After a scary week on the stock market, politicians (Alistair Darling) and business leaders (Sir Win Bischoff, Chairman of Citigroup)are beginning to admit that the world's economic problems are set to stay for quite a while. that while now looks like lasting until the year after next.

This week looks as if it may have marked the point at which the financial problems start to recede and problems in the real economy start to assume more prominence with job losses being the most serious.

After the falls in bank shares earlier in the week and the recovery on Thursday and Friday, hopefully the point of maximum panic by the finance industry has been passed. The better-than-expected results from US banks seem to have been the mean reason for the recovery. Does that mean that the bad news about non-performing CDOs has passed its peak? I'm expecting that there will be a few more items of bad news on that front but the worst could be over.

Of course, if the central bankers and regulators could have found a way to make the banking industry more honest about its losses more quickly, we might have been spared the next stage of 'real' economic problems. Now we've got the stage where the banking crisis is passing but the banks haven't got enough cash and confidence to lend as much to the rest of us.

My prediction is that the stock market will start the drifting I was expecting a couple of weeks back - apologies for the plunge in prices in the meantime.

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Has William Burns going to Geneva to attend the talks with the Iranians signalled a backing down on the part of the Americans? Listening to the news this morning, it was interesting to hear Philip Bobbit saying that the meeting provided an opportunity to signal incentives for better relations at the same time as signalling that the Israelis are serious about stopping the Iranians getting a nuclear weapon capability.

It looks as if the Israelis and to a lesser extent the Americans are keen to do all that they can to try to drive a wedge between the the Iranians and their allies in Syria and Lebanon. So this wold suggest that there is going to be plenty of contact between the Israelis and the Americans and all their Middle Eastern adversaries. Will the Iranians be able to 'handle' their allies while all this secret contacting is going on or will they get out of step?

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I've not had much time for walking recently; too busy writing. however, I went on an old favourite route on Monday: Rodborough, Thursley and Bagmoor Commons. Thursley Common really looks as if it's recovering from the bad fire two years ago. This week there were press reports about the recovery of the wildlife, including the silver-studded blue butterfly.

This walk is just a bit too 'bushy' at this time of year; the views are better when the trees are bare. Unfortunately, there's one section just after Bagmoor Common that always seems to be waterlogged - except in high summer.

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I've realised that my posting rate has dropped off steeply this summer. It's down to the writing, which is going OK but the current book is proving just as hard work as the first one.