Monty's Gaming and Wireless Outlook - Issue 214

Some people have the weirdest obsessions and a 26-year-old German student only identified as 'Pablo' wanted so much to be one of the clay Chinese terracotta statues that last week he made his own dusty brown suit and stood among the warriors at the famous site in Xian. What an utter-nutter.

Apparently he blended in so well that it took security guards several hours to locate him. I'd love to report that he gave himself away when his mobile went off with a Buffalo Soldier ringtone, but that wouldn't be true.... or maybe it would be a Chinese whisper - ha-ha. Sorry. I'll. Get. My. Coat.

What is true, however, are the slightly baffling messages that emanated from Carphone Warehouse this week. Hot on the heels of its pugnacious move into the US by partnering with BestBuy, came the news it was buying AOL UK for £370 million, quickly followed by Vodafone's announcement that it was dumping Carphone for Phones 4u.

Who'd be a shareholder with that lot? Sell, no, buy, hang on, buy, no, stop, sell, buy, no, sell, sell sell! As it is, the retailer's share price has fallen by about £620 million this week and there may be more bad news to come - Orange is also 'reviewing' its relationship with Carphone.

While the AOL UK purchase makes good business sense, does Vodafone's decision mean the beginning of the end of High Street retailers reselling operator contracts? Mmm, tough one and it depends on the Phones 4u deal, but the landscape is changing drastically for operators and cost-cutting is always the first step for businesses that are retrenching.

I know this well from my motorbike despatch-riding days in London. You could always tell a recession was coming when there were fewer jobs to deliver. Companies that have money to burn are lazy and the I-can't-be-bothered-to-go-over-there-put-it-on-a-bike-brigade are the first to go when the money dries up.

Similarly, it may be the same way with operators - the we-can't-be-bothered-to-sell-direct-let's-use-that-outsourcer days may indeed be over and, like our friend Pablo, it doesn't matter how you dress it up, you'll get found out in the end.