Greetings from Brussels

Brussels is still on high alert, it seems.

My hotel has two armed policemen outside and before you can enter you have to go through an airport-style security system.

Meanwhile the gala dinner I went to last night was forced to change venue and I was told to take ID to prove who I was.

The dinner – at the Cinquantenaire Museum (Royal Museums of Art and History) – was organised by Politico, a "political journalism organisation" founded in the United States.

Earlier this year Politico set up shop in Brussels and last night's event was to mark the launch of the first Politico28 list in Europe.

Based on the Politico50 model, which was launched in Washington last year, Politico28 lists 28 people from the 28 EU members states "who are shaping, shaking and stirring Europe".

If this seems a little self-regarding my mood wasn't helped when I saw that the UK nomination was Nicola Sturgeon. Worse, she was listed at number three, beaten only by Denmark's Margrethe Vestager and Hungary's Viktor Orban, "the small town rebel who helped bring down the Wall".

Sadly Sturgeon wasn't there to enjoy the moment. Nor, as far as I could tell, was the Irish nominee Panti Bliss (aka "the drag queen activist").

Even without Sturgeon's regal presence I'm told it was quite a high powered evening with a lot of influential people present, and in Brussels that's how events are judged. It's all about networking.

I think they'll have to rethink the format, though. Interviewing the great and the good on stage while guests are eating doesn't really work. The longer it went on the louder the background noise as guests chatted to their fellow diners.

Bizarrely (in my view) the evening was scheduled to end at 9.15pm and, on cue, it did. Everyone simply got up and went home with the exception of three or four hardcore smokers (and me) who stood outside in a covered courtyard until all the tables and chairs had been cleared away and it really was time to go.