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After 24 hours travel – and the complete failure to find a Net connection in all that time – I have arrived at the ICANN conference in Vancouver. With a healthy dose of jet-lag.
Here's a blog of snippets en route:
En route to Vancouver
Toronto is – or rather was – the main airport [...]

Yesterday, I sent a letter to the chair of ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee, Sharil Tarmizi, asking him to consider opening up all GAC meetings to observers.
He's got back:
I am currently in Vancouver and thank you very much for your letter. Your main request for the GAC to be more open is indeed [...]

Here's a copy of a letter I've sent to the chair of ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee asking him to include a review of its closed session policy as part of the wider GAC review.
I'm dead serious about it. I don't think there are any good reasons left to maintain closed sessions and the GAC [...]

I am feeling rotten. Yesterday was the first day since I got back from Tunisia at 3.30am on Tuesday where I felt even vaguely normal – I'd picked up some killer cold somewhere along the line.
So, of course, what do I do but celebrate not feeling like death by getting drunk. Resulting in me [...]

Well, George Best finally died at 2pm yesterday and, inevitably, the media has gone completely over-the-top.
In fact his death was a classic study of the modern media. There was the extremely distasteful revelling in the poor sod's last minutes. A media scrum outside the hospital, his consultant being quizzed over exactly how many hours [...]

One of the more interesting pressures brought to bear in the recent dispute over Net governance was a letter sent from US secretary of state Condoleeza Rice and US commerce secretary Carlos Gutierrez to the British presidency of the European Union to drop its proposal for an inter-governmental oversight body.
The letter was pretty stern [...]

Well, I have just sent off my last bit of work, having exhausted myself for the past 10 days and now intend to finally pay the Roman ruins in Carthage a visit before getting my flight back to Blighty this evening. A half-day holiday – woo-hoo!
I am trying to put out of my [...]

Secret policemen: you miss 'em when they're gone. It seems most people shipped out of Tunis soon after the closing ceremony ended around 7pm. When I got back to my hotel around 10pm, there was only one secret policeman standing guard and he didn't even bother to inspect my badge.
This morning, I only [...]

Well, it's all over, save the writing.
It finished in a packed plenary hall – estimated guess about 2,000 people. A few long speeches about how great it all was. Lots of praise for Tunisia and the Tunisians.
The Cubans made a last-minute and unnecessary fuss about a slight mistranslation, further extending the admiration that [...]

Conference fatique has really hit home today. I actually wrote a piece The Register where I wrote “Swedish prime minister” when I meant “Swiss president” – that can't be good.
Anyway, with enough coffee I should be able to get through this last day of the Summit. And just to help it along, I have [...]