I arrived so early at the conference that it was still dark, and BK and just one other person were the only other participants there. “So far, so good” I thought, but I was so wrong! From that point onwards all my pre-conference planning came to nothing: the session I chaired was up against the opening keynote and, as a result, was very poorly attended; delegates wandered into the lecture hall late with no consideration for the speaker; the boy in the green jumper mocked my chairing style; when I introduced the speaker I couldn’t pronounce her name and garbled her presentation title; and PowerPoint keeled over before a single slide was displayed.

Disgusted, the speaker sunk into a massive sulk, stepped down from the podium, and sat on the window ledge with her back to the paying delegates for the remainder of the session. I had to get help, so I left the room and rushed around the hotel looking for LC.

Everyone else was there, including the whole staff of the last conference I attended in October 2010 (e.g. JM, KA), LC’s predecessor CG, and my colleague VW, resting on a beanbag in a bar. I even ran into EMc, who invited me out to a trivia quiz in London the following evening. LC was nowhere to be found.