Shyheels

The value is in the completeness of the collection. Someone who is bidding on a bottle of '51 Grange Hermitage isn't after a nice red to have with their Christmas dinner - it'll be a collector who wants the whole set. That's the hardest one to get.

As for wine - it's good old supply and demand. A rare and costly wine becomes even rarer and more costly as the number of bottles diminish over the years and collectors who wish to have a complete run of a certain label bid up prices. If you bought a bottle of Penfold's Grange - Australia's finest and costliest and most collectible wine - every year since the first (experimental) vintages appeared in 1951 (66 bottles of wine) your collection would be worth well in excess of $150,000. The '51 alone would fetch $50,000.

Not a good look at all. Again, I am blissfully ignorant of who she, or her father is/was. PVC really shoukdn’t Be considered a license to dress (or act) trashy.

Actually, if you know what you are doing, rare and fine wine is not a bad investment.

I like Arnold Schwarzneggers’s quote about money not buying happiness: I know money does not buy happiness. I am no happier now with $80 million than I was when I had only $40 million... And yes, most of those rare bottles of wine are bought at investment or as collectibles, not to be drunk - any more than you’d buy a rare Silver dollar to spend it.

Sony make some excellent cameras and frankly have been more innovative than Canon in recent years. If one didn’t have so much money invested in Canon lenses, or rather Zeiss lenses with Canon mounts, some of the Sony cameras would be really tempting. Their sensors are brilliant. Black and white is a lovely medium. I don’t know if you have used this or not, but Silver Efex Pro is a brilliant bit of conversion software. Best I have come across by far. The 50mm lens is very “unglamorous” and unsung lens that ought to be better appreciated. I love it. That or the 35mm would be my standard, go-to lens. You’re quite right - with the high ISO that is available these days, and the advances in noise reduction, the heavy, expensive superfast lenses - the f2-8 and lower - are much less attractive these days. A sharp f4 lenses will do the trick nearly always. My Canon 5D3 will shoot very, very useable images at 3200 (although the camera is capable of much higher speeds) and I really don’t ever find myself needing to go higher.

Thanks - I saw that firm too, noted the nice prices, but I tend to shy away from grey market electronics which is what that surely must be. Yes, image size. We really are reaching a state of overkill on file/image sizes which are far in excess of what even most pros need, unless they are shooting advertising (billboards) or doing fine art photography and making huge prints. Frankly a 6MP image is more than enough for the vast majority of magazine work, even double page spreads. Canon's top of the range 1DX has 'only' 20.2MP. It is blindingly fast, though, at 14fps - and so best suited for sports and wildlife photographers and I've not heard any of them that I know complain about lack of resolution. The 5DS-R - with 50.6MP - is a fabulous landscape camera (or for studio work or weddings) It is the landscape potential that tempts since I do a lot of that. It would be almost like having digital medium format camera but at a vastly lower cost. On the other hand I also do a lot of work on the street, on the go (without time or opportunity for tripods) and often in low light. The 5D IV has all that versatility covered, especially low light. Both camera bodies have petty much the same ergonomics - and both are nearly identical to the 5D3 which I have been using since it came out five years ago. I'd love to buy both, but that ain't happening!

Really not a good look....

My handicap is cash too! I know what you mean about the pleasure of ownership. Unlike some of my fellow pros, who seem happy to use their camera bodies to pound tent pegs, I take it easy on my gear as far as possible. Rrsearching more this morning - leaning towards the 5D IV now. Seems less of a one-trick pony...

I am looking at the Canon 5DS-R myself, which is a bit over £3100 for the body. Not cheap, but then I have a couple of assignments coming up that call for that kind of blow-up-large resolution. Or the 5D IV. The inner debate continues. No need for any lenses, though...

Well that’s always nice news. i must say she looks like she is trying to be cast in a remake of I Dream of Jeannie

Words fail...

It depends so much on the individual. The father in that Sassoon scenario, born into nothing, could just as easily have died as young, or younger, than his daughter eventually did and of the same sad sordid causes. Many impoverished people from rough backgrounds do just that. Only we never hear about them because they remain obscure. That the old man did not, but founded a business and a fortune, speaks well for his character. Likewise there are plenty of people born to money who are decent productive citizens and do much with the head start they have been given. They tend not to be the ones living the celebrity lifestyle though, and so we tend not to hear much about them either. In any event it is down to the individual and the choices they make. As to the other - the lady in leather - I think it can be said of many, if not most people, however glamorous: that they look better dressed.

Actually, I think I liked her leather outfit better than these slinky see-throughs. Whatever floats her boat, I guess....

If you're looking for good role models for children amongst celebrities you're fighting an uphill battle. I'm sure such people exist but their better qualities are lost in the great swirl of marketing - which is what celebrity is all about; selling things. Music, clothes, shoes, hamburgers, soft drinks, videos etc. If the celebrities happen to be great role models, fine, but that's not why anyone markets them. It might help with the marketing - a bit - but a lack of morals can easily be overcome by spin and clever PR and a celebrity worshipping culture and press. Parents have a role to play - a big one, a defining one, I would say. Whatever Katie Price does, however she gets her kicks and jollies, I couldn't care less. In terms of children - girls, mainly - made up to look like sexually active adults - agreed, it's repulsive. But again it's down to the parents to take a firm grip and not let celebrities, and marketers raise their children and give them their values. Sure, pop culture is pervasive, but that can be overcome with thought, care and guidance.

Again, no idea who she is. I am not concerned about morals, but lack of talent and being famous for being famous bugs me. Don’t know if this woman is talented or not, but it does seem to me that a lot of nobodies seem to pop up out of nowhere and become obscene rich for...nothing!

Don’t know who she is but she looks like she’s got kind of a Nazi thing going there. Nothing subtle or especially soft and ladylike about the outfit, and not exactly office wear either

If you find something you really like (long term) or which fits well it's always worth while buying a spare or two if you can. Boots - unless they are stilettos - are generally seen as more masculine anyway and can be worn quite easily and casually

Yes, I have noted the irony in all that. Indeed throughout nature it is the Male of the species that is the gaudy one, humans - for the past three centuries at any rate - being the notable exception.

There are expectations that women seem obliged to live up to - certainly if they are in the public eye. I thought it was revealing that, after they left the White House, Michelle Obama said that her husband wore the same dinner suit for eight years at state functions and formal dinners and nobody noticed (and frankly wouldn't have given a damn if they had) while she was obliged to showcase new looks and colours and fashion designers at every turn. Obviously the Obamas can afford it, but the point is valid right across the board. Women are expected to be peacocks to some extent, while men are expected to be the plain but dignified backdrop that allows their wives or partners to shine.

It’s really unfair on both sexes. Women labour under the apprehension that they must do all these things, while men are taught to believe that they can’t or shouldn’t.

No one - or very few, at best - is interested in the emancipation of men in the fashion sense (or indeed any other) For the most part men do not care themselves, and/or are conditioned not to care. I can’t see that changing. As you say, people will chase money and while one might argue that if men could be induced to follow fashion with the assiduousnee women do, there would be lots of money to be made, the fundamental building blocks of society suggest they never will. Our society is just not structured that way and never has been. You get the odd outliers and brief flashy trendy, that appeal purely for the sake of daring and novelty, but that soon fades and the pendulum swings back towards the middle. It never strays far for long, and always swings back.

And sleeps in a bow tie, no doubt, and in carefully pressed underwear

Boy George and the New Romantics came and went and left nothing in their wake but dated memories now thirty years old. I don’t see a new version of them - Mark II - making any genuine permanent change

One would think so - but alas, we live in a very censorious society and, in terms of fashion and the freedom to adopt new looks and styles, a society that is tipped heavily in favour of the distaff side of things. Men are expected just to shut up and wear the most utilitarian of clothes and footwear, and in the most basic of colours, forswearing all flamboyance, theatre or personal expression. It's not allowed.