Last night was a busy one. The evening kicked off with a catch up with Archial for a Building Buys a Pint. Within 5 minites if sitting down i had heard one of the greatest mipim stories yet. You'll have to read the issue of Building out the week after next to get the full details.

Felt bad for Chris Littlemore who had his wallet stolen the day before from a restaurant and had to spend the majority of Wednesday in a French police station. Then off to the Majestic for the Rider Levitt Bucknall dinner where spirits were high and the developers and architects on my table were reporting decent amounts of private sector work, especially in London - all in line with what most other people have been saying.

They added that another hot spot is the hotels sector. Massive amounts of foreign investment from the Far East is keeping this market interesting. Several mega London schemes in the pipeline.

What with it being St Patrick's Day, it would have been criminal not to have a pint of Guinness so it was off to Morrison's, Cannes' best known Irish pub. Of course, everyone else had the same idea and the place was absolutely packed, both inside and out.

The photo of the Morrisons pub doesn't really capture the scale of the crush, but anyone who was there will know what i am talking about. The mix of suited and booted property types with the local French youth was an interesting one. One retail developer was overheard shouting: "Good God, This place is bloody ferrel."

Final stop was the Lovell's party which drew in a huge crowd considering it didn't start until 11pm - but then, this is MIPIM.

Topics