It's very strange being at the other end of the world and reading articles like this in today's Guardian newspaper. It quotes the head of the UK retail group Woolworths as saying that publishers had 'whipped independent booksellers into a frenzy' about Woolies' proposed takeover of the wholesaler Bertram Books. This frenzy had then led the booksellers to complain to the Competition Commission in an attempt to block what might be considered a potential monopoly in book distribution to the independent trade.

This report is very strange for three reasons. Firstly, publishers normally stand accused of never supporting independent booksellers (see any number of comments on this blog from various independents). Secondly, unlike in last year's Wottakars case, I'm pretty sure that the Publishers Association has taken a rather passive stance. And thirdly, and most strange,  I think I can safely say that publishers have never been able deliberately to whip independent booksellers into a frenzy about anything. Sometimes by mistake of course...

Now back to reality. I have a day of meetings ahead of me in various parts of Buenos Aires. Our companies here are Macmillan Argentina (who have the great but only occasionally true slogan 'With Macmillan you have all the answers') which serves the English Language Teaching market and Puerto de Palos which publishes books in Spanish for children, schools and the genral market.

During the dreadful Argentine economic crisis of 2002 several international publishers abandoned their companies. I am glad for all sorts of reasons that Macmillan did not. Of course we had to adapt the business to the economic horrors of the time but we hung in, thanks to the committed local team, and we are now on a significant expansion path. Nothing is straightforward in Latin America (or anywhere?) but there is a strong recognition of the importance of education and we are determined to be at its centre.

Should you ever be in Buenos Aires do try Los Pinos restaurant for basic Argentine cooking in an authentic setting (sounds like a travel brochure but I couldn't think of alternative words). The photo doesn't quite do justice to the melancholic and nostalgic atmosphere. The other thing is that the meal costs less than £10 a head including top quality wine.

I'm not in Buenos Aires for its book fair but, as I was here and so was it, I wandered in to have a look. It is amazing. It runs for three weeks, is visited by a million people and is packed more or less continuously. Publishers and booksellers offer books for sale (rarely at anything less than full retail price) and people queue to pay - in cash. It is open until 2 a.m. It is a joy to see books absolutely central to a country's culture and, perhaps most encouragingly, a significant commitment to ensuring that the next generation grows up with a love of reading. I'm not famous for being a fan of book fairs (expensive, introspective, self-satisfied, cliquey) but this one is a triumph.

There's an interesting article about the music industry and digital rights management in the excellent technology section of the Guardian newspaper. After years of resisting pressure to reduce the security embedded into digital music downloads, the industry is now moving to DRM-free offerings at higher prices. I won't try to recapitulate the arguments (read the article) but I do think it's strange that book publishers seem to be moving towards stricter DRM control just as the parallel music industry is moving beyond that debate. I'd be very interested to hear from people (within or without Macmillan) what they think.

For those of you who want another angle on Argentina (from Noel Coward and Nina), you might want to check this out.

Another overnight flight, another rotten airline, this time AeroMexico. To quote from their chief executive in the in-flight magazine -

At a time rife with positive changes, I would like to reiterate our ongoing commitment to excellence for our passengers with a modernised fleet and corporate image and its attractive new routes such as Mexico City to Buenos Aires.

I can only think that they must have used up all their resources on the corporate image because the plane on the Mexico to BsAs leg was at leasdt forty years old, the service was dreadful, and the only thing that was reallyt essential - sleep - was denied by the flight team switching the lights on every hour to ensure maximum disruption.

However, my heart lifted on arrival in Argentina. The city of Buenos Aires is great. The sun was shining, there is very little pollution and the traffic is a breeze.

Of course the technology did not work. Neither Blackberry nor WiFi nor Internet connection but thanks to the team and especially Carola at Design Ce hotel who, against all the odds on a Saturday, managed to find me a working computer on which to write this. And the point of the title of this blog is that the designer and owner, Ernesto Goransky, owner, designer and manager of this hotel studied at the Architectural Association in London and knew one of my cousins and a number of acquaintances. If you are ever in Buenos Aires this place gets my vote for trendiest design and most helpful people.

The last time I was in Mexico I was shown a dilapidated multi-storey car park-type building which I was assured would make wonderful offices for our two comanies here. I was a tad sceptical but the cost seemed sensible and the location bwas a vast improvement over either of the two original offices. The work has amazingly gone almost to schedule, the building has been transformed and we now have the best publishing building in Mexico City on the best terms. A truly Mexican economic and architectural miracle although from the outside it still looks a little like a car park.

As I mentioned yesterday our main objective in Mexico is to publish for schools whose quality enhancement is vital for the futre of Mexico economically and culturally. I was interested to hear some statistics from the British Government. Apparently one in seven children in UK primary schools does not have English as a first language. That's 800,000 children. Late last year we published an innovative reading scheme for the Middle East but based on the methodology used in British classroooms. It is Macmillan English Explorers and we've now begun a marketing campaign for it in the UK. Another example of globalisation in action.

One of the recurring themes in English Language Teaching publishing is to come up with new titles for series - Access, Horizons, Streamline, Contact, Turn Around etc. I was, therefore, delighted to discover that one of our most successful ELT courses ever (over 13 million copies sold) had the gloriously boring and incomprehensible title, Basic Junior Active Context English. Can anyone beat that for the least memorable title in history?

For the latest on Second Life which we mentioned earlier in the week you could do worse than check out Jo Scott's latest blog about Second Nature. It's mysterious but fascinating.

Most of yesterday and a bit of the day before was spent on a thirty hour journey from one very large, very hot, very congested, very polluted, very exciting city to another. The main difference is that Mexico has the added joy of high altitude and consequent breathlessness.

I won't bore you with the tedium and discomfort of the trip but here's a personal recommendation. If you can possibly avoid using Delta Airlines, do.

Board meetings about Mexico and Latin America in general start later today. The good news is that it appears that the recently elected Mexican Government seems to have recommitted itself to addressing the acute educational problems of this country with vast numbers of school-age children and a need to develop fast. Our two main Mexican ventures, Macmillan de Mexico and Ediciones Castillo are both crucial to educational development here and our discussions will involve how to serve this market even more actively. More later.

But while I'm away, things continue to develop in Europe. This article from the Irish Examiner tells how the major TV channel, RTE has teamed up with Gill & Macmillan to find undiscovered writing talent in Ireland. Without wishing to over-generalise I can't help feeling that this could open up the organisers to the largest wave of submissions in the history of publishing. Every Irish person has at least two books in a drawer and is confident that the world wants them. If, however, a new Irish star is found the Guinness will be on me.

My favourite headline of the week comes from the Guardian:

Tale of a sexless tortoise shortlisted for science book prize

It refers, of course, to my favourite book, Henry Nicholls's Lonesome George. They know a thing or two, these shortlisters.

I'm off for a jetlag busting walk in neighbouring Chapultepec Park (pre-Colombian hill of grasshoppers). Mexico City is not all pollution and concrete.

I'm in the air somewhere right now, so this report on the virtual Book fair that took place in Second Life last weekend comes from Pan Macmillan's intrepid Press Officer, Emma Giacon:

Here's a snapshot from the event that we held for The Unofficial Tourist Guide to Second Life on Sunday night, at the Second Life Book Fair.  (As blogged previously here)  There is a thriving book community in SL, as we've been discovering, and our event had a good number of people and generated interesting discussion about publishing/the digital world.

The format of the event was much the same as a Real Life one - the authors participated in a Q&A session with Falk Bergman , who has created books in SL for several authors and publishers.  For SL literate readers of this blog, his bookstand can be found here . The discussion was then opened up to the floor, and we had intelligent and polite questions.  We gave away free, in-world copies of the Guide, which residents can read when they are logged in to SL, and also some funny little branded hats, which you should be able to see in the pics.  A branded hat might sound strange, but SLifers love a freebie, particularly one they can wear!  Of course, we knew that the experienced SLifers already in-world were not our target audience for the Guide, but our aim is that they'll go and tell all of their 'newbie' friends how brilliant and useful it is!

This has really been an interesting experience, despite various technical problems to begin with.  I certainly think that we will pursue other in-world opportunities.  Our colleagues at Nature are ahead of the game as they already own two islands, but expect to see a more permanent Pan Macmillan presence at some point soon!

PS, my favourite audience comment came when someone suggested that the SL Book Fair should take the place of Frankfurt...  Not sure what other people think, but it would definitely reduce our carbon footprint!

Yesterday afternoon we held a session for the shareholders of Macmillan India at the Oberoi Hilton Towers in Mumbai for an Investors' Meet (not quite sure why it's a meet rather than a meeting but local terminology must win out). The swimming pool is pretty good but the point of this picture is the rather faint image of the bay behind which is truly lovely. Not quite Sydney Harbour but coming close.

Amazingly, 133 people turned up - mainly from investment banks and investor groups. We presented the company and then took questions for the best part of ninety minutes and then descended on what is known in these parts as High Tea. This had originally confused me. I couldn't work out why we'd want to conclude with a session on IT. There again, India is confusing - what with lakhs, crores and 4.5 hours time difference.

The good news here is that educational (and trade and academic too) sales are booming and that gradually, ever so gradually, the scholol system is being liberalised thus allowing private publishers (as opposed to state governments) to publish and sell books to state schools. Already this is forcing standards and value up.

I leave Mumbai for Mexico City (via New York) tonight. Fortunately I am armed with a pile of books to while away the time between reading Latin American accounts and eating and sleeping. I think the journey time (if I've calculated the time differences correctly) is 25 hours, probably nearer thirty door to door. Perhaps I should write a book rather than read one.

Here's a final image of Mumbai, the Taj Hotel which I can just about see from my hotel window.

This is the view from my hotel window (more or less).

Mumbai is now rated one of the most exciting cities in the world but this is about as close as I get. Meetings today start in the hotel at 8.45 (4.15 a.m. UK and Charkin body clock time) and continue all today and tomorrow. Macmillan India has more than 3000 employees, more fifty separate locations, a quotation on the Mumbai and National stock exchanges, several semi-independent subsidiaries, a printing press and goodness knows how many forms to be filled in under pain of severe punishments. The meetings are not just to monitor the progress of the business but also to comply with the very high standards of Indian corporate governance.

I am grateful to the fascinating Charleston Report magazine for librarians for these two factlets.

In January 2007 MySpace recorded 31.5 billion unique page views per month. A colleague did the maths on this and said it was highly improbable but I am reporting what I read.

Also in January the US record industry sold 34 million albums. In the same period in 2002, album sales were 50 million, a 30% decline in five years. There are those who think that the book industry will be protected from change because we (some people) like reading books in the bath or on the beach. This is true but perhaps a third of readers might like to switch to an alternative medium or delivery route and a similar 30% drop would be a devastating blow to a relatively low-margin industry unless we find ways of joining in the new world.

The highlight of the flight to India was reading in one gulp Tomorrow by Graham Swift. It is an amazing achievement but I think the key to enjoying it is to read it in the same time frame as the story is told (a few hours during the night) and a flight to Mumbai is ideal although, as the author pointed out to me, a 747  is not quite the same as a bedroom in Putney.