Ecobuild – the sustainable design and construction show – has been taking place this week at Earl’s Court in London. As usual, Earthscan was present with a stand.

It was actually busier than this most of the time. In fact, our stand was often up there with the sandwich stands in terms of people crowding around (although our books are less over-priced that the sandwiches – and probably taste better). Generally speaking, though, there was a real sense of a positive mood – something that isn’t so common in the building industry at the moment. The exhibition programme had a pretty impressive list of speakers, with several Earthscan authors among their number including Paul Ekins (Hydrogen Energy), Herbert Girardet (Surviving the Century) and Frances Cairncross (Green Inc.).

For my part, I spent a useful few hours getting lost in Earl’s Court’s labyrinthine walkways (the only time they’ve ever made sense to me was at the Great British Beer Festival a few years ago) and meeting up with an array of trade associations and industry bodies. It’s always interesting to get updates on what information people are looking for, and to let them know about any new books we’ve published which might meet their needs.

Finally, a couple of celeb-spotting moments which I couldn’t resist. The first is Kevin McLeod of Grand Designs fame (possible the only ecobuilding celebrity), the second is Germaine Greer (who I think was talking about birds).