James Meek · Diary: In Athens

The assembly doesn't reckon that Athenians are starving. But, Stasinopoulou tells me, ‘there are people who have meat or fish just once a month, or just eat rice and pasta. That's not good. My friend works at a kindergarten and the children stay there from eight in the morning till four in the afternoon and bring food from home to eat. She tells me that with some children the food gets a little less from week to week. One has toast and an apple, then it's just toast.'

Athens is drifting back to how it was in the 1950s and 1960s, Stasinopoulou thinks. Old support mechanisms are being activated in a way unimaginable in Britain or Germany. ‘My father's going to send me oil and olives for the year. One aunt's going to send me a chicken or eggs or cheese. My mother-in-law has a garden, she's going to send us apples.'

As we talk, George Papandreou's replacement, Lucas Papademos, an unelected economist who ran the country's central bank when it took the fateful step of joining the euro, is being sworn in in front of a cluster of Orthodox priests.