Roamin' nose

I think that's what Mr A calls a Roman nose. Roamin' all over his face... It belongs to Machiavelli, whose bust was to be found in a side room (the Old Chancellery) just off the Sala dei Gigli, or Hall of Lilies, in the Palazzo Vecchio, which was Machiavelli's office when he was Secretary of the Republic. Suffice it to say, Mr M had a fine profile, as well as being a fine scholar.

That was during the lunchbreak of the State of the Union conference, which got British media attention largely because of a silly remark that J-C Juncker made in his speech about English becoming a less important language. I found Barnier's speech much more interesting, because he was speaking about the Brexit negotiations and EU citizens in the UK, and I was rather surprised that he name-checked me and was eager to shake hands after our panel, which followed immediately on from his speech.

Exhausted afterwards, I gave up on the listening lark fairly soon, and went for a quick drink with JD, before heading back to the hotel with a takeway panino and some water, for an early night.

As usually happens, though, going to a conference has generated a whole bunch of new things I want to do, and/or ought to do, by way of follow ups. That might have to wait for a couple of weeks though, as I've got so much to do in the next few days.