Michael has been haring around trying, and failing, to out-do Mark Yeandle’s international whirligigs presenting the Global Financial Centres Index. His meagre haul includes Toronto – to the Financial Services Alliance, the Isle of Man – to the Treasury Minister and his team, Dublin – Finance Dublin and the Financial Services Club. Hardly holds a candle to Mark’s Caribbean capers.

Meanwhile, Alexander Knapp returned to American University's School of International Service (SIS) in late October to give a series of lectures and master-classes on “Applications of Complex System Theory in International Development”. His research and teaching focuses on better understanding massively interdependent systems like poverty or global warming, and developing new approaches in organisational theory for dealing with them. An alumnus of SIS and visiting lecturer there for the past five years, Alexander worked with first-year students helping them chart their academic path during their time at university, and with fourth-year students on advanced issues in conflict and diplomacy.