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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