The Da Vinci Code

I am currently reading this book and almost at the end. The book is very hard to put down and grabbs you attention right from the start. It does have one very significant flaw, however, that has nothing to do with religion. It was written by an American who seems to proport to understand the English. In particular, the English Police. Dan Brown has obviously spent many long hours researching the main subject of the book but he failed to research London and our police forces.
First - Biggin Hill is covered by the MET police not Kent (I know, I was a Kent officer). The Police boundaries do not follow the county boundaries around London.
Second - you do not get a view of the 'London Skyline' or the London eye travelling from Biggin Hill by car. Unlike New York that stands out distinctly from the countryside around it London just slowly grows out of the urban sprawl. The only place you do get a good view of the London Skyline from this area is from the north side of Bigging Hill airfield itself on a clear day but the London eye is not visible. You do however, get a view of the skyline and the eye if you travell into London by train which is no doubt how the author travelled if he visited.
OK, so that is artistic licence that I can overlook but what annoys me more is that most Americans cannot accept the fact the British police do not make arrests with firearms which brings me onto my third point -
It is possible the police might have sent an armed response to the airfield if they suspected firearms were on the plane but they would not have drawn them unless given the orders to do so by a senior officer. The armed officers would be there as back-up for the regular guys who would be there to make the arrest. There is no way an officer would pull a weapon on a member of the public or suspect unless that person appeared to be armed. Teabing would have been arrested as he walked to the Limo for Obstruction and had he resisted he would have been taken hold of manually and cuffed. No weapons needed. As for the arrest of Silas in the Opus Dai building, well, that was totally ludicrous. I can't imagine the police would have been allowed to enter the HQ of Opus Dai armed and without a warrant as it is a religoius building and therefore a santuary. The police do not make arrests in the house of god and certainly would not use firearms. Making arrests at gunpoint is an extreem last resort and letting off weapons willy nilly certainly wouldn't happen. We don't have the 'Shoot first, ask question after' mentallity over here.
NB - I was a police officer for 20 years and often worked without a crew member. I faced a number of incidents that involved firearms but never carried a weapon of any sort myself. Not even a truncheon. I was happy that way. I hope this blog gets read by some Americans.
Apart from that - great book.

Hello

This was my entry to Imaging Resource Photo of the Day competition.
http://www.imaging-resource.com
It won it for June 1st.

Been having fun my my new Nikon. Not sure this ant was too impressed though.

Deamons' Light

Deamons' Light
I've no idear who this artist is as I don't speak Spanish but I thought the track played on her blog site was great. Shame I can't make head nor tale of the blog site. I did manage to find the groups web site but that was even more confusing. If anyone out there can give me more info (in English please) I would be grateful. I would like to hear some more tracks and possibly purchase a CD.

Jan 2007 - I've now discovered what the piece of music is and it has nothing to do with Deamon's Light (that was just the name of the blog site). It is 'My Immortal' by Evanescence from their 'Fallen' album. Not sure about the rest of the tracks but I really like this one.

Music Video:MY IMMORTAL (by Evanescence)

Music Video Code provided by Video Code Zone

StatCounter Free invisible Web tracker, Hit counter and Web stats

StatCounter Free invisible Web tracker, Hit counter and Web stats

This seems to be a useful piece of free software for anyone interested in learning the success of their site. I've installed it on this blog site just for fun but if your business has a web site then knowing how many hit it is getting and what pages are being viewed is vital. Some domain hosts provide this service free but others don't. If yours doesn't then you could find this very useful.

Picasa 'Hello'

For any of you how haven't yet used this program, you are really missing out. It has got to be the most easy and fun way of sharing photographs since the digital age. The whole system is simplicity itself and it only take a few seconds to share any number of photograps so much quicker than e-mail or even publishing them to a web page. Better still, you can chat to your friend MSM style while you are doing it and even see the images they are looking at at the time.
I have been using it to spaw photograps and chat with a cousin of mine on the other side of the globe. In two days we have swapped more information and know each other better than we ever did in 6 years of e-mail!
'Hello' is a totally free program which seems to be free of any advertising or spam (that I have noticed anyway). To get a copy of the program, if you don't already have it, go to the web site at http://www.hello.com/
Sorry this sounds like an advert, but I really think this is something that will catch on and deservedly so.

Konica Minolta Dimage choice

I am looking to upgrade my digital camera. I currently have a Sony Cybershot DSC-S70 which I have had for about 4 years now. It's still a pretty good camera for everyday use but it is limited in as much as it is only a 3 megapixel camera with 3x optical zoom. I would very much like to be able to take wildlife shots including birds and for that I need a far better optical zoom and higher resolution, not to mention faster lapse time between pressing the button and shutter activation. Having researched this for some time I have come to the conclusion that Konica Minolta provide the best options and their cameras have the anti shake system and better optical zoom functionality. Where I am stuck is on deciding which one to go for. Initially I was looking at the Dimage Z3 with 12x optical zoom and 4 megapixels but I think I am more likely to go for either the Dimage A2 or A200. The difference between the latter two in price is about £75 and for features there are pros and cons for both. Quality is a difficult thing to check without actually using the cameras so if anyone reading this can offer any advice please feel free to comment.

So far the best web site I have come accross for advice is http://www.imaging-resource.com/ but there is simply too much information to take in. I guess one thing I do need to know is if it is better to go for a higher zoom and accept lower megapixels or are the megapixels more important when taking shots of wildlife that might be some distance off.

I guess the bottom line is that no matter which of these cameras I choose, they are all cheaper than the Sony I bought 4 years ago and I dind't think so hard about it then.

This is Brac, our 11 month old Border Collie

This is Brac when we first got him home at 8 weeks old. Aaaaah!

This is him at 13 weeks.