There will now be

a short intermission.

I have a new camera.

The manual,

which I fondly imagined was only bulky because 

it was multi-lingual,

is in fact 211 pages of vital English directions.

Well I say English.

It might as well be Japanese for all the 

sense I can make of it.

It took me ten minutes to attach the shoulder strap

(see page 25).

There are sixty three pages of 'basic' instructions

but no glossary or index.

So far, local weather conditions,

dark, drear, dismal, dim,

have not allowed me to experience its full range of

cleverness but I have just chanced upon page 105

which offers night portrait, night scenery and

creative night scenery, 

so all is not lost.