it’s not a big deal.  Occasionally, the camera catches his more advanced features, yet let’s not forget the good job Toby Maguire did and he was pushing 40 when he starred in Spiderman 3.

I liked the re-engagement with the original source material, the creators being more faithful to the comics.  Unlike Maguire’s goo, Garfield builds the web-shooting devices and we are still no closer to such things being a reality when Raimi said he wasn’t using these as they had not been invented (there are no ‘invisible girders’ here either for Spidey to latch onto; every strand is shown to reach its target).  Also, the idea of the supervillain ending their reign of terror behind bars rather than dead is welcome.  It will be interesting to see how this goes.  A mid-end credits scene has an unnamed Moriarty-esque figure grilling Dr Curt Connors, though it is obvious it is Norman Osborn AKA The Green Goblin, thus setting the stage for the sequel.  Will the producers be bold (and cruel) enough to allow the Green Goblin to kill of Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) as in the comics, thus making Peter Parker’s broken promise to her dying dad (Denis Leary) all the more sorrowful, not to mention providing an entry cue for Mary-Jane Watson?

Though it will please the geeks (“I love science,” gushes Parker), the plot depth is superficial, with a standard countdown to catastrophe unbolstered by anything else storywise.  Where it scores above, say, Avengers Assemble is the adorning of an emotional connection.  Again, in contrast to Raimi’s Spiderman, Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) gets quite a section of staying alive and so death is more powerful, as it is for others as well (there is no gratuitous death present).  Even Stan Lee gets one of his best cameos.  Moreover, Stacy is not tacked on as the love interest but is an integral part of the tale.  That the vilification of Spiderman, who so happens to be her boyfriend, is by her father, adds an ironic twist and a whiff of teenage rebellion.

I always enjoy the introduction of a new supervillain, to complement earlier franchises.  It was interesting seeing a mature Rhys Ifans playing Connors/The Lizard when one thinks of his raucous debut in Twin Town.  Has he become - like whores and buildings – respectable with age?

I hope Webb keeps the director’s gig with this Spiderman excursion, as Christopher Nolan did with the latest Batmans.  The tension at times was as taut as one of Spidey’s webs, there was a liberal sprinkling of humour and having meaningful  characters other than the protagonist is definitely the right direction for the franchise to pursue.  Four of out of five.

The road from Damascus

It is interesting how the civil war (and it is clearly that now) in Syria commands more attention than other parts of the world in open conflict or severe civil disturbance.  The border war between Sudan and South Sudan, the hostile intent of the Ethiopians and Eritreans towards each other, the chaos in Somalia and Mali (off the top of my head) and other hotspots around the world from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Ecuador to the Maldives – all are mentioned in passing, if at all.  The reason is that western forces are unlikely to send intervene militarily in these flare-ups.  President Obama understands that Americans as a whole are war-weary, engaged in the longest running war of the country’s history and any deployment of soldiers may jeopardise his re-election chances.  But ultimately he may not have a choice before November.

The Assad regime has placed its iron hand back over Damascus but increasingly that hand has turned to rust, with much of the country in no-one’s particular control.  The worry for the rebels is that they have just suffered their Tet Offensive.  This was a militarily disastrous campaign by the Viet Cong and some regular units of the North Vietnamese Army; trapped in streets against US firepower rather than being able to melt back into the jungle, thousands of irreplaceable Viet Cong veterans were annihilated or captured and the Viet Cong was never an existential threat to the South Vietnamese government again (Saigon being overrun by a conventional invasion by the north in 1975).  They had a glaring moment of triumph with the brief capture of the US Embassy but it was no more than symbolic.  The assassination of four security chiefs is a comparable rallying moment for the Free Syrian Army (which proved with video footage it carried out the controlled explosion by remote, scotching the regime’s claim of suicide bomber terrorism).  Yet with forces drawn away from other parts of the country, all rebel positions in the capital fell.  Though this allowed the FSA to advance in Aleppo and take over some border points,  with Damascus back under government sway, Assad can focus his units on the surviving rebel positions.  Tet was a military failure for the Vietnamese communists but a psychological victory, as the war - to many Americans - suddenly seemed to be unwinnable, even with all the lives and treasure spent.  With no free press in Syria, this will not be conveyed by the government controlled media.  Even now, the Syrian government is engaged in a grim parody of The Clash’s Rock the Casbah with fixed-wing aircraft bombarding Aleppo.

The blood of 20,000 people and rising is not just on the hands of Assad and his cronies but also on that of Russia, particularly Putin, with lesser roles played by China and Iran.  This all started when some children, who had daubed some anti-regime graffiti were arrested and tortured.  At peaceful protests, civilians were shot.  At funerals, more were shot and then mourners at subsequent wakes were also killed.  For months, civilians were pounded by government forces simply for having the temerity to speak out.  It was only then that the Free Syrian Army was founded as it was realised that the removal of Assad by warfare and in a guerrilla style was the only way forward.  This of course meant the Russians could claim that terrorists were indeed active in Syria, revisionism of which the defunct Pravda would have been proud.  Moscow’s claim to have not broken any laws or UN Resolutions is disingenuous considering they have vetoed all attempts to persuade Assad to stop his campaign of aggression against the populace.  It is Putin’s attempt to play great power politics irrespective of the blood of the innocent that has sunk the West’s reset with Russia.

An explosive day

While much attention focuses on today's assassination of General Assef Shawkat, the brother-in-law of Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, the death of defence minister General Dawoud Rajha should pass with no less comment.  While his nominal deputy Shawkat wielded an elite unit of soldiers answerable to him and was tied into the family through marriage to President Assad’s sister, Rajha, the most senior Christian in the administration, was once talked about as the one most likely to stage a palace coup against the Assad family.  Washington DC tried to cultivate him as such, but he remained steadfastly loyal to the regime, something for which he paid with his life today.  Other Christians in the country may be more uneasy with their key champion dead but by largely and unconditionally supporting the regime, if and when it does fall, they have marked their own cards.

All the same, Rajha’s actions had made him a war criminal and it cannot be said that his death was not deserved.  The regime wasted no time in promoting others to fill the shoes of the dead, but the demise or incapacitation of so many security chiefs will grievously hamper regime strategy in the short-term.  Moreover, the government will start to look inwards, for even if the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber, how did they gain such high-level clearance without help from inside?  The funerals of what is left of them will be some of the few in Syria not to come under sniper fire.

Beware of the ice

The ramifications of John Terry’s utterances towards Anton Ferdinand at a QPR-Cheslea match continue to rumble on.  It was a strange defence where Terry did not deny the racial nature of the comments, but claimed it was a matter of intonation, where the insult was punctuated by a question mark, shocked that he should be accused of saying this, he alleged.  Yet it was the only possible one available and the magistrate refrained from charging Terry guilty along with 1% of his weekly wage, on the grudging acceptance that the England defender could be proved beyond doubt that he was lying at the trial.  Had he been found guilty (and lost a subsequent inevitable appeal), he may have fallen back on the Luis Suarez defence, that he said something racist in an error of judgement but was not a racist himself.

Still, it was an acquittal.  Given the animosity between Terry and Rio Ferdinand that has arisen from this incident and Terry being the man in possession regarding an England squad position, it probably signals the end of the elder Ferdinand brother’s England career.  It will also be interesting if the Football Association and the Premier League insist upon the Ferdinands shaking Terry’s hand in the traditional pre-match niceties, whenever Chelsea FC play their respective clubs (and Terry is in the starting line-up).

Now, Rio is under investigation by the FA for tweeting - or re-tweeting, as he put it – a term that can be construed as racist, namely that Ashley Cole defending Terry made Cole a ‘choc-ice’.  This phrase is usually applied to imply that a non-white person is black (or brown) on the outside and white inside and so commits race treachery.  Rio has claimed that he only was making out that Cole was ‘a fake’ – which surely is the same thing!  Unless, that is, Rio is denigrating the very concept of the choc-ice, infuriating ice-cream makers up and down the country.

This ‘lapse’ is a gift to the cavemen in the terraces and the trolls on the Internet.  It’s up there with being so focused on retail therapy he forgot to take a drug test (suffering a ban of eight months as a result) or making the Beckhams think they were being kidnapped in a ‘hilarious’ prank.  Also but less damagingly, it also adds to the stereotype that footballers aren’t the brightest tools in the box. 

The idea that he can explain it away as a ‘re-tweet’ falls down on all counts. Ryan Babel was charged with improper conduct in January 2011 when he tweeted a mocked-up picture of the referee Howard Webb wearing a Manchester United shirt; his manager at the time, Kenny Dalglish, tried to excuse it, saying “I don't think he's clever enough technically to have drawn that up himself.”  It didn’t save Babel though and this is far worse.  The FA have to act.

Diamond in the rough

With news that former Barclays Bank CEO Bob Diamond is giving up a £20 million bonus, it is deeply ironic that he deferred it out of greed until the government reduced the punitive measures on bonuses and now, because of that greed, won’t get any of it.  Poetic justice rarely comes sweeter than that.

Vengeance fatigue

Avengers Assemble is an action spectacular that would grace any summer weekend.  Nor is this purely lunkhead entertainment.  Directed by Joss Whedon, for who I’ve got a lot of time, the film possesses the wit and intelligence he brought to the first three series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (thereafter, the show was a mixed bag) – for examples, an oblique reference to Loki as a monkey harks back to the trickster god’s Nordic origins.  Loki gets a bad write-up from Hollywood – in The Return of the Mask, Thor and here.  Naturally, Christopher Hiddleston’s portrayal deploys an English accent.

And that’s the big problem with the flick – it is not startingly original.  We have had such a glut of superhero movies in recent times that Whedon’s omnivorous comic book appetite partially backfires – we’ve seen it or something like it before.  The admittedly excellent opening as what would be billions of dollars of infrastructure are swallowed into a forbidding, exponentially growing hole is a reprise of the final act of the last episode of Buffy.  The flying aircraft carrier has been seen as the Nautilus in Doctor Who.  Transporting a nuclear weapon into another dimension occurred previously in Stargate.  The righteous vengeance when a likeable minor character is murdered is a James Bond trope (Samuel L. Jackosn’s Nick Fury even cranks up the passion for the fissiparous superheroic set).  The battle with monsters in New York is reminiscent of Cloverfield but without a wider metaphor behind it bar a habitual trashing of the city (Hollywood regards The Big Apple as necropolis now).  Also, a beam of mystical light projecting from a skyscraper (or down on it) has been in countless sci-fi imaginings.  Whedon may be faithful to the comic book sources but they have already been covered elsewhere ad infinitum.

Don’t get me wrong – Avengers Assemble is a fine movie for its running time but doesn’t inspire a repeat viewing.  The narrative is linked of scenes where things get smashed up, then more things get pulverised, followed by further things being destroyed.  It becomes a little wearing.  With each of the Avengers (bar Black Widow and the Hawk, so far) having the privilege of their own origin movies, the backstory there has fed into a lack of characterisation here (though had that been added it could have Lord of the Rings-long).  As always, catering for the male nerd fanbase, the female protagonists are kitted out in figure-hugging outfits and wedge-heeled long boots – they have to look good as they do their thing; fighting ability seems unimpaired.  Moreover, it appears that S.H.I.E.L.D. does not hire ugly people.

A further question that entered my mind, as New York is pummelled, is ‘where are Spiderman and the Fantastic Four?’  Do they so happen to be out of their home city and incommunicado all at the same time?  Or, maybe it’s because, despite relatively recent theatrical releases, their storylines are being retconned, plus Chris Evans, who played Johnny Storm AKA The Human Torch, is now Steve Richards AKA Captain America.

Now they have saved the world, what can they do in future except do it all over again.  There was a welcome mid-end credits scene revealing Red Skull, the Capt’s nemesis, as the ultimate mastermind behind the latest nefarious scheme.  The jokes do keep the action from flagging and Robert Downey Jnr reaffirms his excellent casting, oozing charm as Tony Stark/Iron Man.  If this is the Avengers getting together, I’ll be happier when they are in full swing.

Three out of five.

Post/pre season

As the dust settles on another football European Championship and fans refocus on their parochial interests via their clubs, whilst Wimbledon muscled in to the scene with genuine chances of British glory, it may seem apt to reflect.  AVB moves into north London, RVP looks like he is on the way out and Manchester United attempt to float on the New York stock Exchange, these are all shadow moves ahead of the curtain raiser.  The Championship in Poland and Ukraine is still abroad in the minds of those with an interest in the game.

Spain are hailed as the greatest team that ever there was and commentators fall over themselves in saying how they would have pushed the Brazil of 1970 very close, far harder than the Italian team in the final then or the one in 2012.  They had to wait a long time for the goods to come, a solitary Euro win in 1964 prior to their current supremacy.  England may look for hope in this, just as in the Hoddle and Keegan eras they hoped the wearing of a strip which they had worn in beating vaunted opponents before would have a mystical effect in helping to overcome them again (in the case of both Germany and Argentina, it motivated them to overcome the stain).  It is not that there are too many foreigners in the Premier League, it is the lie that the Premier League puts out that an influx of foreign talent will raise the game of the English players.  The foreign players come from football cultures that prize possession and passing.  By the time most English players graduate to the senior game, this has been knocked out of them by Gary Megson-style parents and coaches who favour overt physicality and hard tackling, too slow-witted that you don’t need to knock over your opponent or tackle him if you don’t lose the ball in the first place.  A first step has been taken, in the teeth of fierce opposition, where young boys are now in seven-a-side teams instead of full eleven-a-sides so they have time to feel comfortable with the ball and have the space to move it around.  This is along similar lines of successful football academies.  A shift away from going to war to creating art.  Unfortunately, it won’t blossom for another decade, but from small acorns...

Raising the standard of punditry is another matter altogether.  I like Alan Shearer and find him very personable.  He has got better over the years in his analysis (though one wonders how many ghost writers are involved).  Yet, after he was given mild praise for taking an opposing view to others on the panel at the World Cup final in 2010, he seems to have got it into his mind to make bold, sweeping statements as his raison d’etre.  Gary Lineker even brought it up when Shearer said Mario Balotelli had won nothing (Balotelli could have replied in kind).  At the end of the final here, as the referees went up to collect their awards, Shearer was gushing as he said that the standard of refereeing was amazing and that there had been no complaint after any game.  Really?  So the Greeks had no grievances after their matches against Poland and Russia?  Overlook these maybe, but the dispute in the England-Ukraine game over the goal that was not given is one of the defining moments in the Championship.

It is this game which has shot Michel Platini’s goose with the extra officials.  Pierluigi Collina defended the system whilst punishing the officials, stripping them of any further responsibility.  A 95% success rate is fine but why not have goal line technology which has a 99.9% success rate.  The move to the goal was offside anyway and goal line technology would not have affected that.  But the International Football Association Board’s adoption of it is another positive outcome of this Championship.

It just is tennis

The success of Jonathan Marray’s joint title in the Wimbledon’s Men’s Doubles, the first time a British player has claimed such an honour since 1936, means one can’t say ‘once again, a British competitor falls down in tennis’.  Like Virginia Wade in the Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee, it is Marray who gives a tennis-lustre to the Diamond year.  Andy Murray, on the other hand, is left to reflect on regrets.

He will have to improve if he is to be a Grand Slam champion like Fred Perry instead of a perennial runner-up like Bunny Austin.  Today, his first service let him down, allowing his opponent, Roger Federer, to attack his second service with vigour.  Federer is clearly a player in decline, though from a stratospherically high base.  Yet he won’t be too bothered, equalling Pete Sampras’ number of Wimbledon title, closing down on Sampras’ record number of weeks as number one in tennis and adding one more to the collection, now at 17, to make him that extra bit untouchable in the history stakes.

When Murray took the first set, breaking Federer’s serve twice, everything looked rosy.  As Federer seemed to tire early in the second set, it was very enticing.  Murray, however, was relying too much on Federer making mistakes (of which he did a lot in the first hour of the match) and when The Greatest Tennis Player Ever™ upped his game, he pulled the Scotsman all over the court.  When the roof came over and Federer could refresh himself and get tips from his coach in that 45 minute breather, he never looked back. 

There was a political battle going on in the posh seats.  Scotland’s First Minister, Alec Salmond, had travelled down to watch the final with a Scotsman in it (as he said, the last time a Scottish player won Wimbledon was 116 years ago, pointedly ignoring the 76 years ago since a British player was champion fact) and so David Cameron had to be out in force, not just to enjoy a tennis match but to also stand up for British interests in the run-up to the make-or-break up of the Union referendum, for, from his perspective, Murray was British.

So another Wimbledon has its major winners etched on the board of champions.  Federer won’t be around forever, but Nadal and Djokovic are of a similar age to Murray and, injuries aside, will not be departing the tennis scene anytime soon.  There’s still Olympic Gold and the US Open at Flushing Meadows for which Murray can aim this calendar year.  He was quite emotional again as a losing finalist – one can only hope he can pick himself up quickly.

Two films

Being a completist by nature, I do like to watch a film from start to finish, no matter how awful, just in case – against the odds – there is an upturn in the quality and something altogether spectacular happens.  Altaa wanted to walk out of Watchmen because of the stomach-churning, bone-cracking brutality before our eyes and insistently blasted onto us by the multiplex’s speakers, but I made her persevere (as well as myself) and was rewarded with a semi-decent end scene.

On TV, one can finish a film though not necessarily catch the start when channel surfing.  This can be a negative, robbing you of vital plot point but with easy-going movie-making it is not such a disaster.  Two films I have seen this week would fall into this category.

The Ugly Truth starring Gerard Butler and Katherine Heigl was pilloried by critics.  I, however, was left of the mind of Spielberg’s words that it is harsh to criticise a motion picture when a lot of people have put a lot of work into making it a reality.  Sure, The Ugly Truth isn’t going to change the face of cinema, yet there is a place for undemanding fare too.  Maybe, I have a soft spot for these romcoms, having liked the critical failures How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and (to a lesser extent) Sweet Home Alabama (Fred Ward and Reese Witherspoon being significant compensations in the latter).  It leaves me - fearfully - wondering if, should I ever catch them, I would enjoy Mamma Mia or This is War.  On balance, I think I would (the ABBA musical was a runaway silver screen success).  The Ugly Truth finally showcased to my own eyes the talents of Butler and, as a laidback stud, there’s probably a lot of his own life on which he can fall back.  I can certainly see why he’s a hit with the ladies.  Heigl was kooky and funny, even if her transformation was a little fast-paced.  The story rattled along most agreeably, raising more than a few laughs and even with a few bold politically incorrect statements (well, bold for mainstream Hollywood) thrown in to the mix.  I suppose the ending was sign-posted (though not in neon lights) and it did try to throw you off the trail until the last ten or so minutes.  The sex scene was cleverly muted to lower the ratings and the one F-word allowed for a 12A was well worked in to the plot too.  It did fall down on realism in the denouement, for if a woman is given the apparent brush-off in her first choice of man, she will not dump her second choice, especially if the latter is unaware of her exchange with the former – people mend and make do.  Casablanca encapsulates this truism perfectly.  So, yes, The Ugly Truth was crude but it did the business of being a relaxing ride. Three out of five.

Babylon A.D.  fell into the same category in that I missed a bit of the start, though, as with The Ugly Truth, not by much.  Set in some miserable future, it’s a road trip in which the gruff Vin Diesel with bond with his charges Michelle Yeoh and Mélanie Thierry.  As America is untouched, we can assume the post-apocalyptic landscapes are a result of a Sino-Russian or a Russian civil war, though curiously Vladivostok seems untouched.  Characterisation is sketch-like at best and the focus is on a few okay-ish action scenes, the kind where the villains expend thousands of rounds of ammunition but the hero needs just one bullet to take down each opponent.  Despite the numerous grim futuristic scenes and a Gotham City-like New York (but of course), it reminded me of Conan the Barbarian’s quests.  It’s a bit like a feature-length Lady Gaga music video though possessing less panache and worse songs.  It really falls apart in the last half-hour, as the plot descends into incoherence.  The final chase scene is, risibly and obviously, on a race test track.  And a vast corporation can only sum up four landcruisers to chase the heroes and then loses all trace of them for years, while Diesel inconspicuously builds a picture-perfect country home.  There is virtually no rhyme or reason to any of this conclusion.  Given the villains, headed by Charlotte Rampling (there are related and unrelated cameos from Gerard Dépardieu and Mark Strong), are in the process of trying to create a new religion, it could be a pop at Scientology, though dressed up and hollowed out so as to not offend the powerful Hollywood adherents.  In addition to some of the early set pieces, there are some striking scenes over what one can be positive, such as a haunting, nuclear-bombed city (as they are travelling east by rail to Vladivostok, I would say Khabarovsk, though geography is best glossed over here) and a Russian submarine breaking through the ice as part of an immigrant run.  The confused, stupid ending (seeming to act as trailer for a forthcoming sequel that never saw the light of day) spoiled what was no more than a clunky and average movie anyway. 1.5 out of five.

Hooray for Andy

Well done Andy Murray for making it to the final of Wimbledon.  I am genuinely delighted, especially because it is so long since we saw a British man in the final of British tennis (Henry 'Bunny' Austin, 1938).  Irrespective of the battle with Federer to come, it is quite historical.  Let's hope we don't have to wait another 74 years for a British male to reach it.  If Scotland does become independent, the media will have to reformulate their musings - "No Englishman has made it to the final since 1938."

National treasures... for how long?

As Italian art historians uncover 100 Caravaggio paintings hitherto unknown and worth 700 million euros, how long before a German politician suggests selling them as an excellent way to salve (though not solve) Italy's debt crisis?  The Greeks have prior experience.