I post this from a hotel near Sao Paulo in Brazil – yes there is a beach outside. One of the perks of being (allegedly) a Senior Scientist as mentioned on Nautilus, is the travel to exotic climes to attend conferences. This one is a genuine freeby as the locals are paying registration and my hotel and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the dear old Blighty has coughed up the airfare (unfortunately not business class). This year, or at least a 12 month period, is the year of British-Brazilian Science.

I am here to give a Plenary Lecture to the Brazilian MRS. This is the first time I have been asked to do a plenary. I was told, note not asked, to do one many years ago when my then HoD couldn’t be bothered to deliver his talk. Pleary’s are usually tedious and boring, so I need to make mine better than average. However, I do not have the time to produce the multimedia extravaganza that others on NN appear to think talks should be. As a sop to them I have ruthlessly reduced my bullet points and introduced some cheesy animations.

So why is the world small? I was met at the airport (isn’t it nice to be important) by a nice chap from the British Consulate and who should be there but Gehan, an old friend from PhD days who is now a Prof in Cambridge. He too has been invited to the same meeting. A jolly natter in the car as we are whisked to the hotel.

The conference is rather styrange. It is a Brazilian national meeting (1000 attendees) with about 50 overseas (mostly invited). The meeting is mostly conducted in English and all the posters have pretty much perfect spelling and grammar. However, the poor students explaining the posters are either tongue-tied with nerves or else did not write/translate the poster and communication is very difficult. I know I shouldn’t complain as my knowlege of Portugese is practically zero.

The quality of work is excellent and the poster show is as good as any in the USA/Europe. The same was also true at another meeting I went to in Warsaw last month. International science is getting better with each passing year.