[THEGUARDIAN] The Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, has been invited to Berlin during a new low in Greco-German relations, after the Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, was forced to deny "giving the finger" to Germany in a two-year-old YouTube video.E pur se muove.
The German leader, Angela Merkel
...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as
Mom...
, invited Tsipras for his first visit to Berlin since he came to power in January on an anti-austerity platform that has led to festivities with Greece's creditors, including Germany.
This is soon after Varoufakis, appearing via videolink on Gunther Jauch, one of Germany's most-watched political discussion programmes on the state TV channel ARD, was shown a video of himself criticising the Greek government for accepting the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
's bailout conditions.
In the video, filmed at a conference in Zagreb in May 2013, the finance minister said in English: "Greece should simply announce that it is defaulting, just like Argentina
...a country located on the other side of the Deep South. It is covered with Pampers and inhabited by Grouchos, who dance the Tangle. They used to have some islands called the Malvinas located where the Falklands are now. They're not supposed to cry for Evita...
did, within the euro in January 2010, and stick the finger to Germany" -- at which point he appeared to raise his middle finger -- "and say, 'Well, you can now solve this problem by yourself'."
Jauch then asked Varoufakis, who could be seen shaking his head in the background: "The middle finger for Germany, Mr Minister? The Germans pay the most and are criticised the most for it. How does that go together?"