As to eating well without going to either the gold amex or vinyl tablecloth extremes, it’s a problem you’ll come across in a few places – Hobart had a particularly virulent bout of it a few years back.

Going back up to Pussycat’s bar/restaurant recommendations, I might do a separate post on that. But we had dinner at Pane e Vino (corner of Albert and Charlotte sts in the City) last night which is about the best place to eat in town for value and yummy pasta – the special I had last night was fetuccinne with sauteed broccoli, anchovies, chilli and spinach for $17. Reasonable wine list too. There’s a dearth of good places to eat in the city if you’re in transit to the bus or train or going to a fillum or something – lots of pretentious bar/bistroes full of suits and upscale silver servicey type places but not too many good joints where the food is excellent and the prices not too steep – bloody fine desserts too – I had caramel and macademia pudding.

One of the more significant tradeoffs is between being able to shove the camera in your pocket, and having a big telephoto lens (as others have pointed out, optical zoom is the only meaningful figure).

Flash performance, and low light performance, is another area where the cameras differ significantly.

The point of course is to have a close look at the ultra compacts, they have a lot going for them if you want to carry a decent camera with you all the time but are deterred by the bulk of a much larger but more highly specified device.

Cognac properly served?

Tell me, was it shaken, not stirred, or maybe heated-up to a nice fumy consistency?

An “intimidatingly efficinet maitresse’d”?

Times maybe tough, but it’s nice to see that some people at least are still observing the propieties.

Hope some Twat Hendo or Alan Jones doesn’t get hold of this, we got enough grief over the Chardonnay and Latte-quaffing.

So mebbie next time you get the urge to eat cake with Louis XVI, Marie……………..Keep it to yourself.

At the time we we’re also looking at the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7, but maybe things have moved on since then.

Have to disagree about the batteries, Ron. Maybe its something about the camera your using, but I’ve had no such troubles with batteries going flat, however we did spend a small fortune on good rechargeble batteries. And another advantage of AAs is that if you do run out of charge, you have the option of buying some (usually overpriced) fresh ones. No such luxury with the Li-ion batteries.

I noticed this afternoon that they are selling on eBay for around $370. They look like a really nice camera.

I like the idea of a very small camera that I can carry in my pocket all the time.

My wife has recently acquired a tiny Casio Exilim s770 (about $500) which is actually better featured than the Canon, except that the zoom is only 3x optical. However, its a damm sight easier to use than the canon, it has the least shutter lag of any digital I’ve come across (and this is a big issue – cheap ones are really slow and the image has moved on before the camera operates), takes high quality pics and has a BIG viewscreen. The best thing is, it is tiny, small enough to carry in a shirt pocket, so you can carry it everywhere and hardly notice that its there. While I like the Canon’s lens, the question is always whether I could be bothered lugging it about.

So, for the photoblogging you are doing, I’d recommend at least considering the tiny cameras, as long as you get a good one – its very much a case of what you pay for is what you get.

I hardly know Brisvegas – rarely get there these days – but have very fond memories of drinking XXXX pulled from a wooden keg, and eating a truly splendid steak washed down with a bottle of Hill of Grace at the Breakfast Creek Hotel many years ago – back when I could still afford the H of G!