SILENCE! NOT A SOUND! SSSSSSSSHHH!

Okay, now listen up....

The funny aspect of the products we sell at the shop rarely jumps out at you quite as readily as you might think. Oh sure, we've all giggled at a telephoto lens or had a silent smirk at a tripod, but rarely does the actual product make a deliberate joke - photo equipment manufacturers are a dour lot.

Not so Think Tank, apparently. I was first alerted to their pixie sense of humour when I looked at a sales tag that they attached to a large backpack. It showed showed someone getting a dink on the back of a moped up some godforsaken pit of a road in the back of nowhere. A scene of desolation and horror, but they are good back packs.

I think they have a theme going on - they sell shoulder bags with some chap in a red target jumper in front of a line of riot police. Whackoh...

The guy tapping out War And Peace on a laptop next to a cow skull is particularly intriguing. I mean, who wouldn't?

But my new favourite is the little label inside the Urban Approach 5 that I picked up today. the bit that sits over the flap near the velcro holders. The one that stops the velcro from working so that you do not get that Skkkriiiitch sound when you open the bag. A very useful feature on a very useful bag - just the thing for the mirror-less system traveller.

The label says " Sound Silencer " and it works well...but when you think about it there are only two things that can be silenced...witnesses and sound...

Hear, hear. Or not-hear, not-hear, as the case may be.

Now to stop laughing at them - for they are very sensible designers with their Velcro - they sew it on a flap that can be accessed easily. Velcro does not Vel for ever - it wears out. When it goes, you can get another bit from Spotlight or Textile Traders and sew it back over the spot. Fixable, not binable.

West Australia's largest stockict of Think Tank! Take a look on the online shop