Two long train rides in a day (Trowbridge and back) gave me chance to finish reading Martin Wolf's new book Fixing Global Finance, as I'm reviewing it for the Independent later in the month. To begin with I wondered if he hadn't got the timing absolutely wrong as he'd obviously finished the book before the sky fell in on the global financial markets. It's about global current account imbalances and exchange rates rather than imploding banks and frozen capital markets, and doesn't make reference to The Crunch. As I read on, I began to think that the institutional and personal drama in the news every day is distracting us from the underlying issues about the ordering of a globalized economy, including its geopolitics, which are Martin's focus. And very worrying those issues are, too. I won't pre-empt my review by saying more, but I'd certainly recommend reading the book. Having said that, it tested my knowledge on international finance, never one of my strengths. I've always believed economics makes a huge contribution in this field simply by pointing out that things which add up will add up (it's called balance of payments for a reason), but still sometimes have to think for a moment about the counterparts to various imbalances. I also remember a conversation with a former member of the Monetary Policy Committee who was being kind about a mistake I made by saying, not to worry, they could never remember which way up exchange rates went either. I think it was a joke, but couldn't be completely sure. And of course as well as the intellectual books, I can't wait for the political, official and banking memoirs of this period to be published. What fun it will be triangulating all the blow-by-blow accounts.