Out of the Woods
GlobalMarkets, is part of the Delinian Group, DELINIAN (GLOBALCAPITAL) LIMITED, 4 Bouverie Street, London, EC4Y 8AX, Registered in England & Wales, Company number 15236213
Copyright © DELINIAN (GLOBALCAPITAL) LIMITED and its affiliated companies 2024

Accessibility | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Modern Slavery Statement

Out of the Woods

Seen and heard in the corridors of the Annual Meetings...

•/ Dazed and confused: The sight of delegates, fresh off the plane and staggering around in search of friendly faces, never grows old. One central bank planning official, spotted loafing in a bamboo grove outside the Indonesia Pavilion, summed up the classic ‘day one experience’. “I’m lost,” he wailed. “This place is a maze.” Fortunately for him, OOTW was on hand to usher him back to civilisation and safety.

•/ Virtually there:  Spotted in the lobby of the Westin: promos for a virtual reality tour of the World Bank’s global ops. No one was on hand to help OOTW pop on a VR headset, but there was a handy leaflet that guided us to a slow-loading website that contained photos of plastic pollution in the wake of the Sierra Leone mudslide. A vision of the future through a very human lens.

•/ Pool fool: Journalism is so rock'n'roll. At least it is at GlobalMarkets. But rather than drive Rolls Royces into swimming pools, our journalists instead accidentally fall into them. Out of the Woods was heartened when a colleague of many years was so focused on taking a selfie at Ku De Ta, one of Seminyak's smarter eateries, that he failed to see the swimming pool behind him. Cue: one very bedraggled journalist and much merry laughter.

•/ Food farce:  When OOTW’s tummy starts started rumbling mid-afternoon, the search was on for grub. But the press centre was fresh out mini-doughnuts and the Westin wasn’t offering room service. An official pointed us to a café that was closed, as were all the beachside eateries. Even Odysseus didn’t have to search this hard for a snack.

•/ Reddy for a crisis:  Is our world filled with unforeseeable Black Swans or is it more predictable than we’d like to believe? Speaking yesterday, former Reserve Bank of India governor YV Reddy, who attended his first IMF meeting in 1978, pointed to the decennial cycle of crisis, from the 1998 Asian financial crisis, through the near collapse 2008, right up to this year’s global volatility and trade tensions. Perhaps, deep down, we just have it in for ourselves.

•/ Dressing down:  There’s a distinctly relaxed feel to this Bretton Woods conclave, whether due to the climate or the omnipresent batik shirts and shawls favoured by delegates. They look fab — though one wonders if ‘demob-happy’ is the right vibe in a world facing trade wars, climate, change, and maritime warming and plastic pollution. Still, at least chilled-out Bali has turned our frowns upside-down.

Gift this article