Fantastic blog post by Paul Mason setting out the similarities — and differences — between contemporary Greece and the Weimar Republic. Difficult to summarise, but very measured and perceptive.

Of all the operas written during Germany’s Weimar Republic (1919-33), probably the most haunting is the last.

Kurt Weill’s The Silver Lake, written with playwright Georg Kaiser, tells the story of two losers – a good-hearted provincial cop and the thief he has shot and wounded – as they make their way through a society ruined by unemployment, corruption and vice.

After spending a week again in Greece – amid riots, hunger and far right violence – I finally understood it.

Well worth reading in full.