Remember EPCA Berlin in September? Here's a little something to jog your memory. Stephen Burns in our Houston office has sent me this link to his personal video view of the city at conference time. The music really makes it.
December 2007 Archives
My friend Steve Mitchell on the ICIS fertilizer desk has returned from his business travels with news of developments in car design. Steve fancies himself a bit of a driving connoisseur, with his sleek new Audi A6, and he has been raving about the new seatbelt design since his return to the office. I’m not convinced that the Blog is really the place for technical drawings, but for all the petrolheads amongst our readers, click here for the diagram.
The Eurostar glides into Brussels Gare du Midi and the team arrives for the last ICIS Training Seminar of the year, to be held at the offices of the EPCA on the Avenue de Tervueren.
The rain is falling steadily on the Plaisirs d'Hiver Xmas Market around the Bourse and along the Fishmarket, as Nigel and Peter embark on some "Beer in Plastics" research for the Blog Beer Watch campaign. The buckets of shiny black mussels rattle invitingly, and the lights gleam off the wet cobblestones.
On Wednesday the European Petrochemical Luncheon (EPL) also rolls into Brussels, pitching up at the Hilton and starting off with a festive cocktail reception sponsored by Petrochem Carless. It is a full year since the famous ICIS-sponsored EPL winter cocktail event, where delegates came to blows over the premium gifts of sleek black packs of computer gadgets. Gina told me she saw someone walk off with arms piled high with four packs.
Other good EPL presents were the Swiss chocolates at the summer EPL: the red and white Swiss flag ribbon still adorns my suitcase. And the smart gold pen from Kolmar at their anniversary celebration at the March EPL.ICIS-Chemicals-Confidential must sadly decline the EPL's kind invitation for 13 December, but instead offers you a short festive EPL Quiz.
1 Can you identify the EPL regulars and the location in this enchanting EPL video clip?
An ICIS "premium gift" to the winner.
Simon Robinson writes
I've never been to Denver's Stapleton Airport and it's probable that I never will get there, but I came across this example of the effects of travel and stress on very important people.
During the final days at Denver's Stapleton airport, a crowded United flight was cancelled. A single agent was rebooking a long line of inconvenienced travellers. Suddenly and angry passenger pushed his way to the desk and slapped his ticket down on the counter saying "I HAVE to be on this flight, and it HAS to be first class." The agent replied "I'm sorry, sir. I'll be happy to try to help you, but I have to help these folks first, and I'm sure we'll be able to work something out." The passenger was unimpressed. He asked loudly, so that the passengers behind him could hear, "Do you have any idea who I am?" Without hesitating, the gate agent smiled, grabbed the public address microphone. "May I have your attention, please?" she began, her voice bellowing through the terminal. "We have a passenger at the gate WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS. If anyone can help him find his identity, please come to the gate."
Its in a book by Steven Pinker, so it must be true...
Tales abound of European chemical people flocking to the US for conferences and shopping. One US methanol trader tells me with amazement that one of his European colleagues bought 27 shirts last week at the methanol conference in Orlando, Florida. There is no stopping the headlong pursuit of golf clubs and iPods, although one delegate said that everyone was shopping-mad for methanol too.
Our own senior editor Shelley Kerr was in New York City last week for the ICIS US Baseoils Conference and returns with a selection of the above, plus news of the first snowfall of winter. Manhattan was fairtytale white on Sunday morning, and she says she walked for 30 miles, as well as dancing for eight hours straight off (after the end of the conference). With the exchange rate now slipping to $1.46 to the euro, and $2.03 to the pound, it looks like they rode the crest of the shopping wave.
(Thanks to Shelley for the photo.)
I went to the Squeeze reunion concert in London last night. The voices and music were as fresh as when they were first put on vinyl in the 1980s. And from my vantage point in the circle, they looked in pretty good shape for guys in their 50s. The audience was quite mature too, with a lot of stout men who looked like they had come straight from their day jobs down the scrapyard or driving cabs. I'm sure we were amongst the youngest in the audience. My colleague Dan tells me that concert promoters know they can jack up the ticket prices for these old bands, because they know their older and more affluent fans can afford them. The big acts of the 1970s and 1980s are pulling in aging rockers in their 40s and 50s. Just like the age profile in the chemical industry, which a recent survey reported in our sister magazine ICIS Chemical Business found was strongly 40-plus. Not like the demographics for my Blog then, which to my certain knowledge ranges from 18 to well into the 60s. The Blog is not ageist and embraces both its teenage early adopters and its retired silver surfers.
Click here to hear a classic hit from Squeeze
After email "spam", the next plague coming to your computer soon is computer "spit", according to my colleagues on the New Scientist Invention blog. Now that internet phone calls are very popular, especially amongst those of us with family abroad or kids away at university, the next unwanted intrusion into your life will be internet telephony spam, or "spit".
Never fear, before we have even heard of spit, someone has already invented a remedy for it. The "Spit Filter" from Siemens will, as the name suggests, filter out blacklisted names or numbers and reject their incoming calls. That's all right then.
Two ICIS reporters foiled a vicious attack around 6.30 pm on Friday evening. "Have a Go" heroes Adal Rafiq and Peter Salisbury saw a thug hitting his girlfriend on the back of the head outside the ICIS London offices and ran to stop him.The man turned on the pair, then went off into the night.
"He came at us with something in his hand - it could've been a knife, but it turned out to be just his mobile," Adal told us when they came back into the office, bringing all work to a halt with the news of their escapade.
"A guy hitting a woman - that can never be right," said Peter, as they settled down to finish filing.
