"Is there no truth in beauty?"

Perhaps. At the very least, there's usually beauty in truth. But the sign and its times beg a different question: is there no money in beauty? The question's still a bit over my head though, so I'll just say that, to me, achieving 4,500 car player sales and failing as a business would still be more fun than achieving 4,500,000 sales of something crap but staying in business. Not that we particularly did fail as a business this time: Sonicblue was crushed by the debts of a dot-com hubris that had little to do with Empeg, or even Rio.

PS. The milk floats behind you are for sale, along with batteries and chargers. HINT: Off peak electricity, no road tax, low insurance, 20m range.

What, the Dairy Crest ones? Sadly, the only people at Empeg who buy vehicles on a whim are Rob and Hugo, neither of whom, I suspect, would be happy with the performance of a milk-float. Although I guess John might buy one if he thought he could overclock it.

PPS Who took the photo? David?

We borrowed some bloke from the company downstairs. What with giant lorries with loads of recycled paper belting down Swann's Road far too fast, and lunatic motorcyclists belting the wrong way up Swann's Road far too fast, he nearly paid the ultimate price to bring you that image. It's the only photo there is of all thirteen current Sonicblue Cambridge employees.

I really hope that it all comes out OK.

Well, we're all hoping the same about all your woes of the moment, too...

Peter