Walking zombie...
I really felt like I had 'arrived' in London when I came back to work from a week in Cannes to find a voice mail from one of the XFM DJs on my phone. Not bad, I say! He actually wants to review some of my DVDs on his show and we're going to meet for coffee in Soho one day in the coming weeks to discuss. You'll get no complaints from me, that's for sure!..Cannes was amazing. I have never been so tired in my life though, being one of 12,000 people from 99 countries who traveled to the French Riviera for the event. Everything people told me as true...and then some! I was up at 7am every day, quick coffee with Johnny, my MD, to review our schedule and discuss our plan of attack for the day. 5 or 6+ meetings morning and into the afternoon. Usually a nice long lunch (one day joined by the CEO of Lovefilm)--sometimes with a bottle of wine, sometimes with a bottle of wine and apple brandy, sometimes sans wine but instead bottles of 'Badoit' (french sparkling water). More meetings or wandering the stands in the afternoons and figuring more companies we wanted to meet with during the week. Attend cocktail 'networking' reception somewhere, followed by dinner, followed by drinks and often dancing, home sometime between 2-4am, and up at 7 the next day to do it all again. I was thanking my lucky stars that the coffee in France is both excellent -- and strong!!
A quick word about my MD Johnny. He is not only brilliant, but cool as hell. He has pictures with John Peel on the wall of his office, started out his career at Virgin, and carries a guitar with him when he travels. One day when we were having lunch at an outdoor cafe across from the Palais, he looked around inquisitively and said 'hey, I was a busker here in the 70s'. He was very good at encouraging me to speak French, despite the fact that I don't know any. I seemed to be an endless source of amusement, with pretty much everything coming out of my mouth as a really bad mixture of bad French and Spanish, such as 'un cafe au lait, por favor'...or 'merci very much'...and always responding with 'Si' instead of 'Oui'...ah well, at least I tried, right?
I hadn't been to Cannes before -- but it was more beautiful than I had expected. Here are a couple of pictures from my camera phone - from my first and last days there on the French Riviera.
So not only was I that busy while I was there, but it was very exhausting having to be 'on' (and smiling) the whole time. When I finally landed at Heathrow close to midnight on Saturday I literally felt (and looked) like death warmed over. I could no longer carry on a conversation with anyone, and slept the whole day on Sunday. I came away with so many business cards and great contacts from all over the world. I *may* (knock on wood) have even successfully done a deal! I could not have had a more productive week work-wise, but am very glad this conference only happens twice a year!
What really saved me was my friend Alberto (one of my Variety friends). He was super busy there as well, but took such good care of me during the week - introducing me to loads of contacts (this was his 18th (!) MIP) and giving me something to do in the evenings -- he knew all the good places to go, and even took me to a champagne party on a yacht one evening. It was nice just to know a familiar face in the midst of all of the hectic craziness. Since Johnny and I parted ways around 5:00 every day I was super lucky to know Alberto, and ended up having a blast because of it. Thankfully, he even went to watch the football with me on Wed evening (yes, Arsenal have made it through to the semi-finals of the Champions League for the first time EVER!!!!).
So it was really great to have the week in Cannes. Work has been very trying the past few weeks due to some touchy personnel issues that are probably best discussed outside the blog. Needless to say, though, while MIP definitely was not a break, it was nice to have a mental break from the office. I'm now sitting next to my darling Piccadilly in College Station, which is even better than being in France. She is even cuter than when I left, if that's possible. Happy Easter everyone!!!! (oh, and PS I finally was able to download pics from my phone, so if you scroll through the blog I have added a few photos to past postings)
posted by Eleanor @ 8:57 pm
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