All My Eye

It being Friday, I thought I'd post further Frankfurt news - this time of the minor SNAFUs which are integral to any tradeshow. For me, they were:

mystery of the disappearing DHL driver who took it upon himself to raise my blood pressure by disappearing for a day with some time-critical materials for our stand.
finding myself chief flower arranger and confronted by a bewildering stack of vases and dried .. *stuff* that I had to fashion into sophisticated, contemporary displays. The perils of being born a woman.
map-reading confusion that resulted in the entire Publishing Technology team running furtively across a train track (and I mean a proper train track, not one of those namby-pamby U-bahn lines) to reach our team dinner. In a country where jay-walking is illegal I'm sure we were running the gauntlet of some pretty sizeable fines, if not actually risking our lives (we found out later that the trains were on strike... but that's a whole nother story).
wearing heels for the first time at Frankfurt only to accidentally puncture the stand's laminate flooring with one.
drinking the bar dry at our unprecedentedly well-attended drinks party - I now know that the way to the Frankfurterati's heart is through G&T, Pimms, Bellinis and rum & coke - more popular even than last year's champagnes! I shall have to start thinking now about how to top it next year (any suggestions welcome...)
waiting 2 HOURS in baggage claim at Heathrow - just what you need late on Friday night when you've spent the whole week at an exhausting exhibition.

Happily, I finally made it home in the early hours of Saturday morning. Frankfurt Book Fair - 2007 - DONE. Bis bald!

And finally ... the Frankfurt SNAFUs