16th March 2009, International Skype conference (audio).

 

Transcript

TFC_Skype Conference_16-03-2009

Participants:
M Michael Christie
J John Greatorex
P Paul Dourish
T Trevor Van Weeren
H Helen
Y Yingiya
D Dhanggal
G Gotha
S1, S2 etc ‘Student 1’, ‘Student 2’ etc.

Recording commences 0:00:00

M All right, is John there? Yeah.

J I’m here and I can hear you clearly.

M Okay, are you on your phone John?

J I’m on the phone.

M And Yingiya are you on your phone too?

Y Yo.

M And Dhanggal, you’re there?

D Yo.

M Okay, what are you doing, Dhanggal?

D I’m at the police station.

M At the police station?

D Yo.

M Where.

D Nhulunbuy.

M Okay.

D … Mowing, lawnmower.

M Okay, you’re getting a lawnmower for the Wallaby Beach.

D Yukka. Somebody’s mowing the lawn there.

M Okay, so why are you in the police station?

D Um, the interview for some … people here.

M Okay, so you’re just waiting to work?

D Yeah.

M Okay, how about you Helen?

H Yes, I’m here, I’m trying to not get Michael in my sitting room and I’m in my front room.

M All right, I’ll just close the door.

H I’m not doing anything as exciting as waiting at the police station for work.

M Okay.

T Michael, you don’t have a headset, do you?

M No, I don’t.

H I’ll actually hang up, Trevor.

T Okay.

M Is my voice pretty unclear, Trevor?

T It gets a little bit of interference from your so if you can turn down your speaker on your computer as much as possible, that will help.

M Okay, does that sound better?

T Yep.

M All right, Paul. Just, we’ve got the same people as last time except this time we’ve got Dhanggal. Dhanggal lives in a place called Wallaby Beach which is near a big mine processing place in the area of Yirrkala and she has tried some teaching. She had one session with the students last Tuesday night and most of them were … with us. Have you had a look at the website?

P Yes, yes. So I saw the video of Dhanggal talking from Wallaby Beach on the website. I was just looking at that area today.

M Okay. In a few minutes I hope that Yingiya and Dhanggal will both be happy to just talk for a couple of minutes each about how they think the project is going and their reflections about it, and then maybe people might have some questions for them. I’m just going to start off by giving a quick report about where things are at the moment. Is everybody still there.

All Yo, yes.

M Okay, there’s a funny noise, it sounded like somebody new had come on. Okay, let me just talk quickly about where I think things are at. I think that we’re still looking for the good combinations of the software and hardware and connections. We’ve been working with the Team viewer software and that seems to be okay. We’re still using Skype and we’re trying to get the university to let us use it so that we can do it legally and with their systems. And we’re still looking at different sorts of software; Trevor’s having a look for more software to share video with people, John’s been looking for and found a little software for putting people’s images on the screen when they’re talking and that’s what the students were asking for when they saw Gotha talking about the turtle eggs the other day. Is that right, John?

J That’s right, yeah.

M So yeah, the technical side of it’s going okay. It’s hard always but Dhanggal has a new computer and she’s working with it and finding it pretty easy, and Yingiya is getting more experienced and has made some little items and has been using them for his teaching. Paul, did you see in Yingiya’s trial, on the trials page, Yingiya’s Powerpoint presentation that he made for his teaching?

P I don’t for that one, I saw a couple of them. I was looking at Dhanggal talking from Wallaby Beach and also at Gotha telling the turtle story but I don’t think I saw Yingiya’s.

M Right. It’s on the Yolngu resources page if you get a chance to have a look, and it’s under Yingiya’s work. There’s three things there and the topmost one is the presentation and he’s made four talking about land that he’s going to be using for his class and for sending out to external students.

P No, I can see that now. I won’t play it just now otherwise you’ll all get to hear it.

M Okay, or you can turn the sound down and have a look at some of the pictures. Oh no, you can’t turn the sound down because then you won’t be able to hear us.

P … because I want to hear you.

M Okay. Just on the other things, these are the five things that were the important parts of the program before we started. The first one was trying to get people and technology working together. The second one was making sure that people were paid properly for their contribution and that seems to be working out pretty well. Every time people do some teaching or do some research as part of this work we’re able to pay them with money from the fund, so that’s good. And if people can are interested to start having conversations amongst themselves, and I’ll talk a bit more about that in a little while, then we’ll be able to pay for Yolngu to participate in those conversations as well.

? … (inaudible).

M Is somebody talking there?

T Yeah, Dhanggal’s talking to somebody else.

D I’m in a room with some chatterboxes (laughing).

M Okay, Dhanggal, we’re hoping that when you get a chance to sit at home and relax, maybe with some of the family, you’ll be able to start having a bit of a chat, maybe Sunday, with Paul or Helen or with Lee or.

D The other thing that is a worry, is that it takes too long for the other party to see that thing. How can we get that upgraded?

M To stop it from taking such a long time for them to see the map or the image that you’re showing?

D Yo.

M I don’t know, we need to.

D (We need) ... that can you know, accelerate it.

M I’m not sure that that’s going to be possible but that is the sort of thing that Trevor and John are looking hard to try to solve. Is that right, Trevor and John?

T&J Yep.

M Yeah, but it’s the biggest problem at the moment that when you put a picture on your screen it takes maybe sometimes 10 seconds or longer for us to see it, but we’ll keep working on that.

T We also need to think about some of the issues there are, how we do it. So quick short changes seem to work better than continual changes, so that every time we move an image on the screen it takes longer to upload each image. So I think we also need to become better at how we use the software.

M Yeah, that’s right, because if you’re sitting there talking to people about a particular place on Google Earth, for example, it’s very tempting to just sort of move it around slightly as you’re sort of fiddling with it but if you do that, it messes the other person’s screen up for a long time. Is that the point you’re making?

T That’s right.

M Yeah, so we just need to get good at being clear and leaving things clear, and maybe filling in the gaps with a bit of conversation while we’re waiting for things to appear. But the best part of it was Dhanggal talking about the beach and the Wanga, just showing the video, that seemed to work really nicely except the video image isn’t that clear.

D Did you get those clear photos that I was just showing the beach and whatever?

M Yeah, it was pretty clear but we couldn’t see out to sea very well. Later on, we’ll get you to have a look at where we’ve put that up on the website, so you can see for yourself what it looked like and what it sounded like from our end.

D Okay, yo.

M Okay. Quickly, the other thing that we’ve been worried about is the intellectual property that people put photos and images of themselves and artworks on the internet, how do we protect that and make sure that Yolngu ownership of that is kept secure; and Helen and I have been talking and I’ve been talking to a lawyer about that, and we’ll be interested to keep talking to the Yolngu consultants Yingiya and other people that are using images, to see what work we can do to make agreements about that, to keep things safe.

T Michael, Trevor here. I’m just going to call Gotha again, I think she’ll be ready now. And just one other thing. I’m chewing through my Skype credit pretty fast so if we could ask Dhanggal and Yingiya and Gotha sooner rather than later, I’ve just bought more credit but it takes about 15 minutes to show up in my Skype account. So I’ll call Gotha now.

M Okay, will you let us know when Gotha comes on or should we wait.

T I’m just calling her now. (ringing sound)

G Hello, good morning.

T Yeah, hello Gotha, it’s Trevor here.

G Yo, namira.

T Meinmuk. Just to let you know, Michael Christie and Helen are on the telephone in Melbourne, Yingiya and John Greatorex are on the phone in Darwin and Dhanggal in East Arnhem Land and Paul Duresh in America.

G Ma.

M And I was just telling everybody, it’s Michael here, about where I thought things were. And then we were just hoping to ask Yingiya if he could just talk for a couple of minutes about what he’s been doing with the teaching and with the program and how he feels about it. Are you happy to do that, Yingiya?

Y Yo. Now?

M So just tell us how you feel about what’s going on, if you’ve got any reflections about what it means about Yolngu knowledge or Yolngu identity and where you’d like to take it next.

Y Yo. I’ve been here for about six weeks now, and I’m still trying to make my way around the place and find out where everything is. But the Microsoftware, what I want to do with my teaching and studies, I’m still searching around. It’s not as good as how I’d like it to be with all the stories we have. When I first came in here it was a story in my mind about there is a story on the land, which you know about, Michael, that’s my first …, how could I teach it to the balanda out there who doesn’t really understand about W…. , the ancestral … totems, the land itself. And itself, it’s telling all right, for that place that I’m able to work around the computer software, making movies, looking at the Skype … But yo, it’s interesting, working (on) my land, and then I would like to make it a full powerful presentation of what the land, stories, the culture, is all about, and like I said before it would be more strong and powerful if I’m actually standing out there on the land, talking, touching the images of here, … totems. W… and that sort of thing. And in the meantime, I’m doing all right, I’m becoming, doing okay so far. But I’m always wanting to learn more things so I can do it more properly, … more better.

M Meinmuk. I’m hoping we can get a chance to send you out there somewhere and relieve you from teaching for a few days so that some time when there’s semester you can have a go from, at somewhere where you think it would be a good place to teach from and try it from there.

0:16:41

Y Yo, because it’s not, it doesn’t feel really at place when you’re teaching from the classroom here and talking about the land out there, the environment out there. And if we can find a software, if we can find digital equipment that will actually do all this stuff for you from out there actually standing on the land and walking around, that would be more strong and powerful. Meinmuk.

M Yeah, good. Anybody else got any questions or comments about that?

Y Bainu.

M That’s good.

Y That’s just my no, that’s why I wanted to learn about computer, cameras, bulurung, … … the latest Microsoftware and everything that balanda side of education can give me, to close that gap. So we understand balanda way, Yolngu way of teaching and closing the gap that we can understand each other more clearly.

M Yeah.

T Michael, can we ask Dhanggal because the credit’s going down pretty rapidly and I think because she’s on a mobile phone it’s more expensive, so in case we lose the people on phones, can we go to Dhanggal next?

M Okay. Dhanggal, are you able to tell us about how you feel the program’s going and what you’ve been doing with your computer and…

D Yeah. I didn’t catch what you said at the end, but in fact, I am enjoying myself and I’m liking the program anyway, and as you know I like talking to different people and the way the uni has …, I go along with that like. It’s powerful and thinking from the land and giving people a different perspective to actually see our world and how we see it, and give them a wider range of, to learn things how we learn and to see the world that way. And that enables them to get away the knowledge of everything. And like I said, I enjoy it and I don’t want to walk away from it, and another thing is the software that we really need to get hold of and upgrade our skills on that. So that will make the teaching Meinmuk. That’s about it.

M So do you think it would be good for you to fly back to Darwin and do some more work on software and looking at questions to do with time and how long it takes for stuff to upload and things like that, and how it fits into the teaching?

D Yo, that’s maybe, … my … to make sure that I know what I’m doing, especially with computer and whatever. But the teaching is, I love it.

H It’s Helen here, Dhanggal.

D Hello, my …

H Is Jalu living in Wallaby Beach too?

D Yeah, he’s there next door to me.

H Do you think a conversation between you and Jalu would be a good thing to do so that you have a…

D Not …., I don’t mind involving my brother in it because he’s got that knowledge there, just like Yingiya.

H See, I think it would be good for students to see you both sitting there having a conversation about the way the students sitting in Darwin are seeing you on a screen and it’s like you two have different bodies. You have bodies which are a screen for them and what does that mean for the land itself speaking through you and Jalu as you talk together. You see what I’m getting at?

D Yeah, I know what you’re getting at but Wallaby Beach is sort of like our grandmother’s side. You, for instance.

H So your grandmother is there too?

D … Yo. And it’s all right in a way, yeah, but mostly it would, we would talk like that when we are at our own home, that’s Gikal.

H Yeah.

D Mmm, or…

H So it’s more difficult to do that sort of talk when you’re living on, is it Murri land for you?

D Yo, we would be talking about our Murri all the time. Yo.

H Even explaining that to the students that here we are, living on our Murri land, and here’s in a way the land speaking through us.

D Yo, well, in a way it is, but some of the stories we tell and some we don’t but we’ve got the right to talk about our Murri anyway.

H So it’s like live coverage, like the land itself is speaking through you and Jalu.

D That’s right, yo. And another thing as you, brother and sister relationship, we have to have somebody in the middle sitting with us.

H Yeah, that’s right, and just explaining that, it is a very good learning situation and teaching situation, yeah?

D It would be, yeah.

H So that’s just an idea.

D I … that he had. The knowledge that my brother has, both of them, one there and one here, like, they go into deeper things, you know, things that people don’t understand nowadays, that’s our own people. They wouldn’t understand things, like the language problem is now the main concern around here.

H So then that would also become something that’s useful for your grandchildren, eh?

D That’s right, yeah.

H (Lin…)

D Yo.

M Okay, thanks.

T Michael?

M Yeah.

T I am wondering if you mind if I ask Dhanggal to hang up now because I’ve only got $1.53 left in the credit.

D Ma, my phone’s using too much.

T Yeah.

D Ma.

All Tj tj, ma, everybody, yo. (hanging up noise)

M Okay. All right, she’s gone now. Are you there, Gotha?

G Yes.

M How are you going?

G Meinmuk.

M What’s happening at Gawa today?

G It’s not raining and the sun is shining so Meinmuk, Meinmuk new day, we had no rain, so it’s Meinmuk.

M Are you happy to talk for a minute or two about how you feel your teaching is going and the program?

0:26:27

G Yeah.

M Are you happy to just talk for a minute about what you’ve been doing with the computer and with the teaching?

G Yo. With the computer I had a story collected from the old people, and I did some work at the school, with John, like he’s the Captain, he’s been driving me through that, and half way I stopped and I was just using computer at the school. And when we moved to Gawa I started to work with those W… books, and the first principal that she set up the school here, she helped me a lot, and that made me want to learn more about the computer. So I went and saw John if I could have my own computer. And that’s how I started. And sometimes, often I find it a bit hard, like my D… always talking about software, how I can put all those things together. One thing that John helped me was with the (resolution) program. So it’s going well, I’m doing recording the voice of my Gurung, G…., and other people, and also kids are starting to take interest in that, when they see what I’m doing, and they want to learn through the computer. So I bought them a computer of their own, John, which is John (Noi) helped me, and I haven’t put … stories into that yet. There’s a lot we can learn from that and teach our kids both for Yolngu, Yolngu Matha and English, because the kids learn from the land when they are sitting. They can see and feel it. It’s not like theory. Like, for me, I would teach story from mata-mata, that I (have and) that’s my homeland. But I just hear story and there are a lot of things that the kids can learn from where they are now. And with that, it can help them and build their knowledge and understanding when they grow up. So when they go into like, Murri, Wanga, Yuppa, they can communicate and understand well, and this is where I’ve seen the kids here at Gawa.

M The other day when you taught the students, John’s and Yingiya’s students, at CDU, and you were talking to them about collecting turtle eggs and they were asking questions about the weather and the beach and the boy on the beach and the turtle eggs, how did you feel that that went?

G …

M Was it hard?

G The hard ones was with the … and putting all those pictures together.

M Making the Powerpoint presentation?

G Yo. If I can learn more how I can use that properly, Meinmuk.

M And did you find it hard talking to the students and answering their questions or was that easy?

G Yo, hard.

M Right.

G But I’m learning. I’m learning, getting there.

M Do you think one day you can maybe take the computer outside and show the students the beach at Gawa and the other people and some of the trees and other things that are in the environment?

G Meinmuk. It’s good to be like talking where you can see one another and talk, a bit (nowi) nervous for me on that (nowi) talking from here to there. Meinmuk …

M Yeah, well, we really appreciate the work that you’ve done. It’s fantastic and I think as you say, it’s really good for the Yolngu kids that are next generation as well as really good for the students who are really very interested, and at the end they were very happy with the talk and felt that they’d been really privileged to hear from somebody who was actually speaking from country. So they were really happy. Have you got any comments about that, John?

J Two comments. It was interesting what Dhanggal was saying about children and young people not understanding what Jalu would be talking about over at around Nhulunbuy which I don’t think, which is somewhat different to what Gotha is saying, that the children do have possibilities for learning at Gawa and in homelands. But getting back to the class the other night, all the students were really excited and pleased that it went so well and that they were able to see Gotha talking about pictures that she had from Gawa at the time when they were collecting turtle eggs. They thought that was a real bonus and lots of emails came in. I think one person emailed Gothara as well saying how happy he was with the presentation.

M Yeah, good. I was just thinking about what Dhanggal was saying about Wallaby Beach and about Gikal, and how much more comfortable she would feel if she was actually at Gikal and how that related to what she was saying about the little kids growing up around Yirrkala and not really knowing their Galpu language as well as what they might do if they were living out there. And I was just wondering whether we should try to think about trying to help Dhanggal get out to Gikal just for a day or two, just to see what happens and give her a chance to do some talking while she’s on her own country.

J Yes. I think that would be a good idea. I also think that there might be some places around the Gove Peninsular where there might be Next G connections where Dhanggal could also teach but I think going to Gikal is certainly something that could be looked at.

M Right, but there would maybe be a problem with the connection there?

J Well, there wouldn’t be any Next G, you would need a satellite phone connection then.

M Right, a stat phone or something. Okay, thanks very much Gotha. I know it’s hard for you to talk to people you can’t see and talk in English at the same time but we really appreciate it.

G Yo.

M Thank you very much.

G Ma, yo.

M Paul, have you got any comments or stories or questions?

P I’m not sure. I’m sitting here and I’m taking furious notes because I’m really sort of learning my way around this. I guess the thing that’s sort of uppermost in my mind right now just from what we were all just talking about is thinking back to what, talking about what things people can see in what places, but then putting that together with what you were just saying about well, would there be, would you need a sat phone to talk from particular … So I’m just really interested in that sort of confluence of the significance places take on because of the kinship patterns and ownership and authority to speak, and also the significance they take on because of the kinds of technologies that are there. It’s just that I think it’s a kind of interesting link.

M Yeah.

P I’m not sure it’s (relevant to) this though. It’s just what’s on my mind when I’m … listening to the conversation. I wanted to ask just on a very practical basis, the video that I saw that was on the website, Gotha talking about the turtle eggs; the video that was there was not from the class but was from it looked like a trial that you did the day before, and I did notice it took a long time to get things going. Did things go better on the day when you actually taught it with the students?

M John, you can answer that one.

J Paul, could you just repeat that again, please?

P Sorry. So before we all talked together, I was looking at the videos on line from the trials, and there was, I was looking at the trial, the video of Gotha telling the story about her grandson looking for the turtle eggs, but the video that was on line was not from the class, it was from a test you did I think the day before the class; and I was just wondering if … your trial, because in the trial, especially getting started, like the first half of that video was just trying to get the technology working in the first place.

M Let me just say that both of those videos are up there, Paul. One of them is the one of the trial and one of them is the one of the class itself.

P Oh, okay…

M And it’s interesting, the class one, because you have students asking Gotha questions like do you have a way to preserve the turtle eggs and Gotha’s saying no, we don’t preserve them, we share them out; so that there’s parts of that video that shows some interesting questions and answers.

P Okay. No, I was wondering myself what kinds of questions students were asking, so I didn’t get to look at all the videos so I will have a look at that.

M Yeah. The other answer to that question is that it did fall over a few times and we had to get the Team viewer up again and we had to get the Skype running again and it seems that, maybe Trevor or John can comment on this, but it seems like the later it is in the afternoon, the harder it is to get going, maybe because people on the East coast or maybe even people over there in America are starting to intensify their use of the internet. So it makes the software fall over more in the afternoon. Does that seem right to you, John?

J There’s something happening like yesterday, Michael, we tried to use Skype. Not yesterday, the day before, we tried to use Skype, and it wasn’t working. And that was between main centres in Australia. And yet, the other day it was working well with Gotha using Skype. There are unknowns in what is causing problems, when there is good transmission and when there is bad transmission, and I’m not quite sure how we can go about investigating that.

P From what I know of Skype, which is not a huge amount, but I think Skype is particularly mysterious that way because especially if you’re operating it from behind a firewall it just sort of randomly picks another person’s computer to be the (supernode) that’s going to route your messages through, and so the connections that voice channels follow is not always obvious.

M Yeah, and I think that’s the reason why the university won’t let us use it, and I think that’s why we’re always looking for some alternative. But it’s interesting that there just doesn’t seem to be good alternatives out there.

P Yeah, there’s one thing, there’s something called, is it called Gizmo?

T Yeah, we tried Gizmo and that fell over pretty quickly.

P There’s a reason everyone uses Skype, I figure.

T Yeah. Just on an embarrassing note, I’m down to 30 cents credit which means the people on the phones, Gotha, Yingiya and John, we may lose them in the next two or three minutes.

M All right. I think we’ve had a pretty good show. Let me just say to Paul that if you’ve got, after you’ve taken some notes and done a bit of thinking, if you’ve got questions you’d like us to answer or you’ve got things that you’d like us to train the camera on, then let us know and we can start making some sort of relationship over some of the ways in which we do our documentation and response to some of your questions.

(Sound of phones hanging up).

P Yes, yes. I think that will be great. I’m definitely going to have some questions for you; I’ll probably send you an email even just in a couple of hours; but this has been really useful for helping to put some of the things going on in the video in context. I mean, I learn so much more every time that we have one of these conversations and it helps peel back the layers of what’s going on.

M Yeah, and the other thing we’ve been talking about is trying to sort of split up these big conversations into smaller ones, so hoping to get a chance to get Dhanggal and you for example talking together over Skype, or you and Yingiya, or just different combinations of people; I think that’s an important part of the research. We’ve got the funds to pay the Yolngu to participate in that. We just need to get the arrangements set up to make sure people feel comfortable and they can have their Skypes turned on so they know when each other’s available or whatever.

P Yes.

M Okay, who’s still there, Trevor?

T Gotha, you and Helen, Yingiya and Paul and me.

M And not John?

T No, John hung up.

J I hung up. I’m in Yingiya’s room.

M Okay. Well, I think, in the question to Paul we talked about what people would like me to do about looking at the videos, the transcriptions, making little video files of particular things. I think that’s what we need to start talking about or doing over the next few weeks. As well as helping John as much as possible and Yingiya to set up a few more people and a few more different sorts of sessions. I think we’re happy to do that. Does anybody have any questions or comments about what they would recommend I should do or anybody else should do about that?

T Trevor here. I don’t know about that but I’m keen to set up some trials of two new or other multi-video softwares and see if we can get that embodied person up on our screens so that the communication will be better.

M Yeah, Paul, do you know anybody over there who can help with that horrible work that Trevor’s doing, looking at all the different software and evaluating them?

P This screen sharing sort of stuff?

M Yeah. If you have a look on the trials page of the website you can see Trevor’s made a sort of spreadsheet of everything that’s been trialed.

P Okay. I should have a look at that. I haven’t seen that yet. I know a couple of people who do some stuff with those kinds of things and might have some insights but from everything I’ve heard you guys seem to be really on top of what’s around and what’s available.

M Thanks for that.

P But sadly, I wish.

M Well, that’s Trevor’s hard work that’s made that happen and John’s hard work following things up and doing his own exploration and so yeah, if we’re state of the art it’s because of Trevor and John. So thanks for that. But yeah, have a look and show it to your mates over there and see if anybody’s got any suggestions.

P Yeah. I think the most, my guess is you guys have a really good sense of what the range of technologies is that’s available. The thing that’s going to be interesting I think in your case is different kinds of configurations depending on where people are, what kinds of connections they have and the rest of it, are going to have different kinds of failure modes. And it might be that what’s the state of the art technology is actually not the thing that’s most useful for you because of the kinds of failures, drop outs, delays that you guys experience, right. So satellite connections have much longer (latencies) then that implies that you have, you might have particular kinds of needs. I mean, I think for instance, the point that John was making earlier about even just how Google Earth interacts with some of these systems because it likes to animate the transitions and show you a smooth move from one place to another, which works actually really badly for the kinds of screen sharing software that you’re using, whereas something that if you just jump straight to a spot, jump straight to an image of the land that somebody wants to show, that would work so much better. So it’s not really in the technology, it’s in all the interactions between the different pieces.

T Yeah, that’s a good point.

M Yeah, good point.

T We’ve just lost John and Yingiya and are about to lose Gotha because there’s .02 cents left in my credit.

M All right, Gotha, are you still there?

(phone hanging up sound)

T No, we’ve just lost her.

P She lost as you asked the question.

M Okay, so there’s just the three of us now. All right, the only other thing I’ve got to do while I’m in Melbourne is to start thinking about what’s going to happen in July and I’ll do that this afternoon and have another chat with Helen about that tomorrow. Have you got any comments about that Paul? Are you still hoping to make it?

P Oh, I am still absolutely planning to make it, I have that blocked out on my calendar and I’m not going to put anything else in that, so I will definitely be there. I think we talked about, I mean, I think it was round about the 18th or something we were talking about people leaving the States and getting over there, so I’ve definitely got that blocked out. And actually, I’m hoping after I spend whatever it is, like ten days or so with you guys up in Darwin, I’m hoping to go and spend a couple of weeks down in Melbourne because I’m doing some other things with other people, so there’ll be some more chance to follow up while I’m there.

M All right, Helen will be around and in fact feeling in relaxed mode I think after a semester’s difficult teaching. All right, thanks very much for being on line, Paul. Is it Sunday afternoon over there?

P Yeah. It’s just about six o’clock so it’s a pleasant warm afternoon and I’ve got some friends coming over later for dinner so I probably ought to go and start preparing for that but …

M Are you at home?

P I’m at home, yeah, I’m calling you from my kitchen.

M Okay, and a beautiful kitchen it is too.

P That’s right, you’ve been there.

M What are you cooking?

P Just some pasta, nothing terribly complicated.

M All right, thanks very much indeed. I’ll make some notes about today and send them out to you and maybe you’ll send us an email.

P I’m going to send you some email, yeah, from my pages of notes here.

M All right, thanks very much for that. Any comments, Helen?

H No. Goodbye Paul. I enjoyed your comment on the confluence of the two different technologies that enable the land to speak.

P Interesting stuff.

H Yeah.

M All right. Sign off.

All Bye bye.

M Okay, are you still there Trevor?

T Yeah.

M Good on you, thanks very much. That went well.

T Swimmingly.

H Yes, we’re getting better aren’t we?

T Yeah.

M Yeah, we’re getting better. It’s too nerve wracking for me though but at least I handled the Yolngu, asking the Yolngu to talk better than I did the last time.

T Yeah, that was good. I’ve got 49 minutes so far recorded.

M Okay, could you just switch it off to the point we’ve all hung up and then could you make a sound file of it.

End of Recording.