JMB

Hello Wooly When I had Carpal Tunnel it was more a tingling sensation in the second and third fingers of my right hand. One way to relieve the discomfort was to stretch the nerve that runs through the carpal tunnel. In a sense to pull it through the cartilage that is pinching the nerve. I was told by a physio to do this by standing up, putting my right arm out at right angles and twisting my hand around so my palm faced backwards and placing the front of my hand on a wall or door frame and moving my right shoulder gently in a clockwise direction, relaxing and repeating. Hope that makes sense. It worked wonders for me. My wife's suggestion to stand on one leg and sing God Save the Queen while doing this was, frankly, unhelpful. As was my neurosurgeon friend's suggestion to get him a bottle of Scotch and a sharp knife so he could cure the problem once and for all. I asked if the bottle of was for me, but no apparently it was to help him better cope with my whingeing :-O ...

Thanks G. As an aside, my dad was a Mosquito night fighter pilot in Italy at the time of D-Day. He told me on the last day of the war in Europe he flew up and down the south coast of France tasked with intercepting aircraft that might try and escape to North Africa with high ranking Germans aboard. It was a quiet night for him. Not so for the other crews who were getting drunk back at the mess.

It's quite possible they were American planes - especially if he saw them during daylight. In the weeks leading up to D-Day the RAF and the USAAF hammered communication and transport links so as to make it difficult for the Germans to get men and supplies to Normandy (and, as a ruse, Calaise and Norway). When the USAAF struck deep into France or Germany they would have fighter escort that would fly part of the way and then rotate back as the next group came to take their places. The pilots then had licence to hit targets of opportunity on the way back, which often meant flying on the deck looking out for trains, motor cars, airfields, columns of troops and so on. These fighter support aircraft were both USAAF and RAF - usually Mustangs, Spitfires and Thunderbolts (although after the invasion the latter were usually kept for ground attack work in support of the allied armies). I seem to remember the Germans also had a fleet of Condor anti-shipping aircraft at Merignac and no doubt assorted fighters. It would make sense to attack these aircraft on the ground so they could not be moved north to attack the invasion fleet. This may explain the presence of American aircraft in the Dordogne valley.

Looking at that geoportal site it seems the French government has gone and made their own. If so that is a tremendous misuse of funds and resources in my opinion.

Wow, this and Google Earth are amazing.

Lovely images.

I've just been listening to Albert Shirer's The Third Reich. Based on this, Chamberlain sold the Czechs down the river in the most appalling way. Anything seemed better than another war with Germany. Looking at it with the benefit of hindsight, what was done to the Czech's was shameful. And it's not as if France took the high ground in this process either.

True. Although I often like to use a very shallow depth of field and that doesn't work with autofocus either, because, for example if you photographing a person, the nose or the hair might be in focus, but the eyes not. So manual focus is required in these situations anyway.

I haven't gone down this route because I was told the autofocus wouldn't work. I shall definitely be looking into this further. I have only been using a 50mm prime lens for some time, but it would be good to have some more in the bag. Current generation high-end lens are very expensive. If the old ones work, that could be very good news indeed.

That's interesting. Does the autofocus work when you use the old lens?

Most histories of South Africa have a lot to say about the Huguenots. And a lot to say about their impact on South African wine. Franschoek (French corner) is a place in the Western Cape of South Africa where lots of them settled. When I lived in Wandsworth in London there was a Huguenot cemetery nearby. Google the Edict of Nantes.

It interests me that French universities don't feature in world rankings in a significant way.

I bet the respective governments of the Eurozone have been printing Francs, Deutschmarks, Lira and so on for weeks now.  

I interviewed my father a couple of years ago, shortly before he died, in order for him to be in a photographic book I am doing about WWII pilots.  He refused to be interviewed several times and when he eventually gave in, it turns out he was absolutely furious with me for interviewing four Germans (including three famous German pilots).  My dad was literally spitting with rage when I told him I thoroughly enjoyed meeting and talking to "my" Germans. I told him they were gentlemen and very nice guys to boot. I also suggested that should he meet them, he'd realise they were in many ways just like him. Of the fifteen pilots I have interviewed so far, he was the only one to still harbour resentment to the old enemy. He once told me that in the 1950's he bumped into one of his friends from early on in the war.  It turns out this pilot was caught dropping off stuff or people for the French Resistance.  When the Gestapo got hold of him they attempted to remove his fingernails using pliers.  

They nest in my garage for the other half of the year :-)  Beautiful.

My eight year old daughter is going all ga ga over these pics.  Just looking at that pasture, no wonder that mare is so, how can I put this, very full bodied.  

Harrowing indeed. It is quite bizarre how some people react when you point a camera at them, even by accident.  And when it is a big fat thing with a big fat lens, they can get particularly wobbly. These days I am very careful about taking photos in public places where someone might take exception to being in the shot.   A friend of mine in Sydney had some woman he inadvertently photographed start shrieking at him, calling him a weirdo and a pervert at the top of her voice.  It was cringingly embarrassing for him and he is still quite shaken by the whole thing.

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/professional/archives-and-collections/nmr/archives/photographs/aerofilms/

Seriously though, I think learning English WOULD be a good starting point. I live in Africa and there are lots of people here for whom English is an inconvenient second language.  Their generosity knows no bounds and they would be delighted to help.  Some of them even speak French, so maybe you could kill two birds with one stone ...  so to speak.  Just to be clear, that's a colloquial expression and is not to be taken as an imperative for the learning of English.  I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if any animals were killed as a consequence of this post.

Yes and upon graduation from his courses, his students would be granted TV License Department Harassment licenses - for a fee of course.

Bravo! You should be given a bloody medal. You know I think you could make a living out out doing that sort of thing for people who have the money, but not the time to pursue such things to the end. 

Have you ever noticed that where there are rabbits there are never moles? 

I think John's list is spot on.  I made a similar list that grew into an entire website.  One big thing came out of this process was the importance of the right mindset. In October 2007 I decided to sell everything and move to Cape Town and on the 27th of November 2007 my kids and I were bathed in African sunshine.  It has been everything I expected, the good has been really really good and the bad has been not quite as bad as I thought - although my experiences with my long term South African girlfriend were more awful than I could have imagined and I put it down to her having grown up in a place where such traumatic  things have happened and continue to happen.This has been my "squeeze the toothpaste in the middle" experience of where I live and it has really taken the shine of the place for me. So what I'm saying is that if you have the right mindset you can make a go of it just about anywhere, but there will always be things about a place that get on your wick no matter how well prepared you are. And as an aside I only planned to be here for a couple of years before moving back to Europe.  So now I'm thinking it's time and France is back on the list.

A veritable Womping Willow.  I bet that tree never did like that car.  :-) You might be surprised to see how quickly the tree regenerates from the stump.

Perhaps a very annoying little man with a hammer ...