As always at conferences - especially those at which you have to walk about a lot - one of the biggest headaches is how much stuff you have to carry around with you.

The World Economic Forum hands out various briefing books and background documents and it can all get rather heavy. A particularly weighty document is the booklet with the names and details of all of the participants.

As it happens, I know exactly how heavy - 860 grams. I know this because a resourceful colleague asked the waitress in the restaurant we were in last night to weigh it. Good heavens, that is almost a kilogram. I think it can remain in my hotel room.

It was snowing when I arrived in Davos this afternoon, after an overnight flight from New York and a train ride up from Zurich. There is a lot of snow blanketing the ground and there is talk of freezing weather on the way. I leave it to you to draw an analogy with the global economy.

The mood here is different from last year when the biggest media story of the opening days was an insubstantial tale about Todd Thomson’s departure from Citigroup. Then, there was a lot of talk about whether the good economic and financial times could last. This year they are obviously over.

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