The Athens secret police were quite aggressive, no nonsense, stopped us immediately while we were in the process of collecting the drachma coins which were all but worthless anyway, grabbing the hat full of coins and our gear.

They marched us to their police station and sat us on some benches for some time while they came and went, some in uniforms some plain cloths.

I got bored after awhile so I started fooling with a deck of cards, practicing little moves and such. A few times one of the coppers came over and started to watch, and I’d promptly stop and just ignore him, being a bit pissed off at the whole thing.

Eventually they found one who spoke english a bit, and he explained all the laws we had violated and sat us in the chiefs office. Typically we just sat there in silence for a while, wondering what was next, and he had his translator cop say: “Look, we have to deport you and all, but chief wants me to tell you if you do us a show, we will consider letting you go.”

So we looked at each other and decided to thrash out some of the routine in their little squad room with at least thirty of them crowded in. Strangest audience we ever had.

They loved it, big sustained applause after the final number.

The english speaking copper’s mustached face was all glowing now and said in his thick accent:

“You leave the Athens secret police with a wonderful memory.”

So being me, I looked at him and said:

“Ok, so can we do our show in the street now or what?”

“No, no, this is strictly prohibited without the permit, ordinance number 321 and such.

We left the next day unable to work. Athens aint what it used to be.