COBBLER'S PAGE

Christmas is approaching fast or may have passed b) the time you read this. As I sit here I am reminded] have choices to make, I have been asked what I would like for Christmas. 

The short answer is a film or a packet of papers, is other words consumables, but this is unacceptable tc my family who would prefer to buy something different and find it boring to give the same present~ year after year even though they are always appreciated by me.  

My only contribution to Christmas shopping is to go round the shops once with the wife on a kind of recce for her to see what is being stocked and to get some ideas for the children. This usually means Leeds and a well established routine, coffee first then in and out of stores avoiding the ram and me taking note that there is a distinct lack of photographic goodies. I don't expect much in W H Smith's these days but they used to stock a good selection of photographic books. With a meagre half dozen on the shelf! heard a lady asking for a certain title and the assistant saying 'but we can get it for you if you want to order it'. 

Does this mean that you have to purchase it unseen? Sometimes when looking through a book that has been well reviewed or recommended it isn't really what you want. I have an aversion to photographs printed as a double page spread and if you cannot examine a copy before you place an order you may end up buying a book you really do not like. 

However, they did have the BJ3C Wildlife Competition Book, last years as well as the latest one. Lovely books with marvellous natural history photography, but pricey at over twenty pounds. My best book buys for Christmas, or any other time, the Phaidon Photographic Series, small, full of excellent pictures, reasonable ii price and available in Art Galleries. 

A quick look in Jessops, when you get through to the back of the shop thinking there must be mistake and you are in a computer shop, th choice of photographic paper is multigrade multigrade and more multigrade. 13 & W, colour neg., an odd packet of 10x8 Fuji. 

'We can get anything to order, sir', Pre-packed chemicals? Toners, Fixers, Developers? On shelf, But they did have an E6 kit. The range of film in

stock was good. Still the message is buy computer and we can supply anything off the shelf. 

We are, or is it just me, becoming a nostalgia item? I was given, yes given, a Canon AE Program 35mm camera, flash gun, slide projector and a contact printer recently. It was all 'going ii the bin' if! did not want them. The projector was in good order, the fan worked~ The mains lam~ did not, I wonder if they arc still available? 

The camera is fine and the flash flashes. This I good quality stuff being dumped and replaced with what?