Today’s post will include a little on the following:

1) The hostages return
2) Some finance thoughts
3) Work and pleasure report

I had intended to post yesterday but was beguiled by a few chores and the extremely pleasant weather into postponing posting until today.

I’ve listened carefully to the reporting and comment on Radio 4 and read what the Independent had to say about the hostages’ return. I’m struck by how much most commentators seem to be making of the PR success that President Ahmedinejad has made of his so-generous gesture in letting the Royal Navy personnel go free. I think the press have made to much of this and that our own government comes out of the crisis not with distinction exactly but with a measure of satisfaction, given that it was very difficult to know what the Iranians were hoping to achieve in the first place.

The possibility that the Syrians helped to broker a deal has been mentioned but it seems that no one is going to know for sure for a long time. Certainly, the Iraqi government seems to have had a hand in the (surely related) handing back of an Iranian and the granting of consular access to those Revolutionary Guards the Americans captured a few weeks ago. Given that the Iranians are reported to have been annoyed at Britain going to the UN, it might have been good if the Iraqis could have complained on our behalf because – after all - Royal Navy anti-smuggling operations in the Persian Gulf are on behalf of Iraq. Aside from that, the government of Iraq seems to have come out of the affair with a slight increase in its consequence, and that is probably a good thing.

At the end of the day it doesn’t matter a lot whether Iran’s or the UK’s standing is improved. If it helped us to forget the concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme, we are all worse off. Working out whether Iran is truly heading towards joining the nuclear club needs to be the overriding concern.

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In my last post I criticised the other member-states of the EU for not offering any practical help in obtaining the release of the hostages but it occurred to me afterwards that our grounds for expecting economic sanctions from other EU countries may be weaker since the government decided to stop the investigation into the alleged BAE bribes to Saudi Arabia.

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The stock markets graphs still seem to be tending to move horizontally, that is not much at all. The Nikkei doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of breaking back through 17,500, the FTSE 100 looks more volatile but there are no clear signs that it is going to begin rising towards the 6,500 barrier. The S&P 500 seems to have been affected the least by the February downturn but the economic news from America seems to be the most worrying of all.

With family members in the market for new homes I’m paying more attention to the housing market than usual. These relatives don’t seem to be inundated with prospective buyers and nor do there seem to be forests of for-sale signs around. Maybe people really are worried about another hike in interest rates next month and that’s offsetting the lovely house buying weather.

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On a personal note I’ve been applying for some interesting work opportunities both permanent and contract. I’ve had some interest shown in my services on one of the contracting bidding sites I belong to. So I’m hopeful that I’m going to be gainfully occupied later this month and next.

The seedlings have reached the stage of deciding whether they are going to go on to become fully-fledged plants or are simply to going to give up the ghost. The garden looks good as the blackthorn and plum are in full bloom. Soon they’ll be joined by what’s left of the old cherry, bright pink so it lowers the tone somewhat. I’m having to water the plants in pots already because there’s been so little rain for the last few weeks.

I’ve greatly enjoyed the Orangutan Diary being shown on BBC1 each evening this week.

Still no walks to report.