Had a quick trip to London yesterday. Heathrow doesn't get any better. Largest Open Cast Toilet in the Northern Hemisphere. Or as they say in the magnificent Douglas Adams book the "Meaning of Liff"
"AIRD OF SLEAT (n. archaic)
Ancient Scottish curse placed from afar on the stretch of land now occupied by Heathrow Airport. "
Anyway, fairly painless day other than that, and took the flight back at about 5:30 to Geneva. Was walking through Cointrin airport to hop into a taxi to drive across the canton to my house, when I got a call on the Natel (Swiss word for mobile phone, like German's rather nice word "Handy".) Hugh Macleod of Gaping Void was on the way to get his aeroplane, and he had a few minutes until he had to check in, so we met for an impromptu beer in the bar upstairs, which was outside overlooking the Saleve, on a nice sunny evening.
Great to catch up, in such an unexpected way. Hugh sounds like he's as busy as I am at the moment, what with his consulting gig here, the wine stuff, including his gong from the PR business, and so on.
Old friends are a pleasure though. I see Hugh relatively rarely, just because we live in different countries, and being able just to sit down with someone, and after nearly thirty years of friendship to be able to see the pattern of their thoughts, who they are remaining essentially unchanged is an agreeable feeling.
What is also interesting is that his business model is working. He is one guy, with a laptop and a modest living in Cumbria, and he is hitting the kind of results that the traditional PR agencies can only dream of. Sure its a disruptive influence, discontinuous change and so on, all those rather well-worn transformational phases, but it's not often you get to have a beer with a change of state.
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