An old soldier writes
IT IS high time that the IMF gave me a medal. It could use some of its gold, or give me one of its Special Drawings Rights, which it says are just as good as gold and easier to create. This would mark a quar- ter-century of attendance at its meetings a tribute to my constitution, if to nothing else. I have watched them develop into the World's Fair of money. The Fund and Bank are based in Washington but every third year they dig themselves up and move the meetings out of town. These away matches are usually the most fun and always the most strenuous. In Belgrade — nowadays a junkyard of bad debts — there were only three bath plugs to go round. In Madrid three years ago, protesters rained spoof dollar bills on the King of Spain, who was not amused. Nothing like that could have happened in Hong Kong, and the mood of the meeting is that we should come here every year. Sadly, the next away match is in the year of the millennium, in Prague, but before I go there I shall want my medal gazetted.
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