Overheard between bar staff at the Tower:

"Brett, do you know where my dangly is?"

How do you get into high office? By being right most of the time.

Due to global warming, many more people will only holiday in winter. Winter will be the new summer.

A travel advertisement's holiday destinations

Las Vegas and Kiev. Hm, Kiev. Kiev? It’s great. Has a gate.

JILL CARROLL EXPLAINS HER CAPTORS’ DEMANDS

I am here. I’m fine.
There is a very short time
Do it fast, that’s all.

Please do whatever they want
As quickly as possible.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE ON RENDITION

It’s not illegal;
it takes terrorists out of
action, and saves lives;

it respects other countries’
sovereign territory.

“Honesty. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

We lunched at the J____'s, and I spoke intermittently but at length with Peter T’s father. A retired engineer, he spoke optimistically about wind power and hot rocks technologies replacing fossil fuels and nuclear power. I also chatted to Simon D, about developments in theoretical physics, applied to his field of quantum computing. He’s going to Cambridge this year for his PhD. Always fascinating: research has moved away from solid state now, as it is unlikely to produce fruitful results. And he told me about getting one’s article published in the top-tier journals Nature or Science being a meal ticket for work anywhere in the world. I told him about my `After the Budapest Conference’ poem, and gave him a copy.