When forecasters struggle to know if we're heading for a triple dip of recession, and the risk of falling off a fiscal cliff next month, a much more distant horizon has been scanned this week.

BBC: Burning issues for the world's future

People geographically close to each other generally send quite a few messages to each other, but if the total reaches more than nine messages a month that generally means they are talking to someone much more distant.

BBC: Twitter users defeat the distance barrier and reach out

Having been talked up last month, the putative negotiations, ostensibly aimed at stabilising Iraq, seem distant now that both sides have sulkily averred that they never really wanted to talk at all.

ECONOMIST: And a people who may not be quite so keen

Hence, perhaps, Mr Chirac's determination, earlier this month, to win his battle for a Frenchman to head, some not-too-distant day, Europe's central bank.

ECONOMIST: The cracks in Jacques Chirac��s presidency