Brakspear Triple is dangerously easy to drink! It's brewed at the Wichwood brewery in Witney, Oxon and I can heartilly recommend a tour if you're in the area. It's very interesting and they're not too stingy with the samples.

I have an occasional liking for "Old Tom", can't remember the name of the brewery, but it's a little on the barley wine side as far as flavour goes, and as such would probably get sickly after more than 1. It does contain more alchohol in a 330ml stubby than most beers do in a pint.


Not as strong, but if you like something a little unusual I can recommend Wells Bananna Bread (yes, it does taste slightly of Bananna!) and Badger Blandford Fly (a 5% ale with a ginger bite, now thats what I call ginger beer!). I also used to be a fan of Youngs Tripple Chocolate stout, but haven't seen it for ages.

Youngs Waggledance is also a favourite of mine, although that's more of a summer beer in my opinion. 5% with a hint of honey.

There was an optical re-design of the 50mm between the M and A series, so A, F and FA 50's should be better than M, K, and Super Taks in this case. I believe this is supposed to be most obviously true of the 1.4s.

mmm I think I'm in the "damnit I suck" hole, just hope the green line is true!

gave me a chuckle, nice find Stefan!

If anyone else is interested and has the suitable equipment to try some deep sky shots, and if it's clear, Orion is supposed to be a good target on or around the 13th of Feb. The moon will be pretty new, and set when Orion is up so skys should be as dark as they get.

Now we just need it to be clear.......and to be allowed out to play the night before Valentines day.....

Least used which I will never part with:

Pentax MZ-7 film SLR with FA28-80 kit lens.

The last time I used it was nearly 2 years ago, and that was to document the condition of a house I was moving into on film before moving my stuff in. The last time it shot a roll creatively was probably ~2003.

But it was my 18th birthday present and my introduction to the wonderful world of SLR photography and as such I will never part with it at any price. Its sentimental value is at least 1000x its current monetary value.


I also have a 110 kit which I will probably never sell even though it is now next to impossible to get the film developed. As someone said above, it's a talking point if nothing else and it's sooooo cute!

I love my Pentax Sport Optics strap from SRS, pricey for a strap it has to be said, but sooooo comfy. The whole thing is soft rubber and slightly elastic, absorbs the shock from walking perfectly.

for that price you can hardly go wrong. I use a Canon original wired remote which is rather better made than most of the generics I've seen while being a lot cheaper than the Pentax original. A good middle ground IMO.

the planets are generally bright enough that you can expose for both. Mars will look like a redish star through anything shorter than ~1000mm anyway so you only need to see it.

I would be inclined to use a shortish (100mm sounds about right, but maybe even shorter) lens and try to get the moon, Mars and some skyline interest into the shot.

Now, if you could get an exposure for the beehive as well and combine them...then you might be looking at a really interesting astro shot. If it's clear (fat chance) I might have a bash myself.

Interesting, I use Argyll since I'm under Linux, I'll get hold of that dispcalGUI and give it another go on my lappy since I have the same problem as your friends Dell with all the TN panels I've tried (both Argyll and Pantone software under Linux or Windows).

mmm looks like I bought precisely the wrong one then

Thankfully my HP monitor is good enough that it doesn't notice.