I know, I know. You’ve missed me. No, really, you have.

Since we last spoke, things have been a little mental, both in and out of the Valle. For a start we had guests at the villa. Girls, no less.

The catch is, I’ve promised not to blog about them, so you’ll just have to make some stuff up. Which is a shame as I have some brilliant stories about…

- a hungry little dog named Monty

- a fearless little dog, name unknown

- an errant little dog, name an amusing coincidence

- lakes, rocks, paddling and horse shit

- flamenco girls and bull-fighting boys

- the death of Billy Crystal

- barbequed burgers and generous mountain Gods

- Burberry luggage and superglue

…and so, so much more.

What I can tell you about, in most part, is my lightning trip back to London for 24 hours to speak on a panel at the LCC about the future of the creative industries, and what the Government can do to make it more rosy.

Now, as I explained at the start of the panel, I am absolutely unqualified to comment on any aspect of that particular question, not being particularly creative, industrious or up to speed on educational public policy.

Fortunately, though, the keynote panellist was Estelle (Baroness) Morris, the former Secretary of State for Education and Skills, who you might remember resigned in 2002 saying that she didn’t feel up to the job. So I was in good company.

Also on the panel was Tom Campbell - Head of Creative Industries for the London Development Agency - who kicked off his introduction by saying that his boss had told him that, following the regime change at city hall, he wasn’t allowed to say anything. And then the fire alarms went off and we all had to evacuate into the rain.

Faultless.

Fortunately the cause of the alarm was soon traced - an overheating light in the graphic design department - and the debate got properly underway. And it actually turned out to be pretty interesting, with a fairly diverse range of opinions on the effectiveness of Government support for the creative industries and the value of the recent DCMS report on ‘New Talents for the New Economy‘.

Tom Campbell (who in the end said quite a lot, in entertaining style) and I disagreed on the subject of government support of new media. I argued that I’d been unable to find a single web entrepreneur who had anything favourable to say about government funding or support for Internet companies. Bebo and Last.fm were the largest and most recent examples of UK dot com successes and neither success had a damn thing to do with the UK (the former is a product of Brits in the Valley, the latter - Europeans working in London but selling to New York).

In fact, I argued, the only time UK dot com founders seem to mention the Government is in the context of a lack of incentives for employing staff in the UK, the dull drawn out process of accessing Government funding programmes or the tacky habit of MPs getting column inches and airtime by blaming the Internet for everything from paedophilia to youth gun crime.

Tom disagreed, pointing out that the Internet itself was created by government and that one of the founders of Last.fm went to the Government-backed LCC. We agreed to disagree, but afterwards - over drinks and tiny sausages on spoons - each admitted that we had agreed with many of the other’s points. Which is always a good way for those kind of arguments to end, especially when you’ve had to debate a complex subject in a ridiculously short space of time.

Another interesting point on blaming technology for society’s ills came from Ian Livingstone, the founder of Eidos and so, therefore, I suppose, Lara Croft’s dad. He raised the point that MPs are very quick to attack violent computer games, but in fact only 5% of games, by volume of sales, are 18 rated. And yet - in his words - video gaming had become ‘the bastard red-headed step child of the UK creative industries’.

I agreed wholeheartedly, not least because, if you have a problem with children playing 18-rated games, then you should probably be asking their parents why they’re being allowed to buy and play them in the first place, rather than bitching about the producers.

“It’s not as easy as that,” responded one of the other panellists - a parent. No, it’s not. But neither is saying that playing GTA makes kids go out and beat hookers to death with baseball bats. Everyone knows it’s Bebo that does that.

Afterwards, I got the chance to chat to Estelle Morris - and I, have to say, I really liked her. Charming, super-smart and really passionate about education and the future of Britain generally. It’s easy - cynical bastards that we are - to forget that public service salaries, compared to those for jobs that MPs could get in the private sector, are shit. And the workload is hard and thankless. And the end reward is always - always - getting fired or being forced to resign. Unless you’re lucky enough to die first. And yet, people like Estelle Morris dedicate their lives to it, and they really do care passionately about the results.

But being charming and smart and dedicated didn’t stop Baroness Morris saying some things that, in my humble opinion, were incredibly naive. One stand-out bullet was her comment, in response to the success of Bebo and Last.fm, that “if they’re that successful then I don’t want my tax money going to support them.”

Yes, Estelle, much better that we don’t give taxpayer money to more web startups by cutting paperwork and adjusting the revenue requirements for things like the Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme. That way we’ll have very few big British web successes, and those that we do have will all be sales to American companies, with all the tax money from the deal going to the US treasury. FTW, Estelle. FTW.

We also had an interesting chat about anonymous Internet commenters - and the lack of online accountability generally. In newspapers, she complained, correspondents have to give their name and address or they don’t make it into print but people can say vile things about politicians online and they don’t have to give so much as a real first name.

I told her about moves by some US news sites to try to verify identity - not to mention attempts by lawmakers to legislate it - and also how it’s been the subject of a lot of debate by bloggers on both sides of the Atlantic. (Which reminds me, I meant to post a link to The Lacy’s interesting take on the subject).

Estelle seemed generally pleased to learn that even some of the most passionate advocates of digital freedom understood the distinction between freedom of speech and anonymous cowardice. But I’m still not sure she’ll be starting a blog any time soon.

There’s a video of the event which I gather will be online soon. Watch this - or some other - space for a link.

The brief trip back to London also allowed time for a catch-up lunch with Oli Barrett, who is always great company. A potentially brilliant idea was hatched over pad thai and green curry. Watch this space for more on that too.

But now, carbon footprint be damned, I’m back in the Valle and back in the hammock, working. Lots to do - including some (quote) ‘proper work’ (unquote) for Rebecca at Orion (slave driver) - and with joint hosting duties beginning again on Friday, so little time to do it.

Those haiku syllables don’t count themselves, you know.

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