Not Okinawa but Chiba. The grey bit is Tokyo Bay, which would be blue in Okinawa.

I speak at a conference which is fun as lots of old friends are here.

Old Stanford friend Pisin Chen gets ready.

My IPhone has no power. No problem as I scrabble in the bag I take everywhere, which is loaded with the paraphernalia of travel – computer power source, phone charger, ethernet cable, loads of different adaptors etc. Panic as I find not the phone charger. An enemy, probably Al Qaeda affiliate, must have borrowed it. Is it possible to exist two days with no IPhone?

During the coffee break I scamper to a convenience store and sure enough there is a rack of phone chargers. Of course I cannot read so I plump for the one that looks more or less like that what I think it should. Er.

I get back to the conference and rip off the packaging to find something quite different.

It is a power pack thing for independent charging.

I am delighted with this as it means I can charge my IThings in weird places, on the boat, in the toilet, whilst walking down the beach, if I put them in my new waterproof camera bag I will be able to charge when diving, when under the shower, in the bath, in Scotland. This is a whole new dimension, which is actually the subject of the next talk.

Travel paraphernalia