Can I use system variables or functions if using view parser

Thanks - I hadn't considered using <php? ?> in the to-be-parsed template files. While that would work, I guess I was really looking for a way to keep the template files looking 'templated' rather than 'coded', e.g: my news/create view looks like:

Code:

<form action="create" method="post" accept-charset="utf-8">
 
   <label for="title">Title</label>
   <input type="input" name="title" /><br />

   <label for="text">Text</label>
   <textarea name="text"></textarea><br />

   <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Create news item" />

</form>

I was hoping I'd be able to put in something like {form_error('username')} or {base_url()} which looks in keeping with a template