snappy happy

I take quite a few of the pictures that I post for my blog, except maybe the 'earth from space' or 'mid week and no time to post' type entries. I've always had a collection of cameras of different types and thought it would be worth describing the hierarchy from the 'just about take a picture' to 'purposeful' .

The most basic camera I use is my phone. It has a tiny lens and can take slightly smudgy pictures when the phone doesn't start saying 'memory error' or some of the other excuses that Windows Mobile plays when it doesn't want to co-operate.

Then I have a little black pocket digital 'point and shoot'. This is a small, flattish camera which I usually keep in the bottom of whatever bag I am carrying. It takes normal walkman batteries and therefore I don't really have to worry about remembering to charge it. Frankly, I don't know how manufacturers get away with selling these though, because there is a loooong delay between pressing the shutter and the picture being taken.

Then there's the camera I use the most, which is a little Panasonic Lumix FZ-7. This looks like a tiny SLR, but actually has an electronic viewfinder. It has fast startup, takes the pictures when you press the button and has a nice big piece of Leica glass on the front so that it works well in low light. It also has a 12x optical zoom, which, if it were a 35 mm camera would be the equivalent of 36mm wide to 432mm Telephoto - so it also has image stabilisation to avoid camera shake. There is also a video mode which I've used at some music concerts. I bought a couple of extra rechargable batteries for this from Hong Kong and it goes out frequently when I go out.

Finally there's SLR, and I use Nikon. There's several around at the moment which are at between 6 and 10 mega pixels and for most people I'd just say get something you can afford unless you are into big pictures and fancy cropping.

The trick with these SLRs is to recognise the march of the mega-pixels which means there is always a diffusion model which is lower spec and cheaper but probably really about as good as the best models of a year ago. The current bargain seems to be the so-called 'refurbished' D70s which are around UKP350 at the moment, with a good 18-70 zoom lens. This is because of the replacement rave reviewed D80, which is about UKP700 with a reasonable kit lens.

There's also a superb smaller D40 for around UKP350, which is allegedly lower spec, but in my experience is a lovely camera to use and geared towards people starting out, although I know other photographers (like me) who swear by how good this is.

The snag with the Nikon (whichever one) is to remember to take it along. When I'm travelling and want to stay with carry-on luggage, unfortunately, the SLR becomes an item to jettison.

So thats how I get the hierarchy :
- phone
- black point and shoot
- Lumix
- Nikon.

And as a Mac user, I use Aperture to store my pictures (I did use iPhoto, which is fine for most needs) and actually I use the basic version of Photoshop (Photoshop Elements) for any post editing of the pictures.

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fyne

A few of us had a bit of a do for Clare at Loch Fyne, which is quite a pleasant restaurant. A smidge of champagne was involved and some very enjoyable seafood. I decided to try the courses which were italicised and this led to a rather delicious Bradan Rost, which is kilnroasted smoked salmon with a whisky sauce.

So, as a weekend treat, here's my reverse engineered recipe. The Bradan Rost itself is a smoked salmon that has sort of cooked during the smoking process. Take some slices and heat them wrapped in foil in a warm oven for approx 15 mins. The result should look a quite deep brown colour.

In parallel, mix crème frâiché, creamed horseradish and whisky in a pan and heat through without boiling. A few pieces of sliced chanterelle can add a little texture. When warm, add freshly squeezed lemon juice and pepper to taste. Remove the Braden Rost from the oven and serve with the warm sauce and maybe some boiled potatoes, crusty bread and green leaved salad.

Sigh contentedly.

King of Hearts

Satirist Alistair Beaton has just launched an intriguing play about the Royal Family, across in Hampstead. The King Of Hearts examines how a prime minister and leader of the opposition would behave when faced with the possibility of the soon-to-be-crowned king converting to Islam.

With the reigning king at death's door and the heir to the throne in love with a British Muslim girl, there is consternation in the Establishment. The main response of the mainly overlapping prime minister and opposition leader is to consider how to engineer advantage from the situation.

Beaton's writing is always entertaining; the Blunkett play called A Very Social Secretary, the anti-war Follow My Leader and recently The Trial of Tony Blair.

eflyer here

moleskine

A small package awaited my return from Germany. Inside was a little Moleskine book. I first wrote abote 'The Whiteberry' back in 2005, and use these little books for notes.

It seems to be catching on.

It turns out that the one in the package included some maps and generally useful information about London, along with blank sections for notes and indexing. I'll consider adapting it as my personal guide to London.

starling dance

In the UK, birds, notably starlings are swarming early, believing Spring is fully upon us. Birdwatchers are commenting that this may be another sign of climate change, bringing moderate seasons earlier.

Meanwhile, there's been a story about defective petrol being sold in the UK over the last few days. This has been made more real by one of my reliable and non sensationalist colleagues having the juddering symptoms affecting his rather posh German 'vorsprung durch technik' Auto.

The initial discussion has revolved around the potential that this fuel has added ethanol, which has changed its combustion characteristics. I noticed that only three weeks ago, we had the Mr Mantega, Brazil’s Finance Minister, urging Britain to embrace ethanol as a petrol alternative.

Ethanol is a biofuel and part of the arguments for its use are that it can reduce the impacts of global warming, presumably realigning the seasons in the process. Mr Mantega was in London promoting the product and mentioned that Brazil happens to be the world’s largest supplier of ethanol.

In the USA, ethanol fuel is also made, in this case from maize. President Bush currently subsidises this form of production, as a spin off general farm subsidies, bur plans an $18bn reduction in this form of farm support over the next five years.

I suppose over the next few days we will see what, if anything, was wrong with the fuel and whether its a legitimate error, some sort of hysterical co-incidence or perhaps some form of orchestrated climate or other protest.

My friend tells me it is costing £140 ($250) to have the fuel removed from his gas tank, and then he will need to check whether he needs a new oxygen sensor or catalytic converter for his car. I speculate this won't be cheap.

We'll be able to watch it on the news, as it unfolds, unless - that is - that you were hoping to watch it on Sky and are a cable subscriber with NTL/Virgin, which is having its Sky services curtailed as part of a recent commercial decision.

a very cellular post

Sometimes keeping a blog can be quite difficult. My hotel room this evening, here in Frankfurt, doesn't have a working boradband connection, so I am typling this into my cell phone. I spent the last two days in busy meetings and was in a dinner until late yesterday and then had a 07:15 breakfast meeting today. So now I'm tired and will take the evening to watch television or listen to my iPod.

aboard a Ship of Fools

I entered the clanging and creaking harbour where the vessel prepared to take me and the rest of a hastily assembled crew on a voyage through time yesterday evening. We were all in Battersea's Theatre 503, which had been reconstructed to resemble a wooden decked craft of the 15th Century. We sat in the ship, not as mere spectators to a play. There was smoke wafting across the deck and the initial chatter soon subsided as first a fool and then the burghers of Basle in 1492 entered the scene.

The Plato-derived allegory of the Ship of Fools is viewed by many as that of not just an apocryphal episode in Greek and later Swiss history, but as a metaphor of the human condition. So like the original stories, we, the audience voyaged through the seas of time on a small ship that is representative of humanity.

In this Andrew Bovell play (he also wrote Strictly Ballroom, for example), the leaders of Basle round up the unemployed, the mad and anyone out of kilter with their society and place them on a rudderless and sail-less ship, which is then cast off into the Rhine, like a rubbish barge. The play then juxtaposes scenes from the 15th Century trials and tribulations of the voyage, with the modern-day anguishes of a set of people who are unemployed and sent away on a bus as part of a modern-day government scheme.

Then, using the plotline of the ancient story, and the personal lives of the modern-day people, we see them eat, drink, argue, lust and pursue unattainable goals as they meander aimlessly on their journey.

Back in Basle, Pietro de Convinso (played by Jonathan Oliver), is an investigator sent from Rome to find out what had happened and this part of the story unfolds through interviews with the members of the Council Chamber and also with interviews with witnesses from Basel and from the course of the River Rhine. Shadowing the investigator, is the narrator of the whole piece, in the form of the Fool (played by Andrew Buchan - he of the current BBC2 Series "Party Animals").

Each of this strong cast play multiple parts, both in the medieval Basle and 21st century Britain. Lucy Briers (daughter of Richard Briars) plays Monsier Schulze, a scheming and politically astute trader in Basle, determined to take the next role as Mayor of Basle. She also plays Rachel Stein an alienated woman with a past too horrible to be fully described in the story.

Maggie O’ Brian plays the The Mayor, with an exceptionally irritible bowel condition and Louise Masters who is a disenchanted housewife trying to escape a loveless marriage.

Sarah Corbett is Simone Gautier, also from the Council as well as the ex heroine addict Sunny Cox, whose boyfriend is on a methadone programme.

Jonathan Oliver also plays Monsier la Page, - who writes to the Pope after being ejected from the Council onto the ship, and additionally plays the highly strung bus driver fo the modern day Ship of Fools.

Richard Attlee plays the Bishop of Basel with a cut glass accent and Yugoslavian Marko Mihajolvic (thats with a 'j' and 'no, I don't need a translator')

And in addition to the fool, Andrew Buchan plays Simon Summerhayes, who has been in prison for rape. Most of the cast also play additional roles when Pietro de Convinco is running his inquiry.

The entire cast is strong and linked together well. All lent a continued tension to the piece as it built towards a climax in both the modern day part and the parallel medieval world. These overlaps convincingly and I found the entire performance engrossing.

The fool appears throughout both the 1492 narrative and the 2007 episodes which are cleverly interwoven, and as the play progresses, there are direct links from one series of events to the other.

In some versions of the original story, the ship drifts aimlessly and never reaches the harbour. In this version, the ship moves out into the sea. There is the question of whether things travel full circle. The story deals with profound questions of the human condition. How much of humanity is exempt from the discomfort of human folly? Can eccentricity, creativity and genius survive in a world where a type of normality is preferred?

There are moments of genuine laughter whilst watching this play, but there is also a sad laugh linking the Ship of Fools of others with the realisation that the play is about everyone, and we have indeed been sitting on the ship throughout the evening.

Like most of the obviously engrossed audience (which included a couple of celebs), I enjoyed this well-produced and crisply acted play and found myself thinking about the philosophical points afterwards. Must be a good sign!

Live in London? its worth a visit! A couple of other reviewer/bloggers were also at Saturday's show - I'll link to them when I find their posts -(Nathalie). Also friend Christina, who reviewed it Thursday, I give it 4 stars!

tags technorati : rashbre theatre london theatre503 offwestend chelsea battersea latchmere west end metro time out sloane square fringe ship of fools Andrew Bovell

out west

A stroll along King's Road, before this evening's visit to Theatre 503, to see the new production of Ship of Fools. The intrepid souls that have already taken the voyage tell me it is pretty good, so I'm looking forward to this evening. I gather a couple of other bloggers will also be along, too. If I can find out who, then I'll try to link reviews!

strong week

A late evening working and them home to cook some supper and catch up on the local news. And where better than the Londonist, where I spotted the little sign, which seems a fitting way to round off the week.

Thursday Thirteen : gaming the outcome

So lets set up a petition to ask people if they want to pay more for something they already take for granted. Then lets give a running total of how many new people have added their names during the countdown to the last day. Oh, and why not get someone famous to send a 'personal' response to everyone that signs up?

But bored with that one?

Here's a few more that are current and that fill my Thursday Thirteen!

1 We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Create a Cornish Bank Holiday on 5th March to commemorate St Piran’s Day

2 We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to bring back the Radio 4 UK theme

3 We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to allow the Piccadilly line to stop at Turnham Green tube station

4 We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to reduce the need for office-based workers to commute to work each day

5 We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to enter Ultimate Frisbee in to the 2012 olympics

6 We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Align our clocks with Central European Time

7 We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Bring Back Concorde

8We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Encourage MPs to try living on £100 a week

9 We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Stop Roadworks In Lowestoft

10 We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Stop proposed restrictions regarding photography in public places.

11 We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to stop duplicate petitions

12 We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Pass Legislation to make cold calling illegal.

and I thought this was particularly interesting...

13 We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Repeal or modify EC Regulation 785/2004 in order to exempt historical aircraft such as Sally-B B17G from new minimum insurance requirements

Of course, a fuller look at the list will show that there are petitions for many worthy subjects, although quite a few seem to have less than 500 signatures.

Tag: Thursday Thirteen, free link friday

OTA : Wordless Wednesday

Gone to the (slightly surreal) pub

Tag: Wordless Wednesday