Modern life is wonderful -and nothing more wonderful about it than the ability to communicate over long distances. Your blogger is currently on holiday, leaving the rest of the staff to do the dishes and find out where the bag of prawn heads has been stashed.

It is all fun and games until someone loses an iPad. Until then I will be able to give a daily report of things photographic. Right up until the management panic and pull the plug...

As any good photographic salesman does, I visit camera shops  wherever I go. In some I find they do things differently than we do, and in others I can see exactly the same behaviour on both sides of the counter. It is a little different being the customer -and I don't think it is fair to go in just to pester them - I also like to do a little spying. They don't let me see the balance sheet or the stock order book but I can find out quite a lot just by looking at the stacks of gear in the shops. If you cannot see the back wall for Kodak camera boxes it is a sign that the business is a bit slow. If the staff cling to your legs and blubber their thanks when you buy an 8 Gig card you can confirm that.

Today I visited three incognito and found out that we are doing three things right. At least righter than they are. And I found out one thing that we can do better.

Tomorrow I will assess the toy car shops and Young and Jackson's, which apparently sells liquid refreshments of some sort. And refreshment is important.

Uncle Dick