I go to a lot of EU meetings in Brussels on behalf of the UK Govt. Like many English speakers I can order beer in a number of other European languages but usually a stronger grasp of the language is needed to understand the technical and policy comments made by my Austrian, French, German, Italian and Spanish colleagues (all of whom are under instruction to speak only in their native languages) - so it's on with the headphones to get the translation. It's my ambition to provide a contribution to the discussion in one of the other EU languages before I'm done - to see the momentarily baffled looks on my colleagues' faces and watch them scrabble to get their headphones on before I've finished.

I'm not sure a tip can be described as useful when it's wrong. Keynesianism (we could spend some time distinguishing what we mean by Keynesianism - are we using it to mean what Keynes discussed and proposed or what the political-economic consensus subsequently made it into) did not cause the Great Depression, it was the reliance on policies derived from reliance on neoclassical economics, as any fule kno.

I am not a man I am a free number.

"That unelected officials are prone to spending vast sums of other peoples money on boondoggles is practically a cliche at this point" is irrelevant at this point. This project was one of six submitted, each was evaluated by a group of internationally renowned experts (who, oddly enough, weren't elected to the post of "expert"). The six groups of experts then compared notes across all six proposals. The process was overseen by an independent monitoring panel and the results will have to be approved by representatives of Member States who are directly accountable to their (elected) Minister. This hasn't happened yet so (a) his project hasn't got the money and (b) the project won't be getting the 1B€ solely from the EU budget.

I much prefer soup o' the day to the day itself.

I'm assuming the question is rhetorical.

The FET Flagships will be 1B€ over 10 yr projects / programmes. Some of that money will come from the EU budget, some will be co-funding from EU Member States's national research programmes and some will be provided by the partners. For the purposes of discussion 1B€ / 10yrs = 100M€ pa could be ... 20M€ pa own resources 30M€ pa from EU 50M€ pa from Member States Large Member States may be in for about 10M€ pa per flagship.

"I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" has the around the right number of single-entendres to provide an insight into Britishness.

I daresay the Govt could make a pretty good guess already: Porn and Euro2012 (and /. of course).

I feel it's nit-picking a bit, but I think in fact you have some very clear ideas about what "safe" means.

I'm old (and maybe slightly ashamed) enough to recall its strapline - "the genuine champagne perry" - which seems to break more laws and regulations than your average bit-torrenter / software pirate under net neutrality.

... or that ISPs / providers of infrastructure don't demand from Google that they pay ...

Thomas Midgley Jr (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley,_Jr.). Leaded petrol and freons.

A better economist than me said "In the long run we are all dead" so I am always a bit cautious about asserting what will happen eventually - other than, of course, being dead.

"... kindly agreed to the following interview, which had been planned some months ago". I'll bet it had.