Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez broke last week’s silence to say that “unfortunately” he will no longer be that “runaway” horse that never slept, and that he now works just eight hours a day and sometimes less.

“I have to accept it and here I am accepting it and I confess it to the country: unfortunately I will not continue to be that sometimes runaway horse out there,” Chavez told state-run VTV television, a reference to the repose doctors have ordered him to observe and which he said kept him shut away all week.