As Yanis Varoufakis revs off into the sunset, it’s his substance I’ll remember | Suzanne Moore

The media was mesmerised by his motorbike, but Greece's former finance minister inspired ordinary people by the way he faced down Europe

Back in January, when I was half-awake while listening to the interminable euro discussion, a man for whom English is a second language started speaking poetry. He was talking of his fellow Greeks, who he said chose, "to quote your own Dylan Thomas, to stop going gently into the night and to rage against the dying of the light". I perked up, and I wasn't the only one. This was Yanis Varoufakis, an economist, blogger and academic, who was soon to become Syriza's finance minister.

Eloquently, he put into words the suffering and resilience of his fellow Greeks, but this alone did not fascinate the media. It was his "flamboyance" they focused on. Clearly, in the world of Eurocracy, to not wear a tie is radical. Or rude. Or both. Sometimes he wore a leather jacket. Or a Barbour, or a shirt that was perhaps a little bit too tight. He signalled simply that he was not another "suit", and made the rest of them look stuffy, uptight and clonish. He continued to ride his motorbike instead of being driven by a chauffeur. In this upside-down world, this level of normality meant he was dubbed everything from a rock star to a sex god.

He showed how financial issues had become politicised, how old paradigms were broken. He spoke to Eurocrats as equals.