King of the Mountains

I spent a fair chunk of Saturday adding marker posts to a nearby unsurfaced right of way. I did this as part of a volunteer effort drawing its members from several groups, the posts and permission to install them being provided by the local County Council.

The posts are intended to point users of the right of way in the right direction, as there are tracks wandering all over the open moorland area in question. Only one of these tracks is the proper right of way, the rest are off limits to motor vehicles. 

There seem to be two sorts of illegal user. There are those who know that it’s illegal, couldn’t care less, and will quite possibly resort to aggressive behaviour if challenged. There is little that can be done to educate these morons beyond taking a few covert photos and reporting them to the Police, who take a very dim view of their antics and can seize vehicles belonging to repeat offenders. It isn’t "telling tales", these idiots are the reason for our lanes being shut.

The second and more common sort are those who are simply not aware that they are doing anything wrong. They believe that it’s ok to ride an unregistered quad there because "it’s public land", or that they can drive wherever they feel like because their mate told them so. Quite often, if approached with a firm but friendly word, they’ll listen and be educated. If they’d fallen in with a reputable club they would probably have done the right thing in the first place. But again, their ignorance risks closure of our lanes. They aren’t usually members of any group and don’t therefore see any of the guidelines published by the various organisations.

One of the greatest problems is how to educate these people. In my part of the world the local press are very anti-4x4, although I suspect that this has more to do with them enjoying stirring muck and selling papers. As a result, the chances of getting any articles into there are slim indeed. Broadcast media simply aren’t interested, especially as the problem involves some knowledge of rights of way law and needs a greater attention span than that of the average mayfly. It also involves rural areas, where we don’t have chain coffee shops and their 3G phone won’t work. Handing out leaflets may help, but the worry is that most of them will end up in a hedge somewhere and of course they only reach the people to whom they are handed.

Those of us in the sensible laning world will always do our best to get the message around and lead by example, but there’s nothing we can do about the lone wolf types who either don’t know or don’t care about the law. A good move might be to run guided laning trips and festivals in the same vein as the recent Heart of Wales Walking Festival, if we can face down the inevitable bobble-hatted nonsense-mongers. But again, the ignorant probably wouldn’t turn up.

Not that this would bother us, as we’d simply go laning. But it would be far better if we could educate just a few in the proper way of doing things.

If, like me, you’ve just bought a digital SLR camera then you may well have picked one that can use older film lenses. First, a caveat: Not all can do this with equal success. You may get some slightly unpredictable results. In my experience Pentax are fine, but I can’t comment on others.

With that out of the way, some advice on buying lenses. Older lenses can suffer from dust or worse fungus inside the lens. Check for both, and don’t pay top price for a lens with either. I would personally avoid any fungus-afflicted lenses as there would presumably be a risk of transferring fungal spores to the mechanism of the camera.

Dust, providing that it is not in ridiculous quantities, doesn’t affect image quality hugely. You’re unlikely to see noticeable blemishes in your photos but you may notice a loss of sharpness. If the lens is cheap, then it’s probably worth a go. 

Never be tempted to try to remove dust by dismantling the lens. Unless you’re a trained technician with a clean room then you will make things worse rather than better! 

Obviously you should check that the focus, zoom, and aperture rings move smoothly. It can also be worth checking for excessive oil or grease on the aperture blades. 

If you buy your lens from a good camera shop then you shouldn’t have any trouble with these. However, buying online can be a bit of a lottery. Some sellers will provide plenty of photos and assurances that the lens is dust and fungus free. In these cases you should have little trouble with gaining a refund if the item is not as advertised. If you’re interested in 28-80mm or similar zooms, then try searching for film SLRs that are being sold with one. The camera is usually worth next to nothing in an internet auction, so you can buy it solely for the lens. 

Do your research before buying. Some lenses don’t attract much interest at all, quite often because another similar model is a far better performer for similar money. If you can’t find any information on a lens then caution is advised. It may be great, but then again it may be a complete dog. There is, however, considerable entertainment to be had from buying the cheapest lens you can find and playing around with it. While it won’t be useful for serious photography any strange effects it has could well result in some interesting images.

I’ve had my Km for a couple of months now, and shot around 500 images.

The Km is Pentax’s budget digital SLR camera, borrowing its name from a 1970s vintage mechanical SLR. In the rest of the world it sells as the K2000, again a name partially borrowed from that photographic icon the all-manual K1000. I, like many SLR enthusiasts, started with a K1000 aged about 14 and still have it. 

First impressions are good. The camera feels solidly put together and has a pleasing heft to it. Pentax have used a metal chassis rather than the plastic commonly found in lower end SLRs. It’s surprisingly compact too, in the tradition of the old M-series Pentaxes. Controls are well laid out and labelled, to the extent that I’ve only needed to consult the manual in order to find out things such as how to print directly from the camera (more on this later). Those who find some cameras too small for their hands to operate easily will like the Km.

A major advantage of the camera is that it can be as easy or as complex to use as you like. Select Auto Picture Mode and your grandmother could take good photos. Select Manual and you’re back with your old K1000. It is also possible to select from the usual auto modes for portraits, landscapes, night, shutter/aperture priority, etc.

Serious enthusiasts will probably switch off at this point, but another handy feature is the ability to tweak the auto modes. For example, as delivered the camera will pop the flash up and use it as it sees fit. A quick stroll through the menus and you can safely take photos in areas with a "No Flash" sign, as it will only deploy if you press the flash button. 

The camera includes image stabilisation, which does wonders for reducing camera shake. In the old days, if you could hear the mirror raise and lower (a clatter rather than a click) then you knew to expect a horrible blur when the film came back along with a smug little note about camera shake. With the Km, you can take astonishingly good photos in low light. A brief test with the camera hand held at dusk produced an image with only slight blurring. As a useful side effect, the camera can also agitate its image sensor to shake dust away. This can be set to happen automatically when you switch on. 

Continuing on the subject of dust, there is a very neat option in the menu to check for dust on the sensor. Simply point the camera at a uniform light-coloured surface, follow the instructions on the screen, and you will get an image showing whether there is any dust, and if so, where it is. Another option locks the mirror up to allow access with a puffer bulb. For obvious reasons you should never touch the sensor. So far, the self cleaning seems to work.

As with most digital SLRs, the large LCD on the back does not act as a viewfinder. It displays the settings that you have chosen. It is possible to take a preview image in order to check things such as white balance, and review photos. The screen also comes into play when you use the built-in image editing software, which is a lot more useful than you might think. It won’t replace a photo editing package on a computer but it will correct problems with brightness and colour intensity, as well as offering some neat digital filter effects.

This came in handy when I decided to try the Pictbridge function. For those who’ve not encountered it, Pictbridge is a standard allowing digital cameras to print images directly when connected to a printer supporting the standard. I tried it with a spare Canon iP90 and got excellent results, although I did have to use the built-in image editing options on the camera to bump the brightness up a couple of notches. Obviously this is an expensive method of printing, but for a few photos it is easier than copying them all to a computer and printing in the normal fashion.

Battery life is much better than expected. The same set of AA batteries that came with the camera are still in there and show no sign of expiring. A paper manual and CD of photo editing software were also included, although I have yet to try the latter.

I bought my Km in a kit with an 18-55mm zoom lens, which is a perfectly acceptable bit of kit. As the camera uses the existing Pentax K mount it is possible to use any K mount film lens, although for obvious reasons you may want to restrict your purchases to ones equipped with auto focus. I have tested mine with 28-80, 35-80, and 100-300 zoom lenses, all of which produced fine results. Unlike some other DSLRs the image stabilisation mechanics are in the body, so you can fit these older lenses and still enjoy the benefits.

In short, if you already have Pentax K mount SLRs, or simply like the sound of something a bit more advanced than a compact digital camera, the Km is well worth a look. 

A regular source of entertainment for pretty much the whole planet, would be an accurate summing up of local newspaper letters pages. Being unable to string a coherent argument together and having political views that Stalin would have considered authoritarian are no barriers to expression in this media. Let’s look at some of the regular formats:

Anti-EU rant. Usually the same people every week. Their arguments are never rebuffed because nobody else can be bothered to wade through the irrelevant gibberish they include and blow large smoking holes in them. Generally they keep coming back and become more virulent if anyone is bored enough to attempt to engage them in battle. Popular with editors for their habit of writing reams of rubbish that can more or less be guaranteed to be both clean and acceptable to large numbers of Wail or Ex-press reading noddies. Let’s face it, if they believe the Wail they’ll swallow anything the local press can manufacture report.

Religious fruitcake. Often from a completely different part of the country and ranting about the stage version of Jerry Springer or a show suggesting that it’s actually prefectly acceptable to be gay. They’ve probably sent the same letter to local papers in every area that the touring show is visiting, which shows admirable research skills if little else between the ears. Alternatively you may find the general evangelical gibberish (extra points if it includes bible quotes) or the screeching about how Jonathan Ross/the Internet/men with long hair will lead to the moral destruction of the universe. The fact that most people could now be classified as Atheist, Agnostic, or just not giving a damn clearly passes them by.

Political bitchfest. Usually related to town councils or groups. Can be amusing if you know one of the participants and therefore trust their opinions rather more than those of J. Random Jobsworth. Another editorial favourite, guaranteed to fill pages for weeks if not months. Some can last for years. 

Anti-war/hippy. One word of advice: Study International Politics to degree level, then you will actually be qualified to comment. The world is not an episode of "Care Bears" and there are some unpleasant people out there who would respond to your offer of a cup of herbal tea by pouring the hot water over you and then beheading you with the organic biscuits. Mind you, after a few weeks of reading these letters a fair number of normal people might be moved to similar sentiments. 

Council bashing. Usually by people with ulterior motives. Especially amusing when local answer to slum landlords berates council for allegedly resettling ex-cons in the area. Amusing as landlord has made most of his fortune and position from renting dodgy flats to the very people whose existence in the area he is moaning about. Other favourites include hysterical shrieking about how a new policy will have Ghenghis Khan setting up his camp outside the bandstand within a week. Popular with editors who wish to make equally hysterical claims in headlines.

Generalised rambling. Our best codebreakers have as yet failed to understand the point these people are attempting to make. Preliminary findings suggest that their ramblings could be condensed to "things were better in the old days". If these were the same old days when people regularly died of flu and hospital treatments generally involved hot pitch and screaming then it’s uncertain how they could be better. Often includes an allegedly amusing anecdote which could well have inspired a Last of the Summer Wine episode. Evidence that greater care of the elderly is needed to keep their minds active. I favour mandatory nitrous oxide installations for drivers over 65 and free motocross lessons for all pensioners. 

I’ve been wandering the excellent Peeron website devoted to Lego for a while now, but only recently got around to looking at the scanned catalogues they have. Specifically, the 1985 one.

I was three years old in 1985, and can’t remember much about it beyond a few fragmented mental images of where we lived then, my parents car, and a couple of places we went to regularly. But I do still have all the Lego from then.

Looking through the pages brought it all back. There was the car and caravan, which always puzzled me as one of the Lego chaps had to sit in the caravan while it was being towed due to the cars only having one seat. I was always a bit worried about this as I’d been around caravans from the age of six months and knew that people weren’t allowed to travel in them. They were probably alright providing they avoided the Police station with its helicopter, car, and motorbikes,

There was also the Police van with the working siren and lights, which I still have. The siren had two modes, switched by turning the top of the top hat-like brick.

The breakdown truck was there, but without the annoying problem mine always had of the hook slowly descending if you put any load on it (such as a Police van with a 9v battery inside to power the lights). Likewise there are a significant number of yellow earthmovers which I still have somewhere and the very neat set featuring a car, working jack, and what appears to be a wheel balancing machine.

The other interesting part is to compare it to the current range. There is still a large dump truck, although the modern one is larger and has things like a cab (evidently ROPS has arrived in Legoland). The small digger has larger wheels, but a less impressive engine and scoop. The cement mixer is wider, has a detailed cab, and uses gears to rotate the drum rather than it just being mounted on a swivel.

There are more specialised pieces now, but the sets look much better for it. They’ve transitioned from pure toys to models that happen to be made from Lego. Certainly there’s nothing in the 1985 catalogue to compare with the tower crane I mentioned a while ago.

And yet, some of the modern range just doesn’t compare. The 1985 Lego astronauts have craft that look far more interesting than the current bunch, and no slightly unethical story about going to an alien planet, taking crystals, and bashing the "aliens" when they complain. The old Lego astronauts, one sensed, would have introduced any aliens they met to their robot friend who looked not unlike a post box with arms before offering them a ride on the single-seat jetpack thing. If the chap in the red spacesuit didn’t mind anyway, it was his flying armchair after all.

The 1985 railway wasn’t radio controlled, but it had recognisable models of real trains and included things like remote controlled points, signals, and uncouplers. You could build a decent layout with the older stuff given space and funds. Now the only additional parts you can get are a rather natty station and assorted track. If your parents bought you the high speed train, in other words, all you’ll be able to do is buy armfuls of track and annexe the living room for your railway empire.

Unfortunately I never had the old Lego trains. I did make up for it later when the 9v system turned up.

I think I shall have to go up to the attic and hunt for a six wheeled dump truck tomorrow…

Unless you’ve been living in a tree for the past month or so you’ll probably have noticed the furore over two BBC Radio 2 presenters and an ill-judged prank phone call. The furore is almost entirely a media witch-hunt on the part of tabloid journalists who smelled blood and decided to whip their readership into a frenzy.

While is is disturbing that people can be so easily manipulated, there is also another point to be made. The vast majority of complaints came from people who did not hear the broadcast.

In other words, they physically could not have been directly offended by it. They’ve pursed their little lips and turned their narrow little minds against it because of what they read in a tabloid.

The lack of independent thought or indeed any other cerebral activity in this country is very worrying indeed. People complain loudly about swearing in a programme that was clearly flagged as containing such in TV listings and in a message before the broadcast. So I can only assume that either they are stupid, or they actually like being offended.

The latter seems quite likely, although the former has much to recommend it. There seems to be a worrying subset of people who are only happy if they can be pompous, self-righteous little nuisances. These would be the same people who informed on their neighbours in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. They want to control what you see, hear, and read. 

Well to be quite honest, I am offended by them. Nobody is forced to watch or listen, they can easily change channels. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it. But don’t you dare try to tell me what I can and can’t watch or listen to. I’ll make that decision myself. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be anyone to complain to about tiny-minded idiots… 

The above gibberish is, allegedly, CB radio at its finest. However, in over a year of owning such a device I have yet to hear anyone I know using the slang.

I was born a bit too late for the great CB craze of the ’80s, so reading about it on the internet is a bit of a history lesson. I bought a radio in order to keep in contact with the rest of the group on off road excursions, and as we only go in small groups we can recognise each other by voice. We’ve never developed strange handles like Rubber Duck or Green Goblin simply because we don’t need them. Plus I’d have a hard time keeping a straight face while sending messages like "Rubber Duck, coming in your back door" which I believe means "I’m catching you up".

The general opinion seems to be that mobile phones have killed CB, along with cheap walkie-talkies using the PMR 446 standard. As the licence fee for CB was repealed a while ago, this leaves those of us adopting it in a very good position. We have an autonomous communications system with no call charges and the ability to make conference calls. We have plenty of free channels due to the fact that there are few other users on the air. Most importantly, while a mobile phone ceases to function in rural areas due to the lack of cells our radios can work quite happily. 

Plus we get to make innuendo about the 9ft whip or the big red Thunderpole. Can’t do that with a mobile phone…

I’ve been watching with interest the debate as to how video games should be classified. At present, there is a voluntary code that most games manufacturers follow. Calls have been made for the BBFC to be given the job of applying age ratings to games.

None of the commentators have mentioned the obvious problem, in their haste to wring their hands about "evil video games corrupting our youth". The problem, as with many things, is witless parents.

Games are already clearly marked. A game marked "18" contains content that is not suitable for those under 18. It’s the same as films. You wouldn’t, for example, buy an eight year old a copy of Reservoir Dogs. But when a parent caves in and buys Grand Theft Auto that’s exactly what they’re doing.

Just because it’s a game, doesn’t mean it’s aimed at or intended for children. It’s the same problem faced by writers of graphic novels. That may sound a pretentious term, but the only alternative is "comic" and they’re not writing comedy. We don’t have the terms bande dessine or manga to describe pictoral works that aren’t the Beano.

As for the claims that video games make people violent, I would suggest that anyone who cannot differentiate real life from pixels has bigger problems. I’ve played GTA, for example, and not once have I felt the urge to run real people over at random or steal cars.

I agree with the voluntary age ratings but feel that an education campaign would be a far better use of time and money than adding to the BBFC’s workload. Make it clear that not all games are for children, and that age ratings are for content, not difficulty. Have shop staff remind the purchaser of games with an age rating that it isn’t suitable for people under that age. 

I watched the news reports of the Quantas 747 with a hole in it as they were coming in. What’s amusing is the media reaction. We’ve had the usual stuff about "terror at 30000 feet" and "passengers feared for their lives".

Problem is, we also have video footage. It doesn’t really back those headlines up. 

We can see passengers wearing oxygen masks and remaining calm while the flight attendants keep smiling. Nobody is running around screaming, and there’s a noticable shortage of stuff flying around or huge holes. The only thing most apparently noticed was a bang, followed by an emergency descent and masks falling from the ceiling. 

Of course, once it had landed the media were able to find at least two people who spun a teary tale of how scared they were that they’d never see family again. It’s the same with all of these things. 

What they missed, however, is the fact that this is a case of everything else working as it should. The panel blew out. The pilot realised something was amiss and dived to an altitude at which the air was breathable. Thanks to the design of the aircraft the missing panel did not cause it to fall apart. But that wouldn’t make such a good story would it?

You get these people everywhere now. After a channel ferry has had to hang around off Dover for a few hours due to rough seas there’ll always be some shrieking idiot saying it was "like Titanic". Well, it was a ship. Not many icebergs off Dover and I think all the passengers got off this one alive.

The sooner we in the Western world relearn the robustness of our Grandparents in response to crises the better. Panic helps no-one. An awful lot of people hailed as heroes are those who did not panic, but just got on with it and sorted the problem out as best they could. Those Quantas passengers behaved in a perfectly normal manner, despite what our Hollywood-addled media would have you believe.

The headphone socket on my MP3 player has become somewhat unreliable. Now, most people would just bin a four year old device. But I don’t intend to.

The battery still holds a charge. The hard disk is still turning quietly. The broken part, and I know this because I’ve managed to buy one or at least something similar in Maplin, costs 80p. As opposed to over £200 for a new player of the same standard. So in a few minutes I’ll find the soldering iron and start fitting it. 

Widget manufacturers have become very cunning at the repeat business game. From iPods where you have to return them to Apple for a new battery (another reason to buy a Creative instead) to devices that obviously have a design lifespan after which they will break in a manner that makes them unrepairable. But ehre is another insidious trick they’re pulling, and more people need to notice it. Enforced obsolescence.

A couple of years ago one of the big chains announced that due to lack of demand they would no longer stock floppy disks. Think briefly, when was the last time you saw a new PC with a floppy drive? Manufacturers have engineered a lack of demand by leaving the drives out of PCs.

I accept that a USB drive is a better bet, but for those of us who like messing around with old hardware a supply of floppy disks is somewhat essential. I even have a pile of the old 5.25in floppies, which are good for innuendo if nothing else.

The same thing is happening with CDs, although here it is slightly more sinister. One major high street chain has already announced that they will not be selling CD singles due to downloading, and commentators have been forecasting the death of the CD for some years. Mind you, they’ve been saying the same about vinyl since the 1980s and new pressings are still being released.

The sinister part is that once we move away from buying a hard copy to buying an intangible collection of data we lose a lot of control. With music or software on a CD we have a hard copy. In the event of a system crash we can just reinstall it from disk. If the data exists only on your hard disk and cannot be copied due to protection measures then what happens? Do you have to buy it all again? What happens if the media company decides to change their policy and lock all the stuff you have paid for, making it unusable unless you pay extortionate subscription fees?

It is obviously in their own interests to escape from hard copies. Making, transporting and selling a CD costs far more than putting the contents on a paid for download site, where almost all of the track price will be profit. It also gives them more control over how the consumer is able to use the music or software they have paid for. 

We seem to have turned into a society of mindless consumers who don’t care about the deeper implications of these things so long as we have our shiny new iWidget before the rest of our clique. If you’ve ever tried explaining why DRM is a bad thing for consumers to the average airhead then you will understand what I mean. People just don’t want to know, and giving a damn now makes you uncool.

Because it’s cool to spend £200 on a new device rather than 80p on a spare part…