> Bernard Frangoulis [mailto:bernard.frangoulis@xxxxxxxxxxx] wrote:
> Could be true... Paris is special - although it is a beautiful
> city.
My sister was in London for 2 or 3 years (only came back late
last year). She said she'd grown to despise "England" and the
"English", and was just desperate to get back to Australia.
She had hardly ever left London.
I told her that judging England, or the UK, by Londoners was
like judging Australians (or Antipodeans) by Sydneysiders -
not necessarily the wisest of moves, as there is a different
...ummm...let's just say "state of mind" in the cities of a
lot of countries, and certainly this makes for a likely
difficulty to get the time or the trust to "know" folk,
unlike when you get outside of the "big smoke".
I've had a friend who told a rude security guard at an aireport
gate in Sydney that she should "improve her attitude to
visitors", get the rather playground-response of "Yeah,
well *you* should improve *your* attitude!" [insert
standard disclaimers of "Bloody hard and stressful job"
and "Difficult times" and so forth]. Perhaps it's partially
a job-conditions thing, rather than a country thing (or
rather, how the country treats to job).
Coincidentally, my sister brought back a Frenchman from
the old dart, and he's a damn nice bloke - way too good
for my sis'. He's a country Frenchman, FWIW. We stir him
with all the regular anti-French bigotry - it's how we
make him feel like one of the family...and it says
something about him that he just naturally understands
that.
OM Content? Well, when my Dad visited my sister when she
was over there, he took his newly bought Pentax MZ5n. The
moment he turned it on after getting off the plane, it
wouldn't work, and didn't work for the 6 weeks he was
there. He got off the place in Sydney and it worked fine.
I spoke to him while he was over there and said "Buy an
old manual Pentax with a 50/1.8. It'll be cheap as chips.
Failing that, buy an old Olympus OM with a 35-70/80/105/
whatever, and I'll pay you what you paid for it when you
get back". He didn't, and he's hardly used the Pentax
since (nice camera - tiny in a good way). [SIGH] It was
one way I was getting a greater "connection" with Dad
than I've previously been lucky enough to have, through
his sudden interest in photography, but whether
it's his disgust with the Pentax, or his state of health,
he has just gone off photography. Now, the OM1 seems to
be the camera-of-choice for taking record-shots of him for
the family... and that can be quite depressing, as magical
as the OM1 and 50/1.4 is for me to use, and as objectively
"happy" I am with the results I achieve. It probably means
though, that this OM1 and 50/1.4 will *never* leave the
collection (which has just been built on in the form on an
Olympus mju II I just won on the Evil One for AUS$66. YAY!
...if it arrives as described)
Sorry, feeling all maudlin. Shouldn't write at 9pm at
night. If you read this far, thanks, and if you didn't,
I fully understand. :-)
Cheers
Marc
Sydney, Oz
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