Harry's Blog

I have one of these - Canon EOS 50D Digital SLR Camera. It's a brilliant camera, rugged, packed with features and has very good image quality.

But I'm thinking of selling it and getting one of these - a Sony SLT-A55V. This is a very high tech camera which ditches the traditional optical viewfinder for an electronic one. This has many traditional photographers crossing themselves and reaching for the garlic, but for me it has many plus points.

My eyesight is pretty poor and I often struggle when using optical viewfinders because even on very good cameras like the EOS 50D they aren't particularly bright. This makes it harder for me to judge composition and more importantly focus.

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Being the father of twins imbues one with a certain amount of cockiness. After all - those early days together saw me as their sole carer having been cruelly widowed. And so when I hear couples talk about how hard it is to look after their one child I tend to inwardly snort with derision. “You want to try it with twins,” I think, “On your own, while your heart has been ripped out.”

But the truth is that no matter how well prepared you are, how much you think you’ve seen and done it all, the second time around is still difficult even for a couple. The twins didn’t walk properly until they were 15 months old. This was laziness on their part - they cruised for months - but thanks to our narrow house there was no gap that required them to let go of a wall to get anywhere. By the time they decided to give “look no hands” a go they were already experts at it. There was no phase of falling over, no wobbliness, all nice as simple.

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Just wanted to say - no I haven't disabled comments on the site. But due to a lot of spam recently I've switched the system to only let registered users comment.

It only takes moments to register (hit the login link at the top of the page) and you can then comment to your heart's content. Make sure you register with a real email address though as you'll have to validate your registration.

Don't worry, I will never sell anyone your email address.

I love living here in Dorset, it means that not going to the beach doesn't involve being stuck in a caravan in the minging weather.

I've never tried using a Kindle electronic book reader. As they aren't backlit I doubt I'd use one - I tend to read ebooks in bed with the lights off, so wifey can sleep.

But thankfully Amazon offers free Kindle apps for Android, PC and Apple devices. Thus you can read in the dark on your iPod Touch or HTC Desire.

Now the truth be told as an ebook reading app Kindle does leave something to be desired in terms of features. For example the iPod version doesn't let you change the screen brightness - but the Android version does.

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I've written before about some of modern television's mad new techniques to stretch half an hour into an hour slot. Shows like Location Location do this a lot and I ranted about it here.

But there's an even more annoying technique starting to appear over here. As ever this is a US invention, where if you're lucky you may get 20 minutes' content in an hour of TV.

This new method is already being used on the infuriatingly stupid Masterchef, but you can see it on plenty of US imports over here such as Supernanny USA.

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I've got a new website. Me and some of the other writers that have been shat upon by AATec (owners of Boomtown.net) have got a new videogames blog on the go. As we're ex-Boomtown we've cheekily called the site Boomtown X.

Do check it out. We've been working hard on it the last week or so.

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One of the great joys of being a parent of a three year old is the mad stream off chatter emerging from them. Granted if you're not in the right mood it can be tiring - our daughter readilly admits "I can't stop talking daddy" - but on the whole it's hugely entertaining hearing the thoughts of bonkers pre-schoolers.

Having twins makes that even more entertaining because you can overhear conversations they have with each other. Take the following for example - I was driving them back from school along the back road, where one often sees military helicopters flying to and from RNAS Yeovilton. I've retained their pronunciation of helicopter and other words.

[Pat] Oooh I've just seen a heliclopter.
[Kitty] Did you Pat?
[Pat] Yes Ditty, it was very fast.
[Kitty] It was an airlaplane.
[Pat] No Ditty, not an airlaplane, it was a heliclopter.
[Kitty] Well I can't see a heliclopter.
[Pat] That's cause it disappeared.
[Kitty] Ooh, was it a magic heliclopter Pat?
[Pat] No Ditty, it just flew away.
---
[Kitty] Daddy why are you laughing?

I just about kept control of the car.

So the World Cup ends today. Boo. I've watched almost all the games this time around thanks to my former employer (confusion of Boo and Hurrah here) and I'm really going miss all the action.

Though to be honest I enjoyed the group stages much more than the knockout round. Why? There's something rather special about those first few weeks of the competition, getting to watch three matches in a row day after day.

Once the knockout stage begins, with whole days without games, it feels like some air has been let out of the World Cup balloon. So my suggestion for improving the World Cup is to change from a knockout tournament to a league system.

Mad? Of course. But here me out. How about two groups of sixteen who play each other once each with the group leaders playing a final on the last day. We make all the teams play once a day too - it'll be a war of attrition for over-pampered millionaires.

Yesterday's gaff by the prime minister brought to focus once again the subject of immigration. A phrase I've heard several correspondents use when covering the subject is "highlighting voters' legitimate concerns on immigration" which is ludicrous.

Just because a large part of the population are poorly educated (their fault), mouth-breathing, selfish, xenophobic, bigoted morons it doesn't make those concerns valid. Stupidity isn't wiped out by volume.

The insidious lie that the BNP and other brain-dead simpletons have managed to make a national topic is that there is an immigration problem. Alas the topic has managed to become one which mainstream politicians will engage on now and offer solutions. Not one of the three major party leaders has had the balls to stand up and say "there is no immigration problem, the problem is lazy thick Brits who can't stand people different from them or more successful."

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Here in our West Dorset constituency it's a two-horse race between the Liberals and Conservatives. There's not a chance on earth I'd ever vote Tory - but that's even firmer as this is smiley-toad Oliver Letwin's base of operations.

By natural inclination and my record I am a typical Labour voter. I'm from a working class background and although I believe everything my dad says about his beloved unions is complete bullshit, I saw enough of Thatcher's Britain in the eighties to never vote for the blues.

But voting Labour here in West Dorset would be a wasted vote under our current system. If I want to see Letwin defeated then I will have to vote LibDem. I'm not a great fan of tactical voting, I'd rather vote with true intentions. But the political system being what it is there's no point in that in this constituency.

So LibDem it was going to be. And then this week we have the sudden terrified assault on Clegg and the LibDems from the Tories and Labour, a shameful pathetic display if there ever was one. The Tories are the most terrified, and their desperate sad press are comically inept at dealing with it in any sensible way.

This is going to backfire in their faces. Already the Twitterverse is awash with the #nickcleggsfault hashtag belittling the attempts to smear the LibDems. And I'm seeing plenty of friends now willing to vote LibDem because of the negative campaigning against the Liberal party.

A few days ago I was going to vote LibDem out of necessity. Today I'm be willing to vote for them anywhere thanks to Labour and particularly Tory attacks.

I must admit that I've fallen out of love with photography this year. Being busy with our new addition (the wonderful baby Will) limited my time for the hobby and over time I've become somewhat disillusioned with it. It's not helped that none of my recent pictures have been any good and people have told me so. You need some encouragement to keep up with learning a new hobby - when you get the opposite it can take the wind from your sails.

To be honest if wifey would let me I'd probably put my DSLR on Ebay tomorrow because I'd rather the cash than something I didn't really use. I've been considering selling the DSLR and just relying on my SLR film camera. I've sold one 1.6x crop lens today and have another I could sell. Leaving my best lens for the film camera.

Would that be mad? Probably. Though would fit in my long term goal of buying a full frame DSLR should my love of the hobby return. I'm just starting to feel the love coming back. Not from playing with my very expensive DSLR, no, by messing around with the Vignette app on my new phone and using my film SLR.

Taken with Vignette on a HTC Desire phone.