Reading through the speaker line-up for Pira's upcoming executive print retreat in Geneva, I experienced both a frisson and a flashback.

The flashback was to 2003, sitting in the audience at a Pira web offset conference and listening to IPC Media production honcho Jasper Scott deliver a not-so-thinly veiled dig at St Ives. Scott drew a somewhat unfavourable comparison between the St Ives setup involving multiple web offset plants, and continental competitors such as Maury with a superplant model.

Well, St Ives may not have embraced the superplant ethos, but it has certainly cut down on the multiplicity of sites that so irked Scott, closing three magazine printing factories in the intervening years. Who knows, it may yet turn out that IPC will have directly contributed to the shutdown of another one.

At Scott's recommendation the publisher has of course recently ended its decades long relationship with St Ives, moving the £11.6m worth of mags formerly handled by the plc to Walstead.

Hence the frisson when I saw that Scott, along with St Ives chief executive Patrick Martell and commercial products group managing director Lloyd Wigglesworth, all appear on the Pira bill.

You could sell tickets for that. Actually, they ARE selling tickets for that! A ringside seat must be worth the conference fee. In all seriousness, there looks to be plenty to pique the interest in the overall programme.

And perhaps Jasper would be well advised to keep away from the edge of the lake. Just in case.