Many a true word....

If you can rise above the jingoism and false bravado (are they really sure they'll pay those debts?) and take a joke, then there's a few true words in this amusing open letter from a German tabloid newspaper to the Greek prime minister....

Dear Mr Prime Minister,

If you read this in print, you’ve entered a country completely different from yours. You’re in Germany.

* Here, people work until they are 67. There is no longer a 14-month salary for civil servants.

* Here, nobody needs to pay a €1,000 bribe to get a hospital bed in time.

* And we don’t pay pensions for the General’s daughters who sadly can’t find husbands.

* In this country, the petrol stations have cash registers, the taxi drivers give receipts and farmers don’t swindle EU subsidies with millions of olive trees that don’t exist.

Germany also has high debts - but we can meet them.

* That’s because we get up reasonably early and work all day. Because in good times we always spare a thought for the bad times. Because we have good firms whose products are in demand around the world.

Dear Mr Prime Minister, today you are in the country that sends umpteen-thousand of tourists and money aplenty to Greece.

We want to be friends with the Greeks. That’s why since joining the euro, Germany has given your country €50bn.

For this reason, we are writing to you,

Yours,

Bild Editorial

PS In case you want to write back, we have enclosed a stamped addressed envelope. Of course, we want to help you to save...