An American guy in the corner reading a fat black paperback; three young girls giggling through Facebook photos on an iPad; a shaggy bartender in skinny jeans and a t-shirt with a neck-hole that looks like he cut it himself. On the ceiling is a filled-in skylight with ‘Work hard and be nice to people’ painted in loud black letters. An upbeat remix of Massive Attack’s ‘Teardrop’ is on the speakers.

I install myself on one of the benches near the open windows, looking out onto the buzzing square. After ten minutes the bartender wanders over. “Hi, friend. What can I get you?”. I order a Greek coffee, double, and ask him for the WiFi password. He turns to the girls: “Can you pass this guy your receipt?”, and starts to make his way back to the bar. One of the girls tosses the receipt to me and turns quickly back to Facebook. The password is written on it.

Two weeks ago, a prominent anti-fascist activist was stabbed to death in Athens. When confessing, his killer admitted to being a supporter of Greece’s neo-nazi party Golden Dawn, the third most popular party in the country with 18 parliamentary seats. To national surprise, Greek authorities reacted by clamping down hard on the party, culminating last weekend in the arrest of its leadership for organising a criminal group. Media and public attention has zoned in on the story, as people ponder whether this could be the beginning of the end of Golden Dawn.

Yet just this morning, three of the four detained Golden Dawn MPs were freed pending trial, suggesting that the state is lacking the evidence it needs to convict them. The MPs threatened and assaulted journalists as they left police headquarters.

My Twitter timeline is seething. As has happened at so many points during Greece’s crisis, there’s now talk of bullets and war and social explosion.

But here in Exarchia, the grubby hub of Athens’ anti-fascist movement, you wouldn’t know it. The loudest shout I’ve heard so far was a man with a megaphone selling fish from a truck, while frappés were sipped over gossip and rollies in the afternoon sun.

Laptop battery dying, I call to the bartender about a power outlet. He points under my table and disappears outside. I hunt for the outlet, moving the table out, crouching and crawling, but can’t find it. The girls snigger.

The bartender re-emerges; I say I can’t find the socket. He tells me to get up and separates the bench from the wall, exposing a little dugout filled with wires, metal and plastic. “Be careful,” he says, smiling, and goes to mix someone else’s drink.

I try to fit my charger in what appears to be two holes in the centre of the dugout. The outlet sizzles and sparks; a whiff of burning dust. The girls don’t notice. I remove the charger and glance frustratedly at the bartender, who doesn’t see me. I try again; more sparks, and the charger now sits loosely in the socket. I connect it to my laptop and the green light flicks on. ‘Screw it’, I think. The bartender looks over and I thumbs-up and he nods.

I get to work.