Back in early July, I was having a coffee with Ian Forrester from the BBC Backstage at our local Balzac's, when in strode Ian Kelso from Interactive Ontario. Ian to Ian (i2i?) introductions were made, and Mr. Kelso (my former boss from many moons ago!) laughingly suggested that we should join them on the Trade Mission they had just announced so that Mr. Forrester could buy me a coffee in his hometown. And here we are, three months later, sitting in the Tower 1 Meeting Room at The Tower Hotel in London, listening to John Davies, Technology & Strategy Adviser from United Kingdom Trade & Investment, talking about his country's strategic direction.

So, we're here until this afternoon, then off to lovely Bristol for a tour of 3C Research and a mini-trade show, then to beautiful Glasgow on Wednesday for some networking and a tour of the Hillington Innovation Centre on Thursday. I've got a criminally early train on Friday (5:50 am!) back to London, where I will sadly not have coffee with Mr. Forrester (who will be en route to Berlin) but rather lunch with his colleagues, a pint or two with Ian Hayward from Glaxstar (the company, not the alien galaxy), and a lovely dinner with the team from eBay UK (with whom we did the eBay Firefox Companion and are now working on a top secret new project).

I've got my trusty Rebel XTI and have been trying to capture some shots while keeping it out of the rain (no mean feat), which I'll make sure to post and link to. Many thanks to Sutha Kamal for playing tour guide yesterday and showing me around the banks of Thames, the Tate Modern, a few Starbucks (a charming little chain of coffee shops!), an historic pub (Lamb and Flag, which has been around since Charles II), and a great Vietnamese dinner at Cay Tre. More as it happens!