Stories of 2015: Yanis Varoufakis, Syriza's anti-austerity motorbiker

When Syriza won nearly half the seats in Greece's January elections, the academic economist won a rockstar following, preaching an alternative to austerity

The year 2015 did not begin - or end - as Yanis Varoufakis might have predicted. This time last year, having finished a busy academic term at the University of Texas in Austin where he was a visiting professor in economics, he had flown to Australia for a holiday. Varoufakis has a teenage daughter with his first wife - the pair now live in Sydney - and he was hoping, as he puts it, "to have a quiet time".