I finally found the answer to my Oracle download woes in the Oracle forums where people worldwide have been unable to download software, but the problem seems to be limited to folks outside the US.

However, as the post by astramare notes by adding an HTTP proxy of 206.224.254.10 port 80 bingo you can download the JDeveloper Composite Editor from here. A quick whois by IP reveals its owned by:

OrgName: Garden Grove Unified School District

OrgID: GGUSD

Address: 10331 Stanford Ave.

City: Garden Grove

StateProv: CA PostalCode: 92640

Country: US

How very odd but thanks anyway. So after a brief hiccup as Pete Tong would say "we continue".

Pete Raymond