Another day another conference centre, this one a glorified giant shed perched out in the middle of nowhere, or "London's up-and-coming Docklands district", as I believe the property industry likes to call it. Here the minutiae of the cringeworthy conference circuit comes to life - an Alan Partridge tableau replete with characters from private enterprise, vendor and research communities... and TV's Nick Ross. The turnout for the Inbox/Outbox expo wasn't great, which was no great surprise given the location. I could have lain across four seats during the presentations, but I don't think Nick would have appreciated that. The PA announcer, no doubt spotting the countless numbers of empty seats, grew ever more desperate as the time for NR's big moment - a grand finale live panel debate - grew ever closer.

A request to "make your way to the main auditorium to catch the live panel debate" slowly turned into a desperate demand, as the clock ticked down, repeated at minute intervals with the air of a woman whose job clearly depended on it. Listen love, I thought, if Mr Crimewatch UK himself can't pull 'em in, you're certainly not going to make an impact. Maybe it was the fact that Sue "take that fag out of your mouth while I'm talking to you" Cook sadly couldn't make it. Or maybe not. Either way I noted her no-show in my feedback form for the event, so maybe we'll have better luck next year.

For those of you that couldn't make it, of whom there were an enormous number, there were some interesting speakers, if you could hear them over the constant drone of aircraft rattling the tin roof overhead. Sessions covering educating employees in good email usage, the benefits of email outsourcing, and data privacy developments all drew tens of interested IT professionals. And then there was spam. According to Spamhaus CIO Richard Cox, the NHTCU (now part of the Serious Organised Crime Agency) is the only organisation with the knowledge and resources available to effectively deal with the problem of UK spammers, but it has consistently ignored the issue.

"We've been in contact with the NHTCU for some time to [try] and make them see the problem because it [represents] a threat to ecommerce and the critical national infrastructure, but [they] don't want to deal with the issue," he complained. But don't fear, all you spam-fearing IT chiefs out there. Quick as a flash Ross jumped in with some fighting talk, promising to leverage his contacts in the papers to spark up a Daily Mail campaign on the issue. I'm presuming, therefore, that illegal immigrants and gypsies will be found to be the root causes of spam in the UK.