"It's not the despair -- it's the pity I can't stand," writes AFP's deputy bureau chief in Brussels Danny Kemp.

"As a Brit in Brussels, I have received the sympathies of a string of well-meaning European colleagues over the political chaos in Britain since it voted to leave the EU, often accompanied by a reassuring pat on the arm."

"Don't get me wrong, their kind gestures are always much appreciated... But every time I see their pitying looks, a sense of surreality descends on me. Am I really that guy? The one whose country is in crisis? It was not meant to be this way; it was meant to be Greece or somewhere else that went awry, not stolid Britain."