I regret to advise that my Canon 500D has been officially pronounced DOA by Canon. It can be resurrected - but at such an enormous cost as to render such resuscitation economically unviable. The technicians at Canon were so distressed at the nature and extent of the injuries suffered by my Canon that they are holding an inquest and have asked that I attend as a witness. I have said that I am too badly injured to attend myself but am sending my own X-rays as evidence. Apparently a couple of the techies are receiving counseling.
Mr Soyka in Praterstrasse is ordering me a new Canon 60D and this will be here in time for our trip to the Somme with Liz and Darryl in two weeks time.
If all goes according to plan I will drop it onto an unexploded WW1 bomb and blow it to smithereens.
The 60D is one of the new-fangled Canons with about 60 Trillion pixels that can photograph dust mites on the eyelids of birds flying 2,000 meters away. This will be very useful and will be fabulous for Duck photos which is what I take most of. It will not be long before the Ducks in Stadtpark will be asking for royalty payments.
One of the great joys of being in England was that people speak a kind of English. In fact they speak many different kinds - and I encountered a few of these – but I could understand all of them.
And it was absolute bliss being in a shop where I could browse the shelves and look at old familiar things that were lost to me so long ago – and read the labels. Bliss.
Maalie had to drag me away from the Porridge shelves – but he did give me a packet to bring home.
In an attempt to un-knit my ribs Maalie took me rallying over what he said were the two most dangerous roads in Britain. These were Hard Knott Pass and Wrynose Pass and would have indeed been a bit of a challenge for an ordinary motorist - but Maalie is no ordinary motorist – and was not deterred by the ‘Road Closed’ signs and patches of black ice.
He could not find his glasses and his wooden leg was a bit sticky but even so he gave an excellent account of himself.
We cheated death or more than one occasion when he swerved to try to murder Pheasants on sheer precipices (‘Good eating Badger’ he shrieked maniacally) but I was unshaken.
I am of course a veteran of Australian roads and particularly the Pacific Highway - which is the ‘main artery’ between Sydney and Brisbane but which in parts would be too dangerous for the Dakar Rally. Maalie would love it.
Anyway Maalie and I and the Pheasants survived. We did dine sumptuously on Pheasant one evening but it was not one of Maalie’s road kills. He assures me that he does not (shudder) eat Badgers.
