I'm one of the lucky ones; it looks like I'm going to get home by tomorrow. A simple business trip to Frankfurt, from which I was due to fly back yesterday, has turned into an adventure. Realising there was no chance of getting home by air, I managed to book on-line (after much trying) a ferry ticket from Amsterdam to Newcastle. I hitched a lift with a colleague to Amsterdam (where I'm writing this) and today, all being well, I'll embark on the 16-hour voyage. Of course, I live in Nottingham, and my car's at Birmingham airport, but these are minor problems. All of this makes you reflect on how fragile our technological lifestyle is.

The hotel I'm in is full of stranded people. In Germany it was impossible to buy a train ticket for anywhere outside of the country, because the IT systems couldn't cope with the demand. People stuck at Frankfurt airport were unable to get trains to other places to try and continue their journeys, and the airport was laying out lines of camp-beds.