Beware of Greeks

An extraordinary story in the FT a couple of days ago, one of those where you automatically check that it is not April Fool's Day. I waited to see if other newspapers took it up but they haven't. Nevertheless the FT is a sober newspaper and the piece deserves to be given air.

It appears that the organisers of the Olympic Games, due to take place in London this summer, had arranged for a copy of a Greek trireme to be rowed down the Thames.

The boat is a part of the Greek Navy (shows the sort of trouble the country is in, the rest of us have frigates and destroyers and the like).

However, having spent £150,000 doing the thing up (it appears the Greeks can't even keep their triremes in good shape) it was decided that it might be too popular. The FT intercepted emails (I hope that's not the wrong term) to the effect that there was a danger that as the trireme went by, the riverbanks would be packed and people might throw themselves into the water.

Martin Green, the head of ceremonies for London's Organising Committee, appears to have written 'Clearly a vessel such as the trireme has the potential to draw large crowds and it is a risk we are just not able to take at this time.'

I don't know how many instances there are of people seeing a trireme and throwing themselves off a bridge but there it is: you can't be trusted.