John Linton's Personal Musings

John Linton

The first quarter of the financial year ends tonight and for Exetel it will have been a better than on target first three months. September has not been a great month but by COB today it looks like it will finish up much better than it had seemed for the first three weeks - around 95% with July and August both being well over 110%. Strangely, residential ADSL sales have improved as the month went on and the last week of September will be the strongest week of the month - usually the last week in any month is the weakest for residential  ADSL sales. We will tidy up the plans for October by the end of today with most of the work already done and will then more closely monitor progress in the new initiatives better than was done in September.

I had a look at the ABS statistics yesterday:

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/6445F12663006B83CA256A150079564D?opendocument

which showed nothing unexpected (except perhaps for the decline in ADSL use by business and government). The ADSL decline becomes more apparent and the take up of wireless broadband continues strongly - you actually don't need the ABS statistics to understand those trends. So nothing of any real interest being shown other than the decline in government and business use of ADSL. Perhaps the jump from zero to 18,000 users of 100mbps or greater broadband explains this strange discrepancy - with larger business and government users installing large WANS based on major IP feeds to their various offices and scrapping ADSL connections in those locations? It seems more likely that a change of category is involved rather than business and government decreasing their internet usage.

Now that Telstra has 'launched' its LTE service quite widely and is offering almost realistic pricing it will be interesting to see whether that service does become a lower usage ADSL replacement. With Optus and Vodafone both planning to provide LTE services in 2012 any trend will be easier to see but I am sure that Telstra will take whatever advantage they can of the time in which they face no competition to create whatever momentum is available - despite the ill educated nay sayers stupid assertions about "wireless will never be a substitute for ADSL/fibre" - of course it will in the scenarios where it is beneficial. To what extent that happens - only time will tell.....but it will be significant in my opinion....for all the obvious reasons. If Telstra do in fact wholesale their LTE service then it will be really interesting to see what happens in 2012.

The only other line of the report that was of interest was the almost exponential growth in downloads over the 12 month period. I think there would be a higher level of 'doubt' about the reporting of these figures than any of the other figures but, if they are true, then it means that the average user now downloads almost 100% more today than they did 12 months ago - a startlingly large increase and disproportionate to US and EU figures. Clearly it means that internet users are downloading much more than they used to which, in turn means, the cost of providing an internet service has risen sharply over the past year because the cost of back haul has not moved down that much and IP costs have also not reduced by anything like that much. As, apart from Internode's, end user prices have not risen it would seem that margins for ISPs have declined over the past 12 months - and declined quite significantly. Again, nothing new about that.

So planning for the October month and the December quarter is pretty much a crapshoot. How lucky do you feel?

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

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John Linton

My holiday memories are fading fast having been back three days. The equivocal judgment in the iinet/AFACT law suit seems to have provided new hope for copyright holders with an entirely new 'group' contacting Exetel's lawyers in my absence and taking an entirely new approach (at least as far as I'm aware of) to the problems of internet users illegally downloading/uploading copyright material. Apparently a very popular pirated movie is something called "Kill The Irishman" the rights to which are owned by Lightening Entertainment in the USA but whose interests are being pursued by a Brisbane law firm in Australia who claim that this movie was the number one pirate target in May 2011.

They go on to say that they have a list of 9,000 Australian IPs of which 150 belong to Exetel (about right as a percentage of the market Exetel has) and they have enquired as to whether Exetel (and presumably other ISPs) can accept a subpoena from them requiring Exetel to provide the end user details of those end users at the time the illegal downloads were made. They aver, though our lawyers have yet to see the rationale, that they are legally able to require Exetel to provide this information which, first pass, it appears they are entitled to do as they claim to have a legitimate interest in requiring that information to pursue the alleged illegal down/uploaders loaders. We could, physically, comply with at least parts of such a subpoena provided the issuer paid any costs involved in providing the requested information and it will be interesting to see if there is a legal rationale for complying with such a demand. The lawyers acting for Lightening Entertainment claim to be certain of their rights to demand this information and our lawyers accept that it is almost certainly the case under 'standard' commercial Australian law. They will review the cited references but their opinion is that, subject to final validation, if a subpoena is issued then no company, Exetel or any other ISP has any option but to comply with it....assuming the information was actually avaialable....and there could obviously be some scenarios where such information would not exist at some future point in time under our processes and presumably any other ISP's processes.

A very different approach to the legal path taken by AFACT, and so ineptly defended by iinet, which attempted to make the ISP the 'guilty party' in illegal downloading of copyright material. Perhaps Lightening Entertainment has reached an agreement with AFACT along the lines of AFACT continuing to target ISPs and Lightening now targeting end users as has been the practice in the USA from what I know of the issue. The most interesting thing I found in their 'approach' was their request for IP records going back 12 months or more. This would allow them to issue one subpoena (assuming the law does in fact allow that) that covers 12 months plus of illegal downloading and thus allow them to take action against tens/hundreds of thousands of end users at a time on an ongoing basis. I obviously don't know what large ISPs such as Telstra Retail will do if such demands are legal in Australia - perhaps plead their records are not able to comply with the demand? It would be an interesting response for any ISP to take as it would call in to question the validity of how they actually bill their customers.

Only having been appraised of this situation yesterday evening I have no real idea as to what this new group has in mind (perhaps its a US extortion scam) but it seems to be likely to be 'real' and it seems to be properly thought through. What may or may not transpire from here is not possible, at least for me, to assess. However it will reduce the smugness felt by the more blatant of the illegal down loaders that they will never have to face up to the consequences of their actions....perhaps they will at some future time? If this group launch 9,000 individual law suits demanding money with menaces against Australian internet users in the not too distant future I think a lot of attitudes to illegal downloading will change.....if only by parents.

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

John Linton

There are only three days to go until the end of the September month and therefore the first quarter of the new financial year. It will be an above planned performance for Exetel which is always good to see. The ABS are due to publish their internet usage analysis later this morning and that will be interesting to see in terms of how wireless broadband is faring and how ADSL is changing. (given the claims by Telstra and TPG of new ADSL customers added over the past 6 - 12 months it will be interesting to see what the ABS figures show in terms of ADSL growth. If you add up all of the stated growth in ADSL customers made by those companies that publish them it will be interesting to see what those same companies have reported to the ABS - my bet is there will be a discrepancy - but then I hold deeply cynical views of what some companies publish in terms of their 'progress'.

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/6445F12663006B83CA256A150079564D?opendocument

Irrespective of what the ABS figures show we need to complete any revisions to our own plans by midnight Friday. Some progress was made yesterday and we will do much of the rest of the work by COB today in broad terms. Sales across most of our product offerings have 'kicked up' sharply over the last two days (as they do every month) and if the pattern repeats itself over the next three days we will get much closer to our month end targets than looked likely mid month. Even so, September will not be a good month and that remains the point to be considered - has business, at least for us, slowed down beyond September? As we are about to increase our expenditures and investments in more rapidly developing the business markets we address this is the key 'evidence' we need to determine.

We began 'Phase IV' of our development of residential support processes in ADSL yesterday when Steve returned to Colombo to ensure the new objectives are fully understood and that the necessary capabilities will be put in place to meet the new objectives. Essentially, and from the first customer call we received on February 21st 2004 we have taken the view that our responsibilities to our customers were to ensure that we delivered a full speed service to the boundary of their property and that any issues beyond that were the customer's responsibility. In those early days we extended that responsibility to having a "green light" on the modem if we had provided the modem. We have maintained that policy for the past seven and a half years and have measured our support 'performance' against that criterion for the whole of that time.

Over that time "CPE" (customer premises equipment) has changed dramatically from a simple modem connecting one basic computer to sophisticated routers connecting to multiple devices. The old modems were very simple devices with almost no/no capability of being screwed up by the end user. Today's routers can be extremely complicated with multiple ways an end user who over estimates their technical capabilities can render the whole device unusable by what they consider a simple configuration change. Despite the assertive "I have changed nothing at my end" the plain truth is that most 'sudden' losses of ADSL service are in fact entirely due to the customer actually making a change "at his end" that caused the loss of service. So we are now returning to the way we 'fixed' sudden service loss back in the day - we are going to first check that we can see data flow from the customer's line and then the CSR, with the support of Google, will help the customer reset his/her CPE back to factory standard which we expect will solve all of the "I haven't changed anything at my end" problems. This may also be used for users who claim they "suddenly" have got lower speeds than they used to have. This is not so simple because cabling does 'decay' over time and that sort of issue is notoriously hard to pin down - we'll see what happens.

The new goal for Exetel customer support is to fix all "no service" telephone support calls within the first call - with the exceptions of when we can see that there is no data flow to the customer's network boundary point in which case we will log a fault with the carrier. Now this may not sound very significant but in terms of 'customer satisfaction' it should make a quite considerable difference in helping parents whose children have meddled with the set up and when they couldn't remedy the mess they made not told anyone and averred to their parents that "it just stopped working". It will also help the slightly older children themselves who just lie to the CSR that "nothing's changed at our end - I am a highly competent user with years of experience in my job as "xxxxxx"" fix the problem they have caused themselves.

Well, that's the theory - it will be interesting to see what actually transpires.

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

John Linton

I got through yesterday before jet lag forced my eyes shut before 8 pm which was a bit of a nuisance. From what I saw and read in the preceding 15 or so hours business has appreciably slowed in the short time we have been away with even the banks talking about 'laying off' "thousands of employees" - just how tough does business have to be for banks to be reducing personnel? I called a few of my 'friends' in similar businesses to ours and the consensus was that business was 'iffy' in their first quarters with September being much slower than expected and worrying instability of order flows. So no comfort there....and likewise when I read the 'local' communications media for the first time in almost a month in any sort of detail. So a cursory assessment is that business is getting tougher in many respects in the Australian communications industry and in Australian business generally.....not entirely unexpected.

Exetel's first quarter will end up above targets thanks to very strong July and August results but September is very weak which is not the 'trend' you like seeing when you are considering some fairly heavy investments over the coming months. One day's 'snapshot' views via a severely jet-lagged mind are not definitive but it would be fair to say that I don't like the look of business conditions as I currently view them. All very well for the simplistic "when the going gets tough......" but things have been very tough for quite some time and give every indication of getting seriously tougher. So it is going to be a very interesting few months and I think it is likely to be a very unpleasant time for many companies in our industry and in Australian business generally.

However, ignoring the simplistic homilies, tough times are much better for smaller companies than large ones and even better for 'hands on managed' companies than board directed ones.....at least that's my observation over the years. Having said that we will need to review our current plans over the next few days to determine just what the recent sales results mean in the longer term and how we may need to re-direct our resources. Overall I don't see any need to change the strategies we have pursued for the past three years as, if anything, they appear even more correct now than when we first decided to pursue them....perhaps I need to reduce the strength of the rose tinting in my lenses? It is certainly not the time to take anything for granted.

Fortunately I think my jet lag is receding and I may be able to more clearly understand what will occur over the next few months. I need to examine the latest ABS figures in more detail and it may be time to have an over generous with the alcohol lunch with my favourite bank manager to get a much more in depth understanding of their views of where things are heading for businesses of our size and type. Then again, perhaps the predictions of our own data base reports will prove correct and Exetel has very little to worry about?

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

John Linton

......it isn't a simple transition from three weeks of enjoyable holidays.....at least it isn't for me.

I coped marginally better with the effects of jet lag over night but still feel as though my mind is comprised of cotton wool with a dull head ache and a slight tinnitus - none of which are conducive to meeting my colleagues after a three week absence let alone contributing sensibly to the conversations about how the business is faring and what changes we need to make over the next few days to make achieving next quarter's targets more probable. So it was with some reluctance that I got out of bed an hour or so earlier than is my normal practice earlier this morning.

A key item to be addressed is moving the Sri Lankan operation from the end times of 'Phase III' to the beginnings of 'Phase IV'. In general terms this means removing the remainder, and there is relatively little, of the "do as the Australian imposed 'blue print' tells you to do in every circumstance" and now do what your experience, skill and knowledge tells you are the best things to do in the ever changing circumstances in which you find yourself. Steve will be in Colombo this week to make a 'formal' start to these processes in the event that there ever can be a "formal" start. Brendon will return from Colombo today having spent the past two weeks preparing the various people for this set of procedural and process changes in operations in Colombo that must now change to explaining why so much of the day to day activities now need to reach a new level of customer satisfaction - and how that might be accomplished and over what sort of time frame - not an easy assignment.

The second key item is to review the plans for making some very significant changes to the ways we address the small/medium business marketplaces and how to develop an 'alliance' to now build on the progress we have made in those areas over the past almost three years. We have roughly met the quarter by quarter targets we set at this time in 2008 - and in some ways have exceeded most of them. We could just continue the way we are going which has been quite successful to date and as I mentioned the business sales force we are building made a little over 150 sales in August - a very notable achievement. The issue that confronts us now is how to accelerate the growth in this area of our business and just how fast that growth can be accelerated from its current rate. Our original objective was to build this operation to achieve 400 new sales per month by the end of calendar 2012 and then see how possible it might be to more than double that number by the end of calendar 2014. Such aims are very, very ambitious but the initial objective of growing our small/medium corporate business to 150 sales in a month was achieved roughly within the original time frame and, in many ways, building all the things required to do that was far more difficult than the issues we now face.

So it is going to be a busy week with the review of the current quarter's results and how we might need to change the next quarter's targets also being of a very high priority. I can feel the beneficial effects of the holiday already receding and it's not yet 7 am.

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

John Linton

.......lead to easily predictable scenarios....unless you are a slow thinker.

It's far too early in the morning to be writing a blog but jet lag is not something that you can just 'will' away. I am using the time forced upon me to try and make sense of what effects, if any, the increasing uncertain financial situations around the world may have on our company and its immediate competitors and, perhaps more importantly, its suppliers. Not having any expertise at all in any area of international finance or trade or anything else doesn't help nor do the various contradictions in the various analyses of the few writers I have tended to rely on over the years. Nevertheless I have tried to determine what is happening in the areas of the markets in which we operate as part of the first quarter results we are about to conclude next weekend.

The results we will achieve for the first three months of this financial year will be OK - slightly up on what we would have thought was a reasonable achievement but characterised by a strong July, a very strong August and a disappointingly weak September. October, November and December have, in the past, been very strong months for Exetel but the weak September is a concern in that context. So in these early hours of Sunday morning the various daily figures for September so far are indicating a slowing of the growth achieved in the two previous months almost across the board in terms of residential services and from the little I can gather from our supplier's 'movements' it would seem quite likely that they are experiencing similar trends - though that is based on supposition rather than fact of course.

Of more concern to me, hence the initial references to the uncertain state of so many of the developed world's economies, is whether the weaker than predicted September residential order figures for us are directly related to the increasing layoffs around commercial Australia and the general weakening in overall demand or are due to particular lack of action by us or increased actions by our competitors? I doubt that the reporting we currently have in place is anything like sophisticated enough to provide any sensible base for deriving an answer to that question but I have spent some of Saturday and now the small hours of Sunday morning trying to form some sort of sensible, and helpful, view. On balance it does seem to me that the current 'softening' is at least being influenced by financial pressures in the residential markets in which we operate and given the semi consensus of financial analyst's predictions that does constitute a concern for the coming few months.

I think I am more inclined to the view that the overall residential market is weakening (at least for almost all providers except for Telstra and possibly TPG) due to the personnel layoffs within our suppliers and some of the more obviously over staffed competitors which is the surest indicator of results not being what were expected. It seems that the 'accountants' are more in charge of many communications company's decision making at the moment with 'marketing/sales' voices significantly muted. Not exactly an Earth shattering conclusion given that uncertain financial times always result in financial conservatism and a more knowledgeable person than me would have simply started from such an obvious premise.

Over the days between now and midnight next Friday we will need to re-look at our current assumptions and then reach a set of decisions on how we proceed into the second quarter of this financial year. However, unless something changes we will need to take a more conservative view that we are currently taking in terms of investments and expenditures. Lucky the last three weeks have been so pleasant and reviving.

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

John Linton

....it isn't "really good to be home".....and I doubt that anyone ever feels that way after a really good holiday.

We had an uneventful trip home with a bonus of arriving at 6.30pm instead of 6.30 am which meant that no other flights arrived at the same time and immigration and customers were deserted and the lazy and totally inefficient baggage transfer crews had no other aircraft to deal with and our bags arrived almost immediately...so within 'minutes' we were heading home in only slightly congested Southern Cross Drive traffic. A novel experience from the 6.30 am Sydney airport nightmares. So - back to work after an only mildly jet lag disrupted night.I wondered what this might eventually turn out to mean:

http://www.zdnet.com.au/telstra-confirms-it-will-wholesale-3g-339322793.htm

or more correctly what Telstra "wholesale" would now begin to do in a possible separated world. What possible reason for being will Telstra "wholesale" have in the event that there is some sort of 'NBN2' after the next Federal election?  Will anyone be buying "wholesale" services from Telstra for any meaningful length of time beyond a coalition win at the next election - irrespective of what that results in? From one point of view any 'good' that has come from the de-regulation of the telecommunications market since 1992 has been removed in the current federal governments unseemly, and uneducated, haste to render any bite the ACCC might have once had useless and a 'freed' Telstra has already returned to the 'old ways' of eliminating any competition where it has any ability at all to do so.

That is not a particularly bad thing as over the past two years this has had to be achieved via price cutting to end users while it attempts to re-monopolise those parts of the residential markets it had, temporarily, lost its grip on. But having badly damaged its ADSL competitors it will not have such constraints in the future and it will simply return to shutting off access to competitors that wish to use it's structures - and, as an unreserved 'free trader' I see nothing wrong with that. So I found the cited article interesting if only for its naivete and stupidity. Does anone seriously think that Telstra will provide "real wholesale" pricing for 4G mobile any more than it provides "real wholesale" pricing for any other product? If you do then perhaps you need to change your medication for something less mind transforming.

Mind you if you swallow the "it will take six months" to do something that requires no thought at all beyond whatever "thinking" has been done to make the decision not to "wholesale" the service for the past (pick your time frame) then perhaps lowering your meds won't help. If I was a conspiracy theorist, which I'm not by any definition of that term, I would say that the only reason that Telstra would wholesale a high speed mobile service should be taken in the context of the strange clause in the "break up agreement" that forbids Telstra from "advertising its high speed mobile service in competition with the 'NBN2'. Does that make me sound like a conspiracy theorist when all I am attempting to do is to say that a "wholesaled" Telstra high speed mobile service will be as effective in generating competition as a currently "wholesaled" Telstra ADSL2 or PSTN service....totally ineffective.

Perhaps I am completely wrong, again, but then I haven't had to think about such nonsenses for three weeks and to begin to read the Australian communications media again after such a long absence does come as a depressing 'shock'....plus ca change........

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

John Linton

We again broke our journey to and from Europe in Singapore in a not very successful attempt to minimise the jet lag affects and to escape the boredom of 24 hours of sitting in an aircraft's passenger seats for almost a day. I remain amazed at the efficiencies of Singapore generally and their airport procedures in particular - within 20 minutes of our aircraft doors opening we were in a taxi heading to our hotel. The majority of that 20 minutes being taken up by a brisk walk from the gate to immigration which again had no queue and our bags were on the carousel within a minute or two of reaching it - no queue for a taxi either. Despite the preparations (many road closures) for the Grand Prix on Sunday we reached our hotel without much delay.

Singapore, like Tokyo, is a very, very clean city with very impressive buildings (including the bizarrely designed new casino) and the other buildings being built in that area of the city. The only 'strange' experience was our inability to find a Laksa for dinner either in the hotel's cafe or in the food court of the adjoining shopping mall. Perhaps Singaporeans are becoming too sophisticated in their culinary tastes because the majority of the food outlets were Japanese, Korean or 'Formosan' (Taiwanese). So we settled for eating Chinese in the hotel's restaurant which was of exceptional quality and a different taste experience to any thing I have had in the past. Apart for a haircut (for me) and a drink in one of the hotel's bars watching the last half of the South Africa v Namibia match that was all we had time for in the 16 hours we were in Singapore.

As we get closer to home, Australian issues become more dominant in my thinking and I read some of the communications 'news' from the Australian media while we were in Singapore. Not that there was much but I realised that I needed to get my head around what little there was that I could understand. Perhaps it's the perspective engendered by three weeks of complete absence from the Australian communications and business media but I couldn't help but get the impression that the 'news' I read was largely an invention of the various commentators responsible for writing the various items. After a little over an hour the sum total of the 'news' was that nothing at all had happened but that many tens of thousands of words had been written about that lack of events. Perhaps that is always the way but I just don't notice.

The business news, unlike the 'communications news' does seem to have changed and the direction of change seems unequivocally clear - it appears to be very definitely 'fin de cycle'....the cycle being in this case not a century but the experiments with social democracy as epitomised by the Greek situation where taxes are not adequate to pay either pensions or any thing else in their 'social benefit programs'.....and the same problem was evident in the UK and France based on the media reportings while we were in those countries. No-one, at least no-one with a realistic view of life generally can ever argue with the aims of social democracy but equally evidently no-one has ever found a way of delivering those aims. It appears to me that human genetic makeup can never be reconciled with human social aspirations - we are an irretrievably selfish and warlike species with no real hope of ever delivering on social democracy manifestos.

Despite great men like Wilberforce et alia humanity depends on an Hitlerian 'underclass' and no legislative process appears to be able to change that, self evident, situation.

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

John Linton

....and ending a really enjoyable 3 weeks holiday.

Sadly, I am typing this entry from Heathrow waiting for our flight to Singapore where we will break our trip home for 16 hours. We have had a great time over the past 21 days and have managed to get rid of the sheer exhaustion that playing a part in running a commercial enterprise in difficult times tends to induce. I sometimes do not enjoy time spent in London but this time it was better than usual. Perhaps because of the mother/grown up daughter moments that happened - that would certainly have contributed - but why it was more enjoyable overall I can't put my finger on. It certainly wasn't the weather which remained cool with frequent showers of rain but then if you visit London with any other expectation you are very optimistic.

While Annette and Catherine were spending much of the morning doing last minute shopping (what remained to be purchased after devoting most of the previous three days to that activity beats me) I did some shopping of my own. I did in fact buy myself a 'soldier' after browsing the multitudinous offerings for a solid 30 minutes. I couldn't find what I wanted (a peninsular war rifleman from the Howards - the pleasant shop owner said the demand these days was for Waterloo regiments with a scattering of interest in Rorke's Drift, Afghanistan and the Napoleonic adventures in Africa). So I finally decided on a mounted Saracen with a lance (as opposed to a scimitar which was never used while mounted despite many Hollywood epics attempts to ignore historical accuracy for photographic horse fighting). It is exquisitely detailed in terms of moulding and in the hand painting of every aspect of facial features, clothing and, of course, horse trappings. So a simmering resentment of the financial inadequacies of my parents and favourite and indulgent aunt have finally been quietened after almost 60 years.

I met up with Annette for a cup of coffee and a final visit to Hatchards where the depth and breadth of the book stocks and the knowledge of the staff remain an oasis of tranquility in a non-reading world. We bought the new Robert Harris and a couple of recently published signed first editions and reluctantly left before we had to buy a new suitcase to put a tenth of every thing else we were tempted to buy. It must be a candidate for the top ten bookshops on the planet. I am sure I would read more if there was a good bookshop in Sydney....but as the book shop owners tell me when I ask for some book I am particularly interested in - "there just isn't the demand".

So now we are back in the tender hands of Singapore airlines which even at the godforsaken and run down Terminal 3 at Heathrow reduce to nothing the inconvenience of a four hour wait for our flight (I must fire the PA that decided 6.30 pm without a late hotel check out was a sensible way to end a pleasant trip - though given her marital status that might pose some difficulties). Annette is looking very well and the mirror tells me I am very relaxed so perhaps I can do some real work when I return to work next Monday. I hope this restored level of re-invigoration lasts beyond the first morning.

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

John Linton

As I previously mentioned, Annette and I went to see the new Peter Nunn version of The Tempest last night. It was at the Theatre Royal in the Haymarket which is a 10 minute walk from our hotel which was very convenient. Annette is not a big fan of theatre generally, and Shakespeare in particular, and I am very demanding and have scarcely seen one play every five or so years because of that impatience and the general appalling low standard of Sydney theatrical productions - in fact we have walked out of most plays we have seen in Australia in living memory well before the first interval. If the tickets hadn't been bought by our children as a father's day gift and were so expensive (they were very good seats) we would never have gone.

So we arrived at the theatre early and Annette was horrified to 'see' that the play lasted four hours (she was mis-reading the program notes referring to the four hour time span of the play's action time frame) and only slightly less alarmed when she confirmed the actual length as being three hours with a theatre employee. So we found our seats and almost precisely on time (without the usual curtain going up/house lights going out) Ralf Fiennes walked on to the stage and 90 minutes later it was interval. It was an amazingly engrossing 'production' from the opening ship wreck through the 'flying' sprite scenes and the dramatic and humorous interactions of a thoroughly skilled and committed cast. The second act was equally enthralling  and we walked home discussing what we had seen and, for the first time since we have been away, were too 'awake' to go to bed until well after midnight. A wonderful night.

This morning we went to the National Gallery and saw the usual 'old favourites' (unless there are incredible co-incidences of 'programming' it seems to me that the same paintings are there every time I have been since I was first taken some six decades ago (Constable's Hay Wain and Turner's Fighting Temeraire Going To Her Final Rest etc) but it it still an overwhelming display - 100s and 100s of six centuries of the 'cream' of European painting. We spent the rest of the morning finding our way to Hamley's (still the best toy shop in the world after 250 years) and browsing over the six floors with the excuse of looking for presents but really, at least in my case, having yet another trip down memory lane when visiting Hamleys in mid December, more often than not it was snowing, and hot chestnut sellers had real charcoal braziers out side on Regent Street providing fresh roasted nuts in small paper cones.

We will have dinner with Catherine and her boy friend this evening and then do some final chores tomorrow before getting an evening flight to Singapore. It has been a god trip to London this time - perhaps nostalgia affects you more as you get older and you find more to enjoy than when rushing around 'seeing the sights' that you have seen many times and provide no new thrills they did when they were 'fresher'.

I might go back to The Armoury tomorrow morning and buy myself a model figure I always longed for as a small boy.

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

John Linton

.........which would be what a package tour trip itinerary would say in the event we were on a package tour.

We got up late (a habit that's going to be hard to break when we get back to Australia) and strolled a 150 meters or so to the Royal Academy's Degas exhibition which consisted of dozens and dozens of drawings, water colours, one or two oils and many of his most famous sculptures in a dazzling display spread over half a dozen or so of their upstairs display rooms. There was a lot to see and it wasn't really crowded (unlike Sydney and Canberra's exhibitions) so we were able to spend the best part of two hours seeing all of the exhibits properly. It was the first time I have seen Degas' work in perspective and it was very instructive. I was tempted to buy a copy of his most famous sculpture which, at least to me, seemed very reasonably priced but the logistics were far too complicated.

After that uplifting experience we returned to mundanity with Annette returning to Oxford Street to renew her wardrobe replenishment program and I had a leisurely stroll round St James and Piccadilly wishing I had the sort of annual income that those precincts cater to. I did visit a couple of shops from my boyhood (one that sells hand carved and painted military figures and one where I got my first pairs of 'real shoes' when I went to prep school) and clearly remembered the first times I had visited them. I never did get a figure from The Armoury when I was a child (way out of my father's discretionary spending power - at least on his children) and I almost bought one today but decided it was many decades too late. London has beautiful shops - even for a disinterested male.

We met up for a late, light lunch sans alcohol because my children had clubbed together to buy Annette and I tickets to the National's new production of 'The Tempest' directed by the RSC's great(est) Trevor Nunn and with Ralph Fiennes in the lead part and Nunn's latest 'discovery' playing Miranda. It is a spectacular play in its construction and should be wonderful in Nunn's execution so we are really looking forward to seeing it later this evening. I haven't seen a Nunn interpretation of Shakespeare since his mind blowing 'Midsummer Night's Dream' more than 40 years ago when he was 'the latest young director' to re-interpret many of the theatre's great plays. I used to love the theatre, going to see many plays and acting, directing and writing in various amateur drama groups in Melbourne - however since that time we go to virtually nothing and certainly don't participate.

We were going to visit the National Gallery after lunch but were discouraged by the showers of rain and the likelihood of it becoming more intense - there's always tomorrow for that and a visit to the British Library which we both enjoy. It is a strange experience to see and read the original Magna Carta or one of the original 4th century CE manuscripts of the New Testament (Codex Sinaiticus - it must drive the Bible literalists in to a real tizzy to see the amendments and erasures in the dictated "word of God"). I did have to do some work for the first time in three weeks which I preferred to get out of the way before it began to 'prey' on what's left of my mind and an afternoon lounging about on comfortable furniture as the sky darkens and the rain taps more insistently on the rooms windows is not an unpleasant way of spending an hour or so. So we again 'wasted' the afternoon reading the papers and chatting in the hotel and beginning to prepare for returning to the real world in a couple of day's time.

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John Linton

.....for shopping, theatre and all sorts of other things.

We sadly said goodbye to the French Horn after a 'hearty breakfast' and dropped our rental car back at the Heathrow return point without losing our way more than twice. The person who 'inspected' the car didn't bother to do that simply waving us through after noting the mileage. We got to our new hotel just off Piccadilly before check in time so we had a cup of coffee in the hotel lounge while waiting for Catherine who was meeting us for lunch on her way back from Amsterdam where she had spent Friday and Saturday.

She eventually got to our hotel and we strolled down Piccadilly and up Swallow Street to have our 'traditional' fish lunch at Bentleys - where I have been eating half a dozen oysters and a Dover Sole ever since being first taken there by my father in the early 1950s as an exeat treat. Annette and I have been going there since we first had a holiday in the UK more than 30 years ago and it still serves the best oysters and fish in England as far as I can judge.The fish was delicious and super fresh and we chatted on over a half of 'oyster stout' and a nice bottle of white.

We caught up with Catherine's adventures in sin city and then parted ways - the females to look for a winter coat for Catherine and I dropped in to Hatchards (the best book shop in the world although commercialised these days) on the way back to the hotel. I have been going to Hatchards since before I reached double figures in age and still can spend any amount of time there - on this occasion almost two hours. Clearly reading is a dying pass time which accounts for the lack of quality book shops but Hatchards survives on the same site since first opening there just over 200 years ago. I got as much pleasure from browsing there today as I did on my first visit nearly sixty years ago.

As I had the first time 'alone' since we left Australia I whiled away the late afternoon and early evening  trying to catch up on the communication 'news' from Australia - without much success. Nothing much seems to have happened other than Internode's 'cleaning up' process before trying to take itself 'public' or selling to someone else generating the usual pig ignorant comments from the Australian 'media'. It is obvious the 'media' still don't know the difference between revenue and value or a casual statement and an audited set of results. Nothing will ever change that I suppose. The only other thing that caught my eye was the comments on Telstra's proposed revision of their ADSL2 wholesale pricing - couched in the usual hysterical and inaccurate terms. However the most risible 'announcement was this one:

http://www.smh.com.au/business/iinet-all-wired-up-for-broadband-20110918-1kfy2.html

I will shortly have to return to reality and was saddened by what I read - who would actually make a decision to become involved in residential communication provisioning if they had a choice? At least I feel slightly physically and mentally stronger than when I left and therefore more capable and competent to make the tough decisions that now appear to be inevitable. However, that is still a few days away which means I can enjoy myself for a day or so longer before having to deal with the inane stupidities that are the Australian residential communications business........waiter - make that a double!

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ABN 350 979 865 46

John Linton

....if Sonning counts as rurality.

We shared half a large sheep for dinner last night (a bit of an exaggeration but indicative of English pub cooking portions) and therefore slept very soundly. The weather forecast for our last day of our trip round the Cotswolds and Chilterns was very iffy and when we woke up the sky was different shades of grey so we decided to play it safe and only go as far as Henley in the morning which, when I was a boy, used to be a pretty Thames side large village only remarkable for the annual regatta and the diamond skulls. Today it is more of a commercialised town but with enough of the original buildings and a Saturday street market for Annette to see what it once might have been.

We left the car at the long term parking on the fringe and walked through Henley and then down to the banks of the Thames on both sides of the river pausing between quite heavy showers. We admired the regatta viewing points and the wide grasslands on the right bank and also the collection of water craft plying this part of the Thames - narrow boats, gin palaces, rowing eights, fours and a couple of single scullers and two magnificent restored Edwardian steam 'yachts' now converted to tourist viewing platforms visiting various points along the Thames between Henley, Marlowe and Maidenhead. They were magnificently restored and maintained and made a great show. More than can be said for the town itself which was grubby and run down in places with third rate shops and a strange melange of people that didn't seem relevant in an English small town.

As the rain threatened to get heavier, and the temperature dropped markedly, we returned to our hotel after a couple of hours and explored the banks of the Thames around Sonning seeing three Grey Herons on separate occasions but otherwise getting very wet. So we called it a day and ate a leisurely sandwich lunch in front of the fire in the main bar while we dried out and smelled the aroma of roasting ducks on the spits on ether side of the fire. The chat around the big bar was about the rugby which had recently finished with much jubilation that Ireland had beaten Australia - apparently everyone has some Irish blood in them though I would have thought, at least from their accents, that everyone in that bar, except us, was English....we spoke very quietly.

During the afternoon the rain got progressively heavier and we were forced to abandon any thought of further exercise and were forced to while away the afternoon finishing a bottle of wine and chatting about nothing important at all and reading the review sections of the Saturday papers by the fire. I detest most newspapers as fiction and propaganda fed to the unintelligent as news but I think the literary/arts review sections of the better (if there is such a thing any more) UK press as the last bastion of intelligent writing in the world's media. So we 'wasted' our last afternoon in the English countryside but we talked about the highlights of the trip to date and recalled how much we have learned and how enjoyable it has been.....I think that is what English country pubs have always been able to induce in the people who wander in to them.

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John Linton

For the first time in as long as I can remember during time on these trips the only internet service I can connect to is failing and I am typing this courtesy of Cindy at ibahn going the 100% customer service route and providing a temporary connection via patching to my physical address on the hotel's network as their credit card processing is screwed. (customer service is alive and well in some suppliers - she was brilliant and I will send a letter to her manager when I get internet back). The temporary connection will drop out in 20 minutes or so but in the mean time I will post the day's 'activities' which revolved around turning an hour trip down the motorway in to a five and a half hour trip via various villages using B roads. Although it took so long we saw more of the beautiful country with their views and vistas and more of the delightful architecture.

One of the highlights was noticing a bird sanctuary in the middle of nowhere where we were the only visitors. The oldish lady told us it came about when she began taking in unwanted birds (predominantly ducks and chickens) from her neighbours. She now has over 600 ducks, chickens, mice, gerbils, rabbits, cage birds and even two peacocks, an emu, two gigantic pigs, four Shetland ponies, three donkeys  and several other species I have forgotten. The total personnel are her son and herself and she sells what birds and animals she can to help make ends meet. The world needs more people like this nice woman. We spent an hour or so walking round her 20 or so acres and gave her a small donation at the end of the surprising visit - I didn't let Annette buy a baby rabbit.

We visited four more Cotswold villages on our way to the French Horn at Sonning and stopped for lunch at a pub found in the usual way. So we didn't get to our hotel until well after 4 pm but it was good to return. Everything looked and felt the same and we had the room down the corridor from the one we previously stayed in in the same layout. The menu also seemed to be unchanged with same innocuous sounding dishes giving no indication of their gargantuan sizes. We had a brief walk down the river Thames to get rid of the car cramps and will attempt to do something 'useful' tomorrow.

So, what we have have managed to see of the Cotswolds in two days has allowed us to develop a desire to spend more time here on some future visit - if that is possible. September is a good time to visit because the 'tourist season' has finished and the schools have finished their holidays with the result that although all the villages are very busy they are now sanely so according to several locals with whom we struck up chance conversations (usually by Annette admiring their dogs - particularly a Lurcher called Dorothy). We were advised to visit in late April or early May or alternatively from late September to mid November after which snow and ice becomes a problem.

I did try to look at something other than email before typing this entry - but what could I do? I have used up my allotted time....I don't even regret having no access......I must have been away too long.

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John Linton

....apart from all the other places.

We had a late breakfast which is an indulgence that I would like to be part of my 'every day life' before setting out on a day of village hopping around our hotel home base (selected for that reason - that there were a lot of villages in the immediate area that had claims to  "the prettiest village in the Cotswolds" - one even claiming to be "the Venice of the Cotswolds"). After six plus hours during which we visited six different villages and a local monument I can confirm that so many small towns and villages in this area of the Cotswolds are unbelievably beautiful and architecturally fascinating.

In the 'beauty contest' it was too close to call with Stow-on-the-Wold being our favourite small market town  closely followed by Chipping Campden in the 'town contest' with Stanton and Stanway tying for prettiest village. It takes quite a time to understand that the majority of the buildings in many of these villages have their origins in the 11th century with buildings used and/or inhabited today that were originally built in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries still being used for the same purposes today as they were six or seven hundred years ago. Not only do they still look beautiful to 'modern eyes' but they are built so well there is little sign of repair or 'improvement' on the outside. Doubtless modern plumbing and electricity and gas have been added over the past 150 or so years but externally they appear unchanged.

We admired so many pubs in so many villages from the outside (drinking was a no no because I was driving except for test half pint of local cider that served to confirm that you should only drink cider in Somerset) and lost count of the number of them that could trace their origins back 700 plus years. They were all beautiful to me and I am a fairly prosaic person when it comes to arts and crafts architectural styles. The other major impact was the aroma of baking - in every village and small town we visited. We were very strong but we did try a sausage roll each and later in the day split a pastie/pasty. Both were delicious and you could have had your pick of baking in any place you stopped. Because the Cotswolds are a major tourist destination every cafe (of which there were many per town/village) appeared to be constantly full and combined the aromas of fish and chips and roast lunches with omnipresent aroma of freshly baked bread and other bakery items.

I think the record was in Bourton-on-the-Water where in one small village 'high street' we counted 31 cafes and 11 pubs - and that was ignoring the residential hotels of which there were some magnificent examples - the AA stars plastered around the walls would have been enough for a small constellation. The driving was pretty easy with only a few one track roads (between the strangely named villages of Upper and Lower Slaughter) and no alarms and excursions by being confronted by speeding on coming traffic. So we have 'done the Cotswolds' and will move back closer to London tomorrow to a place we stayed at two trips ago at Sonning on Thames where we enjoyed ourselves so much we promised we would go back which is very unusual for us.

I am sure there are lots of exciting things going on in the Australian telecommunications industry but I just can't find the time to read about them at the moment.

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