My poor brain is still reeling after returning from Edinburgh late last month and I can't even blame the drink.
After extensive testing I can tell you that Deuchars IPA is a beer not to be sampled in batches of over eight pints, but the biggest headache was induced by the speeches at the Microsoft-sponsored Government Leaders Forum.
Speaker after speaker after speaker after speaker reminded delegates gathered in the Scottish parliament that we European nations need to address the looming e-skills crisis or else pay the economic consequences.
Their reasoning was simple: China, India and others are cheaper than us for services and manufacturing; traditional European industries are dwindling; Europeans are producing fewer children than previously but living longer; and many new jobs require computing skills. Therefore, we need to move to a knowledge economy.
I wouldn't disagree too far with that list but I'm not so sure what is being done to address the situation. Take Gordon Brown. He sees our best hope in " lifelong learning": educating young people in schools and colleges as well as mature workers who need to modernise their output.
Fine, but every time a publication like this one refers to "the e-skills gap " it receives outraged missives from out-of-work programmers. Ageism is alive and well, despite legislative attempts to outlaw it, and opportunities to " upskill" are rationed.
Brown fantasises about a Britain full of good citizens taking joy in
educational emancipation, but he does not want to pay for it. He is part of a
government that approved student loans, did a U-turn on the Home Computing
Initiative, offers paltry training vouchers and does nothing to help
entrepreneurs lift startups off the ground.
Creating skills is surely about dangling incentives and knocking over barriers.
The temptation that works best is the prospect of a good salary and career and
the hurdle to be overcome is the cost incurred by the person wishing to learn.
If he wanted to, Brown could foster growth in IT skills with a few strokes of
his pen.
The UK is changing. Primary schools are stacked with PCs and children learn new skills with mother's milk. This is laudable but it is not yet clear whether politicians really believe that an overhaul of learning is needed or just think talking the talk is good PR.
They are not helped by their own lack of computing knowledge, which encourages a sledgehammer assessment that all technology is good. The UK needs to rearrange its skills portfolio but IT is not the only ingredient. Better knowledge of foreign languages and cultural mores will also be critical as supply chains stretch ever further.
At the same time, we cannot just let go of low-skilled jobs that rely on the growing high-tech economy. Has the chancellor noticed the way jobs such as those in computer assembly and distribution are moving away from his native Scotland towards Eastern Europe and even further?
The world is changing, but are politicians changing fast enough to do more than talk?
