Greek economists have unveiled a new economic index which they claim would have “predicted the economic woes several months ago” if they had been using it. The “bum pinching” index, published by the Greek government today shows close parallels between economic performance and police reports of English girls getting their arses pinched or smacked on the beach.

“The data is compelling,” said Greek economist Spiros Notalotahopealous. “We’ve got data for the last fifty years showing the number of bums pinched, the number of bums smacked, the number of police reports, and we’ve compared that with the economy. It clearly shows that the better we’re doing economically, the more bums get pinched on the beach! Right now, English girls’ bums are as safe as they have been for years, so I guess if you want the positives – it’s a great time to visit Greece!”

The data was compiled by a group of economic experts in Athens who went out onto the beaches themselves to study behaviour of randy Greek males. They found that when the economy was booming, Greeks were “spritely, amorous and somewhat lusty.” However, since the country’s debts were revealed they were found to be “not bothered at all in female bottoms.”

“It’s just the first of many indexes that we have found accurately reflect the true state of the economy,” said Notalotahopealous. “In Italy, for example, we measured the number of times a large-chested woman received beeps from a car horn while walking down the via Stronzo in Verona. By measuring this over a period of two years, we have found close correlations with the state of the Italian economy. We experimented with smaller-chested women and found that the worse the state of the economy, the more beeps smaller chested women received. Extraordinary. We can only conclude that Italian men, during a recession, downsize their chest preferences.”