iPhone

I've cancelled the alarm clock, timed an egg, looked at the weather forecast, played a game, checked my e-mails, tweeted, read the Guardian app, played another game, translated something from French, checked the M4 for traffic, checked the train times, perused my online diary, listened to the radio, chosen a recipe, put the ingredients on the notepad, cheated at crosswords with the thesaurus, sent a text, surfed the web, checked some bird song (it was a goldfinch), and used the calculator.
Why am I still standing here looking at this thing?  It's not as if I'm dependent on it or anything!

Icicles of Damocles

Icicles on Youll's Antiques, Hungerford.

Hungerford

A composite of Hungerford canal basin with a tiny Canon Ixus 100 this evening. Click to view, as they say. I'm so glad I'm not a duck living in that freezing water!

G11 and Snow in Hungerford

No car, as the snow prevented delivery of my new springs to the garage where it's squatting on it's broken ones, so a good day for a walk, and to try out the Canon G11. The picture quality is fine, light meter is uncanny, and so on, but if you take hold of it like a normal camera your right hand presses anything up to nine of the prominent control buttons on the back at once, activating manual focusing, macro mode, self timer, flash on, or any number of other things that you really don't want when you're just about to squeeze the shutter. You find yourself holding it delicately between two fingers and two thumbs to avoid the unwanted controls. It's really not a camera for reliably taking pictures quickly, especially when your hands are cold and clumsy. A huge amount of technological excellence has gone into a camera whose exterior design makes it barely useable at times. I certainly wouldn't use it on an assignment except as an emergency backup, but it's a nice one to have in your pocket.

Narrowboat becomes icebreaker

Not exactly the best day to move to fresh moorings!