There’s a very funny piece in the Maily Telegraph today about a German civil servant aged 65 who, on the day of his retirement, sent a valedictory email to all his colleagues saying he’d done nothing at all for the last fifteen years.

Some may find this disgraceful, but not I Moriarty.

As a result of unhappy accident rather than design, on and off I spent over a quarter of a century producing advertising for civil servants in the UK.
My overriding wish in that period was for a civil servant who did nothing. They are far, far less destructive and counter-productive than those who do something.
Indeed, the one and only upside of working in this regard for Westminster and Whitehall was that it gave me an army of folks prepared to be indiscreet to a political blogger they trusted.
So be careful what you wish for. Throughout the eurozone right now, there are citizens everywhere similarly praying that everyone in Brussels might fall asleep for a few years, with no prince to kiss them back to consciousness.