4:10 PM -- The TM Forum 's Management World 2010 event in Nice, France, might be short of a few Brits this week following the latest ash expulsion from Eyjafjallajokul, that tricky-to-pronounce Icelandic volcano.

Once victim of a canceled flight was Light Reading sales supremo Mark "Broccoli" Brown, who's stuck without another plane seat in sight in the UK.

1-0 to the volcano.

But EuroBlog made it through the ash and confusion to level the scores at 1-1.

As for the battle with the Heavy Reading analyst team, it's set to be a major triumph for the Homo sapiens. Barring any last-minute hitches it should be Volcano 0, Heavy Reading 3, as Ari Banarjee is already in Nice, with Caroline Chappell and the outfit's managing director Dennis "Make mine a Claret" Mendyk set to defy the lava gods. Banarjee and Chappell have already outlined their views ahead of the week's OSS fest. (See Analyst: Data Analytics Needs Some TLC and Path to 4G Is Paved With OSS.)

We'll let you know if the agenda, or Nice's British bars, seem a little thin on the ground as the week progresses.

For all the SPIT news from Nice -- plus reports from the show floor, updates from the conference halls, and gossip from the darkest, dingiest bars on the Côte d'Azur -- keep an eye on our special Management World 2010 Show Site.

— Ray Le Maistre, International Vulcanology Editor (in charge of writing about Eyjafjallajokul and Dr Spock), Light Reading