There I was, listening to the new President of the IAG make his inaugural speech when I heard mention of the Lunar Society! Afterwards I asked Professor Renato Maia Guimarães how he knew about the Society and he told me that he had trained with Bernard Isaacs in Birmingham. I told him that we had had a talk on this subject at the Birmingham Spring Meeting just a couple of months earlier. I mention this anecdote not only to demonstrate how small the world is, but also remind colleagues that UK Geriatric Medicine is held in high esteem in South America. Ronaldo Kaplan, the President of the Argentinean Geriatrics Society is hoping to organise a meeting marking this link.

The IAG meeting was a veritable gerifest with over 4000 delegates, far more than expected. Stars of the geriatric medicine world were talking and perhaps, more important, there is a chance to question and chat to them after the sessions. It was a pity that I saw so few UK geriatricians at the conference - perhaps they were sunning themselves on the beaches at Copacabana and Ipanema!

Progressive cognitive deficiency syndrome
At the Council meeting it was decided that the 2013 conference will be held in Seoul which beat Hong Kong. (I voted for HK.) The European region is preparing position papers on age discrimination and geriatric facilities. There was also a proposal to abolish the syndrome of dementia and replace this with the phrase "progressive cognitive deficiency syndrome". The BGS will be responding to these proposals. These decisions are of some importance since the IAG is recognised by the UN and WHO as the body representing the scientific community of gerontologists.

Future meetings of the IAG are planned for 2006 (Clinical Section in Ostend) and 2007 in St Petersburg (European region) whilst the next world congress will be in Paris in 2009 under the Presidency of Prof Bruno Vellas, who will be well known to our Euro-travellers.

Peter Crome