I am back at my desk. Nothing much has changed. The weather is still mediocre. The buskers outside my office window are still infuriating me by playing the same snatch of Mozart, a hundred times a day. I now hate Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Still, at least, the world’s leaders have followed my wishes and not unleashed any major wars during my summer holiday.

Of course, I kept reading the newspapers and the internet while I was away – addictions are not kicked that easily. So, in the absence of small wars. what have been the major world events over the last three weeks? The Japanese have finally got rid of the LDP. Afghanistan has had its election and Karzai seems to have won. But US and UK casualties are now running at levels that are threatening support for the war.

The gloss has come off the Obama presidency and health-care reform is in trouble. Meanwhile the president himself went to Martha’s Vineyard on holiday. (I’ve never understood posh America’s obsession with “the Vineyard”; I’ve been there once and it struck me as a bit of dump.) Russia has not renewed its war with Georgia. The most offensive thing Vladimir Putin did this summer was to pose topless – an offence for which he has been roundly criticised by Phillip Stephens. And finally the German regional elections look quite interesting – no, really they do. They are the first indication I’ve seen for a while that the general election in September may not be the walk-over for Angela Merkel that everybody is anticipating.