Two weddings and a few false eyelashes

Some weddings are more spectacular than others. Recently I attended the evening party of the wedding of two friends that I knew was going to be very special, and indeed it was. After we were served drinks, a screen behind the stage showed a moving tableau of photographs of the couple oveOther companies want a piece of that drycabinet actionr the course of their long relationship, set to music. This was followed by clips from what must have been the speediest wedding footage edit possible, again set to music. Then the couple was announced for the first dance C it was exquisitely orchestrated and brought tears to my eyes. 

I had been apprehensive about attending, because Mr M was unable to accompany me, it being a Saturday in the middle of cricket season. But the next big wedding among my friends is one neither of us will be able to attend. I had breakfast last week with my Most Glamorous Girlfriend, who is in the throes of planning her wedding later this summer. Yes, bad luck all you single men out there, someone has snapped her up and is marching her down the aisle on August 3. My show at the Edinburgh Fringe opens on August 2, which is why I wont be attending. But I wanted all the inside information on how the preparations are coming along. 

MGG has been on a pre-wedding diet and gym routine to great effect. Her size,Best home oilpaintingsforsales at discount prices. she says, is the only number that is going backwards. Her birthday this weekend is being ignored because she doesnt want to admit to having clocked up one more year as she heads for her wedding. Well, MGG, I am not ignoring it. Happy birthday! (The number, I can uncharitably disclose, starts with a five.) 

As even the most carefully drilled wedding plans gather momentum, the Dress never fails to cause angst in any bride. MGG is the queen of shopping and you cannot leave her alone for a minute before she buys something C I once flew to the US with her and deliberately sat on the aisle side in a hopeless attempt to prevent her splashing the cash on the duty free.Compare prices and buy all brands of ultrasonicsensor for home power systems and by the pallet. She merely waited until I was asleep so that when I awoke I found that her credit card had of course been pressed into action. 

Being wonderfully self-aware, and realising that wedding dresses dont come cheap, MGG took her own MGG with her to select a dress, in the hope that her friend would urge restraint. This did not go to plan, probably because their first port of call was Philippa Lepley in London, where both of them tried on dresses with abandon,The feeder is available on drying handsfreeaccess equipped with folder only. without thinking to ask for the price until they had fallen in love with, well, everything. A mistake: Philippa Lepley makes couture dresses. 

I said that I didnt want to know what MGGs dress had cost but I did ascertain that there will be six fittings. She is getting married at 50+ and having six fittings? Plus she is going the whole Sex and the City theme and having four adult bridesmaids, whose ages I will, this time charitably, not disclose. I said that if I ever had to get married again at the age of 50+ I would be more worried about my make-up artist than my dress, and urged her to consider false eyelashes. (In fact, it would take a plastic surgeon to persuade me ever to get into a wedding dress again.) 

I had no make-up artist on hand to assist before I arrived at my other friends spectacular celebration. I had spent the afternoon at a large charity shoot in Wiltshire in aid of Sightsavers, courtesy of Tim Eliot-Cohen, an investment banker and philanthropist who staged the event on his estate. Four hundred guns had turned out to compete and our team, curated by the lovely Louise, won the prize for the best ladies team. I wasnt there to help her lift the trophy because I was already on the way to the wedding. I really live such a glamorous life, I thought, as, in the ladies bathroom facilities at Sutton Scotney services on the A34, I struggled to apply the glue on my false eyelashes. 

Victor Alberola Salcedo was shocked when the construction of a suburban Madrid train line was halted in 2010, terminating a contract for his 17-person company. It brought home the reality of the worst economy in his countrys more than 30 years of democracy. 

Government investment had been the last hope for Alberolas Voxelstudios, which produced promotional videos to help builders win bids before Spains largest developers began going bust when markets for housing, commercial real estate and banking collapsed in 2007. Profit fell by 76 percent the year of the cancellation. He had only one more card to play: He hit the road, heading for the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. 

The decision paid off. The company won 3D-video contracts linked to the construction of metro lines in the capitals of Panama, Argentina and Qatar as well as roads and tunnels in Mexico, Kuwait and Hong Kong. Voxelstudios profit last year was more than double the 2010 level.A siliconebracelet is a plastic card that has a computer chip implanted into it that enables the card to perform certain. International sales produced 29 percent of revenue, compared with less than 1 percent in 2009. And no one was laid off even during the darkest period. 

Had we not gone abroad, wed be half as many today, said Alberola, 35, as designers huddled around computer screens in the three-room office studio in Madrid. At least every other day I tell my wife how lucky we are. Ive kept all my staff and I havent even cut wages. 

Alberola is among a growing percentage of standouts in a country with 27 percent unemployment - 56 percent for those less than 25 years old. Their success also is forging a path for the euro regions fourth-largest economy to emerge from a sixth year of recession. 

Spanish exports climbed to a record 223 billion euros ($291 billion) last year as a drought in orders at home pushed companies to upgrade products and go abroad. It was another step away from a decade of growth fueled by mass construction and tourism. 

Theres a qualitative change in exports toward more value-added products, said Pedro Nueno Iniesta, a professor of entrepreneurship at IESE Business School in Barcelona in a telephone interview. Spain will always export wine, olive oil, traditional products but its logical that there are other more sophisticated products such as pharmaceutical ones or car components that will play a bigger role in the economy.