…from outer-space. I just walked in to find you here with that strange look upon your face…

Ah, there’s no song like a disco song!

The strange thing is that it’s almost as if I’ve never been away. It’s weird the way that happens.

For you (dear reader) who may have been wondering, I’m back in fighting form again, having had unspeakable and unthinkable things done to my eye. Much to my relief they were, however, successful, and I can see again enough to start griping about the state of the industry once more.

For reasons that make perfect sense to me (but nobody else) I returned to Ireland to have the necessary surgery performed and to recover. Principally this was because there was nobody to feel sorry for me here in Dubai, so I went home to be “looked after”. As a result, I am somewhat rounder than I was when I left, but we’ll gloss over that little point quite rapidly.

I’d hoped (because I’m always hopeful) that during recovery I’d be able to catch up on a number of work related projects that I’ve been unable to keep in my sights (no pun intended) for the last while. As it was, I couldn’t see anything for much of the time, or suffered from weird headaches when using the PC, so all my hopes came to very little, but I did manage to visit Ireland’s premiere security exhibition whilst there, to make sure that the industry was ticking along without me.

It may be…but not at the ISEC. The downturn was much in evidence – I’d have to say – with the country’s main distributors entirely absent from the show (and apologies to REW and Scott & O’Shea if you think I’m being harsh, but I do reckon Borsatec turn over more than you guys annually, so that’s who I’m talking about).

I was met with the blurred vision of a *horde* of Garda recruits fresh from Templemore leaving the venue as I went in. I say a *horde* because I can’t think of a better word. It looked like an outing from St Trinians (if the aforementioned educational establishment had begun accepting both boys and girls), with the accompanying bottles of red lemonade and bags of Tayto much in evidence (apologies to those of you who are not familiar with the staple diet of the culturally significant TJ and TJ, but it’s an Irish thing…and Irish police thing…).

Besides the fact that it was bitterly cold for the whole time I was in Ireland, I was also reminded where I was by the frequency of reported murders and shootings on the local news, and stories of Bernard McNamara and the varying number of armed bodyguards he currently employs to stave off the ever lengthening brigade of creditors currently baying for his blood (Polish mafia included, or so the potentially urban style myth informs me).

At least I was home for Paddy’s Day, and a decent pint…the doctor didn’t mention that I couldn’t drink, so I assumed that I’d be fine so long as I didn’t pour Guinness in my eye…

Bizarrely, there was an apparant gang-land assasination here in Dubai last night – but I suspect this is some strange space-time continuum effect resulting from my return, because it’s raining here too. So I’m assuming that the weather and the mob shootings have somehow temporarily followed me.

I have to mention the lightening here. It’s been quite amazing.

A couple of things that struck me from the Irish ISEC show while I’m thinking of them :

- there was a lot of IP video there. A lot more than usual, which is odd given the current environment, and I’m surprised there weren’t people there promoting alternative analogue solutions
- the visitor numbers seemed low, but there were a lot of small installers’ vans in the car park from outside of Dublin (I don’t think I saw a single 2009 registered vehicle, come to think of it, which is significantly unusual)
- bad planning from the Mobotix dealers. I know it was a small show, but they were pitched opposite one another showing the same cameras. Oops.
- Simmons Voss exhibiting their locking technology which I like. I got a flyer in the post from one of the Dublin locksmiths promoting it while I was home and saw another similar (though not very convincing) technology from another US supplier I’d never heard of. A real shame Abloy couldn’t get their Cliq technology to *really* work, because I think this is a very interesting opportunity area
- Saw a nice ANPR camera from ICRealTime embedded in a speedbump. Nice idea. I wonder how resilient it is? They had a lot of other flashy looking cameras on show, but they all felt flimsy I’m afraid
- Lots of training and certification bodies in evidence but no symbolic anti-PSA showing as I thought there could be, given the amount of actual PSA resentment there’s been in the press and on the web lately
- Interestingly, (but probably not entirely unexpectedly) the hot topics in Dubai are not the same hot topics in Dublin. Nobody making any fuss about IT/Security convergence, combined physical/logical access control. No significant biometric showing either. Like I say, this probably isn’t much of a surprise but I think it’s interesting that the show is beginning to take notice of the real world, because I’m fairly sure that you wouldn’t have a hope of selling those technologies in Dublin (in previous years I’ve seen plenty at the show that also wouldn’t sell in Dublin, but people still wasted their time and money presenting it).

So anyway, that’s about it for now. I’m really just getting my feet back under the table, and there’s a lot of stuff *on* the table that needs sorting out, but I’m really glad to be back, and looking forward to getting my teeth into it all again.