Today the language challenge vs food capture starts. Our man from Moscow had been reduce to gesticulating wildly and pointing at various food sources in shops and delis in an effort to get fed.

After 45 minutes I had 'captured' 3 peaches and a packet of 6 rather tasty lemon muffins. It has to be said I'd also had to pass up on several stalls selling hot and good looking cheese and ham paninis but how to order.

The alphabet is different. The language barrier absolute. Only those items in reach of my finger tips could be obtained and never before had I imagined that I would be rendered as mute as a red faced Harry Enfield type holiday maker on a sunny beach holiday. Not even speaking slowly would conquer this divide.

So to the gap toothed and amused Russian lady who finally twigged what I wanted I offer my thanks !

So what of dinner I hear you ask ?

I'm working on the pronuciation for 'beer' as we speak. Hopefully this will suffice !

On another note I was woken by a loud explosion at 5am outside the window. I'm staying on the 12th floor so as you can imagine it was rather disturbing. In my sleepy haze flashes of Armageddon and urban warfare made my cower beneath my blanket.

Fortunately for this write it seems to have been a firework.

Why it was let off at 5am I shall never know.

But I live to write another entry.

'til then I bid you adieu.

This week, H&G are on international duty. While one half languishes rather nicely in Vegas racking up his debts before his softball tournament the other is earning a brief crust in Moscow.

How very Credit Crunch avoiding of us both.

So today sees my attempt to understand and navigate the entire Russian media market in the space of a morning before the team start their planning work on Coke.

Things are very much the same as when I started in media. TV is starting to become fragmented but only just. The internet reaches only 25% of the population. And Cinema still doesn't get used because it's so expensive. With increasing wealth and general optimism about the future people have more time for entertainment and spending on themselves but that means more time commuting and less time with the family.

So much so different !!!!

The biggest challenges it seems are the trading ones still rather fond of big TV buys of coverage instead of planning to where the audiences are going or spending their quality time.

We shall see if by the time I leave the concept of word of mouth can even be introduced. At the time of writing that's a very alien concept !

Much was made yesterday about the long awaited switch-on for the Large Hadron Collider.

But none of the commentary tickled us quite as much as the words of page 3 'stunna', Keeley.

Now we're all aware that the small text box is never written by the model herself the joby being given to a low level hack forced to churn out cheery assessments of the days news and turn them into into a haiku of believable model speak.

So hats off to whoever wrote yesterdays piece because it brought a wry smile to our lips.

'Keeley can't wait for boffins to turn on the Large Hadron Collider today. She said 'It's so exciting. The machine's main purpose is to explore the validity and limitations of the current theoretical picture of particle physics'

LOL !

Dare we admit that time has flown rather fast of late. Turmoil has hit H&G towers of late, but with a location on the 10th floor this write is much improved !



And it's therefore with pleasure that we showcase our latest work for the Halifax and it's offshore banking services.



You see it's rather hard to target Expats because, well, they live everywhere. They're all rather different kinds of people. And they've all moved abroad for many reasons. Some for filthy lucre. Others to open that long dreamed about bar in the Costa Del Sol !



So instead of racing around in the internet chasing British Expats for their money, we created something for them instead that they wanted. An Expats newspaper. Fully staffed by journalists.



And written for us by The Sun.



Go to www.thesun.co.uk/expats



Enjoy !