I was too involved with the demos and various Greek writing to have a chance to describe the glory and the shame of the two days of unprecedented demos.

I will get to writing a diary soon I hope, but let me just add two things: 70.000 demonstrators is a very poor estimate regarding the number of people attending in Athens - and certainly all over Greece. I went over the map of Athens at Google Earth, measuring the surface of the streets I saw, heard and read were full, or semi-full at the time of the demo. I think that any estimate under 100.000 is not serious. Note though that this is a static estimate: at least 100.000 people at a single moment. Yet the fluxes of people from and to the metro stations and through the surrounding roads were constant and large. Given that the demo lasted a full 5 hours and then some after the violence began, it is IMHO most likely that the number of people who participated at some stage in the demo in Athens is in the hundreds of thousands. All major Greek cities at the same time saw historical records of participation on demos. There was some pollster that claimed that between 10-15% of the Greek population participated in these demos / strike / actions. A number that must be up there in the global demo participation rankings.

During the first day it I saw quite for the first time quite unradical demonstrators with Greek flags, applauding and cheering with each molotov cocktail thrown at the police guarding the Parliament by anarchists.

During the second day, the Communist Party demonstrated their traditional mindless muscle and bullying, but the anarchists or whatever were criminal: they were throwing molotov cocktails in the middle if the communist crowd as well as very large rocks.

Finally: here's Varoufakis telling it pretty much as it is.

I'll be back on this with a diary (I hope)

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake