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There are many reasons to be joyful. As we learnt from The Life of Brian, we must all look on the bright side of life. To see today’s cause for rejoicing we do not have to look far – only as far as Greece, in fact. Well, half of Greece, anyway. That is the amount of its debt that Greece is going to pay back. So the financiers are holding an ‘O Be Joyful’ to celebrate the fact. Can you believe it?

It is now clear that half the world’s debt is about to be ‘written off’. If Greece, why not Italy, Portugal, Spain, Moonotu (the new tax-free, extra-terrestrial island probably in the process of being established for deposits with guaranteed 30% returns). The financiers have agreed that they can print Euro2Trn – that’s 2,000,000,000,000 Euros – to stave off bankruptcy.

Who is paying for this? You are, dear reader. Actually, only some of you are, those who have saved or who are on fixed incomes, eeking out their remaining money to see them through and pay for the last rites. I suppose half a rite is better than no rite at all.

Those who have been less prudent and borrowed – perhaps even more than they should have done given their prospects of paying it back – are in very good shape. You only have to pay back half of what you borrowed. You certainly justify an ‘O Be Joyful’.

Those with young children emerging into their teens have a problem, of course. What to teach the young? Save and you will lose at least half of your savings in order to bail out those who did not save. Get into debt and you will be the new elite, demanding that your debt is forgiven, or half forgiven, at any time.

When young I was told a cynical but wise fact. ‘Give someone a dollar today and tomorrow he will think you owe it to him.’ For a while I did not believe it. Give someone a dollar and he will surely be grateful for it? Sadly, this is not often true. Resentment of charity is quite understandable for we do not even teach our young how to accept gracefully.

To those who would like to balk the trend and continue to encourage prudence, thrift, deferred gratification and commonsense, I say go for it. The world must one day come out of the madness it is now embracing. Time to make preparations for that day.

Starting now.

It is better to receive gracefully than to give grudgingly

John Bittleston