I'd appreciate supermarkets having them. There was a child in Tesco this morning which sounded more like a Pterodactyl rather than anything human!

If you fancy having a go with black and white, try Ilford HP5. All the Ilford films are excellent but HP5 is probably the most useful for a beginner as it can be used in most lighting conditions and is very tolerant where developing is concerned. You may struggle to find a lab able to handle it, but it's really simple to develop at home. The kit to do so can often be found for very little if you haunt ebay, car boot sales, Freecycle, etc.

If you want zero-hassle colour then Boots still sell process-paid slide film, I think it's made by Fuji and it seems fine. Slide film is a lot less tolerant of under or overexposure, so you'll find you need the exposure compensation dial a lot for backlit or unevenly lit subjects in order to make the MG's auto mode expose correctly.

At the moment I'm experimenting with Kodak Gold 200 as our local Tesco ended up with a load of it for £2.97 a roll. I bought their last five!

The MG is Av only with 1/100 and B settings, it defaults to 1/100 if the batteries fail and you should use this setting with non-dedicated flashguns. If used with a dedicated flash the camera will automatically switch to 1/100 and illuminate an icon in the viewfinder when the flash is ready. You can use a Winder ME II with it, these can often be found for about £10-£15 with a bit of hunting.

If you don't have the manual you can find it as a free download easily enough, that will cover film loading. I tend to do it differently in order to maximise the usable length of film by inserting the end of the film into the take-up spool, pulling the cannister across to slot into place, and then taking up tension on the rewind crank to hold the film against the sprockets while closing the back. After closing the back simply wind on and fire the shutter once, your next frame will be fine. By doing this I get 40-odd exposures from a 36 exposure roll, wasting only one frame at the start.

I've had a couple of the "claim compensation" spam messages now, both as SMS and as a recorded message which played when I answered the phone. What baffles me is that the company behind them manages to stay in business - surely there's a legal industry regulatory body which would take a dim view of their antics and strike them off?

They don't use a withheld number, so tracking them to a physical address and company is child's play!

This is why I tend to go up the Elan Valley on crisp winter days. No strange people in lurid rainwear ruining the view, as it's far too cold for them!

Me too. They don't usually have any other option!

I try to be as polite as possible to the person (I will never hurl abuse. Picking the phone up and immediately putting it down again if I recognise the number as being a marketing call is more my style). The problem is that their managers don't take the blindest bit of notice. You'd expect comments such as "If you keep harassing us like this we will be changing supplier" to filter up and change policy, but apparently not!

That could actually work in the prospective wedding 'togs favour, of course...

Would you buy an Aston Martin and fit cheap Chinese tyres?

Would you buy a Marentz Hi-Fi and listen to it through Tesco Value headphones?

So why are you booking the venue, the caterer, the car, the dress, and having the photos taken by someone using a compact stuck on Auto?

Problem is, the TPS is entirely voluntary. We've even had charity fundraisers call with the opening line "I know you're on the TPS list but..."

Being a charity does not give you any right to ignore our preferences! I will not answer the phone if the number is withheld and I won't even confirm a name to an unexpected caller.

What astonishes me is that banks seem to think you'll be happy to give them all sorts of personal data over the phone. It's very simple to spoof a phone number, so we've no way of proving they are who they claim to be. I won't even confirm the name when dealing with them now, as there's no telling what they might be able to pull together.

If everyone refused to give details or buy anything from cold callers then they'd stop within a month. This also goes for companies such as British Gas and Swinton Insurance who seem to regard it as perfectly ok to harass their existing customers with unwanted calls, even after being told repeatedly that we don't want anything else.

Newer bodies seem better with K or M lenses in my experience. I know my K-m is about on the money down to f11 or so, meanwhile others find they need to use exposure compensation to get it right.

Just looked at Q prices. I'm sure I'll be coherent again before long...

Paid £25 for my 75-150mm f4, it turned out to be near mint aside from the usual dust. Really doesn't feel as though it had much use, and I find myself using it when I'm worried about lenses which would be harder to replace being damaged. This and the M 135mm f3.5 have near-constant availability, something which can't be said for my K 120mm/135mm/200mm set!

Has anyone any experience of the Vivitar zooms with matched multipliers? I think it was a 75-150mm (ish) but I haven't really studied them too closely as I already have far too many short telephotos.

I have changed my mind about an M 100mm f2.8 anyway. I want the K 105mm instead...