Europe, or Europa, is the beautiful daughter of the King of Tyre (somewhere in today's Lebanon). Zeus, attracted by her great beauty, took the form of a white bull and lured her away from the Orient to the Western world, that is to say Crete. She later married the King of Crete and bore him a son, King Minos, who built the famous labyrinth.
This Greek myth sums it all up rather well: Europe's great beauty, its predisposition to abuse, its labyrinthine ways, its bureaucracy and the ambiguity of its Eastern borders. So if you had suggested to me fifty years ago that someday France and Germany would have the same currency, my reply would have been, "Oh, really? Which nation will have conquered which?"
Well, European integration - conceived as a way of 'waging peace' to reunite a war-torn continent - has progressed to a point which would have been unthinkable then, given the cultural and linguistic diversity.
Just as unthinkable as Greece leaving the European Union now. Not in a week of Sundays. In spite of what finance minister whatshisname Yanis Whatthefuckis is saying. Beware of Greeks accepting gifts!
