Off I go to the International Bar Association annual conference, this year in lovely Vancouver. A vast gathering of lawyers.

I am there with ADRg Ambassadors to help present a session on the different levels of mediation and negotiation skill needed when a racing yacht is grabbed by pirates.

The point being that the different governments involved may have an agenda of their own, so if you are eg an insurance company or even the lawyers representing the kidnapped yachtsfolk it will be good to have on your team someone who understands how governments work (or not). Namely me. Or one of my colleagues.

A long trip there and back in a few days. Service here may or not be resumed at some point. When you start to miss me, scroll back diligently through this site or use the Blog Archive button on the left, especially to the early days (from January 2008 onwards).

Not so many readers then, and lots of vivid material.

For example, how many of you FCO and other diplomatic readers will get the right answer to this nice protocol question?