998 - Greek debt V's My Nostrils

The country known to many of us as Greece is on the verge of declaring itself bankrupt.

Recently i have been having nose bleeds.


Are these two seemingly separate things in fact linked somehow?

I doubt it but lets say that they are in the vain hope that something amusing or enlightening comes of it.

The Greece debacle all started when China started to sell a load of cheaply made toys to American kids. They used the money they made from these plastic mouldings to buy a hell of a load of American bonds.

This caused an inflation bubble and increase the value of American worth – financially.

The extra cash floating around the American markets gave the bankers a chance to lend money to potential home owners they wouldn’t normally touch with a baseball bat, but due to the extra funds and increasing wealth of profits they felt they could take a gamble.

At the same time countries across the world invested money in the American housing markets and china sold ALL its bonds because it had made enough profit. That is the joy and purpose of capitalism in a nut shell. Of course with one side making a load of money – the other side has to loose money and this time is was America and its banks. There were so many countries that fell for the unbelievable profit making strategies of the USA they were mind-numbingly oblivious to the potential collapse that indeed happened in the not too distant past. Blah, blah, blah the bubble burst, homes were lost and banks went bust. So today we are now faced with a European country begging on its knees to file for bankruptcy.


But HOW can a country be declared bankrupt?

What would happen? Would a bunch of Euro bailiffs pop round one Tuesday morning and take away all the TV’s and children’s dollies?

Would we have to force the Greek countrymen to collect all the bits of copper and precious metals to be sold for scrap in order to repay some of its massive, massive £300 billion (€340billion) debt?

Does Greece have to get a Saturday job washing cars in the Tesco’s car park?
I don’t know the answer to these questions. But i do know that if Greece DOES go bankrupt, its debt is cleared and other countries of the Euro (€) have to clear its debt.

Not only that, but the UK has to pay up as well.
For those of you not in the know – the UK does not have the Euro as its currency. So it seems a bit odd to have a country that rarely wants anything to do with Europe having to dig deep into its own empty pockets to bail out a nation that has only produced such delights as ouzo and olive oil.

it's no secret that the UK or is it just the English are pretty much hated and sneered at by a good proportion of the world.

The French despise us because we don’t like their food.

The Germans cant stand us because we wont stop going on about the war (and single world cup)

The Spanish, Italians and most of the rest of Europe cant even stand to look at us because of our foul weather and xenophobic ways.

The Americans only keep in touch because we have castles and they love castles. If anyone told the Yanks that Germany has castles – we would be the loneliest peoples in the whole world.

Even Iceland hates us so much they send all of their volcanic ash our way on what is quickly becoming an annual event!

Its not even worth mentioning what the Scots and the Welsh think of us...

But what has any of this got to do with my nose bleeds?
Probably nothing.

It is the height of hay-fever season and I am popping pills like a junkie.

But even in this overdosed state i writing in now my nose itches.
If you have never had hay-fever, you would undoubtedly want to scoff and make jest at my predicament.

It would easy – TOO EASY – to say “oh, look at you being beaten up by flowers...” or calling it “ gay-fever” because it is a funny play on words.
But to have that feeling of another sneezing fit rising through your chest, the streaming of watery eyes, the wheezing and constant never ending sniffing and blowing of noses is almost too much to bear at times.

The joys of summer are a mystery to me. for the most part it is seen through my eyes as a blury haze of close up snotty tissues and red raw eyes.

The sounds of the birds and gentle rustling of the tress in the breeze is replaced with a nasel snort and whooping cough.

The rainobow of colours that explode in every garden in the land is instead an intimate examination of my knuckles as i try in vain to rub the gung and pollen out of my peepers.

The nights bring no rest bite either. As the warm air begins to settle i find myself tossing and turning, throwing the sheets of my clamy grey body. A sneezing fit that lasts for around 20 minutes is followed by 10 minutes of blowing... thats if i can actually breathe through my nose as most of the time the inside of my conk swells up to twice the size it should be meaning i have no option but continue to live by becoming a dumb as fuck snot dribbling mouth breather – the exact kind of person i hate.

Oh the irony!

Summer is horrible to me and Greece is rubbish with money.

In conclusion?

I have wasted ten minutes of you time.
For that i am sorry, but hopefully you have learnt something today – even if it is not to shake my hand in case i have just expelled a hand full of lung phlem into it.


Now carry on. – ACHOO!