I see that the prime minister of Armenia has died suddenly. I had lunch with him (or rather was in attendance at a lunch with my then boss) in 2004. Not quite as dramatically as his predecessor in 1999, or the prime minister of neighbouring Georgia in 2005, but still rather a shock to the political system. Armenia is one of those oddities, a multi-party system with distinctly authoritarian tendencies. President Kocharian is due to stand down next year, and his hand-picked successor, the current defence minister Sarkisian, is giving a talk in Brussels next week. I think I may go to that, if it is still on.