Earlier this week I was strolling around Bushey Park in south-west London when I had my greatest photographic disaster of the year. I found a mob of deer. One obliging stag was washing his antlers in a rather unsavoury, muddy and smelly pool. Just the job, I thought, and fished out the camera of the day, the Leica X1 as it happened, from my Billingham

A new 12in iPad, an Apple keyboard and even a pencil: My first reaction is why would I want one of these combinations. Since I got the 12in MacBook the iPad Air 2 has been gathering dust. For me, the advantages of OS X, with its multi-tasking capabilities, in such a compact and light package far outweigh any attractions of the iPad. 

This evening I faced a dilemma. One half of me wanted to go to the London Mac Users' Group to watch the Apple presentation in the company of like-minded anoraks. The other was sorely tempted by an invitation to celebrate The Queen's longest-reign-in-British-history record at a rather superior dinner in the gloriously faded surroundings of the National Liberal Club in Whitehall.

The classic camera half case is as popular as ever. Few people these days want the other bit that covers the front of the camera; that is definitely a dated accessory. But any Leica owner will have cast eyes over a half case or, as Leica like to call them, camera protectors.