Megapixels Doubled!

Phone contracts are crazy in the United Kingdom. On paper, handset contracts look more expensive than SIM only plans. But once you deduct the chequeback redemption, pay monthly plans, including a new handset, cost only a fraction more than a SIM Only plan. So, with my contract up, I signed up again with O2 and the Carphone Warehouse for a new Sony Ericsson K800i. This is the new version of my previous handset, with some great new features. Bigger screen, 320x240 pixel resolution, RSS subscriber/reader, a 3.2 megapixel camera with image stabilizer, and a xenon (ie true) flash for the camera. It's the best phone I've ever used.

But as my new phone offers comparable resolution to my Canon S1 IS camera, I decided now is the perfect time to make the jump to a new Canon S3 IS. It has a host of new features, not least of which double the resolution at 6 megapixels. I got the camera off eBay, refurbished by Canon UK, at a steal for £240.

This past weekend, I had a perfect opportunity to try out both cameras. On Saturday and Sunday was London Open House, where various important buildings around the city are opened to the public for viewing. Many of these buildings are normally off-limits. Sadly, I missed out on a booking for The Gherkin, but so did most of London - apparently tickets for both days sold out in ten minutes.

But I did get to:

- tour inside the Lloyd's of London building. In a word, amazing;

- see the construction site of 201 Bishopsgate Tower, soon to be the third highest building in the City, built over (and carefully straddling) the outbound lines from Liverpool Street Station (which, I learned, is the busiest train station in Europe);

- look inside the beautiful Art Deco foyer of the Daily Express building at 120 Fleet Street (now the London office of Goldman Sachs);

- see the Limehouse Accumulator, once used to pressurise the extensive Victorian-era hydraulic power system that stretched from the Docklands to the West End (and was still operational until 1976!)

- visit Balfron Tower in the Docklands, designed by Ernő Goldfinger in the brutalist style (Incidentally, this architect lived near, and was disliked by, Ian Fleming. In an act of vengeance, Fleming appropriated the Ernő's surname for that of the most memorable Bond villain);

- join a tour of notable City buildings (Swiss Re, Lloyd's, Plantation Place, City Hall), conducted by ARUP engineers who were involved in their construction.

Later that evening, I went to Dust for a going away party. Greg's sister, Rani, is going home to Brisbane, after six years in London.