The horror, the horror

Off down to Brighton for the weekend to see our friend Stav marry his Russian sweetheart, Anna.

Perhaps foolishly, I have agreed to travel by train. Now, I'm not much of a one for train travel normally, preferring to contribute generously to the destruction of the planet from the comfort of my tiny blue car rather than to suffer the mobile phone conversations and tinny drumbeats of other rail passengers. However, thanks to the ever-generous Richard Branson and his cheap ticket scheme, we had a First-Class journey to Brighton at Christmas which I found to be very acceptable. And so I've agreed to give it another try, though this time we'll be travelling with the plebs (cheap first-class tickets are not as readily available for weekend travel as they are for the dead days between Christmas and New Year, it seems) so the journey may not be the unalloyed joy it was in December.

In solidarity with the lovely Anna, I have packed for my on-train entertainment The Night Watch, described on its cover as 'Russia's answer to J K Rowling', which is absolutely nothing to recommend it in my opinion (but we won't go into my utter loathing of the Rowling Phenomenon here, lest we slip into a darkness from which we may never return). Fortunately I already knew a bit about the book and Xherri Potterski it most assuredly ain't, which is otlichno as far as I'm concerned.

Camera shy

I find myself in a bit of a quandary. Having had a substantial birthday cheque from The Mater I have almost decided to buy a new camera but am torn between a DSLR and a compact. I'd love the flexibilty you get from an SLR but am remembereing that I gave up my old 35mm one because I got tired of carrying all the kit around. So I think maybe I should go for a high-end compact, but then I'd loose out on the control that the SLR would give me. And then, I think, if I'm looking at compacts, I couldn't do much better than the Contax T2 (35mm) I already own, so why don't I just stock up on film for that puppy, and then use the birthday cheque to buy a really good scanner for the digitising plus a much better printer (which I'll need whatever I choose to do).

And then I think, if I wait a year, everything will get a bit cheaper or a bit better or a bit lighter or a bit functionalitier (or any/all of the above), so maybe I'll just hang on a bit ...

And so it goes ...

In the meantime I just keep taking not-bad snaps on my camera phone and thinking I could be doing much better if only I could make a decision.

Help!

Hey, big spender

Best Beloved has recently been lured into reading my copy of the classic 1930 boys' adventure story by Geoffery Prout, Scouts in Bondage, which has been lurking on my bookshelves for many years. As he describes in his post, the book achieved a minor degree of fame in the late 20th century on account of its mildly comedic title.

How the book came into my possession was on thiswise: many, many years ago a group (7) of us, camping in North Wales one excessively hot August Bank Holiday weekend*, happened upon the volume in a second-hand bookshop in Machynlleth. It was priced at £1.25. Of course, because of the extremely chortle-able title, we all wanted to buy it but, being both penurious and fond of beer, weren't prepared to stump up the readies, thinking it better to hang on to our ha'penny for the coming night's drinkage. Then we came up with the idea of a consortium purchase - divide the cost into 7 (17-and-a-half pence each or thereabouts) and we each buy a share and circulate the book amongst us. So that's what we did (though one of our number, being even tighter than the rest of us, wasn't prepared to shell out, so her more Rockerfellerian husband bought two shares - why on earth we didn't just divide by six instead I'll never know).

Over the years I have made it my business to acquire, by fair means or foul, the shares of my fellow Bondage-ites, ending up with five of the original seven and permanent caretakership of the book. Since good quality copies sell (according to AbeBooks) for anything up to £150, I'd say it's not been a bad investment. Wish I could remember which of us has the remaining two shares though, then at last it could be mine, all mine ...

* this weekend was also noteworthy for the fact that temperatures rose to the high 70s but, in a classic demonstration of my extreme neshness, I remained huddled in my duffel coat complaining that it was 'a bit chilly' I had the last laugh though: everyone else suffered spectacular sunburn and shed skin like snakes for weeks afterwards, while I smugly flaunted my pale-and-interesting-and-I'm- never-going-to-get-skin-cancer-(at-least-not-from-sunburn) look in their red flaky faces.

By the many blogs of Vishnu

Have just downloaded an addon for Firefox (ScribeFire) that should let me post to multiple blog, so should finally be able to keep both of the blighters up-to-date. Am therefore checking out the functionailty with this little post.

Powered by ScribeFire.