It has been an interesting trip to the southern hemisphere. Especially the Chilean pension system proved of interest to me (obsessed as I am with the topic), so I'll write about that a bit more in the near future. Other countries such as Peru and Thailand are looking to the Chilean experiment in privatizing pensions as they try to set up their own funded pension programs. I assume that'll be of more interest than my experiences with drinking Brazilian caipirinhas.

Although I got back in the middle of last week, events have prevented me from blogging until now; I spent most of the weekend trying to work off the huge sleep deficit that has built up over the last two weeks or so. But a more normal pattern of blogging will resume now. I don't think I'll be writing too much about the war, since I missed most of it, being able to gathered only a few minutes of CNN a day while I was away. Besides, other bloggers are covering the war extremely well, and I don't think I can add much at this late stage and knowing so little. I was watching domestic BBC news last night, and it was not so much the bias but the vapdity of the reporting that struck me. John Simpson was being interviewed live by video phone at night, so all you saw was a blog of green on a black background, and he was saying how the US airforce had bombed Iraqi positions with huge bombs. Question from the anchor: "So what effect is that having on the Iraqi troops?"

They were slightly miffed, as it rattled some of their fine china during afternoon tea, and the cucumber sandwiches were somewhat stale too.

What do you think the effects were? Sheesh. It went on like this for a while, so I switched off the news and got caught up on the three episodes of 24 that I taped over the last three weeks.

It's good to be back though.