POWER MEET: Protesters at Davos and (above) rock star Bono who is a regular at the venue

The Swiss security man in the fluorescent jacket seemed rather firm. But once I’d worked my charm on him, he became alarmingly insistent. “Stand. By. Ze. Car.” As I shivered in the bracing mountain air, two things became clear. One was that -7°C is rather chilly. The other was that it was just possible that I was getting Davos, or to give it its full title, the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, wrong.

It had seemed so simple in London, in the bleakness that was “Blue Monday”: the third Monday in January, when psychologists say we feel at our most miserable.

I would banish my blues by heading for Davos, the annual gathering of leaders in every conceivable field, from politics and business to religion and academia, where 2,400 delegates, 24 heads of state and 800 chief executives of multinationals boasting a combined turnover of $12 trillion gather to commune and consult.

After all, with so much power, so much money concentrated in one Alpine village, the partying would be magnificent.

I could watch the world-renowned statesman Bono and the lead singer of Ugly Rumours, Tony Blair, discuss “Delivering on the promise of Africa”, and hope it all lived up to the forum’s motto: “Committed to improving the state of the world.” I could attend sessions on “the geopolitics of demographics” and “identity and the communication disconnect”. And if it all got too exciting, I could go and listen to Gordon Brown speak before heading off for the ski slopes.

I was on the first plane to Switzerland.

Now, the nice man in the fluorescent jacket was teaching me that Davos has rules. Rule number one: turning up with no security clearance to a gathering involving 24 heads of state and stealing their prime parking spot tends to offend.

There is, though, a Davos rule far, far more important than mere security and parking etiquette, because this year’s forum has placed much emphasis on global warming; Don’t Mention The Carbon Footprint. I mentioned it once, but I think I managed to get away with it.

“I would guess about 2,000 of the delegates don’t come from Switzerland,” said the hitherto charming official. “Did they fly here? You know what, I don’t think you should attend the forum.”

After much grovelling, he graciously agreed not to unleash the men in the fluorescent jackets. And after I’d wiped the last of the snow off my knees, he even told me: “We have the Davos Climate Alliance to help delegates work out their carbon footprint and offset it. We have offset 66 per cent of the carbon footprint already and that figure will rise considerably.”

I didn’t ask any more questions; so I was ushered into the Congress Centre and the presence of Mark Adams, the head of communications. “It’s unique. You have got everyone here. You can fit into a few days a series of meetings that would normally take forever to arrange. Davos was instrumental in averting war between Greece and Turkey in 1988. The leaders came here on the brink of war, got talking and signed the Davos Declaration. The Israelis and Palestinian delegates met yesterday …” he said.

Well, yes, world peace was all very well, but what about skiing? “You can go skiing,” he said. “On the Sunday, when it’s all over, we arrange sports. Of course, we’re not puritanical about it, but during the meeting, we like to keep people around, and get things done.”

But there would still be parties, wouldn’t there? Cocktail parties with expensive champagne and exotic liqueurs? I sought out one of the younger delegates for advice. “The CEOs will plan it out. They will tell you: I want to do 20 minutes at this one, 20 minutes at that one. And at the parties you see them sticking to their timetable.”

Could it be true? Was the great cocktail party really being abused in the name of networking and world peace? I sought comfort from Rick Pudner, the CEO of Emirates Bank. “This is my first visit,” he said enthusiastically. “It’s very relaxed, and it’s nice to see some snow for a change.”

Bingo! So have you … “No. It’s all work related. No skiing.” What about the cocktail parties? You attended three last night? “I had a breakfast meeting at 7.15 this morning.”

I noticed another thing. At Davos, you bump into people — or people who have bumped into people. “Claudia Schiffer was here,” I was told. “It’s true,” said another delighted man, despite my sceptical surprise. “I saw Anna Kournikova.” Well, I bumped into Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury. He had been to one or two cocktail parties, “but I am very busy. There’s not much time for that”.

No matter. The night was young. A light-show projected onto the Belvedere transformed it into a most inviting array of Swiss crosses. Who knows what delights the Google party might reveal? Might Anna or Claudia meet my eye across a crowded room and discuss the geopolitics of demographics?

A young man raced past bellowing into a BlackBerry: “You need to get a position much, much closer to them.” I couldn’t have agreed more.

I didn’t mention the carbon footprint. I was exceedingly polite to everyone in a fluorescent jacket. I was in. (Without having to discuss the trifling technical matter of whether I had been invited.) I was “Googling it”. There was music, there was dancing, there was free champagne. There seemed to be precious few CEOs leaving after 20 minutes. Some of the younger delegates even seemed to be gazing into each other’s eyes in a manner suggesting successful networking.

I scanned the room eagerly. If Anna and Claudia were there, they did a masterful job of avoiding my gaze. Not so Nikesh Arora, Google’s vice-president of European operations, or Chad Hurley, the co-founder of the hugely successful internet phenomenon YouTube.

I asked Nikesh if he needed someone to fill a senior executive position in Google.

He laughed, and shortly afterwards spotted a friend across the room. I sipped my champagne with the grin of a contented delegate. I might have got some of Davos wrong, but I had made two new friends.

Anna, Claudia, Tony and Bono will probably have to wait until next year, but, then, “improving the state of the world” always was a long-term project, wasn’t it?

© The Sunday Telegraph