Recently in business travel Category

Swine flu may have been halted in its tracks by the rise of a common cold virus, according to an article in this week's New Scientist.

Research in the US, France and Sweden has shown that rhinovirus, which causes colds, was on the rise just as the number of swine flu cases began to plateau in October.

Experts suspect rhinovirus may have blocked the spread of swine flu via a process called viral interference, which is thought to occur when one virus blocks another.

The Blog is still relying on the idea that swine flu only affects people of a different, younger age range, and has blithely booked a business trip to an east European city which is currently listed as "high risk."

Since London is also considered high risk, and the Blog is confident of being in the wrong age range, it seems a manageable risk, but we shall see.

 A weekly LinkedIn Network Update has just landed in the Blog inbox, showing how industrious all my contacts have been in joining groups, connecting with each other, updating their profiles, linking to news articles, reading books, updating their status, and planning their trips via TripIt.

The TripIt application has testimonials or "Raves" from users who can hardly contain themselves in their admiration:

• "A terrific site that has changed my travel life..." - WNBC New York TV
• "It's kind of magical..." - Joel on Software

It's just a bunch of boxes which you fill in with details of your business or holiday travel plans, so that all your contacts are emailed with updates stating that: AN Other is returning from a trip to Dubai via TripIt, or Joe Bloggs is planning a trip to New York, NY in November via TripIt.

The ostensible purpose is to alert your many contacts in Dubai or New York - so many that you couldn't possibly contact them all yourself - so that they can bombard you with requests for mutually beneficial business meetings. The real point is of course to show off to all your friends, contacts, previous and prospective employers about your globe-trotting activities. Fair enough, but "magical" or life-changing? I don't think so.

For more in a similar vein:

Persecution via LinkedIn

Best Chemicals Mag on LinkedIn poll

I've been enjoying the third book of Stieg Larssen's Millenium trilogy. My friend Philippa at Tecnon recommended the first one to me because we both enjoy Henning Mankell's Wallander series, and I was in such a hurry to buy the second book in the trilogy that I ended up buying it in hardback rather than waiting for the paperback to come out in the UK in July 2009. It's a perfect book to read on trains or flights, but it's crazy to go on a shorthaul trip with a book that weighs as much as the rest of your luggage put together.

The third book went on sale on 1 October 2009. It was in every bookshop window in its shiny dark green cover, but only in hardback until the paperback comes out in the UK next year. The list price was a staggering £18.99, although Amazon was offering it for £8 plus postage, and at 600 pages the hardback was prohibitively heavy for carry-on luggage.

I resisted, because I hate to reward this kind of manipulative marketing, but then on the way to Amsterdam for the ICIS Training Seminar in October, I weakened and went in to the WH Smiths bookshop in Heathrow's Terminal 4 to look for it.

As if the whole hardback/paperback scam wasn't annoying enough, the book was sold out and not even coming in to the WH Smith warehouse system, the assistant told me.

I took the Amsterdam flight with just a newspaper for company, but on the way back, on a table outside the Schipol florist next to racks of bulbs, the book was on sale and in paperback. It was still a weighty tome, and not exactly a bargain in euros, but it was one small short-lived consumerist triumph ...

Because last week, while I was in a discount bookshop picking up the new Terry Pratchett to give as a present, I saw that all three Millenium books were packaged together with a ribbon and a large bar of Galaxy chocolate for £21 the lot.

Along with all the other early adopters, I'd been taken to the cleaners, and the ribbon and the chocolate were just the final insult.

Anyone with Asian connections will know all about the cult of pre-wedding photos in exotic and luxurious locations, but one couple has chosen to make theirs unique by having them taken at AirAsia's low-cost terminal in Kuala Lumpur.  

The Blog is full of admiration at this scoop by fellow blogger Barbara Cockburn on Flight, since we both started our blogging careers at the Reed Charity Blogathon two years ago.

The photos remind me that when ICIS and Flight shared a Singapore office in Millenia Tower, romantic couples in wedding dress would come every day to be photographed at the foot of the tower, clearly an auspicious symbol in the Singapore landscape.

(photo: Dennis Yap/Flight)

The Blog has been enjoying the almond-stuffed dates from Dubai which are the most edible souvenir of last week's ICIS Middle East Baseoils Conference.

Our own Shelley Kerr is just back from presenting a paper at the conference's Baseoils Methodology Seminar and meeting many of her editorial contacts during the two-and-a-half day event. From her photos, I see that the highlights of the trip were the Dubai skyline, the belly-dancing with full delegate participation, the reunion with the ICIS Dubai alumni and a delegate outing to Rock Bottom.

These Calvin Klein ck USB shades fit the bill for the Blog for being both plastic and designed for business travel.  The right arm has a flash drive that can be plugged into a computer, so one minute you can be looking cool and the next hard at work, although pretty stupid if you try to wear them with only one arm.

The trip to Amsterdam for the ICIS Training seminars is a journey of two halves. Heathrow Terminal 4 is spacious and empty after its recent refurbishment and before all the airlines move back in. The KLM flight is punctual, and the afternoon on-board snack is a cup of tea and two oatmeal biscuits - frugal, but still positive.

Then things take a turn for the worse. Peter T has surpassed himself in his economising with the hotel where we are staying, across the road from the hotel where the training will be held. I open the door and sidle in to a narrow single room, with a single bed against the wall and a tiny bathroom one metre square. There'll be no swinging of cats here, because with my arms outstretched I can touch all four white-tiled walls at once.

It's a shock to get up in the dark but we get off to a good start to the day, with just the local Dutch delegates delayed as always by the Amsterdam rush hour traffic.

Over lunch, one of the delegates tells us that only her boss can know that she is out on a training course. She has had to tell her colleagues she is taking a day's holiday, as all external training expenditure has been axed. The other delegates nod in agreement. Nevertheless, Peter tells me that our training delegate numbers are up and that we will probably squeeze an extra course before the end of the year.

"People are finding there's a little bit of money left in their budgets, and they need to spend it," he says.

The other hot topic at lunch is the day's news of the run on Dutch bank DSB.

During Nigel's afternoon paper on "Petrochemicals - a changed world," I help myself to a tea labelled "Sterrenmunt," thinking with my clearly inadequate command of Dutch that this must be spearmint. My mouth fills with the most disgusting liquid, an indescribably horrible concoction which I later read on the label is a herbal brew of liquorice and anis. To be avoided.

Caroline Howard reflects on this week's PET conference in Florence ....

The warm October sunshine is the first thing to hit me on landing at Florence airport. I am at the Global Service International (GSI) PET customer day which is being held in a stately home in the town of Artimino.

Set in the Tuscan hills, this Medici stronghold exudes Renaissance elegance. It is worlds away from the bustling modernity of the Intercontinental in Berlin, where I have just spent three days for EPCA .

Admittedly, I was let out until the small hours of the mornings for some serious networking! I soon realise, however, that this training may prove useful as the 160 delegates and I are led to the wine cellars of the Paggeria Medicea. An evening of Italian culinary delights ensues.

While we are still recovering from EPCA Berlin, Ed Cox and the ICIS Heren team are in sunny Buenos Aires to cover the World Gas Conference. A starry-eyed Ed puts down his glass of Malbec to spill the beans on the latest Gazprom extravaganza ... 

Here I am at the World Gas Conference in sunny Buenos Aires. I have seen a million sights - I could write about any of these - or the amazing stalls at the conference itself. But no. Keen readers may remember my brush with Russian giant Gazprom earlier in the year, during the spat with Ukraine, which left a certain mark on me. Amid all the tango dancing, steak and fine wine, once again it's the smell of vodka and Russian gas that will linger longest in my mind.

You see, each company has a 'stall' at the conference. It's the biggest exhibition I've ever seen. There must be 1,000 stalls. Some of them are bigger than a house. Some have women dancing outside them, Formula One cars, free booze. And then there's the Gazprom 'stall'. It's the size of a temple with an ice skating rink in front of it. Word is that the Russian girls who skate on it are some of the best in the world. It's the biggest stand in the most prominent position, it really is quite amazing.

Chemical conference-goers are always partial to a free gift or two. The ICIS suite at EPCA is piled high as usual with small toys and executive gizmos bearing the ICIS logo, and suitably sized to be easily stuffed into a conference delegate bag. I'm very impressed with this year's tastefully discreet ICIS passport covers, which are just the right size for my children's crumpled passports.

One previous freebie that proved very popular was the selection of USB sticks. In contrast to the ICIS USB connections, always in the best possible taste, I see that Electronics Weekly's blog has been writing about some really pointless, tacky USB rubbish, including a USB greenhouse, a parrot that repeats what you say at intervals and a mosquito repelling USB stick. Not at all suitable for the Blog's stylish readers then.

(A free premium gift to anyone who stops me and says the magic line: "I read your blog.")