What euro crisis?

This week, we have a little test for you. Oh, come on, stop complaining — we haven't done one for a long time.

The question is very simple: what is the current euro/dollar exchange rate to two decimal places? Don't cheat now by looking it up. Just think of a number or write it down somewhere.

OK? Done that? So, what did you put for the value of the euro? $1.10? $1.15? $1.20? $1.25? Maybe even $1.50?

In fact, at the time of writing (early on Friday, 30 July), the exchange rate was $1.31. If you want to check the exact rate at the time you are reading this, go here.

At this moment, you might be tempted to scream, "And? So what?" Well, my point is actually very simple.

Do you remember all that clever chatter a couple of months ago about how the euro was in danger because its value was plummeting against the dollar?

Some pundits were predicting that one or other member country — Greece was the prime suspect — might be forced to leave the eurozone. A more extreme view was that the whole common currency project would come to a bitter end.

Well, guess what? As I thought at the time, neither of these things happened. Indeed, the euro has risen by more than 10 cents since its low of $1.19 at the start of June.

So what happened to the predicted euro crisis? One (not entirely stupid) answer is that the football World Cup came along, taking the attention of many pundits away from the euro.

The forex markets, on the other hand, are not stupid enough to be tricked in the same way. The main reason they have marked up the euro against the dollar is the increasing worry about the robustness of the US economic recovery. At the same time, there has been better news from the eurozone's economy and its banking systems.

This doesn't mean that the euro's value won't fall again at some time. Indeed, The Economist's "Big Mac index " suggests that the currency is still overvalued by about 16 per cent against the dollar.

But next time you hear talk of a euro (or, for that matter, dollar) crisis, just relax and wait for some other news event to knock it off the front pages.