If foreign correspondents learn anything, other than how late you can leave for the airport, the importance of a good luggage trolley, and of good underwear in a war zone, it is to avoid any easy, all encompassing truth.

Ed: So, who do you think did it?

Corr: Well, there's been no claim of responsibility. It could be the opposition, although this isn't really like them. It could be the insurgents, although it's not really their territory. I mean, the police and the army haven't really been getting on, but...

Ed: So, you don't know.

Corr: Well, nobody does. Let me make some calls. How long can I have?

Ed: Well, it's a big domestic day. The Women's Institute has released a new cookbook, and a celebrity impersonating a celebrity has just entered the Big Brother House, so.. we couldn't give you more than one minute fifteen..

Corr: But eighty people died..

Ed: Well, one twenty, max.

You see the dilemma. It's caused by something like reverse short sightedness. The further away an event is, the more in focus it appears from London. But if it's on your doorstep, the complexities are what you see first.

I guess that's the job - to explain complexity, but resist the easy truth.

It's not only correspondents who trip over easy truths.

One of my favourite bits of Asia prediction was done by the OECD. In the 1970s that august body chose two countries among Asia's up and comers, who they thought sure to succeed.

Based on measures like natural resources, standards of education and governance, the stand out nations were Burma and the Philippines.

At the time, they were probably the right choice - who could have known then that juntas and dictators, natural disasters, and freakish levels of growth by their neighbours would have left them the weaklings of the 'hood.

Rather than an engine of growth, the Philippines is now Asia's great exporter of maids, and provider of bands for hotels. Neither of these is a bad thing. Maids provide a fair chunk of the country's income, and provide their families with hitherto unknown opportunities.

And the musicians perform many a fine Supertramp cover in gilt wrapped five star lobbies. But that's not what the OECD had in mind.

Even the greatest pessimist of the 1970s could never have imagined Burma's fate.

All its promise squandered by an oversized military which rules at great cost to the people, and against their wishes. They suffer.

Britain and the United States isolate their rulers in a bid to end their misery, even as India and China shower the military with favours in what's becoming the greatest resource grab of our time.

But then, I guess you need a joined-up international community for joined-up thinking.

I feel myself drifting close to easy truths, and even easy pronouncements, so I may have to stop now.

Today's going to be a bit of a nightmare. This is my last week of trainee presenting, because Sarah leaves for Washington in a few days, and I've got to do it for real from Monday.

The biggest change so far, leaving reporting from the field and coming into the studio - putting on make-up while not in a car. And having to look vaguely put together. And interviewing people in real time who answer in English.

Kylie Morris's 'Podcasts from the edge' feature on the Morning Report. Kylie takes over from Sarah Smith as presenter of More4 News on Monday 18 June.