A reception I attended last night organised by the Publishers Association was held in the Reptile House at London Zoo.

It followed a PA International Division conference on the management and protection of global brands with contributions from Nature's very own David Swinbanks giving away all our secrets about brand extension. Here he is giving away something or other to an Emperor and Empress in Japan.

Also there was Pan's very own futurologist author, Ray Hammond, whose monthly thoughts in Glimpses of the Future are normally unbelievable and then turn out to be feasible and then realistic. The photo below is not Ray.

At dinner afterwards the conversation turned, as it infrequently does, to soccer. Chelsea Football Club's successful manager, Jose Mourinho, refers to himself as 'the special one'. Check out his song on YouTube (fast forward through some of the spoken stuff at the beginning). Apart from his own specialness he also refers to nine of his eleven players as 'untouchables'. The question is who are the untouchables of the book trade, either individuals or organisations. Answers on a postcard, email or comment.

I'll start the ball rolling with Nielsen BookData (without whom we'd know even less about our industry than we do now), the Man Group (who have been so intelligent and generous in their sponsorship of the Man Booker Prize, and of course Jane Friedman of HarperCollins (who is publishing person of the year and responsible for just about every innovation our industry has seen).