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Who lit Packard? A printer, you say?

Hewlett-Packard is a largish corporation. It makes computers, and printers; and it was the printer side that invited me along to the London Book Fair today. But not the laserjet or inkjet printers you might imagine.

HP Indigo makes digital printers that use liquid ink, but on the electrostatic principle; and you use them to print books and brochures. But in the rush to get there, I left my invite behind, and didn't know what booth number to go to.

So I did what you'd expect to do: looked them up on the exhibitor map. And they weren't there!

That can happen, of course. People who book late can get a booth, but not make it into the catalogue.

So I went to the press room, where I asked where they were.

"Youlit Packet...?" asked the staff, perplexed. They looked the company up under "Y" and then under "U" before I revealed it should be under "H". "What sort of products do they make?" they asked, perplexed.

No, nobody there had ever heard of the company.

In the end, I had to ring HP headquarters, where (I was told) they were on booth Q645. I walked along row Q, with booths to left and right. As you can see from our handy map [left] there's Q600, next to Q650, next to Q 660 - but no Q645. To make sure, I walked back up and back down, examining booths on both sides of row Q. Not a single HP logo to be seen. I asked the booth owner at Q650. "Never heard of them, and no, there's no Q645," they confirmed.

And the answer to the mystery? Easy! Q645 is (of course!) in row R, inbetween R625 and R700.

Obvious. I stopped by the HP booth once I found it... and congratulated them on their clever "stealth marketing" techniques.

"Oh? What do you mean?" they said.

So that's where I was all day. And it was worth the effort, because I found http://www.lulu.com - a site where you can publish your own books, for real money. And they don't charge you.

Interesting things, printers... and isn't it interesting to know that there really are people who have never heard of Hewlett-Packard?