E-mail from and then to Uncle Tim

Good morning All; I hope this finds you well and thriving. Firstly, please note new e mail address; please ditch the bt internet one. I was getting too many mix ups with TimDOTbradbury (the one who rowed the Atlantic and lives in Burgh by Sands, but who refuses to forward me my e mails while I religiouly forward those meant for him). Mum; Rob or Judith will be able to show you how to delete this old e mail address from your contact list, and ensure that this new email address is the default one for me. But it's easier meantime just to hit the 'reply' button. My Enquest e mail stays alive - well for the next couple of years until I retire, anyway! Things very slow here in Tunis. We are ready to contract a drilling rig at $250,000/day for the next 12 months, but can’t because our purchase deal of the Swedish company, PA Resouces, is not done, and neither party is willing to commit without deal completion. Same for long lead delivery items needed for the well construction; can't commit to purchase until deal done. Deal completion dependant on govt approval ; but govt is in turmoil still, following the revolution. Prime minister tendered his resignation and finally stepped out of the chair two weeks ago. New consitituon was voted in late January, and the new prime minister has formed an interim government, with full elections later this year. But much talk of the fiscal regime for oil & gas development being made more challenging, with a lower profit allowance for the oil companies; which will make lots of companies cut and run, and leave the state to fund any developments , which they can't do coz they don't have the money. Our deal with PA needs to be agreed by parliament, hence the delays. Consequently our 2014 work programme looking very iffy. If the deal doesn't come to fruition soon, there's a chance the whole thing will collapse, meaning I'm out of here.........we are all hoping not, but it puts a bit of a cloud over things. Life is OK….either Uli comes over or I go to Germany, every 2nd weekend. - but during the week things are slow and there's only so much I can do while I haven't got the reins. Meanwhile, it's 36 holes of golf every weekend, and the weather is picking up again; 20C and sunshine this past weekend, but the wind can be fearsome....for any golfers amongst us, it's a 3 -4 club wind - meaning you need to take a 5 iron when you would normally use a 9 iron! Uli now has only one year to go before retiring - I am trying to get her to slow down; like working from home one day a week (or even from Tunis!) I was in Frankfurt last week, on either side of a trip to London spending the w/e with Kate there, (a trip up the Shard and an evening at the Clapham Comedy Club). Uli coming out for the weekend on Thursday. Lauren & Steven hopefully coming out here sometime May/June. Visitors always welcome - package holiday to Enfadh airport gets you cheap flights, and you come stay with me for a few days, or a scheduled flight to Tunis via Tunis Air (2 flights a week from Manchester). Not sure how they compare to Turkish Airlines though! Lots of love, Tim -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hiya Tim Sorry for the late resposne, when I saw the length of your e-mail I thought I'd better set aside some time. Ah the other Tim Bradbury, remember him well from my rugby days, I still snort snot clear of my nostrils in the same way I saw him and Bob Johnstone do it all those years ago. Perhaps he doesn't pick up his e-mails, I can't imagine him on a computer! Very interesting to hear what you are up to out there, and combined with some instability and foreign politics, you move in a different world. I guess until fossil fuels run out we'll continue to plough the greater share of our time, innovations and money into extracting them over harnessing alternatives. Perhaps when they do run out, if we are still here, the new generations will have developed a means of propelling long haul space craft with a view to extracting resources from space, (difficult getting it down to earth though), or even mass migration to another planet! However, I'm sure that any such propulsion method would need to be nuclear, and if nuclear technology were that advanced then perhaps we could also rely more heavily on what would likley allow for safer nuclear energy. I don't think renewables could sustain us, not unless there was a huge fight over remaining resources and a large amount of the world population were killed. No matter, I'm sure the Chinese are working on the space option, espacially now that they've baggied the moon and are consuming a vast amount of the remaining fossil fuels to fuel their rapid growths! I suppose it's the turn of China and also India to take the healm a little, especially now we in the west are skint! If there was a world government, perhaps we could be working together on all of this, and all of the other problems down here, such as efficiency. But then I suppose we probably still couldn't all agree, and if a single cell from within power was to take sole charge, could you imagine the risks that would run, like a worldwide dictatorship, but then can you imagine a worldwide revolution too! Perhaps only in the end will come the solution. As Alfred Wainwright said, 'there are just too many people on this earth, and many have lost sight of what's imporatant, what's beautiful.' Blimey, sorry about that, guess I set down some time when I was in reflective mood! Loving the winter olympics - see you soon. Love Adamxx