Kylie discos at O2

What a way to end a day that started at 4am with a call that kept you on your toes for most of the day! 3 hours of disco with the princess of pop! And what great seats - possibly some of the best in the place 8 rows back looking across the stage. I'm still fighting with my new compact camera - but a great position and lots of opportunity captured some great memories. A great evening of songs from the past and more contemporary track, all delivered by a great entertainer. All wrapped up in a small but wonderfully formed package - and the backing singers weren't far behind!

Tour De France - La Finale 08

Visiting Paris in a more leisurely manner for two days, rather than the day trip last year, avoided the need to get up at the crack of dawn to get the first EuroStar to Paris! So this time it was a cab to St Pancras International rather than Waterloo now stripped of the the "international" tag. The last time I visited the Eiffel Tower I was 8! I remember we'd been on holiday in the France, and learnt that Lord Mountbatten had been blown up by the IRA earlier that day while we stood on the tower - not quite like remembering what I was doing when Kennedy was shot... The tower was a great excuse to switch to my recently acquired fish eye lens Then to the reason for being in Paris on that particular weekend - the traditional laps of the Champs-Élysées. Even getting to the course at 11 in the morning only secured a second row position - those at the front had been there a couple of hours already! First the caravan of advertising - no less bizarre from knowing what to expect from the previous year. Then after hours in the baking sun the riders arrived - and before the second last lap I got lucky and someone in front of me had to leave and I got a precious place on the railing... Hours of standing and a small dose of sun burn - a small price to pay for a enjoyable weekend.

Wimbledon - Ladies' Final Day

From Wimbledon 2008

Wimbledon Tickets on Ticket Master must have been a reasonably well kept secret - at least until Gentleman's Final Day! My refreshing of the page at 8:30 when the tickets where supposed to be put on sale turned out not to be needed - there where still tickets on sale the next morning - hours before the scheduled start time... by the time I got home on Saturday night after a great day of tennis, all the tickets for what turned out to be a momentous, if rain interrupted, men's final, had gone in less than 90 minutes.

The day started with a quick journey from central London to Wimbledon - when public transport works it really works. Then entry with my self printed ticket, that some might have paid a fortune for on eBay, with my passport to prove it was me that put my name to the ticket, was simplicity itself. Within an hour of leaving home I was watching an invitation doubles match on No 2 court with Liz Smylie and Nathalie Tauziat against Sabine Appelmans and Hana Mandlikova.

Then to centre court for the main show. Three finals on Centre Court - the Williams sisters on to start, then probably closest match of the day - the Gentlemen's doubles and closing out day the Williams sister again - this time on the same side of the net against Lisa Raymond and Samantha Stosur. Centre Court is a great venue - 15,000 seats and everyone with an uninterpreted view of the court.

So I'll be ready on Ticket Master for next year, and maybe I'll take a laptop with me if I'm lucky enough to get tickets to the final Saturday, so I stand a chance of getting tickets for Sunday.

Bon Jovi - The Lost Highway Leads to London Tour

Last time I saw Bon Jovi they closed the old Wembley - they where literally tearing the place down as we left. That was a glorious afternoon/evening of music and atmosphere - shame the old Wembley was showing its age! Eight years later, on a pleasant Friday evening another chance to live while I'm alive, I'll sleep when I'm dead. The only shame was that Bon Jovi didn't appear to have bothered with a sound engineer who was worthy of the title! The Police has managed a great sound 10 months earlier - even if only when the stadium was full - Bon Jovi was just loud - with no clarity. But you don't go to a stadium event for the audio quality of the music - I've got a stereo and MP3 player for that. The atmosphere was great - with all the classics and Twickenham is a great venue - modern facilities, clean and plenty of them. Queuing for food, drink and other facilities was a quick process - and being a rugby stadium the food was one step above the norm. Another sign of the times was eight years ago my rather basic, by current standard, digital camera was considered so "professional" that I had to hand it in. I did get some of the last pictures of the stadium, as every one was leaving. This time despite a condition on the ticket that stated no cameras would be allowed - even phones with flashes to use with their in built cameras where on the band list - there we small cameras everywhere and at least one SLR with a long lens! Now all I need to do is learn how to get the best out of my new compact camera - the 10x zoom was great - but I've learnt that the high ISO to cope with the lack of light does lead to very noisy pictures - and I've got to find out how to switch the flash off!

New Perspective

With the help of a new lens I'm getting a new perspective on London! There is certainly an art to using a lens as extreme as a 360x180 degree fisheye! But even my first attempt produced some interesting images of London around my flat on a mid-summer eve. The most successful was pointing the camera to the sky amongst a grove of trees in front of Tate modern.

From Fish Eye

It also proved interesting to include reflections, it was amazing how close you had to get to a building to make it fill the frame. And then being up a very tall ladder would have assisted getting the image I was really trying for - getting the dome of St Paul's into a close up shot just wasn't going to happen from ground level! Using the lens amongst the sky scrappers of Hong Kong is going to be interesting... Now the hunt for software to manipulate the images beings - and I think I'm going to have lots of image to experiment with HDR - having every thing in view in one 180 degree by 360 degree arc can make getting all the details at a single exposure setting impossible!