Hello again…

I’ve been a bit quiet lately because of something politely known as work. Four months of endless trips around the GCC and 16 hour days in here in Bahrain have finally come to a close. For the next six weeks at least I expect to be writing a few words on my favourite themes.

As I peer above the parapet, not much seems to have changed. Though maybe some behaviours have intensified. Jackasses are still jackasses, bigots are still bigoted, tyrants still tyrannical and banks still stupid – as well as venal and profoundly self-serving.

Oh, and we have the Olympics in my country – Danny Boyle and the London transport system confounding the world’s low expectations (and Mitt Romney’s) and our athletes confounding the country’s high expectations (at the time of writing anyway).

Then we have India reminding us as it swelters in the dark that the much vaunted BRIC countries with their high-growth economies should show a little more humility when it comes to boasting about their achievements. It only takes a major infrastructure failure to look very foolish.

And Syria reminding us that civil war brings the worst out of the participants, whatever their original intentions.

Any good news then? Well, perhaps that away from the media headlines the majority of the world’s six billion are pottering on with their lives, finding small happiness amid the global sourness and uncertainty.

Other than that, not a lot. But that perception is what comes of living off headines for a few months.

A few rounds of golf, and a couple of weeks in rural France, and everything will no doubt look rosy again. Maybe.