APPARENTLY BP referred Al-Jazeera to us for comments on the new Iraqi oil law.

Industry consensus is that no good turn goes unpunished. Executives are paranoid and hide behind spin doctors. But PR people can't understand complex issues and lack authority to explain. If you don't speak you can't complain that they misrepresent your position. They may still disbelieve, but you're no worse off engaging with the media unless you've something to hide.

Finance is not intuitive: most believe that if investors make superior returns, others suffer. They think business works as a zero-sum game, where the size of the cake is "xed. Real enterprise is about 'joint games', where players increase the size of the cake.

Conspiracy theories confuse cause and effect: documents from the British foreign of"ce and US Aid-funded consultants were produced as evidence that these bodies were orchestrating developments. But no one is orchestrating anything. Would that there were an infallible puppet-master - but there's not!

Required rates of return are high because there are uncertainties and dangers.

Markets trade risk off against return. Investors like pro"t, and prefer more to less.

They dislike risk, and prefer less to more. Investors want the best sustainable deal - they know that unfair contracts will be re-negotiated, as by Putin's Russia.

Financial intermediaries and traders are short-termist. But most serious investors are surprisingly long-term, which explains why weight is put on relationships. You haggle but co-operate with people you see regularly.

Ideology is a false friend: it appears to simplify analysis by offering easy solutions, but really it confuses and distorts judgment. Ethics similarly. Pursuit of the perfect or risk-free solution is a recipe for inaction - which is rarely the ethical outcome. What's right is what works.

18 February, Today FM, Dublin PRESENTER C�nall � Mor�in celebrates record ratings by inviting David Went and I onto the Business Show. In 1986 David Went convinced me that Irish banking blue-chips were an excellent risk-adjusted investment. Now he claims he intends to be Mastermind champion on afternoon TV. But he'll chair the Irish Times and Trinity Trust. Retirement has little appeal for over-achievers. The papers are full of "nancial engineering: Anglo reduces capital requirements and hence boosts return on equity; Smur"t invests management and professional time to take a company public which it previously took private. The papers claim that Denis O'Brien made Euro800m by buying out minority stakeholders with borrowings. Almost no mention of serving the customer, or creating better products.

Editorials declare that the tribunal emperors are naked: the resources should be given to CAB and the garda�. Bizarrely, tribunal evidence cannot be used in prosecutions. It might be in your interests to declare all!

19-25 February, exploring Peru NOTHING combines science and art like exploration: it's a jigsaw where you've a limited number of ragged pieces, which could "t in several places. We marvel at the quality of old data and how deeply resourceful old-timers dug with limited tools.

Reprocessing old seismic data with modern computers uncovers the earth's secrets. We entered Amazonia to exploit 1970s discoveries found at a time of high taxes, low energy prices, security challenges and logistical remoteness. There was even a curfew which, apparently, was a boon for single men! Now Peru is probusiness, peaceful and low-tax. At an industry lunch we chat with leading US players neighbouring our block. They are targeting large "elds at greater depth than what we'd studied. This echoes past experience: when we entered neighbouring Bolivia the only discoveries were shallow oil. Collectively we found large discoveries at depth - unfortunately gas rather than oil, which is hard for land-locked countries to develop.

Happily Peru has a long coastline and an existing gas industry. Large companies like Shell did much of the heavy lifting. Ironically smaller companies and consumers will reap the rewards. Reprocessing the old seismic we "nd new plays at depth. The Texans may be right! Each year there seem to be fewer countries where foreign investors are welcome, an exception being the Spanish executive who erected a portrait of Pizarro on his Lima of"ce wall - like an English boss hanging Cromwell's portrait in Tesco shops.

The energy minister is intrigued by Ireland's economic success and mysti"ed as to why Peru's efforts are not similarly recognised. I explain that, from a distance, all Latins look alike: Investors don't distinguish between dif"cult situations like Venezuela and booming economies like Mexico. We offer to organise an analysts' breakfast for them in London. What appears dif"cult to Latin Americans is second nature to Irish entrepreneurs. Our competitive advantage is not working harder or technical skill so much as creativity and openness to risk. To demonstrate organisational skills we throw a traditional party for all workers, featuring the Andean equivalent of Riverdance. Our local managers are obliged to dance, resulting in belly laughs. But they have the last laugh: I also have to prance - but happily forti"ed with Argentine Mendoza!

The enterprising Irish honorary consul, Michael Russell, takes us to a superb beef restaurant glorying in the name 'the mad cow'. This naturally gets the marketing award in a country whose favourite cola is yellow. The consul regales us with tales of his career as a Dublin busman, and tour guide in Afghanistan and the old USSR. He disappears to the of"ce after rousing the restaurant to toast the Irish rugby team! You know you're getting old when you swap war stories over drinks: An American 'security consultant' explains that he was in Fallujah at the same time as us. While we moved around, he stayed in a fortress, being evacuated at night. Thinking he'd lost comrades, I commiserate about the four 'security contractors' burnt on the old British bridge over the Euphrates.

We ran into heavy traf"c outside Fallujah that day: noting the armed men and "res, my driver reversed at speed, turned abruptly off the highway and burst through an opening in wire netting, making his way across rough terrain onto narrow roads through the town. We sensed something was up as youngsters waved ri"es and homemade national "ags.

He dismissed my clumsy diplomacy, retorting that their fate shocked few:

apparently they'd acquired an old mortar and heavy machinegun, which they "red randomly at night. Confused, I asked was this to deter attackers. "Nope, they were just psychotic killers - and got what was coming to them."