Off tomorrow to this year’s Riga Conference, the distinguished Northern Europe security and wider policy forum.

My first time at this event. Plenty of meat on the menu, including legendary Polish economist and intellectual Lesek Balcerowicz on the subject of the Eurozone.

I appear in full hoot at Night Owl Session One on Friday evening, part of a panel opining on European policy towards Protracted Conflicts (with an eye on Moldova/Transdniestria and other such ‘stuck’ questions – did anyone mention Serbia/Kosovo?). For some reason this session is ‘off the record’.

Back Sunday.

While I am away, check out this astute look at President Obama’s rhetoric by Kathleen Hall Jamieson. Some especially subtle insights into the speechwriter’s art – and how a good speech has to chime with the moment, something she says Obama’s speeches have too often failed to do.