It was meant to be a short walk to get some fresh air between sessions at a conference based in a Marriott hotel somewhere in the US, but within minutes disaster struck. One by one we slipped from the footpath into the river.

It was a real struggle to haul ourselves out of the water, but fortunately we all made it. The only problem was that the extremely over-weight delegate (and the last to emerge) pulled with such force on the chain fence that he also uprooted several concrete posts. He would surely face an enormous fine.