When I was a lad, I would drag my father to our local racing circuit where he would retire to the beer tent and I would be left to drool over the racing machinery. One car stood out from all the others; the purposefully beautiful, outrageously fast and gorgeously loud Ford GT40.

My earliest recollections of accessing the wide wide world of web involved dialing into somewhere in another galaxy; waiting forever for a connection; and then keying in a user name and a password which I kept on a piece of card (which I regularly mislaid). If I could find the card, and make it as far as the keying in step; then I might be rewarded with a steam-powered visit to the web. In those days the web was only available in green (or maybe it was just my monitor), but at least there was only one password to write on the piece of card.

By no means my best windsurfing photo, but they liked the fact that there are buildings visible in the background.

After more than a week of Jeff mania, life appears to be returning to normal.

Buddha days crop up on a regular basis and are marked around our way by some prayers and a circumnavigation of the local Buddha. I have almost certainly posted photos before on this event, and the offerings from this evening are not as crisp as previous shoots, because I did not have use of a tripod.

It’s not that I forgot my tripod, it’s just that she who must be obeyed had her new camera and wanted to take some shots, so it seemed only decent to let her use it. I had to prop my camera against a convenient statue; only to discover she was intruding into my frame:

The British government’s latest travel advisory for Thailand states: “We are now advising against all but essential travel to Bangkok.”

I had a lens which was acting up and decided it was essential that I have it attended to; so off we go to Bangkok this morning. Park at The Emporium and then skytrain to the Canon repair centre where I tell them the problem, they tell me the diaphragm is sticking and needs replacing. That will be 7,000 baht please and come back in a couple of weeks. Painful.

Decide to pop into Panthip and spend a fruitless hour trying to track down a copy of Red Dead Redemption, the latest and greatest from Rockstar Games. No luck, but my journey does take me past Central World where I take a few shots. Rather depressing, but it’s only a building and can be replaced, unlike the 80+ people who died.

Never thought I would write that, but it’s true. After a month or so of blissful usage, it is dawning on me that I made a error of judgement. I should have bought a model with more storage.

So far, 16GB has been enough. I stream video using AirVideo, so no need to hold any video on the device. I use Pandora Radio to listen to music and discover new bands, so have little of my own music installed. The only significant consumer of storage has been the large number of applications I have acquired; so now I only have 10GB free. But since I have discovered magazines, my remaining storage is under threat.

An application called Zinio offers a wide range of publications. I have always enjoyed the photographs and articles in National Geographic, but at 275 baht for a copy in Thailand, it is an occasional pleasure. A year’s subscription on the iPad works out at 45 baht an issue and comes with videos in support of some of the articles. Maxim, the magazine for boys of all ages, is 365 baht from a book shop, 28 baht from Zimio. Rolling Stone is 55 baht. They are ridiculously cheap, and of course they all look great on the iPad, and are easy to read with zooming and scrolling.

Good as they are, they are rather overshadowed by the first iPad edition of *Wired *magazine which was released today.

The bad news is that it is relatively expensive at about 160 baht a copy; although that is still less than half of the Thailand newsstand price. And at half a gigabyte; it is a big download and a substantial consumer of storage.

The good news is that this is the first magazine to really take advantage of the medium. The other magazines are just digital copies of the original, with a few added goodies. Wired gives you a completely different experience from the printed version.

There are simple things like choosing from a selection of photos:

Last week I was extolling the virtues of Guardian Eyewitness and their extremely sad photo of Rama IV under siege. Today they have a more uplifting offering:

She who must be obeyed has a plan. It is probably a cunning plan, but I have yet to fully understand it. It involves the internet and photographs and making money; and she is currently in the research phase which involves buying several books in Thai about a variety of subjects and not really reading any of them.

But she did decide that she needed a camera. We have many cameras or, more precisely, I have many cameras. I grudgingly allow her to use one of my older models until I decide I need it back for some purpose (the purpose being to ensure that she does not assume ownership).

So she decided to purchase a camera of her own and there was little doubt which one she would choose. When I was considering a move into micro four thirds, the choice was between a Panasonic GF1 and an Olympus EP1. Not much to choose between them, but I went for the GF1 because I really wanted the lens that comes with it. But she was sold on the EP1, because it looked so good.

Last night we walked past a shop selling the EP1 at 10% discount, plus 3,000 baht off. Most importantly, it was the white model which is the colour she wanted. And now it is ours hers.