The eruption of Eyjafjallaj?kull had some unfortunate consequences last week. Airlines lost billions in revenues; stranded passengers lost tempers and sleep; Kenyan flowers lost their bloom and the celebrity Dannii Minogue lost her new maternity clothes that were being flown in from Hong Kong.

Yet in spite of these losses, there were some sweeping but unreported gains whose impact will be felt for long after passengers have collapsed into their own beds and Dannii has been reunited with her clothes.

For offices all over the western world, last week was one of the sanest and most productive for a very long time. On Monday, people got to work to find half the appointments logged into their BlackBerrys suddenly cancelled. In normal times, I find the mere cancellation of a stray lunch enough to make me feel happy and lucky all day long. Last week, lunches and meetings were cancelled en masse as people were stranded halfway across the world.