Apologies! This nominally-November is late not just because of the time I spent in Europe with Ferag (below) and the IfraExpo, but also because of a couple of important events to the north. One is the new South East Asia Newspaper Group – modelled on Australia’s SWUG – which held its second annual conference this month. A handful of Aussies helped get the fledgling organisation off the ground last year, and this time there were more newspapers and more vendors involved. SEANG also has a strong leadership in Anthony Cheng, who is executive vice president for newspaper production at the giant Singapore Press Holdings. With a range of interesting local and international speakers – including Fairfax Printers plant manager Paul Peters – it was a solid and worthwhile event. The pre-Ifra excursion to Ferag’s home town of Hinwil in Switzerland was not only an opportunity to catch up on the company’s latest folding and polybagging technologies ... but also a chance to (try to) get a handle on the incredible sense of humour which pervades that country. After the afternoon of presentations came the entertainment: We were sworn to the verbal equivalent of a D-notice not to divulge details of our destination, hinted at by the origami tank which accompanied the invitation (pictured). Sufficient to say that it involved hooning around the Swiss countryside in track-laying vehicles and appraising the engineering merit of a 76-litre V12. OK, (as my colleague Steve Crowe pointed out) so its 1000-plus kilowatts of power is only that of a Bugatti Veyron ... but the turning circle was certainly impressive. An evening meal at Zurich’s Zeughauskeller pursued the military theme, from the baby-beef steaks served on a metre-long sword, the anti-aircraft gun mounted over a doorway, and the warning to patrons against smoking in the entrance as it “housed unexploded ammunition”. Earlier, we had been treated to lunch in a factory dining room in which Ferag’s renowned materials handling expertise (pictured) had been applied to the matter of clearing tables. My thanks to Thomas Klumpp and Ferag for the opportunity to be involved in a media event which was surprising in so many ways. Why were we so not surprised at the demise of the ‘Trading Post’? Telstra’s decision to close the print edition was announced at the end of September, and the last copies rolled off the presses a month later. Hopefully Fairfax Media – which had the contract to print the classified advertising newspaper – made more from printing it than it would if its ambitions to purchase the title five years ago hadn’t been thwarted by Telstra. Or maybe it would have had a better idea how to make a success of it (and the will to do so). The story, of course, doesn’t end there. As we go to press, a new title is rising, phoenix-like, from the ashes. Literally: Ash Long and Stuart Simson have announced plans for a new classified tabloid called ‘Trading Mart’, following the start already made by a ‘Melbourne Trader’ supplement to Long’s ‘Melbourne Observer’ newspaper. He has (of course!) a long history in publishing, extending back beyond an early media newsletter, and proprietorship of the ‘Yea Chronicle’ in the 1980s. The portfolio of titles listed on his website includes the ‘Observer’ and ‘Brisbane Sun’ – both of which names have a certain ring to them – and a giveaway called ‘The Phoenix’, which offers free advertising to people “in areas affected by the 2009 Victorian bushfires”. With much still to do in the area, the publication is packed with ads both local and from further afield, and its website (replete with family crest) says advertising worth $592,000 has been donated. There’d be no arguing that the ‘Trading Mart’ concept is also a sound commercial idea... and who better than Simson and Ash to be first past the ‘Post’? If the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ is 2009’s ‘newspaper of the year’ in its heavyweight, circulation category, I’d vote for ‘The Australian’ as the best of 2010, and possibly the best of the decade this year concludes. Appropriately, they’ve worked on content first while evolving the design of products. Recent weeks have brought dramatic layout and design changes, but with a sense of evolution: Many are details such as the judicious use of white space and consistent typography. But the result is impressive and shows form has not taken precedent over function. I’ve mentioned the upgrade of the ‘Review’ section in the weekend paper elsewhere, but it’s worth noting that it now sports a better TV guide than its Sydney metro rival ... clearer, cleaner and with more content. My penchant for contemporary Australian music, for example, is frequently frustrated by lack of space for programme detail: Not just ‘Live at the Basement’ or the ‘Studio 22’ repeats, but little details such as who might actually be playing... PrintCity, the alliance of graphic arts supplier companies which includes manroland, Océ, Sun and papermaker UPM, has honoured itself with an award, one of two ‘ambassadors’ titles marking significant individual and project achievements in the last couple of years. It went for a pre-DRUPA media event organised for 50 editors and journalists from Europe, America and Asia, and was judged by a panel of five including Mike Hilton, who runs a print industry newsletter from his home in St Petersburg, Russia. Since your scribe wasn’t invited, we can’t comment on the event, dubbed “the best pre-exhibition event of its type”. The other award went to Erik Ohls, technical sales director of UPM. Searching for signs of economic life in the UK – where the pound was buying a measly A$1.87 – my eye settled on an eight-page ‘Yachts’ supplement in the ‘Financial Times’ left at my Zurich hotel door. However, despite vague suggestions of stirring demand, advertisements from the makers of luxury watches outnumbered those for yachts. ‘Tis an ill wind...