ICIS Blogs : gossip

Plastic windows face wrath of conservationists

ICIS Chemicals Confidential — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:35:16 GMT

"I'm afraid conservation areas are suffering a plague of plastic windows," the chief executive of English Heritage was quoted in today's Telegraph.co.uk . "I would never in a million years put one in," he continued. The conservationist...(read more)

Swine flu stalks the ACC conference

ICIS Chemicals Confidential — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:40:10 GMT

ICIS Houston managing editor Stephen Burns survived the ACC conference, and sends this tale and video ... The American Chemistry Council ( ACC ) has revealed that an attendee at its annual meeting in Colorado Springs earlier this month had contracted...(read more)

Billionaire stuck with chemicals after Setanta failure

ICIS Chemicals Confidential — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 08:08:17 GMT

Poor Len Blavatnik, bored with chemicals after LyondellBasell's bankruptcy, won't be buying Setanta after all, now they can't broadcast Premier League football. Read More......(read more)

View the inside of a Shanghai police station

ICIS Chemicals Confidential — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:24:55 GMT

Shanghai is still one of the most popular destinations for conferences, but to counter-balance the Blog's usually euphoric postings about the city, the ICIS fertilizer team found the city dirty and polluted, with the Bund turned into a massive construction...(read more)

Packing our golf bags for Seaview

ICIS Chemicals Confidential — Wed, 20 May 2009 17:00:22 GMT

What everyone loves about the Northeast Chems Association ( NECA) Sports Outing is that it is usually three days out of the office playing golf in the sunshine on the glorious rolling greens of the luxury Seaview Marriott hotel at Absecon on the New Jersey...(read more)

Flu fears prompt cancellations at APIC conference

ICIS Chemicals Confidential — Tue, 12 May 2009 10:58:08 GMT

ICIS editors are setting off from the Singapore office on Tuesday night for the seven hour flight to Seoul, South Korea for the APIC conference on 14-15 May, despite news of delegate cancellations due to swine flu fears. I've been following with fascination...(read more)

Hello! magazine features ICIS reporter Truong

ICIS Chemicals Confidential — Fri, 08 May 2009 13:57:34 GMT

ICIS reporters are no strangers to High Society events and the celebrity lifestyle . Truong Mellor has his photo in this week's Hello! magazine at a friend's wedding in England's Lake District. It's on page 126 of the 12 May 2009 issue...(read more)

Floggers: high spirits despite downturn and health scare

ICIS Chemicals Confidential — Fri, 01 May 2009 14:07:25 GMT

It may turn out that the timing of Floggers was fortunate, because although everyone was joking about swine flu, they were still hugging and (social) kissing with abandon, and no-one had yet started to think about avoiding mass gatherings . Particularly...(read more)

Twittering executives are making a complete hash of it - Kellaway

ICIS Chemicals Confidential — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:00:36 GMT

Twitter may be "potentially the best communication tool there is; the trouble is that most executives are making a complete hash of using it," says Lucy Kellaway in today's Financial Times. "Either they fill it with mundane personal...(read more)

Staff sabotage at Dominos Pizza on YouTube video

ICIS Chemicals Confidential — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:46:29 GMT

Staff who lose their jobs in the economic downturn may look for ways to sabotage their companies, according to a posting on the Computer Weekly Editor's Blog. And it's not just former staff, a s demonstrated by the current furore over Domino's...(read more)

Smart Car prize at distributor NPRA cocktail party

ICIS Chemicals Confidential — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:45:00 GMT

The Blog is very impressed to hear that one US distributor held a prize draw of a gorgeous red Passion Coupe Smart Car at its NPRA cocktail party. Why don't I get invited to parties like that? US Chemicals LLC, a chemical distributor based in New...(read more)

Gorbachev at NPRA Luncheon

ICIS Chemicals Confidential — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 10:48:22 GMT

Mikhail Gorbachev's speech to the NPRA Luncheon on Tuesday, in the Ballroom of the main conference hotel, the new Grand Hyatt, was attended by hundreds of delegates. I wasn't there myself but I was leaving for the airport just as everyone was...(read more)

Live Twitter from NPRA Todd Buchholz speech

ICIS Chemicals Confidential — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 10:43:16 GMT

I've been on Twitter for about two weeks and it still seems like a lot of fun, but now I see the early adopters are already jumping ship for the Next Big Thing. There's an email in the Blog inbox inviting me to join a Yammer group, when I've...(read more)

Top NPRA parties 2009

ICIS Chemicals Confidential — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 10:40:12 GMT

Who in the real world gets invited to five parties in one evening? Even in these hard times, most of the regular NPRA parties were still on, even if some of them were a bit sparsely attended and doorkeepers were rather less strict about keeping uninvited...(read more)

Scottish golf event hard to resist

ICIS Chemicals Confidential — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:08:19 GMT

SAN ANTONIO (Chemicals Confidential)--The Blog hears that some guests being invited to a petchems industry golfing event to be held at the prestigious Scottish course of Gleneagles this summer are reluctantly having to decline the invitation due to new...(read more)