The former SAS soldier who was seen on television leading the raid that ended the 1980 Iranian embassy siege in London has died. John McAleese, 62, was said by his family to have died of a broken heart, two years after his son, Serjeant Paul McAleese, 29, was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.

You know you're in safe hands when the author details the defects of his Athenian flat for a lecturing stint in 1984: no light, no hot water, stench from the butcher's shop next door, frantic sexual activity in the flat above and traffic. Intriguingly given recent events, Lucas notes, "Nobody ever declared their full earnings.

Something odd happens to performers during the Fringe. They lose any sense of perspective. For three weeks they become even more self-obsessed than normal. When you understand what they're putting themselves through it's easy to see why. The financial commitment alone is scary. In order to bring up a show many comics take on debts that would scare Greece. (Maybe that's why they call it the Athens of the North). No wonder we think it's all about us.

Short-selling will be banned on the Athens stock exchange for two months from today, Greece's financial regulator said in an effort to stem a stockmarket slump last night.

Up to Oxford in Michaelmas term 1938 came a golden youth, a Scot, a scholar from Loretto, a classical scholar of Oriel College, to read Mods (Latin and Greek) and Greats (Ancient History and Philosophy), destined undoubtedly for a double first and, maybe, Secretary of State for Scotland.

Former Chelsea and Barcelona forward Eidur Gudjohnsen has signed for Greek Super League side AEK Athens on a two-year deal.

Hillary Clinton voiced strong US support for Greece's battle to overcome its debt crisis, saying yesterday that it was taking the difficult steps required for future growth.

The Greek parliament passed a second austerity bill yesterday, opening the way for the European Union and International Monetary Fund to release a €12bn (£11bn) loan which Athens needs to avoid bankruptcy.

As school children in Athens, every year we practised an alarming custom. At the end of the school year, we gathered our textbooks into a pile and burnt them in an act of rebellion against the rigidity of the educational system. Today, there is a parallel to that self-destructive behaviour in the blame-game unfolding on Constitution Square as Greeks curse their democratically elected politicians for "lulling" them into two decades of easy credit, soft corruption, tax evasion and overspending.