Shortly I am going to visit two disaster areas in Turkey. One, following in my Grandfather's footsteps of a 100 years ago to the battlefield of Gallipoli was quite intentional, the other accidental, as five days of planned sun and sea coincides with the mass migration of desperate Syrians crossing the Aegean Sea to the nearest Greek Islands.

The general tone of this board tonight, with one notable exception, has echoed the rather somber sense that grappling with the issues at the heart of both these events engenders. I truly understand the pain people are feeling and as Mack knows I too struggled with what was a very positive News Report regarding Anadigics yet was left feeling flat about it.

The reason for our gloom is that none of us like being left in the dark grasping at straws and living on the chinks of light penetrating our self imposed cells. Or in the more earthy language of my old platoon 'Sir, we're mushrooms - kept in the dark and fed on shit'.

There is no remedy but to accept that life contains pain - it's how you deal with it that matters. Ask any one of those Syrians why they accept the extreme depravation and danger of their decisions and they will tell you about hope for something new in their lives and their determination to reach it.

That's a challenging analogy, perhaps inappropriate even but nevertheless its a lesson in the human condition. Hope conquers all.

Our hope for our investment should not be diminished by one iota by the current SP gloom. The fundementals remain strong and management has comitted to make an explanation of their plans to us on the 30th.

One lesson to be learned in the process of problem solving is to determine whether the simple passage of time is the solution. Sometimes time is needed for the full facts to emerge before making the right decisions. Our current gloomy problem is one such example.

I'm sorry to miss much of the fun but poor Turkish wifi puts DNWL and I mostly out of touch for some time. So do buck up and get a grip of yourselvess to give us both the good news that we need when we return to lift us from our particular disaster areas experience.

Sula