Olympic Hotel
in Teheran.
It's a bit weird.
It's sort of tacked on to a big sports centre facility, and it has built in conference rooms etc
There were a couple of seven foot tall US basketball players wandering around looking a bit bemused cos (as in the website) there's not much English signage around.
So this is clearly a domestic facility. Just as well my presentation for tomorrow has been translated to Farsi - which went down really well a few months ago, when I was the only international speaker to make the effort/have the common courtesy/ actually care if I was understood (well....the language anyway! )
But the room's nice enough, it's got cheap wifi that works OK and the food is adequate.
Off to bed in a bit - I can never sleep on planes and it's now over 30 hours since I got solveig her breakfast coffee.... "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
Lose the game and spend the next several years in Guantanamo for consorting with the enemy must be a real aid for a coach in team motivation.
<slaps forehead> I'm still thinking old regieme aren't I (will get the hang of new friendly america, I promise) Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
There's lots of US sports and cultural trips here. It's commercial sanctions the US are involved in, and thst is completely self-defeating.
First, the fact the Iranians are frozen out of the global banking system means they didn't lose their arses like everyone else in the Credit Crunch.
Secondly, the US apparently for ages made it very difficult for Iran to get decent internet pipes/connections, when in fact that would be the most subversive thing - apart from dollar loans "Economic Hit Man" style - that they could do...
And it is really good value, the people are really friendly, just a shame about the bloody traffic. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
the US apparently for ages made it very difficult for Iran to get decent internet pipes/connections, when in fact that would be the most subversive thing - apart from dollar loans "Economic Hit Man" style - that they could do...
But that would have required thought and a touch of reality based politics. Talking tough with stupid politics is easier to sell to your base than complicated stuff like reason based policy; it might be bad for america but it works (err, worked) domestically. keep to the Fen Causeway
