Conferences, cats and coughs...

For the past two days I have found myself at my first big international conference. Granted it was here in Lisbon, in the second office that my organisation has in a rough part of town and granted I was by far the most excited person to be there but it was still interesting and I still enjoyed myself!

The subject of the conference was Cannabis production and markets and therefore right up my street (cue here jokes about my unusually large electricity bill and pungent 'pot-pourri'). There was a reasonably large selection of delegates from the member states with a couple of notable exceptions - both Spain and the Netherlands were missing - but it did give me a good opportunity to note the national stereotypes, something which S says she is now quite adept at, being much more experienced in these international conferences and meetings than I am.

It was rather amusing going round the table without paying attention to the name tags and trying to figure out which country each person was from. Even with little experience of this and solely with my own natural prejudices I had a pretty high success rate. It was interesting to note though that for the most part the older the delegate the easier to spot the origin. The younger ones for a large part were harder to distinguish, this was apart from the young German chap who looked like a villain from Biggles and the Portuguese guys who despite looking physically completely different both look like they had had a fight with your typical Portuguese men's clothes shop and lost. I often joke about there being some conformity here in Portugal but it was amusing seeing them both in almost identical 'country' shirts, zippered pullovers, chinos and slip-on shoes. The Romanians also looked startlingly like vampires (as well as having an evident thirst for justice).

What was also amusingly typical was the views expressed by the various nations. There is a stereotypical idea on who the more liberal and progressive nations are compared to those with a harder, conservative, line and also those nations whose 'focal points' don't always toe the governmental line and those who still feel the secret police are watching. I don't need to go into details here as there were no great surprises and I'm sure your own prejudices can do the work.

The first day was spent listening to a couple of rather interesting presentations on work being done to evaluate the markets in the UK and in Ireland (the UK invariably being one of the countries to do the most research into the subject, along with France and possibly Portugal). There then followed a rather poorly received presentation on how focal groups could be used for research purposes. No-one doubted they could but what was quite evident from an early stage was that most people present felt that for tis particular area of research, given the time limits and other constraints, they wouldn't be of much use. This pretty much deflated the bubble that this interesting and enthusiastic speaker had created and I have to admit that by the end of the question and answer section he did seem a bit like a broken man.

At lunch, and in the coffee breaks, the conference divided into rather predictable lines, there were the older, law enforcement, suite-y types on one side and the younger, more casual public health types on the other. Occasionally there would be some enthusiastic delegate or a member of my office trying to bridge the gap. Lunch was a pleasant affair and something that in these international situations is always bound to stir debate. I don't know if it was a point of Portuguese pride amongst the caterers but I have been informed that at most of these events there is a bacalhau dish. I avoided this and chose a salad as I'm not sure how much more salt my poor heart can take for the moment but it looked good and went down reasonably well.

The evening gave a little chance for some networking as we had a dinner booked at a little Tapas Bar near the Marquês de Pombal. I had to dash back to the flat between the conference and the dinner because I was dressed perhaps a little too formally for a casual networking dinner but being me I of course both forgot an umbrella, thus getting soaked, and also arrived bang on time, thus looking extremely uncool. I decided to pop into a little cafe nearby and have a quick coffee before braving the earliness but luckily I bumped into the Irish delegation, Johnny and Ann-Marie who persuaded me to change my coffee for a quick beer. We had a nice chat before joining the rest for the meal and managed to steer clear of shop talk which was good.

I really enjoyed the tapas bar despite the food having a distinctly Portuguese flavour (not that this in itself is bad but I had geared myself up for Spanish food, it is pretty hard to find good foreign food in Lisbon) and the stools and tables being particularly close to the floor. There was also the danger of it being a free bar but I do find it amusing to see people starting slowly, with beer or wine, not wanting to appear to be taking advantage of this policy, then they get more adventurous, maybe order a spirit and mixer, then onto the cocktails before finally just asking to be hooked up intravenously to the vodka! It was definitely a good way of loosening a few collars and getting the conversation flowing.

I spent a good part of the evening talking to Ann-Marie whose political outlook on life seemed to be dangerously influenced by Ayn Rand. I was always taught that if you have nothing nice to say then don't say anything at all (a mantra that i studiously ignore 99% of the time but this night I had drunk myself into a state of magnanimity) so I moved the subject onto rugby which Ann-Marie and the UK delegate Charlotte (who was Welsh) seemed only too keen on. It's the first year in a long time that English chances in the Six Nations have been so low and they were happy to point this out. As with most chats about rugby (as opposed to say football) the banter was light hearted with no malice so it was an evening well spent.

I came home a little worse for wear to find life invaded by 'the cat'. Me and 'the cat' have a long and complicated history but this was his first taste of Portugal because he too is moving here from Manchester. V & C brought him over and he's staying at mine and S's until they get a place so it was important for us to lay some ground rules down, the primary one's being: he's banned from the bedroom, he eats when we say he eats and any dirty business and he can clean it up himself. I firmly believe in tough love when it comes to animals and children!

Today was a tough day, the look on most delegates' faces in the second morning of the conference showed that most had spent much longer out than me. This meant that the meeting was much more subdued than the day before and there were a few sheepish latecomers sneaking in after the first presentations. I was also feeling a little down but rather than the expected hangover I blame this on spending the evening in such a smokey atmosphere. It's now 7 months since I quite smoking and a good 18 months since I was in such a smokey bar for an extended period. I never thought I'd admit that the smoking ban was a good idea (and I still think some venues have lost a lot of atmosphere, if you'll excuse the pun) but for purely selfish reasons last night really felt like a regression. My throat is now killing me, me clothes from last night stink, all those boring and self-righteous anti-smoking complaints are true!