I’ve missed a number of stories this week, so a quick bit of catch-up.

RIP Film

Kodak is going to curtail production of their 35mm, and APS, cameras. People are lamenting this, and the news that digital cameras outsold film for the first time last year, means that film is dead. Which is rubbish. In the same way that vinyl is still around, there will always be a place for chemical film in cameras. I have six cameras, if you count the phonecam and the groovy, grainy lo-res digicam Damian leant me, and they’re split evenly between digital and film. And I’ll never give up one for the other. Film is lush and will almost always produce a richer image, especially in pure light. Digital allows multiple exposures cheaply, instant results and cool effects of its own.

Equipment

Back in the days of The Mary Whitehouse Experience, they decided that Matthew Kelly was good shorthand for The Word You Cannot Say, mostly because Matthew Kelly was such a total…… Matthew Kelly. Geoff Hoon is the new Matthew Kelly.

If a company outfitted its offices with everything except chairs and their employees were expected to provide their own seating arrangements from their own pockets there would be an outcry. This is what’s happening in the Army. A soldier died in Iraq after having to give his enhanced body armour back. Almost as bad as this disaster was the news that he had spent over a thousand pounds getting equipment that the Army hadn’t provided but which he needed for deployment to Iraq. Never mind the stupidity of the invasion, it’s positively criminal to send soldiers into action if we can’t even be bothered to equip them properly.

Kilroy

What a total Hoon.

Listing

There were screams of derision and horror when the supposed list of the top ten British sitcoms was announced. How the fuck did Vicar of Dibley get into the top ten, let alone the top fifty? And where was Coupling? At least The Orifice only made it to twenty five.

Tuition fees

I may currently be penurious doley scum, but my heritage is middle class. It might not be if my parents hadn’t had grants to fund them through higher education. Grants all but died a decade ago, replaced by loans and now they want to shift even more of the expense onto the student. I hate to admit it, but Michael Howard actually made a good point- if you’re going to charge people for going into higher education, why not charge sixth formers. After all, they have chosen to stay on whilst those who left school at sixteen will have gone into work and they’re tax will be funding those free loaders who are trying to get A levels. News flash to Tony, most students do go on to pay a graduate tax because they get better paid jobs and head up the tax brackets. They also give much more back to the country. If you want to get students from poorer backgrounds into University don’t threaten them with twenty five years of debt, promise them funding and a prosperous future.