Between them they have helped to create the emerging markets craze of the last five years driven in part by a landmark

Between them, they have helped to create the "emerging markets" craze of the last five years, driven in part by a landmark ruling in the 1970s that said they had a duty to diversify their portfolios.The numbers, as chronicled in Mr Howell's latest analysis, are certainly striking. The last decade has, after all, seen a huge surge in overseas investment, with UK fund managers well to the fore since the abolition of exchange controls in 1979. But what about the rest of the world?Until Michael Howell of Barings Securities started analysing the numbers a few years ago, there had been no easy way to find out exactly where investors had been putting their money overseas.Given the huge surge in cross-border equity investment, this was an anomaly waiting to be corrected. (Translation: Where investors are putting their cash is what counts if you want to know where the market is going to be next week or next month.)The current verdict from the polling booths is clear: investors are still bullish about the UK stock market. (Translation: Over time share prices must reflect the economic value of the businesses they represent.)But in the short run, it is a "voting machine - and the votes are counted in money". In the long run, they said, the stock market is "a weighing machine".

It is also an increasingly popular tool with professional fund managers, ever mindful of the need to watch what their competitors are up to.Graham and Dodd spelled out the rationale for following the flow of funds years ago. It was wise advice then and it is wise advice now, advice investors of all hues can - and should - put to advantage. Find out where investors are putting their cash and, in the short term at least, it will tell you most of what you need to know about which markets are moving and why. Jobbers and bookies have known this for years but now, perhaps belatedly, the habit seems to be spreading to the punters as well.Flow of funds analysis - who is investing where - is now a standard feature of the mountains of research on the UK markets pumped out by the major broking houses. Follow the trail of the money, said one of the White House moles who led the Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein to unmask the Watergate scandal more than 20 years ago. Foreign cynics would suggest it is actually piped away for recycling in the local bars.The search for the world's most beautiful freeway has caused much controversy "No doubt about it," writes Joyce Prince of Oxfordshire. "The 180 miles from Hobart to Bridport along the east coast of Tasmania." Richard Bevan of Bedford nominates the Coquihalla Highway in British Columbia.

"As well as great scenery, it saves hours off the trip from Vancouver to the Rockies - and has a more interesting name than I-280 or M1." Mr Bevan wins the North American road atlas, which I hope he will use to find yet more exotic highways.. The attendants claim that the liquor is "absorbed" by the saint. Maximon stares expressionless from his rocking chair, oblivious to the kerfuffle. The ritual culminates in the offering of money, a cigarette and a small jugful of Quezalteca, the local liquor. The administration of alcohol involves one disciple's tipping Maximon's chair back while the other carefully pours the mouth-searing potion down his throat. Worshippers wander in and out of the hut, making offerings of candles and cigarettes which they light and place on the ground to burn. A cane lies propped up against his chest, and his eyelashes have a generous coat of mascara.

He looks like the result of an only partially successful experiment to cross-breed the Milky Bar Kid with a Thunderbirds puppet.Two villagers sporting baseball caps fuss around him, making sure the ash from his cigarette doesn't fall on to his suit and giving him a drink now and again. He holds court in a wooden shed, rather more opulent than the dwellings of many of the local people. Maximon turns out to be a tailor's dummy, kitted out in a suit and tie, straw hat, glasses and woolly gloves, with a fetching embroidered scarf draped around his shoulders. After a few wrong turns down labyrinthine cobbled streets, you track down the saint. Villagers are resigned to the inevitable approach and the predictable enquiry in Spanish of "Donde esta Maximon?".