A quick note thrown from the shade of U.S. national monuments. On one of today's lectures at the seminar: It's extremely refreshing to hear intelligent, no-nonsense responses stripped of decorative diplomacy, especially when they come from a representatíve of a third-world country, and the original question has been offered from the speaker's box with an air of pseudo-critical patronising grace. If someone, a kind of cultural ambassador, comes from an area where 95 per cent of the population have never heard of the Internet, would they really want to analyse seriously the influence of that electronic megastructure on the past development of civil society there? Some people would expect them to. In these circumstances, I don't want to hear the phrase "worldwide network" too many times per hour.

But it's been great. Really. Especially the offhand comments that crisscross in the air after programmed events. Hyvää yötä. 06:55