The Last Word

Have you noticed that recently there's been a little show happening up the road from us in London, called 'The Olympics'?

Anywhere we go in the world, we'll be able to chat about what we saw at the Olympics, whether it be

London, Beijing or an earlier games - and there are not many experiences that we have in common with the rest of the world's population. As one of the most-watched events in the world, the Olympics unite us in our humanity. They are, after all, the competition of mere humans, powered just by food and drink (shame on the drugs cheats - there should be lifetime bans for all of them), with the same amount of oxygen (barring the use of blood doping) to power their metabolism and muscles and with results dependent on genetics, talent, hard work, personality and good luck.

Do you remember all those family holidays of your youth that went perfectly well? No? What about the disasters - like when it rained for a week in France and you all got bitten by mosquitos, or when you rolled the Land-Rover on black-ice in Ireland and it was so cold that the pipes in the youth hostel froze and you all had to brush your teeth in beer? You remember those kind of holidays, don't you? Sometimes it's best when things don't go exactly according to plan.

Such it was when one of my speakers at the recent CemPower Conference dropped out at the last minute. I had to write and present a paper in his place, given less than 24 hours notice. However, I really enjoyed putting it together, the paper was well-received and it has led to a lot of useful discussion.

I'm often compared to a harbinger of doom, but I believe that's it better to be prepared by thinking through the possible eventualities of a situation. It has struck me over the last few years that the number of possible outcomes from any current situation is so vast that it is nearly impossible to forecast the future (even in a game of chess, the number of possible games is around 10120, the 'Shannon Number'). In the dark days before Lehman's collapse, nobody had a clue as to what might happen afterwards (it turns out that the world didn't end, after all, but it was one of the possibilities). Anyway, despite the wide variety of future outcomes, it's possibly worthwhile to contemplate the effects of the current instability (and weakness) of the Euro on the cement industry.

Just to be clear, I am not advocating a 'Grexit' - a Greek exit from the EuroZone - it is just that the markets now suggest that there is only a small chance that Greece will not leave the Euro. A run on Greece's banks and the declination of the ECB to guarantee them would lead to default, as might the rejection of further austerity by the electorate... or a number of other possible scenarios as well. Euro ejection would quickly follow any default.

I've had the pleasure of sitting through more than 4000 presentations at our own and others' conferences over the years (think of it like this: 10 conferences per year, 20 presentations at each conference, 20 years of going to industry conferences). In that time, I have seen some really terrific presentations, where the audience was literally on the edge of its seat, and where listeners waited for every utterance as if their lives depended upon it. I have also heard a few presentations that were not so good. I thought I would take the opportunity to give a few hints to potential speakers...

The fact is, you have to take the rough with the smooth. When it comes to reviews, accept a pat on the back when it is offered to you, but you also have to receive the brickbat ('A remark or comment that is highly critical and typically insulting') if it comes your way as well. As I've discovered over the years of organising running races (see www.Trionium.com), you can't please all of the people all of the time, and some people are not happy unless they have something to complain about: you have to take some criticism with a pinch of salt. The same applies to some of the compliments too: as Rudyard Kipling wrote in his celebrated poem 'If,' 'If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same... yours is the earth and everything that's in it.'

In the popular 'opera' Carmina Burana, there is a recurring motif of the wheel of fortune, often depicted in the Middle Ages with four people secured to it as if to a primitive Ferris wheel: One at the height of fame and fortune at the top, and one in the depths of despair at the bottom (and two others, in the process of ascent or descent as well). In the same way, appearing on the front cover of Sports Illustrated magazine is supposed to curse that particular sportsman to a swift decline (although it is more often the case that they are pictured at the zenith of their powers and prowess - and the only way is down).