How do you spell your name?

I’ve just got back from ISPOR, at which I managed to chat with several people \(-\) I guess that’s one of those conferences where the amount of people in the sessions is basically the same as those outside, talking (more or less quietly).

In fact, we’ll try to arrange a few workshops/meetings \(-\) the first one is this coming Monday at UCL, when James O’Mahony will talk about his work on the choice of comparator strategies in cost-effectiveness analyses of Human Papillomavirus testing in cervical screening. We’ll try and have seminars/events monthly.

Among the highlights of my three days in Amsterdam:

• after a while, I noticed that every time I was walking through the exhibitors’ booths, said exhibitors would intently check my name-tag out until they actually saw my affiliation and suddenly decided they weren’t really interested and move their glance away (which I thought was quite funny);
• the first night, as I got to my hotel room, I tried to connect to the wireless using the instructions I’d been given (which was: use your room number and surname). Because it wasn’t working, I phoned the reception to ask for assistance. The lady asked me: “What name are you using”, to which I replied: “mine”. To which she replied: “but how do you spell it?” To which I replied: “the way it is spelled: B-A-I-O”. To which she replied: “Oh, but to us it is spelt B-A-L-O. That’s what you should use”. It worked;
• the nice dinner at this Italian restaurant (I didn’t choose it, but it was quite good).