Very jealous David – would love to go to TED!

Pete/Birte – you would both love it, I think – although it has yet to start (now 7am, and yes, the woman who warned me you don’t sleep that well was right!)

Someone at yesterday’s induction with my TED host asked if the Palm Springs event was perceived as B-list compared to Long Beach. At first I doubted her answer. She said TEDActive (or Baby TED as she called it) was friendlier, younger, more edgy somehow. I wonder if someone out there has been to both and is reading this and can comment.

Of course I can’t compare with Long Beach, but at dinner last night I was amazed at the topics we covered.

I sat next to a part-time professional oboeist from New York who works part-time for a philanthropic foundation, and on my other side was a guy with his own graphic design company from Orange County who studied in the midwest.

We talked about why New York is no longer a middle class city (they all live on the fringes, leaving downtown to the super-rich and super-poor. Has this happened in London, I wonder, or could it?

The graphic designer guy thinks variations in weather unite populations. According to him, this is why the midwest, where people can compare seasons year on year, somehow connect to each other in a way that his fellow Californians don’t.

We also talked about the implications of Walmart’s organic food policy, how oboe reeds are harvested from a farm owned by a pint-sized couple in the south of France, among other things.

Sorry, I’m beginning to sound like Julie Walters when she comes back from the summer school in Educating Rita, so will stop now!