Starting tomorrow we´ll begin to report from the CEPIC (Coordination of European Picture Agencies Press Stock Heritage) Congress 2004 Copenhagen, June 10 - 13. We cannot say "to blog live from the event" simply because we don´t know if we got enough time for real "live blogging" which -- as we estimate -- will unfortunately be the case. So it might be this intention ends up in smoke and all you´ll get to read is only the seminar program and some gossip. We´ll see. Different from the hotel room of Joi Ito (Park Lane Hotel on Piccadilly) our hotel rooms are equipped with bullet-proof windows and geeky underwater - WiFi - antennas for working in the bathtub. Simply "We are red, we are white, we are Danish Dynamite".

[© CTI, "We are red, we are white, we are Danish Dynamite" (Can someone explain what this is all about? Kinda Voodoo? Neoliberal mass hysteria?]
CEPIC states that with
over 600 delegates from 340 companies, 49 countries and five continents CEPIC has broken last year’s record again. Panama, Iceland and Estonia are new participating countries this year. Germany is sending the largest number of companies : 57 !
Holy Christ, this is pretty darn cute and unbelievable creditably. The final "Participants List" as of May 25 has some 13 pages -- and, as in previous years, all emailaddresses are listed. Initially we wanted to put this list only for information online, but we would encounter serious troubles in doing so. Maybe we put the list up for auction at Ebay -- starting bid around $ 25 cent or less.

[© World Meteorological Organization at the Fourteenth Congress where -- for whatever reasons -- all guys writing for this blog participated and can be seen standing and laughing in the fifth row; ugly image, uh? (This is not an official CEPIC image with all participants!)]

The CEPIC will start with the "GOLF First CEPIC Open" tomorrow at 09.30 at the Smørum Golf Club ("Fight for the PicScout Cup!"), giving a clear sign to which audience this event is targeted. It would take all knowledge, farsightedness and art of a Raymond Chandler, Ernest Hemingway and T.C. Boyle not to write an ironic essay with stings of some sarcastic remarks. Which, we admit, we do not have.