ICIS Chemicals Confidential

Does anyone really keep the contact details of all their business partners in a pile of business cards? Can there be anyone left in our great metropolises who has not seen an iPhone? Yes there can and it is our own low-tech blogger, John Richardson, who proudly lays claim to his Grumpy Old Man status in his guest column in this week's ICIS Chemical Business (page 7, From Our Own Correspondent).

Marvel at the state-of-the-art wizardry of the page-turning digital magazine, as you gasp at his sheer cussedness, sympathising with chemical traders for the hard life they lead and spurning their hi-tech gadgetry.

Says Antonella Harrison, managing editor of "The Market": "Rebecca Clarke and I highly raised the profile of ICIS by joining in a local Egyptian dance, the Tanura, on the final evening of the AFA 16th Annual conference... And bear in mind there was no alcohol served at the dinner!"

With the pineapple import season in full swing in the UK, and central American pineapples everywhere on special offer (two for £2), you can dazzle your guests with this crazy pineapple coring gadget which produces a spiral of perfect pineapple without the outer spikes and the fibrous core.

I didn't know such a thing existed, so of course didn't know that I wanted one, but now it is the favourite plastic gadget in the Blog kitchen. Hours of harmless fun are in store before it is consigned to the back of the gadget cupboard along with the yoghurt maker (also plastic), the insulated mugs (plastic with chemical company logos) and redundant ashtrays.

At the Shell building at Waterloo yesterday, I saw that the lobby facing the river was adorned with murals of red Ferraris.

Going on to the Shell website now, I see that the company describes its "Circuit" advert as a contender for one of the greatest motoring adverts of all time. It is a celebration of "the shared passion for performance that Shell and Ferrari have experienced together over the past 60 years."

Petrochemical folk who are regular EPCA-goers will recognise the final shots outside the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo.

Stephen Burns at ICIS Houston has got round to pulling some APLA 2009 scenes of Mexico City together. I particularly enjoyed the homemade stretch VW Bug, and the street scenes took me back to a distant IFA fertilizer conference in Mexico City, the memories of which are now a blur of huevos rancheros, smog and silver and turquoise earrings.

The great background music is Antonio Banderas singing a song from a 1995 movie called Desperado, according to Mr Burns.

The ICIS blogs managed to avoid total shame and humiliation this week when they were not included in a Times article highlighting the very worst of management blogs.

Quoting from some utterly cringe worthy recent postings, Sathnam Sanghera in the "Business Life" column singled out for ridicule such gems as:

• One writer who uses the phrase "three ahas" when he means "three conclusions."
• Another management blogger "drawing a parallel between playing jazz and implementing a small ERP system."
• A truly inane posting on "How to Avoid Wearing White Socks on TV."
• And another ghastly writer who writes "a 666-word essay advising people on how to have a coffee with a colleague."

How their cheeks must be burning, and what a narrow escape for us.

I see that Larry Tan has joined the ICIS team in Singapore as our Data & Analytics Manager-Asia. He was formerly with ExxonMobil, CMAI, Integra, a biodiesel start-up and consulting.

He will drive the expansion of our reporting portfolio in Asia and help drive product development in other regions, according to the announcement today.

Battery life is clearly an important selling proposition when it comes to choosing any on-the-move gadget - be it an iPad, a netbook or a mobile phone. Who hasn't been stuck in an awkward situation as the battery bars dwindled down to nothing, especially in the early days of mobile phones?

Now a cutesy little self-charging mobile battery has been designed which can be twirled around your finger to convert the kinetic energy into power. "30 twirls of the finger would generate enough power for two minutes of talk time, or 25 minutes on standby," according to this article on inhabitat.com.

I might have believed that two French designers were so enamoured of Lego that they chose it to construct a kitchen island unit in their Parisian apartment, described in gushing detail in a five-page article in the Style section of Saturday's Times Magazine (sorry, links not working).

I might have believed it until I saw the accompanying photo of Philippe and Simon, "designers of stickers, tiles, posters and T-shirts." Do they look like they would spend the alleged seven days carefully piecing together the multicoloured ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) bricks? The Blog reckons that kitchen unit was put together just ahead of the photographer's visit and dismantled just as quickly afterwards.

"We put in a basic white Ikea kitchen, but then used Lego to create a façade around the island unit," (supply own French accent).

And did anyone think of the hygiene implications of liquids dripping down between the bricks?

The Blog can't help but observe that Lego is increasingly being used to fill space in the Design or Lifestyle sections of the mainstream press. Whatever next? How long before the cunning little bricks can be shoehorned into the Sports section?