Snapping Point

Iteration the Thirteenth: The Europeans are Our Misfortune

2009-05-05T21:04:00.002+01:00

As those of you who have been paying attention know, I am well known for my racism. (My Name Is Jon And I Am A Racist, `Snapping Point` 21-11-08).
I think that it is about time you all benefited from my superior knowledge and came to realize just how important it is that we all maintain a healthy racist attitude. So I am going to bestow upon you the benefit of my superior intellect. (All we racists have a superior intellect. That is why it is we and we alone who are fit to judge who may share the privildge, privalige
of living in this country . And of course a few lucky inferior people who are allowed to drive the buses and stuff. Whatever a bus is.)

It goes back a long way. To one of the first Ryans in fact...

Uhgggg C Ryan (we never did find out what the `C` stood for. That knowledge was lost along with Byrhtnoth Ryan at the battle of Maldon in 991) was, according to family legend, sitting outside his boutique cave late one morning in 20,009 BC, gnawing the last gristle from his breakfast mastodon and worrying about how long humanity could survive the onslaught of this new Fire that the authorities were insisting everyone should use. Did they have no thought of what it could do to the environment? How it was going to affect the next generation? Uhgggg had twenty children, (possibly more but that was all the fingers and toes he had) three of whom had not been eaten either by bears or each other.

When the Inspector of Fire turned up, Uhgggg, seeing that he was a stranger, wrinkled what may in a few more generations become a forehead, came upright, near enough, hitched up his chic wolfskin loincloth, and beat the man to death with a thighbone.

What else could he have done? The man was a stranger, and we all know what strangers do, don’t we?

They come over here, taking the kebabs out of the mouths of honest benefit claimants, they talk to our women about things other than football, they make us look stupid by doing the jobs that are quite properly beneath a proud Englishman and which should be left to, to... well, I’ve not got up to that bit in the UKIP manifesto yet. But you’d better believe that when we at UKIP come to power next month, the solution will be pretty damn devastating and no mistake! (The bit about UKIP how will reduce the 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament to 55 Scots Westminster MPs and the 60 Welsh Assembly Members to 32 Welsh Westminster MPs, as set out in A Constitutional and Governmental Policy for an Independent Britain; 3.3 West Lothian & English Questions (“a brilliant read” - R Kilroy Silk. ) is also a tad confusing. I thought we wanted to be a totally independent country, like the Scots want to be, but we are going to be totally independent WITH the Scots. And the Welsh. Oh, and the Irish as well. Some of the Irish. And, um, some of the Irish want to be independent of the rest of the Irish and the other Irish want to be independent with the English. And possibly the Cornish. Don’t the Cornish come into this somewhere?

And I’m not quite sure how Mr Farage (can you believe it, but some people have never heard of Mr Farage!) intends to get rid of the leftover Scottish MPs. It all seemed so simple when I joined. “Nothing more simple than a member of UKIP” I thought, after I had failed the BNP selection procedure (my knuckles just don’t drag properly, it seems).

A thighbone works pretty well.

I’m sure Mr Farage will soon tell me what I should think.

He always does.

VOTE UPIK! SAY NO TO SOME OF EUROPE! (BUT NOT ALL OF IT. I THINK. PROBABLY). YOU KNOW IT MAKES SENSE!

(UKIP, not UPIK. Sorry).

Jon Ryan 5th May 2009.

Iteration the Twelfth: Rotten Currys

2009-03-17T15:17:00.003Z

I had to take a camera back the other week.

It happens. Things go wrong. This was a cheap camera; an Advent MP82, value about £50, that had been a gift and which I used to demonstrate to students that even the cheapest camera can produce decent pictures. It was a brilliant little machine, and I simply wanted it fixed or replaced.

So, back to Currys, Bath. 40 minutes later, feeling great empathy towards Vlad the Impaler (Can you do that with a camera? Even a small one with smooth edges and the lens retracted? My, how I longed to find out) I was on my way to the Royal United Hospital (of which more later).

Consider Currys. They have been around for as long as I can remember, offering decent electricals at reasonable prices - and actually go back to one Henry Curry who started building bicycles in his Leicester shed in the 1880s - though it seems that they, now part of Dixons Store Group International, may soon be back in a shed, given their current troubles.

They have suffered store closures, redundancies and are fighting a tax row that could cost them millions. They saw like-for-like sales drop 10% over the vital Christmas trading period, and, despite announcements of store refurbishments and cost-slashing measures, shares as I write this have dropped yet another 5%, now standing at a miserable 20.5p. (On the 2nd of March 2007 DSGI shares closed at 170.0p - 8 ½ time higher.)

And I know why. His name is... well, better not name him, as he was pretty determined that he was not going to give me his full name, even though it appeared clearly on the receipt he gave me. You may say that this suggests something or other about the level of management intelligence at Currys. Of course I couldn't possibly comment.

If you were the manager of a business in danger of the scrap-heap, is it possible that you would want to ensure that you did everything in your power to ensure that customers were kept happy? To, you know, try to make the customer think, hmmm, nice helpful bloke running Currys, Bath. I'll shop there again.

Or would you first try to say that a receipt was necessary for returns (do YOU give out receipts when you give gifts?), which it isn't; claim that the item has been off the shelves for two years (so what?); accuse the customer of damaging the box (damaging the box forsooth!); suggest that the fault may be that the customer doesn't know how to use a camera (I know far more about cameras and their care than he does); and do all of this in a sneering, sarcastic, rude, offensive, deprecating, demeaning manner that had I, at any time during the fifteen years I spent in senior retail management, seen any member of my staff behave thusly towards a customer, would have dished out some pretty swift disciplinary action.

Should we be shocked at such an uncouth, unhelpful, uncaring, unprofessional behaviour? Not at this store, according to Which? magazine:

(http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/246182/dixons-stores-panned-in-best-shops-survey.html Thursday 29th January 2009)

a customer service survey conducted by consumer watchdog Which? makes uncomfortable reading for the troubled Dixons Stores Group (DSGi). Currys Digital, Currys and PC World - all owned by DSGi - occupy the bottom three slots among electrical retailers, with all three scoring a score of below 50%.The survey of more than 14,000 Which? readers asked respondents to rate shops on "everything from products to price".
The Which? readers certainly weren't afraid to offer their opinion on the Dixons' stores. Currys Digital staff are described as "unhelpful and unknowledgeable", while one person described the store "as big, brash and impersonal".
The one bright note for Dixons is that Currys online store did "substantially better than its high-street shops".
The Dixons Stores Group announced earlier this month that computing sales slumped by 12% in the normally busy Christmas period

In their First Half Trading Statement (Released 23rd October 2008), DSGI say that they have put

10,000 colleagues through the first stage of the new in-store service programme

which presumably entails gathering them together at a nice country hotel and explaining that being nice to customers is a jolly good idea, all things considered. Shame they did not have room for the 10,001st `colleague`.

And so I left the store, clutching Service Docket 406741, Mr No Name having, with great and rudely stated reluctance, agreed to send the camera for assessment. And I went to the Hospital.

Let me make absolutely clear that my trip to the Royal United was in no way connected with the conduct of Currys' staff, but this is germane.

It's a big, sprawling place, the RUH, much of it lashed together during the Second World War, and a navigational nightmare. In danger of being late for my MRI brain scan (I may have a screw loose, it seems), I asked a bustling nurse for a steer to the X-ray dept. She was, it transpired, bustling off for a coffee break. She spent, and are you listening, Mr No Name? 10 minutes of her break personally guiding me to the right place, offering a potted history of the hospital at no extra charge on the way.

It's called `service.` I recommend it. It works.

Jon Ryan

SOME DAYS LATER: It took a good further few hours of work on my part, more emails and phone calls, but in the end Currys sent a voucher for the value of the camera. I had a call from a senior staffer, who offered a good apology and said that the matter was being thoroughly investigated, and I believe him.

He also said that I would have a written statement from the company about its conduct. I have not had this.

Oh yes - the brain scan people tell me I have an empty sella. Whatever that means.

Iteration the Tenth:The Greatest Story Ever Told. Part II: Return of the Magi.

2009-03-04T14:18:00.003Z

...behold, there came wise men from the east, saying, Where is he that is born King? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him...

Balthazar pulled his soaking robe more tightly about him, and sneezed. “Remind me again,” he said to his companion, wiping his nose on the back of his hand, “about the camels.”
Melchior sighed. He too was wet, cold, hungry and having doubts about the whole Second Coming business. They had been over the camel thing many times, but talking about it seemed to cheer up his old friend. “Well, it’s contrary to the Destructive Animals Act and Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981to import camels without a licence.” He refrained from saying that he had now found out that the Destructive Animals Act had actually been framed for the import of muskrats, but even so their camels had been confiscated at the border.

“So we walk,” said Balthazar bitterly, a raindrop quivering on the end of his nose. “We walk to Bethlehem. This will make us appear Wise Men in the eyes of the world, will it? I ask only for information. And we are close to Bethlehem, are we? We’ll arrive in time for Christmas, will we?” He directed this comment at the third of their number, who remained oblivious, head jiggling to some unheard rhythm under the bright yellow of the cagoule that he wore. Balthazar reached out with his staff and poked him. A tousled head emerged from the cagoule.

“Wagwaaan, ma man!” cried the third Magus, smiling happily at him and pulling the earpiece of his iPod from his ear. “Cotch down, antwacky. Don’t be flat roofin.'”

Melchior winced. He had accepted that, after 2,000 years, it was always going to be difficult, putting the old band back together; Caspar had gone off on a book signing tour and his contract wouldn’t allow him time off even for the Second Coming, and he understood, at least to a degree, that times had changed and knew that the selection of a replacement would take place in a way that would be understood by a modern audience. “This is 2000, darling,” the agent had said, “and modern people are more sophisticated, more discerning. You can’t just fob them off with any old peasant in a robe. There must be an open and democratic process of selection designed to align our centres’ missions with the new strategy, ensuring long-term sustainability, and balancing the advantages gained through activities supporting stakeholders against the possibility of mission drift. We must have,” she had added, leaning forward earnestly, causing her bangles to ring like temple bells and tapping Balthazar on the knee with a puce-painted fingernail, “synergy!”

The two Wise Men had looked at each other dumbly. “Will that be instead,” Balthazar had asked eventually, “of the frankincense or the myrrh?”.

The selection process had taken time, but Who Wants To Be A Wise Apprentice Celebrity Problem Dancing On Ice Factor!!!! had proved a ratings phenomenon and Melchior’s increasingly alarmed calls, pointing out that Christmas was fast approaching, were met with shrugs and copies of the advertising revenue report. The Second Coming of the Saviour of Mankind came a long way behind the demands of purveyors of fizzy brown water with extra sugar and mechanically recovered cow’s lung ground up with monosodium glutamate and served on plastic buns, it seemed.

Which explained why the Second Coming, originally scheduled for the Millennium, was now eight years late.

It was still raining. Balthazar was still grumbling. “Back in my day,” he was saying, “We just followed Yonder Star. Didn’t need none of this new-fangled whatchamacallums...”

“GPS” intervened Dazzle, the newest Magus and winner of Who Wants To Be A Wise Apprentice Celebrity Problem Dancing On Ice Factor!!!!, shaking a small plastic box to get the water out of it and holding it to his ear. “Dis ting gash, man,” he muttered, “it vanilla, it...”

“Don’t bother, Henry,” interrupted Melchior, “No cameras out here.”

The Right Honourable Henry Alcala De Montford, AKA Dazzle, sighed and tossed the GPS into a ditch. “Well, it worked for long enough, actually” he said in his normal voice, having checked that indeed there were no cameras, microphones or journalists to hear his Eton-and-Oxford-educated accent. “That hill ahead is where a Holy Man was executed many hundreds of years ago for his beliefs. We’ve arrived.”

“Doesn’t look like Bethlehem to me,” said Balthazar, peering through the gloom at the distant hill. Dazzle/Henry looked at him quizzically.

“Bethlehem? Didn’t they tell you? My dear old thing, Bethlehem is out of the question in the current political climate. This is Glastonbury. Much more, ah, acceptable to the sponsors.” He patted the older man on the back. “Glasto kickin’, man! it nang! it da bomb, ma hench!” After all, he added to himself, you could never be certain that a microphone wasn’t hidden nearby.

“It’s hopeless” said Melchior coming out of the Council Offices. “According to the Birth Register, Glastonbury has had 63 births to single women recently, of which 41 are father uncertain, six don’t know what caused it and the others are in Civil Partnerships and had artificial insemination.”

“No angels, then?” asked Balthazar.

“No angels. But three of the women claim to have been made pregnant by aliens and one says her Indian spirit guide took advantage of her when she was drunk.”

“Sounds pretty normal for Glastonbury,” murmured Dazzle, who had performed at the Festival as part of his prize for winning Who Wants To Be A Wise Apprentice Celebrity Problem Dancing On Ice Factor!!!!

Melchior looked seriously at the other two Magi. “There’s only one thing for it. We’re going to have to speak to the Almighty.” The others swallowed nervously, but nodded their agreement. Together, Melchior and Balthazar sank to their knees and clasped their hands together. Melchior took a deep breath and was about to begin the most fervent prayer of his long life when Dazzle waved a mobile in his face. “No need for all that, old boy. I’ve got him on speed-dial.”

Some hours passed. It continued to rain.

“Still no luck?” asked Melchior sympathetically.

“No. Our call is still important to Him, we are still in a queue and one of His operatives will be with us as soon as possible.”

“Huh,” grumped Balthazar who was chewing morosely on something that claimed on its packet to be a “succulent Cornish Pasty made to an Original Recipe” which it may well have been had the original recipe involved an old sandal. “Back in my day the Almighty answered like a shot, didn’t need no operatives nor no fancy whatchamacallums...”

“Mobile phones” snapped Melchior. It was nearly midnight and they still hadn’t found the Child. It was time for the last resort. The Senior Magus held out a hand. “Give me the telephone, please Henry,” he said, a note of command entering his voice. “I’m going to call the emergency number.”

Henry looked at him, concern showing in his eyes. “You sure, boss?”

Melchior looked back steadily at his junior colleague. “We have no choice. Give me the phone.”

Silently, Henry handed over the instrument. Melchior dialled the number he had memorised, sick in his heart at the thought that they had failed, wondering how their failure would be received and how far he could be demoted, or even sacked. The call was answered on the second ring. “Is that” he tried to say, but his throat had dried. He licked his lips. “Is that... The Lord?”.

“Melchior! How wonderful to hear from you!” The voice was friendly and full of warmth. “Look, old friend, I know that you’ve been having a few problems, but we all have the fullest confidence in you...” The old man felt a tear creep down his cheek, warm in contrast to the rain. How could he ever have had any doubts? He allowed the dulcet voice to flow over him and felt his confidence flooding back, and he knew that the The Lord, not quite The Almighty but in many ways even more powerful, would sort matters in a trice. The Lord would speak to The Almighty, and everything would be fine, just fine. He listened for a while longer, smiling, and giving a thumbs-up to his colleagues, absorbing the wise words that were bestowed from above. Eventually, he was able to hand the phone back to Henry.

“It’s all solved,” he told them, sniffing a little. The Lord has it all in hand.”

“A miracle” opined Henry.

“Truly, He is most wonderous,” agreed Balthazar, his voice awed.

Melchior blew his nose and wiped his eyes, unable for the moment to talk. The world would be saved.
His faith had been tested, but it had survived. How could he ever have questioned? After all, had not The Lord come back from the dead before? Not just once, but twice! Silently, he offered up a prayer of thanks to Lord Mandelson of Foy and Hartlepool, and the Three Wise Men strode into the rain to seek their destiny as the church bells rang out on that Christmas morning.

ITERATION THE NINTH: My Name Is Jon And I Am A Racist

2008-11-20T12:11:00.002Z

There. I’ve said it. It’s out at last. It’s one of those things, your own personal racism, that you hope will stay hidden. In the same way that revealed members of BNP have understandably shown themselves to be ashamed of their affiliation, I am certainly ashamed to be revealed as a bigot, as a Mosley, an Irving , a Griffin. What surprised me most was not that my shame was revealed when the list of BNP members came to light - I am not and never have been a member of that organisation and Satan will ski to work before I join – but when I read of it in a Sunday paper. And do you know what else came to light? It turns out that you, my friend and neighbour, are also a racist. Look here:

...outside London and the more evolved large cities, the traditional view is that

black or brown people are all very well in their known place – driving a bus, cleaning a lavatory, being good at maths, medicine or singing. But a brown or black person who earns much more than you? Whose employee you might be? Whose house is much bigger and whose lifestyle you envy? That’s too much; that can’t be borne.

Now just who can Ms India Knight, for it is she, in the Sunday Times, ( November 9, page 22 should you care to check) be talking about? Shall we ask ourselves just where is the smallest city in the United Queendom? Could it be, with a population of 10,406, according to the census of 2001, our own small but perfectly formed City of Wells?

By Ms Knight’s lights, only in the larger conurbations can people be evolved and sophisticated enough to eschew racism and Wells can’t qualify on those grounds. And as for those of us living in tiny villages found at the end of muddy, crumbling roads... well, we must certainly inhabit some hell-hole to the right of disgraced TalkSport presenters.

Ms Knight is being, to use her own phrase, thoughtless rather than wicked. The thrust of her thesis is that, as someone who is –her words again – cafe au lait, she still endures the casual racism of certain people: in the case she cites in her article, her hostess passes a remark about a ‘dirty Paki’. Where she demonstrates her own thoughtlessness is in her suggestion that this sort of thing is only to be expected in certain places. Newcastle, say, where her example took place (Newcastle has no BNP councillors), but not presumably in enlightened London (which has a disgusting number of the creatures. More than none, that is).

It’s a depressingly common attitude, is India’s. She is rightly horrified by her thoughtless hostess and then goes on to demonstrate an incontrovertible and equivalent thoughtlessness of her very own.

I honestly believe racism to be on the way out. Not this week or even this century will the last bigot finally rot away like the excrement of dinosaurs, but it’s un-evolved adherents are now more inclined to remain in the stinking holes which they inhabit. The reaction to the publication of the BNP membership list proves this. And was I the only person to laugh out loud when the ridiculous Nick Griffin squealed that this exposure was in violation of the European Human Rights Act? How delicious that he who would have us widen the English Channel by 1,000 miles (not kilometres) if he could, now goes blubbing his pain to the very people he purports to despise.

Sooner or later, grown up people will judge each other on important things, not where they came from or the amount of melanin in their skin. I hope people like India Knight will help the process by being less thoughtless with their casual remarks. They be quite hurtful.

Iteration the Eighth: STUDENT NAME: God. SUBJECT: Intelligent Design 101. MARK: D--

2008-10-29T08:12:00.001Z

Posted: 26-Oct-2008 12:51

As we have learned, class, it is possible to extract a decent photograph from the cheapest of cameras.

This is because camera engineers employ a system that we may call intelligent design.

Unfortunately, this system does not seem to have been known to the designer of that ubiquitous, if flawed, entity known as the Human Being. Oh, some sections of creation were clearly done by first-rate students; the cream who went on to become doctors, scientists or those who can deal with flat-pack furniture, and those who came up with such glories as the Great Barrier Reef, kittens and Pont l'Eveque cheese. But we humans obviously got stuck with the thick, nerdy kid who sat at the back of the class, picking his nose and surreptitiously reading a copy of Guns n' Ammo under the desk. OK, some bits of His work come close to perfection - Kylie Minogue's bottom comes to mind- but as for the rest... I mean, would you want to cross a bridge built along the lines of the human spine? Hip joints wear out at around fifty years and hearts tend not to last much longer (on that subject, we quite sensibly come fitted with two lungs, kidneys and testicles/ovaries - redundancy in design is sound engineering - but why only one heart or liver? Was redundancy in these area included in the original spec. and the build went over budget? Or did some of the cash end up in the Cayman Islands? We Should Be Told!) And as for the eye, well it's pretty hopeless. Easily damaged, no zoom function, the aperture adjustment is stuck on automatic and the whole thing has to be fitted with compensating lenses in a vast proportion of cases just to allow it to carry out its basic function.

The difference with cameras is that they have evolved. God, it seems (and I make this observation from having watched the actions of His followers), has a hissy fit if anyone even suggests that His design may be flawed. He sulks and sticks His fingers into his ears, refusing to listen to even the mildest suggestion that the appendix, say, whilst great at helping koala bears to digest eucalyptus leaves, wasn't a very clever thing to put into humans. And the designer of the koala was probably none too pleased at having the idea nicked. This obtuseness has condemned millions of people throughout history to a rather nasty and painful death. Come to think of it, our Creator probably nicked the design for Kylie's bottom as well. Meanwhile, the designer of the glass plate camera happily accepted the superiority of roll film, and when the 35mm cassette came along in the 1920s no-one felt the need to nail Oskar Barnack at Leica to anything, even for a short time.

Naturally humanities' problems would have been fewer had God been a woman. Less smelly for a start. Women are far too sensible (on the whole) to sulk because someone told them that there could be a better, more efficient way of doing things; they are a rational, logical species (except when it comes to shoes and hair, of course).

God could learn a lot from the makers of cameras. And his biggest mistake? Making man in His own image.

Could Do Better.

Iteration the Seventh, in which we muse on Wittgenstein, death and underpants

2008-10-01T15:36:00.004+01:00

So, why is a washing machine like a camera?
No, this isn’t one of those surrealist riddles to which the answer is something like ‘logic is not representative; there can be no representative of the logic of facts’ as Wittgenstein, the old funster, had it. Nor is the answer ‘because they both have incomprehensible instruction manuals’ which is closer, as the one for the washing machine will be written in Swahili, but still wrong as the camera will come without any proper manual at all.

To find the answer, come with me on a short journey in which we may discover the essence of my contention.

The story begins with a death.

Perhaps I am over-dramatising here, as the death we are talking about is that of a washing machine, but you may well have cried had you seen what it had done to my underpants. A man came, shook his head sadly, directed us to a showroom, and we became the proud owners of a new machine. (A process which was a touch surreal: The engineer came at the time he had said he would come, the people in the showroom were knowledgeable and helpful and delivered when they said they would deliver. Which was one hour, ONE HOUR, afterwards. A round of applause, if you would, for Becks Electrical Centre of Glastonbury).

Be that as it may, we choose a washing machine. We had a choice of, ooh, around twenty of the things, varying slightly in size and colour, rather more in price. The most expensive was two hundred pounds more than the cheapest. All were machines that fall into the ‘basic domestic’ category; not washer-driers, not built to cope with hotel-size loads, just wash clothes.

So why the difference in price? Does the more expensive machine make your underpants £200 cleaner? Can it do extra tasks such as make a nice cup of tea to drink while waiting for it to do the wash? Will it use £200 less power/water/washing powder?

No. To all of the above.

Now look at these two photographs:

One was taken on a digital camera that cost, new, under fifty pounds. The other on a full-spec pro DSLR that would (and did!) absorb a month’s wages. You can probably see where I’m going here.

For basic photography, or basic washing of underwear, a basic machine is adequate. If all you want from a camera is to get a decent snap shot in straightforward conditions, go for the cheapie. I can’t see much significant difference between a modern camera costing £50 and one costing double that. If you do more challenging photography, sport, say, or wildlife, then you will have to spend more. The washing machine we ended up with has 3 dials, 6 buttons, 16 cycles and 10 lights. All of these add to the cost. How many are necessary? Are there really 16 different ways to wash underpants?

Visit the website: http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk

Jon Ryan

Iteration the Sixth

2008-09-25T09:23:00.000+01:00

PUBLISH AND BE DA

Seems a shame, doesn't it? Just when we're getting to know each other, here we are at the very last Snapping Point column. Indeed the very last column of any sort, come to that.

Those of you who keep up with the important news rather than all that fluff about collapsing economies, elections in former colonies and wars here and there, will know where I am heading: The End is Nigh. And it's all the fault of a photographer. On Wednesday, a scientist in Switzerland will press a button that is attached to a camera called the Large Hadron Collider in an attempt to take a snap of something called the Higgs Boson. After a yawn-inducing wait of 0.00000000001 seconds, or just long enough to read the interesting bits in Wayne Rooney?s autobiography, the world will cease to exist.

Photographers are always being blamed for this sort of stuff. Back around 1510 Leonardo Da Vinci took a snap of Jesus, the first known paparazzo shot, the ramifications of which can be read about in Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince's THE TURIN SHROUD: IN WHOSE IMAGE?, (New York, Harper Collins, 1994). Then, in 1826, Joseph Nicephore Niepce, a scientifically-minded gentleman living on his country estate near Chalon-sur-Saone, France, took a picture of his back garden, thus launching an obsession with gardening and lifestyle magazines that is with us still.

More recently, during the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the Hubble Space Telescope grabbed a shot of an object that is both 13 billion light-years away and also 13 billion years old. This was upsetting to fundamentalists, who insist that nothing is older than 4004 BC. Even more upset were the people who, having paid around $5 billion for the Hubble, found that the picture was of, as reported by the New York Times of April 14th 2000, "a reddish dot."

Personally I would argue that $5 billion for a reddish dot 13 billion light-years distant represents better value for money than $4 million reportedly paid for pictures of Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, given that all new babies look like reddish dots.

Of course we cannot be certain that CERN will end life as we know it, or even this column, and you may be assured that, even if it does, the matter will be fully reported in next week's Wells Journal and its associated titles. Nothing as trivial as the destruction of the universe could stop us from going to pr

Iteration the Fifth

2008-09-24T12:49:00.001+01:00

Which camera should I buy? (The story continues...)
Posted: 28-Aug-2008 13:58

(Reposted from our website)

Well, Dr Who as Hamlet worked. David Tennant got away from the modern tendency to see not the ghost of his father, but that of Olivier walking the ramparts of Elsinore and was thus able to imbue the role with a rare freshness and energy that avoided the obsequious reverence which all too many contemporary actors have brought to the part. The previous evening saw Angus Wright give a wonderfully nuanced Shylock in a performance that sadly saw him receive little support from an otherwise rather wooden cast, and on our final night we were given one of the worst Tamings of a Shrew since Kate was first Kissed back around about 1594.

All of which goes to show that spending the same amount of money in the same place for what appears to be a similar product can result in wildly differing results. Which, and perhaps we're trying a bit too hard here, brings us back to cameras.

You'll remember that during The Merchant of Venice Bassanio, when looking into the casket in the hope of winning a wife (the 16th century equivalent of on-line dating?), says: "May the outward signs be least themselves, the world is still deceived by ornament," What he is saying here is that when looking for a camera, or a wife presumably, don't get taken in by the advertising. A phone may advertise the fact that it is fitted with a 10MP camera, a device that you may think is capable of taking a pretty good picture, but what it may not say is that the lens is half the size of your little fingernail and made of plastic.

On the other hand, for less than a tenth of the cost of the phone you may be able to pick up a camera with fewer pixels but a proper lens, and you too will be able to say to your mum: "Look here, upon this picture, and on this, The counterfeit presentment of two brothers. See, what a grace was seated on this brow; Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself..."

As Hamlet did to his when showing her a picture of his dad. With the phone cam, she probably wouldn't be able to see Hyperion's curls at all as, despite the higher resolution, the poor quality lens would let the whole thing down. Which may have been what drove Hamlet mad, of course.

Do a little research. Pretty much every camera ever made has been reviewed somewhere and had its review posted on the net. Think what you need a camera for; just the odd snap-shot? sports events? wildlife? landscapes? There are plenty of books, courses, magazines and people who already know some photography who will be willing to answer your questions.

The salesperson is primarily interested in your money, not your pictorial aspirations. "No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en", as Tranio so aptly put it in Taming of the Shrew, he having obviously come up against some fly salesman who fobbed him off with an unsuitable camera before Kate and Petruchio's wedding.

Don't let it happen to you!

Just to cheer you up, I won't end with another quote.

Jon Ryan

Iteration the Fourth

2008-09-24T12:47:00.000+01:00

Arrrrrgh! Which camera should I buy?
Posted: 28-Aug-2008 13:57

(Reposted from our website)

Did you know that if you took one of each type of digital camera currently on the market and stacked them one on top of the other, you would be arrested for not having planning permission?

They would make quite a stack.

So, how on Earth do you decide which to buy?

The one thing that seems certain is that, in this world of computers so powerful that they can calculate huge numbers (the number of times that Gordon Brown has assured us that the economy is sound, say) and tiny numbers (the collective IQ of callers to a football phone-in, perhaps), no-one knows just how many different models of digital camera there are.

This would be fine if all of them did different things, but of course they don't. As with cars, televisions or telephones, there is an awful lot of duplication going on here.

What they all have in common is this: you can get a decent picture out of any camera. Even the cheapest on the market, such as the one I recently bought for under £60 (new) can give you a good result.

Which begs an obvious question: why pay more than £60?

In many cases, there is no reason at all to pay more. If all you use a camera for is the odd picture from your holiday, then fine; get the cheapest you can find. It will probably come with some sort of manufacturer's warranty - they nearly all do now - and will in any case have to comply with (deep breath) the Sale of Goods Act 1979 (SGA), the Sale and Supply of Goods to Consumers Regulations 2002 (SSGCR), the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 (SGSA) and the Distance Selling Regulations 2000 (DSR). (And if anyone wants to know what being in Europe has done for us, you could start by pointing out that many of our indigenous consumer laws stem from European law). In essence, even the cheapest of goods, be they cameras or curtains, must "be of merchantable quality" and "suitable for the purpose for which they were intended."

That last bit is important. It's up to you to make sure that whoever you're buying from knows what the thing, whatever it is, is for. You would, for instance, tell the sales person what size window the curtains are for. If you don't and they turn out too small, that's your fault, not theirs. For basic snapshots in undemanding conditions, a cheap camera will do the trick, especially if you take some time to read the manual (see previous blog for how to get one if your camera came without). If you want to photograph birds on the wing or pictures that can be blown up to the size of bed sheets, the cheapy can't be expected to hack it.

What camera to buy is a big subject, so we'll come back to it, but not for a couple of weeks. I'm off to see what Dr Who and Jean-Luc Picard are doing to Hamlet!

As ever, if you have any questions or comments, leave them below.

Jon Ryan

Iteration the Third

2008-09-24T12:45:00.000+01:00

Crack those vac snaps!
Posted: 28-Aug-2008 13:55

(Reposted from our website)

What did you bring home from your holidays?

Well, a few bottles of that local red wine that went down so well in the Taverna (especially after the third bottle!), but which now mysteriously tastes of creosote.

A shell-covered box that, when opened, plays Nessan Dorma and has been doing just that for three days non-stop, despite your trying to turn if off. With a hammer.

A nearly-gold necklace set with almost-emeralds that you bought from that lovely young man on the beach, and which has left you with a strange rash. (The necklace, not the young man. You hope...)

And, of course, some photographs.

Ah yes. Those photographs. Let's take a peep at the photographs...

Look: here's one of the Taverna. Which seems to have acquired orange decor. And orange patrons. And all the food is, well, orange...

Remember the lovely view over the bay? Well, here it is. Actually the sea wasn't at quite that angle...

And as for the pictures of the Cathedral, and me in the sea, and both of us on the mountain taken by that friendly German chap - well, I'll try to explain what they were meant to look like, only the battery ran out, or the camera was full, or when I plugged it into the computer when we got home all the images sort of evaporated...

Sound familiar?

Odd, isn't it, how people will plan their holiday down to the last sock and aspirin and yet the camera, which arguably will bring back more memories than anything else, including the stuffed donkey, often gets shoved into a pocket as an afterthought - if, that is, it gets remembered at all.

Having remembered your camera, here are a few things that can spoil your holiday shots...

Flat battery- take spares (or pack the charger)

Dirty lens - get a cleaning kit (about £5 from camera shops)

Full memory card - Clear the old photos before you go

And a few things that can improve them...

Practice! Take some shots at home.

Read the manual. Amazingly, and to their shame, some retailers fail to provide a full manual with their cameras and may even try to charge extra for one. Do they do this with televisions? With washing machines? Complain bitterly and very loudly if this happens to you. Sneer at the manager's tie. Write to your MP. Walk out of the shop. Then take a look at this link:

http://www.retrevo.com/samples/index.html

This site has thousands (I'm not exaggerating) of manuals that you can download free of charge.

Vary your eye line. Crouch down for some shots. Stand on a wall (only when sober...)

Look for a different angle, and then use...

***THE NUMBER ONE TIP IN THE HISTORY OF HISTORY***

for taking better photos:

Take another shot!

Pictures taken on a digital camera are essentially free. As long as you have spare memory, ALWAYS take extra shots.

Whilst you can delete the ones you don't like when you get home, when you get home it will be too late to take extra ones.

Happy holiday!

Jon Ryan

Edited by: Moderator on 30-Aug-2008 10:53
That's what you get for copy and pasting in a hurry!

Iteration the Second

2008-09-24T12:44:00.000+01:00

(Reposted from our website)

This one comes up quite frequently on the courses I teach. The snappy answer (sorry) is: around 1/250th of a second at F5.6. If you take a photo, and someone buys it, then voila!, you are a pro. The trick lies in finding the someone willing to pay you. If your shot is of, say, Elvis riding Shergar down Glastonbury High Street you will retire in utter luxury (or should demand your money back from whoever sold you the mushrooms). A seventeen-year-old amateur recently earned around £20,000 for his shot of a car used in a failed bombing in London; this was a poor quality picture taken on an ordinary phone. The point of it, and what made it so valuable, was its rarity. It was news. And news sells.

Most things, though, are not news. Your dog is not news (unless it bites Elvis), nor your baby (ditto), even if it is the most beautiful in the world (and it is!). Even things that are news are not news if you don't have your camera with you, and know how to use it. Although the more excitable tabloids may be persuaded run a story about the aliens that landed in your back garden to ask directions to Venus, real newspapers will only be interested if you can supply evidence. Contrary to popular belief, we who eke our living hacking away at the word-face go to great lengths to ensure that what we write is, well, right. I'm not saying fakery doesn't happen, because it does. But - witness what happened recently to the Express and the Star in the 'Maddy' case - papers that try it get brought before the Beak. Journalists have been jailed for fabricating stories, and quite right too.

And so it is with pictures. These days, I rarely feel the need to bite anyone but have been known to grow distinctly tetchy when people suggest that a picture of mine owes more to Photoshop than my ability to drive a camera. Sure photos are Photoshopped - they have to be, in the same way that back in the Stone Age pictures had to be processed by fumbling about for endless hours in a smelly, sweaty dark-room using poisonous chemicals (care to guess which I prefer?).

And yes, it is now easier to fake photos than it used to be, but then photos have always been susceptible to a touch of judicious tweakery - do you think those Hollywood types from the Thirties really looked that good?

A photo in a newspaper does the same job as all those words. It tells the story. It helps to sell the paper. And - important point this - it will be as accurate a representation as we can make it.

So can you become a press-snapper? There is no reason why not. Photography isn't inherently difficult, but it does take time, dedication, attention to detail, a desire to stand around on cold, muddy football pitches and so forth, as well as a good eye, and the field is extremely competitive (as well as crowded), but as long as there are newspapers, there will be news photographers. And that's going to be a long time.

Jon Ryan

Edited by: Moderator on 28-Aug-2008 16:23

Iteration the First

2008-09-24T12:37:00.004+01:00

(Reposted from our website)

I am not a great photographer.

Kindly editors have sat me down in their offices to point this out to me on more occasions than I care to remember. Reporters stroll over to my desk to check an image they have sent me on a forty-mile round trip to obtain, at night, in the rain, only to murmur how it is a pity that I seem to have missed the main thrust of the story, or how, despite the pic being just what they wanted, the story has now been dropped.

Total strangers stand in front of my lens at jumble sales and cricket matches, waving copies of last week's paper in my face and demanding to know why their child/spouse/vegetable marrow/prospective Parliamentary candidate was not on the front page/was on the front page/has a green face or, as it may be, only half a face.

I try to say something placatory and blame an Editorial Decision or an Act of God (roughly the same thing), or a drunken Sub, or that the reflection from the moons of Saturn caused an exposure error - anything, in fact, rather than the truth, which is:

I am not a great photographer.

No.

What I am is a competent photographer.

Put me and my Canon in pretty much any situation - ankle-deep in the frozen mud of a sleet-lashed rugby pitch with six feet of visibility and a growing suspicion that the players have already left the field, the awarding of a prize to a child with a nose-picking fixation, or even that most feared of all assignments, an advertising shoot at a beauty salon - and I will come away with some publishable snaps.

Photographers come in a variety of flavours - Wedding, landscape, portrait, glamour, sport - and many, if not most, tend to specialise in one area. As a press photographer I have been called upon to take photos in each of the above categories on the same day (with the exception, sadly, of glamour), all of which require quite different techniques.

And that is what I hope to impart with this blog; with each entry I shall try to pass on some of what we may call, for want of a better term, my photographic skills, and answer any questions - please do send questions, it will save me having to make them up - you may have, particularly if you are new to digital photography.

A tip to start you off:

When did you last clean your lens?

Every time I ask this during the courses I teach, there is a mass shuffling of feet and a lot of guilty expressions. A dirty lens is perhaps the number one cause of unsatisfactory photographs. As the lens on most compact cameras is only about a centimetre wide, a single raindrop or fingerprint (particularly fingerprint) can dull the image. If you have used your camera at the seaside, you will have, take my word on this, a thin crust of salt on the lens.

Any decent photography shop will sell lens tissue for a couple of pounds (ordinary tissue can contain scents that leave a film on your lens, or leave bits behind, or even scratch the glass, but can be used in a pinch). The trick is to be gentle when using it. The same shop should be able to sell you a lens cleaning kit that will have tissue, cleaning fluid (which you put on the tissue, never directly onto the lens), swabs and a 'puffer brush' that removes dust.

These kits are about £6, although I recently found a perfectly decent one for just £1. Lint-free cloth is also available, and this is fine but using it transfers the dirt from your lens to the cloth - and then back onto the lens next time you use it...

Enough for now.

Let me know what you think.