There was a rare moment of high comedy in the worsening Greek situation today when European Central Bank boss Jean-Claude Trichet insisted that things are improving in relation to the Greek situation, and “there is no option that Greece will default”. Those with English as a second language are always likely to evoke laughter when they wax pompous, and the combination of bad grammar plus surreal denial was laugh-out-loud funny for those who heard it.

It’s less funny for the Greeks of course, who drizzled on M. Trichet’s parade by upping their deficit forecast for this year again to 12.9%. In turn, the markets piddled on the square-bashing space by raising the premium demanded to hold Greek 10-year bonds over German counterparts to the biggest since the Euro’s debut in 1999. But Trichet is a man with a currency to defend, and unless he sounds like a cross between Santa Claus and the grasshopper in Aesop’s tales, the EU’s hugly overvalued currency will drop to parity with the Zimbabwean life expectancy.

Papandreou’s Athens government needs to sell 11.6 billion Euros (£13 billion) of debt by the end of next month. The country’s banks, meanwhile, are also seeking to shore up their balance sheets via further rights issues.

There will come a time when the market for buying debt will be saturated. When that happens, there is no plan in place – although the Germans will opt out of whatever it proves to be, and the Swiss will say it is nothing to do with them. In the Eurozone today, these are the only certainties left.