I read on a seo blog that regional search has been disabled on cctlds for the moment, or so it seems (ie u see non uk stuff in a uk search on google.co.uk)
it has been speculated that google is experimenting with something, maybe for am onth. They also launched that sandbox thing [see webmater tools blog], so lots of stuff happening over at the googleplex right now it seems.
duno if there was a new algo lanuched, maybe someone can shed some light on this?