The Lighter Note

Straight talkin’

It was more than a week ago but The Note isn’t too proud to acknowledge that we overlooked a gem during the first act of sifting through last week’s material.

One of our operatives reminded us of a little Aussie moment at the recent Australian Institute of Company Directors lunch featuring Rio Tinto CEO Tom Albanese.

New Jersey-born Mr Albanese was looking very comfortable talking about the Pilbara and other Western Australian localities with a high degree of familiarity, right down to pronunciation. The region clearly gets a bit of airplay in the Rio corporate stratosphere.

After his talk, questions were invited from the floor and, as would be expected from such a highbrow crowd, things were kept on the straight and narrow. After all, Diggers & Dealers is weeks away.

But then, towards the end of the Q&A, up jumps a bloke who identified himself as Mark Murphy from mining consultancy Xstract.

“You talk a lot about copper and iron ore and coal but what are your thoughts on uranium for the next 10 years ... or has it been Fukashima’d?” Mr Murphy asked.

Mr Albanese played as straight a bat as any American running a London-based company could do.

Swim through

The Note was lured to the new website of umbrella charity group Giving West and couldn’t help noticing among the case studies listed was Rick Parish & The Telethon Adventurers, who climb mountains – Mount Blanc later this month – to raise moolah for the needy.

That, again, prompted a hazy and repressed memory from last week of Paul Downie from PR outfit FD, who is in training with a few mates to swim the English Channel in support of Breast Cancer Care WA.

Mr Downie must be feeling like a challenge, having just completed the performance period linked to the sale a few years ago of the business he built with partner John McGlue.