After six stark years of recession, debt-stricken Greece is back, doing what it has done since the 50s, drawing in holidaymakers from far and wide, only this time at record-breaking rates.
As prime minister Alexis Tsipras scrambles to secure a financial lifeline to keep the debt-stricken country afloat, hardliners in his radical left Syriza party have also ratcheted up the pressure.
There's really only one rule of present-giving, which is that the gift is the product not of a panic-stricken rush to Amazon but of thoughtfulness.
Capriles tweeted the claim as Vice President Nicolas Maduro assured Venezuelans on national television that their cancer-stricken president continues a difficult and slow recovery from 11 December surgery.
What the so-called optimism is about is stopping panic-stricken Greeks withdrawing deposits from banks," said one well-placed source with access to high-level policymakers.
On the rollercoaster ride that is the debt-stricken country's epic battle to stay afloat, many had hoped that Syriza would also provide solace.
The problem was a stricken banking system, with still too many bad debts – which, for some reason, hadn't been caught during this summer's EU-led bank stress tests.
Detective Inspector Edmund Reid (Macfadyen), grief-stricken at the loss of his family, has taken a desk job in the archive.
Isolated internationally, the government is currently haggling with international creditors over a cash-for-reform deal to keep the debt-stricken country afloat.
Writer-director Hong Khaou has earned golden opinions and now a Bafta British debut nod for his first feature, Lilting, about a Cambodian Chinese woman living in London, grief-stricken at the loss of her son, who then has to form a new relationship with her son's partner — a delicate, intelligent performance from Ben Whishaw.
The administrators of Rangers have agreed to sell the stricken club to a newly formed company, Sevco 5088, of which the only director is Charles Green, formerly the chief executive at Sheffield United.
