Hangovers prevail at all conferences

Last time I visited Kerry, which was a couple of years ago, it was to attend an economic conference in Kenmare. I can't remember the topics of that conference but I have a feeling that it might have had something to do with the inevitable downturn in the economy and the prospect for interest rates - we always seemed to be going to conferences about inevitable downturn in the economy and the prospect for interest rates.

The worst thing about going to Kenmare was not having to sit through the sessions (although listening to someone talking about interest rates when you have a hangover can have but one result); it was the journey - generally around six hours, the last of which was spent meandering up and down the Kerry mountains, fine if you're a tourist but a bit of a nightmare on a winter's night when you've spent a day watching the long bond.

In latter years people flew down. The first year everyone thought it was terribly City-flash to hop on a plane to Kerry but eventually almost everyone flew. So that in the final year I attended, the flights to Farranfore were booked out and we flew to Cork instead where we hired a car.

(Rather unfortunately, though, we picked up a puncture a few miles outside the city and my colleagues - chivalrous to a man - wrestled with changing the tyre in sleeting rain while I sat in the car and muttered never again.)

Never say never, of course. I didn't make it back to an economic conference but I did spend the weekend in Kerry at another conference this year, although this was (as is now more likely the case for me) a booksellers' event.

This was held in Killarney which was more convenient than Kenmare and this time I got the flight to Farranfore which meant a mere 15 minute drive from the airport. Door to door in two hours - unbelievable and a far cry from the seven hours it took one of the delegates to get there by car. This saving of time and effort was reflected by the flights to Kerry being full and not just with conference delegates.

Rather infuriatingly, though, there is a £5 (#6.35) charge to leave Farranfore airport on the return journey (it's called an airport development charge) which is not included in your ticket price. I have a big, big problem with additional charges being slapped on at airports - the last time I encountered this was in the Dominican Republic where they make you buy a special visa on the way in. And the worst of all about the charge in Farranfore is that they don't slap it on the Ryanair flights.

According to the woman at the airport this is because their contract with Ryanair still has time to run and they haven't been able to renegotiate it. Sounds bizarre to me since they were levying the passengers not the airline and we weren't going anywhere until we'd handed over the cash. The extra fiver wouldn't stop me from flying to Farranfore again but I think they need to consider exactly how annoying it is for passengers to discover that someone flying to Dublin is charged £5 to leave the airport whereas someone flying to Stanstead can spend the money in the airside shop (buying good books!) instead.

Anyway, since I was a mere guest at the conference I didn't have to go to any of the sessions, all of which were dealing with change and how this is affecting the book publishing and retailing business. There was also a session on change at a personal level too. The last time I went to a conference that had a session dealing with change at a personal level it was one of the best attended sessions. The reason for this, of course, was that people in the financial services industry - at whom the conference was pitched - could see the dot.com writing on the wall and had a horrible feeling that some of their careers were veering off the fast track and ending up in a siding. And many of them were right, overtaken as they were by flighty young things with WAP phones and laptops.

It's funny, though, how every industry thinks that its own conference is unusual in the way delegates sit around and get drunk while worrying about the future development of the industry. There was as much navel gazing from the book types as there ever was among the financial types - and as many red-rimmed eyes the following morning. And the literary crowd has as much staying power, if not more, than the financiers. As I wandered up to bed at five in the morning there was still a sizeable number of people debating the issue of the strength of sterling and the weakness of the euro which continues to plague Irish booksellers as much as other Irish importers.

Margins continue to be squeezed in the industry since consumers, rightly, balk at seeing an Irish pound price 20 per cent higher than the printed UK price on a book. It's the squeezing of margins in this industry as well as so many others that have kept inflation at levels which, though creeping up, are still relatively contained. Meanwhile, last week's US non-farm payroll figures brought the possibility of a slowdown in that economy into focus again. This happens every few months, whenever the fall in new jobs created is sharpest, and has the happy effect of making people believe that interest rate increases may not, after all, be necessary. This means that bond prices go up and yields come down, the long bond was 6.36 after the figures. Obviously it only takes a couple of hours before people average out the figures and realise that the underlying trend hasn't actually changed and they start to sell the bond again - given that manufacturing growth remains strong there's still a good chance of further US rate hikes this year.

Not good news for the euro really, what with the ECB vacillating on rate hikes itself. And given the belief that UK rates might go up too there isn't any relief soon for importers from a weak euro and strong sterling.

ECB officials are getting edgier but Wim Duisenberg needs to show a damn sight more leadership than he has up until now if he wants to turn things around. Actually, I have a very good book about it which I can lend him if he's interested.

Author Sheila O'Flanagan is a former fixed-income specialist.