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your little bank of pig empty.” Toby was immediately embarrassed about dropping the F-bomb and looked at JJ, hoping for not too much disapproval.
    â€œDon’t worry, Toby, Dad’s from Glasgow. The F-word is not so much an expletive there as an everyday adjective.”
    JJ reluctantly recognised that Cyrus was right. In Glasgow it wasn’t a very sunny day, it was a fuckin’ beezer day. JJ had tried ever so hard to eradicate his casual use of the F-word, and the B-word and the C-word etc. but the boy knew his dad. There was no way Toby was in trouble. Well, at least not for his language.
    â€œOK, you two. Verbal fencing time over,” said JJ. “Cyrus, I’ll see you tomorrow. Have a good sleep. Don’t feel too bad about losing at bowling. Love you.” JJ was amused at his attempt at stealing the bowling crown.
    â€œIn your dreams, big daddy. Love you more.” With that Cyrus headed up to his room for some peace and quiet or ‘piece of quiet’ as he used to say as a kid.
    JJ and Toby headed into the living room. Toby sat in one of the cosy, huge, armchairs. “Do you want a drink, Toby, or are we going to have to have the clearest heads possible?” asked JJ.
    â€œWe’re going to need the clearest heads possible chief, but I’ll have one of those eighteen year Macallans, straight, if you still have it.”
    For a Scot, JJ didn’t drink much. He didn’t like beer at all and when he was at university he did have one term in his final year when he thought it would be seriously manly to drink Guinness. That whole term was a blur. The only good thing to come out of it was that he sat his final maths paper more or less drunk as a skunk and he was so relaxed, he just rattled through the exam and got a first. If Guinness TV adverts weren’t so good, he’d have offered his story as a sales pitch. JJ did like the occasional Macallans or even the peatier Languvallen. He used to drink it straight, never with ice, but now he diluted it with a splash of Canada Dry. He got Toby his and one for himself.
    â€œOK, Toby, what’s up that couldn’t wait till tomorrow?” enquired JJ as he settled down on the sofa opposite Toby. Toby took a sip or two, actually it was a glug or two, and began.
    â€œSo the short and long of it is that, according to Marcus, that bailout vote in the Greek Parliament scheduled for a fortnight’s time might be tomorrow evening instead. Marcus has a pal, Theo Spiridakos, who is high up in Syriza, the official Greek opposition party. According to Theo, several of the PASOK party, the junior party that makes up the government along with New Democracy, are fed up to the back teeth with Prime Minister Samaras and, more importantly for us, no longer want to support New Democracy’s commitment to the bailout package. If you take the number of MPs that Syriza has and add it to the smaller opposition parties MPs then you would have 145 votes if they all voted in unison. ND has 127 seats and PASOK 28, making 155 in total. Marcus says his information is that 6 PASOK members are ready to switch their voting allegiance. That would give the opposition 151 votes and the government 149. Marcus said that, in Theo’s view, Alexis Tsipras, Syriza’s leader will offer the opposition minnows more or less anything to vote with him against the government. Tsipras’s plan is to win that vote, then call for a vote of no confidence in the government, win that, tell Merkel, the EU, the IMF and anybody else who cares to listen, to shove their bailout plan, default on their debts à la Argentina at the turn of the Millennium, come out of the single currency, whatever the legal ramifications, go back to their own currency, devalue by 40% vis-à-vis the implied current price for the drachma versus the euro, call it the New Drachma and, fucking hey presto, Greek exports will boom, imports will fall, unemployment will decline and