I am heading to the Land of Austerity today and so the blog will be relatively short. I was last in Europe this time last year and one of the vivid memories was the proliferation of for sale signs across the urban landscape. For sales signs even were in bountiful supply in well-to-do suburbs in Maastricht where I had never seen such things because the houses sell by word-of-mouth such is the attractiveness of the locations and it is “so not done to have common advertising awnings in your front garden”. But the houses stopped selling and pragmatics overcame their false dignity and the signs were multiplying. Things have become worse in the ensuing twelve months as the failed EU leadership has imposed one poor policy choice after another on their ailing economies. Anyway, for the next two weeks I will be reporting from various locations in Europe and beyond (UK). But for now a long flight awaits.