There is no point any longer in trying to make sense of this. It has gone beyond sense. It is now incomprehensible in the strict technical meaning of the word. The “options” available are all catastrophic and delusional in varying degrees and combinations, and nobody is actually going to get to choose between them anyway – at least, nobody in Greece. To the extent that they have had any involvement – or culpability – in this matter, the Greek people must come to terms with the consequences of electing Russell Brand to head their government. Voters do have some responsibility for the choices that they make. That is what distinguishes mature democracy from the students’ union. But given the price that they are paying for that moment of mad frivolity, it seems harsh to condemn, especially as the prospect of fiscal rationality had already been ruined by the fecklessness of previous governments and external forces beyond their control.

But there is something to be learned from this: there has to be, doesn’t there? Otherwise it would just be too grotesquely stupid, too appalling, too depressing to be endured. The key is in the drama’s tragic inevitability (a subject which Greeks understand well): the two antagonistic camps in this epic confrontation are playing up to the worst possible caricatures of themselves. The EU or, properly speaking, the troika of international financial governance, are presenting themselves as a parody of merciless, demonic money-lenders who are now determined to humiliate and pauperise their victims. This theme of public mortification is one that Syriza has made much of. And their punitive repression appears to license childish rebellion on the part of those who resist their diktats.