You don't know what you're missing

Every year in March the real estate world converges on Cannes for the MIPIM fair, causing havoc for those of us too lowly and dispensable to attend. For an amateur hack like myself, whose deadlines remain engraved in stone, this often translates into seemingly endless fun on the telephone. A typical phone conversation might run something like this: "Hello, this is Alex Hayes calling from Eurobuild magazine. I'd like to interview your CEO, Joe Bloggs, regarding the 800m skyscraper your company is proposing to build in Radom?" "I'm sorry," comes the reply; "He's in Cannes." "What about," I ask, "the project manager, John Doe?" "Unfortunately he's away too," an overly-cheerful voice replies, before it tantalisingly adds: "But if you wish you could speak to Mrs Kowalska, the cleaning lady." AAAAAAARGH!

It's not just me who enjoys all the frustrations with none of the benefits. Recently during a conference call, the two interviewees I wished to talk to were fashionably late in dialling in, leaving me to make awkward small talk with the PR with whom I had previously only exchanged business-like emails. She fielded the are-you-going-to-Cannes question, an opening gambit that becomes standard fare every year at the beginning of March. I replied that no, I was not. She then admitted to me that she was snowed under with preparing press materials. But was she herself going to Cannes? No, of course she was not! But why should MIPIM be held in Cannes in the first place? It's not as if the city were a hotbed of property development. (But then again, what has the city got to do with film either; I mean when was the last time you saw a French film that you'd actually like to see again?) Surely a much better place to hold the annual real estate shindig would be Warsaw? After all, it's here that major developments are actually going up and changing the skyline. Poland is currently the darling of the CEE region, meaning that this is where investors are placing their bets. If nothing else, holding MIPIM in Warsaw would save on air fares, since many of those thronging the French Riviera will have to come here anyway to make sure their money's not being misspent. Warsaw could certainly do with the kudos that such a fair imparts. After all, I've been told that the Polish capital is now beginning to compete with Vienna as the business centre of Central Europe. Michał Olszewski, the deputy mayor of Warsaw, appears to agree with me. Recently at a press conference for the national football pools company Totalizator Sportowy, he talked of the need to raise the city's profile and to attract major fairs and events such as MIPIM. And yet Warsaw clearly has so much more to offer than Cannes. Where else do the marvels of "socialist" architecture (such as the Palace of Science and Culture so generously donated to Poland's capital by Joseph Stalin himself) rub shoulders with shiny modern glass office blocks? Where else will you be served piping hot beer flavoured with cloves and some unidentifiable fruit cordial? Where else do temperatures reach a balmy minus six one week before the official start of spring? Those who go to Cannes don't know what they are missing. Besides, southern France ain't that hot in March anyway. The average temperature this year was only a chilly 11°C. You might say that what I have just written is a clear case of sour grapes, that my position is infantile and demonstrates a poorly-controlled feeling of senseless envy. If you were to say this to my face, I would deny it most vehemently. Warsaw is clearly a much more fitting place to squander your promotional budgets than Cannes, I would say. But since you are not actually asking me I suppose I can admit that, yes, you might in fact be right. So just buy me a ticket for next year to Cannes and I'm gone.