The problem, though, is Europe doesn't want to just hand over the money in such circular fashion without getting something else — pension and spending cuts — in return, and Greece doesn't want so many painful strings attached after it's already cut a lot and only seen its economy shrink by 25 per cent.
IN THE dog days of August, Japan and one of its former colonies, South Korea, mark a string of painful anniversaries.
And while the policy decisions required by that course have come at the cost of the resurgence of a new rightwing populist movement – manifested by painful defeats in a string of state elections – Germany's political landscape remains more stable than that in Britain or France.
The money came with strings attached: painful budget cuts and massive tax hikes.
Pushing on the steel or nylon strings is painful at first, no doubt about it, and it'll take a while of negotiating that pain before you build up callouses that'll make it more comfortable.
That would be a serious problem for the commission, where officials still harbor painful memories of losing a string of appeals against blocked mergers early in the past decade after the European Court of Justice ruled that those decisions had been defective.
Its string of mournful, indeed painful, slow movements bring to mind Haydn's great "Seven Last Words of Christ," although its bruised hopelessness is at a distance from the earlier man's dignity and reserve.
That much was obvious from Palin's painful Friday press conference, where she strung together a litany of catch phrases and aphorisms that ultimately left many pundits wondering exactly why she was leaving office.
"Where did you get it?" Chinese tend to speak circuitously when confronted with a painful memory, and their stories go slack like string falling into a pile.
This is called string slap, and can be very painful.
