Obama

Two very different lunch talks in two days. Thaksin Shinawatra spoke to the FCC "via satellite" (sounds cool to us old people, but much more expensive and much worse quality than Skype) and an FT debate on China and Obama's America, featuring the very excellent historian Simon Schama, among others. Several contrasts: the Four Seasons lunch beats the FCC by a predictably wide margin. But the FCC wins hands down for history and ambience. Call it the roof factor: excellent for staring into space, thoughtfully. A common conclusion though: can't think of anywhere else in Asia that can deliver such quality of debate and variety of voices.