  After pointing out the amazing success of the CKM description in
accommodating the phenomenology of flavour changing neutral currents I review
the status of theoretical technologies for extracting CKM parameters from data.
I sketch novel directions, namely attempts to deal with quark-hadron duality in
a (semi)quantitative way and to develop a QCD description of two-body modes of
$B$ mesons. After commenting on predictions for $\epsilon ^{\prime}/\epsilon$
and CP asymmetries in B decays I address indirect probes for New Physics in
$D^0$ oscillations and CP violation, in $K_{\mu 3}$ decays and electric dipole
moments. I describe in which way searching for New Physics in B decays provides
an exciting adventure with novel challenges not encountered before.
