A week of news - anybody home?

It has been a full week of news assignments that should really have been even fuller.

The tour began on Wednesday as Optician headed into Central London for the General Optical Council's quarterly meeting. Only instead of being staged at the GOC’s Harley Street headquarters, it was held at the Royal Institute of British Architects on Portland Place.

The GOC has announced searching for more modern premises, and has held its last three public gatherings away from HQ.

After the meeting, where research on the next phase of CET was discussed, the plan was to head over to Mayfair where pharmaceuticals firm Novartis was holding an event for journalists.

Since first organising the event, Novartis had attracted widespread coverage for filing for a judicial review of the Southampton, Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Portsmouth primary care trust (SHIP) cluster board's wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) policy.

This, of course, made the meeting even more newsworthy and the news desk was sensing another big splash. However, upon leaving the luxurious home of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Optician received a call to say the Novartis dinner date was off. Was it my after shave?

Yesterday brought yet another encounter with the blustering winds and heavy rain, on the way to the Southampton offices of Ciba Vision. However, this was a first and last visit to Flanders Road as Ciba is also on the move next week, to Farnborough.

All in all, it has been a week full of disruptions but not short of news developments.