John Linton
.......I don't think I'm as brave as I once was.
One of the reasons for coming to the UK later than in previous years (apart from trying to avoid the UK holiday traffic issues) was to see what, if anything, could be done about setting up an HSPA business in the UK in conjunction with an opportunity that had come the way of a couple of old acquaintances. I was scheduled to meet up with them next Monday but I received an email from them a little while ago apologising for the fact that things had taken a dramatic change and the opportunity almost certainly wasn't there any more and I could read about why in today's papers but they were attaching the official press release. Pity in many ways but that's the way business goes - a stream of opportunities that you need to take advantage of as they present themselves because timing is always of the essence and delaying decisions is always, as in this case fatal.
On the up side it gives us two free days in London or wherever as there is no need to go to London now. On the other hand we will also now not have the opportunity of seeing live LTE in a real community operation as we will not have the contacts required to look at that - unless things change over the next 2 or 3 days. In a way I'm glad I don't have to make a decision on a UK operation at this particular point in time because for all of the up side I was not looking forward to aadding the work loads of a very small group of people who are already dealing with multitudinous issues that take all of their working days already. In particular - I am glad I won't have to involve myself in the complexities that would have been involved - so a good 'cowards way out' in one sense.
While the Australian business is far more solid that it has ever been and shows every sign of remaining that way it would have been difficult to remove the amount of management time and decision making that would be involved in starting another major 'international' aspect of Exetel's business so soon after establishing the Sri Lankan company. There remains a lot of work to be done to finish both the set up of the SL business and then set it on its way for Phase II of that business opportunity. We also have the usual huge work load to push Exetel past its start up phase in to the different business it needs to become to survive the possible upheavals of the next 36 or so months.
It can't help occurring to anyone who visits rural England (as I do whenever I get the opportunity) that some proportion of the people have lived in this civilised and, in many ways, highly developed, country for a couple of millenia pretty much doing things today the same way they did the same things 2,000 years ago. They live longer lives today and have the advantages of modern machinery and all that electricity, running water and telephone lines and air waves bring them but, fundamentally, they are sowing and reaping crops and carrying out animal husbandry (excluding modern veterinary science) in exactly the same ways as previous generations have done throughout the centuries. They are wealthy or poor depending on their and their predecessors capabilities and luck over the generations and, by virtue of their working lives, far healthier than their city counterparts and from casual tourist to local conversations in pubs and shops and queues generally (an inevitable part of UK life) more than happy with their lives and the lives their children have in front of them.
It seems to be, if not idyllic, at least a much better way of spending a life time than the ways available from commercial careers that, in essence, only have something as pointless as 'money' as a 'reward' for a lifetime of effort. Or so it seems to me after a long day marvelling at the beauty, organisation and 'oldness' of ways of living that I can only half conceive as being possible.
Then again - maybe it's the second Scotch in front of an early Autumn fire while I spend time tapping a keyboard instead of doing something more practical.