mike carey

It might be the first, certainly the first I've seen during this crisis. Airline Virgin Australia has gone into voluntary administration yesterday. That's analogous to US Chapter 11 (I don't know precisely how that works so I'm not sure how close it is), with an external administrator brought in to run the company rather than the company management being allowed to continue. The airline had been signalling that it needed help of the order of $1.4b since flight restrictions began, but its shareholders (Branson; Singapore and Etihad Airlines; and a couple of Chinese investment funds) have been unable or unwilling to provide any funds. The Australian government had also declined to provide any funds, either as a loan or an equity injection. It does, however, have an interest in retaining a second major carrier in the country, so will assist in some way in the process that has just begun. The administrator will continue to operate the airline (for the time being on a vastly reduced scale), retain its staff and assets, and basically try to sell it as a going concern. The restructure will wipe out the existing owners' equity and probably eliminate much of the airline's debt. Any new owners will probably be required to operate the airline and not be permitted to asset strip it and close it down. The airline management, the administrator and the government are all confident that the firm will be restructured and be ready to continue operations after the crisis. Apparently there are already 10 expressions of interest, but the administrator is very tight lipped about them, not even being prepared to reveal whether any of them are foreign airlines. Although the process of restructuring and sale could well be completed fairly quickly, the recovery of the airline industry in the country will be much slower. The progress of the epidemic in Australia is looking positive, and the prospect of domestic aviation opening up here, and across the Tasman where New Zealand is on a similar Covid-19 trajectory, is reasonably positive. The prospect of international passenger aviation resuming in any meaningful way is much less clear. Nobody is confident that travel from Australia to anywhere except New Zealand will resume before the end of the year. Virgin's international presence was quite small, operating its own metal to only a few destinations (one of those is the US, where it has a partnership with Delta), but it covers other international destinations with code shares on Singapore, Etihad and South African (that I know of). The administrator gave an interview on ABC radio this morning and the presenter asked him about the travel credits that the airline currently holds (swollen by all the cancellations of the last two months) and whether they were at risk. His view was that they probably weren't, mainly because honouring them would be one key to retaining and even enhancing customer loyalty. Of course, any potential buyer would be able to factor that contingent liability into their offer price. One other issue, that was a concern to me, is their frequent flyer program, but they sent an email to program members yesterday. The program is run by a separate Virgin owned company, and its points liability is covered by cash in a trust account. How secure that is, I am not sure. The email said that they are confident of continuing to operate, and hope to continue their relationship with the airline.

I went to the closest grocery shop today (Woolworths, that's the Australian version of Countdown, @azdr0710) rather than the one I used last week, no line (but they had set up the witchs' hats and tape to mark it by the time I'd finished), no hand sanitiser at the door, but they had a staff member wiping down the baskets and another handing them to customers at the entrance. Also no one-way aisles, but people were very good at distancing. And, drum roll, I bought a large flat white (coffee) to drink on the walk home, and with the chocolate éclairs I bought in the grocery shop. I feel better now.

I've looked at the FT charts and occasionally scan-read the threads their author posts in Twitter. Today I've read a bit more closely and he is really thorough, looking in great detail at a variety of trends in the statistics. I'm about to go back in a minute and go down a few of the rabbit burrows there. A couple of things, he explains why he (along with other reporting on the epidemic) uses logarithmic scales on the y-axes of charts (it's in a video), and why cases and deaths per million people is not of much value in analysing things. He also does a dive down and looks at regional statistics (for over 100 regions) for a different perspective than that provided by national figures. There's a lot of stuff there, and there's some intelligent discussion in the comments (some asking why he does things, when he had already said why in the thread, but this is Twitter). [MEDIA=twitter]1252696929244413959[/MEDIA]

Why don't you start making ... Oh, never mind!

You keep saying BRIE, but the Wiki article you posted earlier was about BREI. I know I live upside down on the other side of the world where toilets drain the other way*, but I am confused. Spoiler: They don't.

Maybe he means a case of 24 for like $48?

If you enjoy Hilary Mantel's books, she was also the presenter of the BBC Reith Lectures a couple of years ago. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08vkm52/episodes/player The ABC, BBC and CBC have similar lecture series every year (the Boyer, Reith and Massey lectures respectively). They are well worth taking the time to listen to.

On my to do list.

Mullets are not acceptable even in private.

Yes (having checked Wiki), they both did. Mary was a daughter of James II & VII and William's mother was a daughter of Charles I, so Mary had the higher claim.

That's be my choice. I haven't watched the series but I've seen heaps over the years of him hosting TV series to know that he would have been fascinating to chat with. The IRA made a gross error of judgment.

Exercise is allowed here but not gyms, and trainers are only permitted to do one-on-one training.

Cafes here are generally open for takeaway coffee.

For you the risk is probably minimal, for him a little higher. As long as you don't hug, it seems to me not to be a great risk.

Comparatively, we're doing really well, but we're about to go into winter and nobody knows how seasonal the virus will be. Except Donald Trump, and he knows everything. We have lockdowns that will go for at least another month. Only essential trips out of the house, but shopping and exercise count. Restaurants and cafes are closed for sit down customers but takeaway and delivery is allowed, including wine from licensed premises. A lot of food outlets are being really creative. Schools are open but universities are not, but both are encouraging on-line learning rather than have students attend in person. Canberra is fairly liberal in what you can do, and the police haven't issued any fines, they've just told people what the rules are. Australia has 6.5K cases and 71 deaths, and the trend is down. Here in the Capital Territory (population c400K) we haven't had any new cases in the last six days and we've only had 103 cases and three deaths.

Still warmer than the 19 or 20 degrees here in Canberra the last few days. (That's Celsius.)

Perish the thought!

Have you tried a cucumber?

In the still shot I wondered what was going on here with the strawberry underneath the animal. The video reveals all. There's a pouch joey. [MEDIA=twitter]1251776915955843073[/MEDIA]

It'll be fine.

In this time of isolation, nice, @jjkrkwood

Yes, I get why chains like Sizzler and Arby's set up, what I don't understand is why so many small operations feel the need to set up three, four or fifty outlets rather than just run a single restaurant and make a living. Either go national or stay local.

Yes, that would be a good idea, and perhaps even work out how to post it in a 'quotation box'. That would be good..

This is something that still perplexes me, even though I should be used to it. Why would a place set up outlets with the same name in cities that were remote to each other? There are very few 'chain' restaurants in Australia, the fast food chains, and some coffee and chocolate places but for the most part restaurants are 'one off'. Even related restaurants tend to be named differently, if a chef heads three or four they would have different names. Even within Canberra a Malaysian restaurant I love has an affiliated restaurant with a different name in another suburb.