The drachma was the standard silver coin of antiquity. Commerce and conquest, particularly by Alexander the Great, took the coin as far east as Afghanistan, where it became the model for another coin - the dirham - a measure of currency still applied in the Islamic world, Mr Tzamanis said. The drachma later disappeared until 1832, when Greece gained independence. The modern drachma was intended to revive the spirit of classical Greece. Instead, said Athanassios Tarasouleas, a currency authority, "It's no wonder we feel so sentimental about the drachma. It embodies 170 years of contemporary Greek hardship and survival." In 1942, inflationary pressures forced Greece to issue the largest note denomination in European history - a note for 100 billion drachma, which at the time was the price of a loaf of bread. In 1953, the state ordered Greeks to strike three zeros off every note they owned. Still, the vulnerable drachma was regarded with great affection, and Greeks call it "drachmoula," likening it to a feisty woman. Not surprisingly, some were put off by the appearance of the euro. Daft Punk gets best album nod Wednesday 2 January 2002 Dance duo Daft Punk have beaten acts such as Basement Jaxx and Radiohead to the title of best album of 2001 in a year-end UK poll of polls. The French pair's second album Discovery topped a list compiled by music retailer HMV for its consistent plaudits from music publications in their reviews of the year. Daft Punk - who have taken to dressing as chrome-plated robots to avoid having their photos taken - have been acclaimed for their retro dance sound. In-your-face with a bum By SOPHIE BEST Wednesday 2 January 2002 Bum jokes, as every five-year-old knows, are a crack-up. From Chaucer's bawdy Miller's Tale to Mr Hankey the Christmas Poo from the South Park cartoon, the humour of bums and their odorous side-products is, well, bottomless. Hence the giggles as commuters pass the enormous pink bum outside RMIT that's promoting The Day My Bum Went Psycho, a children's theatre production based on the best-selling book by Australian author, Andy Griffiths. The Day My Bum Went Psycho tells the story of 12-year-old Zack Freeman and his runaway bum. Zack's bum has been enlisted in a guerilla army of bums, led by the elusive and sinister Great White Bum, who leads Zack and his crack squad of bum hunters on a merry, smelly chase. It's the kind of zany, gross-out humour that kids love, even if grown-ups sniff at the "snot, bot, grot" genre of children's literature. "I don't have a problem with snot, bot and grot," says Griffiths. "That's partly why I wrote Bum - people are branding me anyway, so I'll own it!" Some people, however, do have a problem with bums. In August, The Day My Bum Went Psycho was withdrawn as the Literacy Week drawcard when the federal Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs deemed its cover - with a picture of a toddler's backside - might offend "certain sections of the community". Griffiths' dementedly silly brand of humour - part whimsy, part wild-eyed anarchy - exudes a punk defiance, evidenced when he used to front a band called Gothic Farmyard. Now a full-time writer and father of two girls, Griffiths' love for alternative music still informs his work. "Music feeds everything I do," he says. "I take that rock'n'roll energy, and try to bring it into a story." RMIT Union arts director, Lynne Ellis, shares Griffiths' passion for music. "Theatre is rock'n'roll, in a way," she says. "Especially with kids' theatre, you have to go at such a pace, with fast sequencing, and all that raw energy - it's very in-your-face." The "in-your-face" nature of Bum, the play, is achieved on a low budget. "We don't have the facilities to make huge bum puppets," says Ellis, "so we have fibreglass bums, painted bright pink." A live soundscape by sound designer Daniel O'Shea includes an electronic kaleidoscope of fart noises and a theremin-like "wind machine". Ellis, who has directed the RMIT children's shows for 15 years, collaborated with Griffiths last year to produce Just Andy!, based on his popular Just! series (Just Tricking!, Just Annoying!, Just Stupid! and Just Crazy!). "We've got a reputation as the only group that involves multimedia, cartoon imagery, up-to-date music, lots of lights and soundscapes in kids' theatre," she says. "I'm really hot for that, because (it's) where the next generation of theatre-goers comes from." Griffiths' fans also represent a new generation of readers - particularly among boys, although he receives as many fan letters from girls. "There does appear to be something that happens around grade 6, when boys don't want to be seen reading," he says. "They want to be seen as active, to push away the feminine, and reading is seen as passive and introverted and characterised as feminine - quite unfairly, I think." Together with influences such as Monty Python and Enid Blyton, Griffiths cites Joseph Campbell and his studies in comparative mythology, which identified the archetypal hero's journey as a universal pattern in storytelling. "My aim was to tell a heroic story, based on an absurd premise," says Griffiths. "I'm very aware that Zack is undergoing a hero's journey, discovering powers he never knew he had." Ellis was initially unnerved by the book's military themes, coming so soon after September 11. "With all the imagery kids were getting on television, I thought, 'How am I going to approach all these terrorist bums?' " she recalls. For Griffiths, humour is a perfectly sane response to terrorism. "We spend so much time preparing kids for life, but one of the best values you can teach children is humour," he says. "A punchline jolts us into a different way of interpreting a situation, and protects us from fundamentalism at a deep level. It's hard to be fundamentalist when you can see there are other ways of seeing the world. "The fundamentalist Christians who are complaining about Harry Potter obviously can't make sense of the books, and I suspect they can't make sense of the world." The Day My Bum Went Psycho, from today at the Kaleide RMIT Union Theatre, Swanston Street, city, Tuesdays to Saturdays at 1.30pm until January 19. Griffiths will do readings and book signings after the January 5 and 12 shows. Book on 9685 5111.