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The Bus Driver & why Greece doesn’t work

Tom Winnifrith
Thursday 4 July 2013

As I took the ten hour bus journey to Athens overnight I discovered that my one firm meeting of the next three weeks had hit a snag – the man has gone AWOL. Such is Greece. And so I arrived in Athens at 5 AM with nothing to do. How about a bit of riot porn ? I decided to take a bus to Syntagma Square to check out the action.

And so me and an old man tried to get on the bus. No-one else wanted to. We both asked (he in Greek me in English) if we could pay. The bust driver said “no” we had to buy a ticket at the ticket booth. But it is closed we both pointed out. “So stay here” said the bus driver.  And then he closed the doors and drove off in his 100% empty bus. The grateful taxpayer (something most folk here still regard as a voluntary activity) can pay his wage, pay for the petrol, and wear and tear on the bus as it has absolutely no passengers.

Under my breath I muttered “and that is why your country is fucked.” I got a taxi instead. Sadly there are no riots this morning and so I have wandered around past the shops which are all either empty or having a summer 50% off sale. No riot porn to relay to you but I may well shoot some poverty porn later as I am not feeling terribly sympathetic to poor Hellas right now. Its problems are not, as I have pointed out before, not entirely unself-inflicted.

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About Tom Winnifrith
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Tom Winnifrith is the editor of TomWinnifrith.com. When he is not harvesting olives in Greece, he is (planning to) raise goats in Wales.
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