Peter Roebuck - Did you break the code?

Cricket, unlike other sports, lacks a code that - although not mentioned in any rule book - is universally accepted and lends the sport a commonness of purpose

Every game has codes and customs handed down by the generations and honoured by tradition. Often it is these customs that supporters point towards when asked to explain their devotion to the game. After all, sport serves many purposes, releasing energy, providing competition, giving an opportunity for boys especially to soar without causing grievous bodily harm, testing courage and nerve, allowing nations to meet on fields of play and not battlefields where bodies are torn apart. George Orwell regarded sport as a mere substitute for war. That is also its strongest justification.

But sport goes further than providing entertainment and an outlet for youthful energies. It seeks to instill character in its charges, teaching them to take the rough with the smooth, showing them the importance of playing within the rules and giving them a chance to depart the world of mundanity and enter a finer place where the body can perform minor miracles, where effort is rewarded and camaraderie is paramount. At its best, sport appeals to mankind's better part. From a distance a sporting contest may seem as heartless as the destruction of a building. Closer inspection tells another tale.

Otherwise the sight of a soccer player kicking the ball off the field when an opponent is injured could hardly be imagined. After all soccer is notorious for players diving to obtain free kicks, feigning injury to secure an advantage or being taken from the field on a stretcher only to return miraculously moments later. Yet even the most cynical defender or posturing forward will abide by this single custom. Doubtless self-interest has a part to play, but it goes further, towards honour, that most potent of emotions.

Otherwise prop forwards would not stop pushing, upon hearing a rival shout that he has incurred a neck injury. No prop has ever used this call to fool an opponent into holding back. It is not manly to break that particular code. Prop forwards are not saints. Almost everything else that happens in the inner reaches of a scrum is regarded as fit and proper conduct. Referees can take care of the rest. Rugby players accept their decisions better than almost any other sportsmen, another indication that the game has a civility that exists under the sound and fury. Otherwise golfers would not report themselves for having touched the sand or carried an extra club, or having accidentally tapped the ball in the rough. Woe betide a golfer breaking this code, for they will be drummed out of the game and mentioned only late at night when talk turns to the rare disgraces that have demeaned the good name of their favoured recreation. Of course it is easier to retain manners in golf because there is only the club, the course, the ball and that blessed little hole. The battle is internal, the struggle personal. Opponents are as much fellow sufferers as rivals. Confrontational games demand a higher level of restraint. All the more reason to apply a tighter code of conduct.

Most sports have in recent years turned away from their more obvious violences. Soccer has rejected the scything tackles that were a feature of the 1960s, the knee-cappers and bone-breakers that deterred the more skilful players from embarking on long runs upfield. Referees nowadays book players for even mild excesses that in the old days might have brought at worst a raised eyebrow. Likewise the balls are lighter and pitches drier, at any rate in the upper echelons. As a result fewer hard men stalk the midfield or marshall the defences. Notables 40 years ago, players such as Norman Hunter, Peter Storey, Billy Bremner, Dave Mackay and others of rawboned memory would need to change their approach to survive in the modern era.

Cricket's primary problem is that it has not settled upon a universal code of conduct. It is one thing to produce a book of rules and guidelines, quite another to create common purpose. Australia, especially, have always played by their own democratic and downright lights. There was not much point going to such a harsh and remote continent and then living on the same terms as in England. As far as the Australians were concerned, cricket was not the gentleman's game taken to other parts of the empire by way of instilling virtue in the natives. Gentlemen did not exist. They were a figment of the imagination, a ruse calculated to keep the lower orders in their place. Cricket was played as life was lived down under. Within the regulations, it was every man for himself.

Australians did not think much of walking, dismissing it as toffee-nosed poppycock likely to cause more problems than it resolved, owing to the man's natural tendency to dissemble when the chips are down. At once the Aussies were at odds with England and also other nations more amenable to colonialist conviction. On the other hand the Australians did not tolerate the questioning of umpires with dirty look and other crafty practices. Admittedly this outlook has at time been more honoured in the breach than the observance, but all the same it expresses an attitude towards life itself. Nor could an Australian worth his beer claim as legitimate a catch taken after the ball had bounced. Indeed it was just such an error that cost Greg Dyer not only his career but for a time his standing in the community. That is why the row about low catches in Sydney struck such a chord among locals. Ricky Ponting was mightily offended when his word was questioned at a press conference. Honour works both ways.

Other countries have followed different traditions that express their own histories. South Africans routinely line up to shake hands with all and sundry at the end of a match, a custom that has taken hold. Australians regard the field of play as a separate place and become friendly the moment stumps have been drawn. Englishmen are more inclined to regard the field as an extension of life and therefore take matters arising on the park more personally. Indians are bemused by the way opponents are prepared to show integrity in some areas and not in others.

Diplomats are expected to understand and respect the cultures of other nations. With some tribes it is manly to offer a strong handshake, in others it is an insult. Some nations dine at 6pm, others at midnight. There is no right or wrong in any of it, just the probability of misinterpretation.

The accidents of history and the identity of the participants means that cricket has become an almost ungovernable game. As much as anything, events at the SCG were founded upon mutual misunderstanding. No longer is it enough to seek the lowest common denominator. Clearly that has not worked. The time has come to discover the highest common factor. In other words it is not enough nowadays to try to keep the peace. Cricket must develop a code chosen and applied by all parties in all countries. No longer the game of gentlemen and ruffians, always hard to tell apart, it must find a new approach understood by every player so that everyone speaks the same language and not merely use the same words.

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Dyesol - Global solar photovoltaics market to boom in 2008 on climate change impetus

The global solar photovoltaic market grew by over 40% in 2007, with approximately 2.3 GW of newly installed capacity. With increasing electricity prices driven by the recent rises in fossil fuel prices, photovoltaic electricity is already competitive in some US states and it is expected to be so in Southern European countries by 2015 and by 2020 for most of Europe.

Four countries dominated the global photovoltaic market in 2007: Spain joined Germany, Japan and the US as a major market, by tripling its annual installations in 2007. Italy, France and South Korea are emerging as significant markets, and China and Taiwan as significant manufacturers. In the UK, the Stern report was the impetus for very substantial commitments by industry and the government that are directed to technologies such as DSC, which offer improved relative performance in that climate.

The first volume manufacturing plant for Dye Solar Cell (DSC) 3rd generation solar panels will come on line in 2008, and DSC product development is intensifying in Europe and Asia. Independent forecaster Paul Maycock has identified 12 companies in the dye, nano and organic solar cell sector expected to bring solar panels to the market by 2010.

Dyesol is positioned as the leading global supplier of technology and materials to the DSC sector, so 2008 will be the year when Dyesol will accelerate its manufacturing capacity, introduce new products for licensing and joint ventures, and consolidate its presence in the key market areas mentioned above.

The collaborations in the UK with Corus and G24i continue and Dyesol is positioned to benefit from both development and manufacture by those companies. Following the completion of the first phase of the Corus project to produce DSC on coil steel, the companies have strengthened the partnership for the second phase designed to bring the project to pilot production.

Dyesol also has formed Dyesol Italia s. r. l to collaborate in research and commercialization of DSC in Italy. The establishment of collaborative development facilities in Rome with University of Rome 'Tor Vergata' is the first step. Deliveries of equipment will commence in March. The company is also active in evaluating collaborative project development in Germany and Spain.

In Asia, Dyesol has a solid marketing program in Japan, Korea and Taiwan with agents appointed and all now having been trained. We have been invited to negotiate a joint venture with IPP (CAS) in Hefei to commercialise DSC panels in China and further details will be provided during the next few months.

Recently, the Gulf has become a region where potential business partners and government have expressed interest and, following a visit by the Chairman, Richard Caldwell and Gavin Tulloch, President Dyesol International, in December the Company has appointed a representative in Abu Dhabi.

To meet the expansion opportunities, the Company announced in December the site for our new 'Super-Green' manufacturing and development facilities in Australia. These facilities will house the existing pilot plant, enhanced R&D laboratories and engineering facilities, scaled up materials manufacturing facilities and new product manufacture. Full details will be announced shortly.

Dyesol is fully funded to meet its commitments to expansion projects in Australia, UK, Italy, and China, as well as the previously announced initiatives in Switzerland and South East Asia.

The directors and executives of Dyesol are cognisant of the importance of maintaining leadership in commercialization of DSC and to expand as rapidly as the market place for solar energy progressively accepts DSC as the PV solution for applications not subject to regular full sun. With the recent announcements of spot price for silicon exceeding US$300/kg, the immediate opportunities for DSC, as a lower cost alternative due to the much lower energy usage in manufacture, expand.

The Technology - DYE SOLAR CELLS

DSC technology can best be described as 'artificial photosynthesis' using an electrolyte, a layer of titania (a pigment used in white paints and tooth paste) and ruthenium dye sandwiched between glass. Light striking the dye excites electrons which are absorbed by the titania to become an electric current many times stronger than that found in natural photosynthesis in plants. Compared to conventional silicon based photovoltaic technology, Dyesol's technology has lower cost and embodied energy in manufacture, it produces electricity more efficiently even in low light conditions and can be directly incorporated into buildings by replacing conventional glass panels rather than taking up roof or extra land area.

The Company - DYESOL Limited

Dyesol is located in Queanbeyan NSW (near Canberra) and in August 2005 was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX Code 'DYE'). Dyesol manufactures and supplies a range of Dye Solar Cell products comprising equipment, chemicals, materials, components and related services to researchers and manufacturers of DSC. The Company is playing a key role in taking this third generation solar technology out of the laboratory and into the community.

More detail about the company and the technology can be found at: http://www.dyesol.com

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