In classical Greek theatre, the players carried masks that would rotate between what today we'd call a smiley and a frown.

How's that for a flippant start to an erudite piece about the tragi-comedy that has unfolded on Europe's Eastern border over the past months?  Quite apart from it probably being entirely wrong, that is.

When the current Greek government was elected, I must confess to a feeling of fond liking, if for no other reason than the fact that one of the main players (not sure if it was the PM or the Finance Minister) rode a bike pretty similar to mine.  The pointed eschewing of the noose that Western men of substance have donned for years also appealed to me.

Sadly, that was the sum total of the reasons why I wasn't totally put off by these Socialist twerps, a position that I achieved as soon as I started hearing their arguments.

Yes, fine, they inherited an economic mess of cosmic proportions, in stark contrast to Premier Joseph Muscat, who inherited an economy in fine shape, the lies and feral grunting of his terminally bewildered trolls notwithstanding.  To that extent, the Greek PM and his minions had some justification to adopt populist postures and kick back against the EU.

But between righteous argument and daft sloganeering there lies something of an ocean: frankly, who cares that the Greek electors, all 61% of the 63% of them, said "NO" to a referendum question that was a) unintelligible and b) not even based on the truth?

Giving Sunday's vote any real weight would be like saying that it is relevant that turkeys had voted to ban Xmas. 

There are reasons why most democracies, ours included, preclude popular votes on whether taxes should be imposed or austere economic measures adopted. You really can't expect us, the Great Unwashed, to analyse the complex economic and financial underliers with anything going beyond superficiality, and when the formula is compounded by the inclusion of wild slogans veering from mask to mask and downright untrue statements, the picture muddies itself beyond measure.

The Greek PM's barking pooch, his own electorate, has actually caught the car he set it to run after, so now what?  The Greeks have said 'no' to a financial package that wasn't even on the table any more and the PM has 61% of 63% of country behind him, where does that leave him?

It leaves him in exactly the same place he was on Saturday, on the outside of the debate hammering on the door for yet another hand-out.

Fine, obviously he wasn't the boss when his predecessors let Greece slide into economic disaster and when things get to this point, the issue transcends the question whether the Europeans are justified in saying 'no' to yet more cash being shovelled in to prop up the economy.

The question facing the Europeans now is whether they can - or should - afford to let the consequences of feckless governance proceed to their obvious conclusion, the collapse of a major European country into financial and, probably, social chaos.

(Self-) righteous posturing on the part of Merkel et al will not help the Greek people who, truth be told, didn't help themselves, either in the past when many willingly fed at the trough while their political masters made it so attractive for them or in the immediate present, when they backed up their PM's populist delusion that anyone give's a rat's ass what they voted.