Bangkok Barry was quite correct in pointing out that this is not a bank:

Seven years ago, Banksy organised a graffiti festival in a tunnel underneath Waterloo station. The tunnel is Leake Street and it still hosts graffiti, with displays constantly being updated as people with paint cans re-spray the walls.

Both of my regular readers will be aware that a UK visa for she who must be obeyed has been obtained, so that we can visit the homeland and see my son and daughter-in-law in September. The initial prompt for this visit was a request from The Son to mark his upcoming marriage.

The loving couple wanted to keep the event low key and it had been decided that only the mothers would attend. As biology dictates, I used to be married to one of the mothers so I felt it best if I help keep everything low key by not attending; hence the planned trip in September to compensate.

Then last week I received some communication from my ex-wife, suggesting it was sad that I was not attending my son’s wedding; and I received some communication from my current wife along the lines of “he’s your son, you should be at his wedding”. I considered both inputs and took an entirely independent decision, not influenced by any members of the female species, that I would attend. The decision was taken last Friday night and the wedding was the following Thursday; some sort of flight was required.

So on Saturday morning I headed off to an agent recommended by Ian of PattayaDaze and was met by a wild haired Indian gentleman who served me tea and toast and told me not to worry. Ninety minutes and forty six checked airlines later he was looking slightly less confident; but eventually he found me a direct flight which was great news. Less great was that it was direct from Kuala Lumpur, and the pricing mechanism seemed somewhat vague, but it was a flight.

Next on the list was clothing. A jacket and a pair of trousers were discovered in the depths of a cupboard; but anything that could pass as a shirt and tie had long since been discarded. Off to Central where a white shirt was quickly chosen; with an appropriate tie following on rather more slowly as the frazzled shop girl was hassled by my wife to lay out every tie in the shop in order that she could choose the correct colour. I played my part by violently agreeing that every suggestion was perfect.

Outfit acquired, it was off to the airport on Tuesday. A sign in the bus ensured a peaceful trip.

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The flight to KL was on schedule and the thirteen and half hour jaunt to Heathrow passed as pleasantly as might be expected; and at 0550 in the morning I was disgorged onto motherland soil; or more specifically UK Border Control, or whatever they call immigration nowadays. A lady perused my passport and waved me through; for the first time in around ten years I was in England.

Passed customs and the first sight to greet me was something called Costa coffee which I am assured is shit; but at that time of the morning it smelled and tasted wonderful. Bit pricey mind, even if a medium cup was the size of a small bucket.

My no expense spared accommodation was at the Holiday Inn Express in Collier’s Wood; a location I could reach via thirty five stops and many line changes on the underground. With a suitcase. At 0630 in the morning. I went for a taxi.

I then spent a very pleasant hour or so in the company of a traditional cabbie (“been driving taxis 35 years guv”) while watching the metre whizz round to a most unexpected seventy of her Britannic Majesty’s pounds sterling.

Arrived ragged, tired and significantly poorer at my hotel at 0800; and check-in time was at 1400; oh dear. I walked up to reception and met the first of what was to be many bloody immigrants. She was a very cute young lady of indeterminate European origin and spoke good English. With typical bloody immigrant behaviour, she apologised that the hotel had been full the previous night and they could not offer me a room until around 1000, but if I would like to have a free breakfast first and then relax, she would get me a room as soon as possible.

Didn’t feel like breakfast, so went for a walk. Collier’s Wood is not one of the nicest areas, but there was a little river that I took a stroll along in the early morning sunshine while assorted cyclists came past me with a tinkle of their bells and a cheery “sorry” and “good morning”; where was this miserable failed country I had read so much about? No doubt I would find it later. Then I came across a patch of public grassland which was being mowed and the smell of English fresh cut grass on a summer morning filled my nostrils with memories. The Englishness of the moment was reinforced by the mowing machine operator who had jammed the machinery with some twigs and was filling the air with good old Anglo-Saxon swear words. In need of food, I headed for a large building with the word Sainsbury’s on the outside. On the inside there was a cafe which served a passable vegetarian lasagne. There was also a sodding big shop so I headed in there and experienced multiple orgasms at the fruit counter where raspberries and strawberries were on offer for almost nothing. The orgasms continued at the cheese section; dear lord what have I been missing. Twenty pounds and a basket of goodies later; and I was back at the hotel with an interesting fruit, cheese and chocolate dinner selection.

The next day was wedding day and I was dressed far too early in my wedding gear. One stop on the tube and I headed for the registry office via a florist who knocked me up a buttonhole.

What flower do you want? You choose. What colour do you want? You choose.

I like to feel I am heavily involved in selecting my clothing and accessories.

An hour early at the venue and I bump into my younger step-daughter who is also attending unannounced; so when it is close to the wedding time we hide behind a wall and wait. The bride and groom arrive, together with their mothers, and photos are being taken. We step out from behind the wall and it is several seconds before The Son realises who is stood in front of him. He is rarely lost for words; and never shows too much emotion; so the next minute or so of a minor mental breakdown and extended garbled mutterings made the entire trip worthwhile.

The wedding went well. I became the nominated videographer and moved around the room like Wally Pfister on steroids. Unsurprisingly, the video was pretty crap. Then we took a few photos in the garden before whizzing off to a very fancy hotel for afternoon tea darlings.

My plan was to attend the wedding and then slip away and let the lovebirds have their time together. But the lovebirds have been together longer than I have been with she who must be obeyed, so they were having none of that nonsense and picked me up the following morning to take me home for lunch. On the way we stopped at something called Waitrose, and it was quite a revelation I can tell you. The branch was in a town called Farnham which, judging by the size of the houses is not a depressed area; so the customers were an interesting bunch. I spent a long time near the chilled meats listening to a conversation.

“Oh Lake Geneva was wonderful; and Lake Como. You could say it was a lakey sort of holiday {laughs like a horse in labour}. Giles is adamant he is going back there skiing.” etc. etc.

The main attraction was the produce. Whatever product you could imagine, they had variations and brands you have never heard of, often at astronomic prices. All manner of interesting foods were purchased and melded together to make lunch.

After lunch, I went for a stroll along a nearby canal with The Son. The sun was shining, the cyclists were tinkling by with “sorry” and “good afternoon”, and it was very pleasant. Very, dare I say it, English. There were even swans.

It is traditional to mark the acquisition of a new camera or lens by taking a photo of the nearest cat. Not difficult in our house because a cat is never further away from stroking distance; but by the time I had a film in my newly acquired Leica M3, I was sat in front of Rick(ety) Knees drinking a coffee. So when he raised his Leica M6 to take a photo, I just had to respond.

In the early 1950s, Leica had been knocking out derivatives of the original Oscar Barnack designed camera for almost thirty years. They were selling well enough, but were not as technically developed as the Contax rangefinder which had briefly outsold Leica before the war. At the end of the second world war, Contax was in the unfortunate position, geographically speaking, of falling under Russian control and having their production lines disassembled and sent to Kiev. Contax never fully recovered from this setback; and their position was not helped by the introduction of a new Leica, the M3, in 1954.

Around $450 would get you an M3 with a lens; not an insignificant sum in 1954; and indeed the main complaint about the camera was that it was too expensive. The reason it cost so much was that it was hand-built by craftsmen, in brass. Brass makes for a much smoother mechanism than steel, and let’s not even talk about plastic.

If you could stomach the price, the main attraction of the M3 was the viewfinder, which at 0.91 magnification meant that your view of the world was essentially life sized. No Leica since the M3 has offered this level of magnification (mainly because it precludes you from using lenses wider than 50mm). This is the view through the M3 viewfinder (if you are looking at something blue):

The frame lines around the outside represented the view for a 50mm lens. As you adjust focus, those line move to adjust for parallax. Attaching a 90mm or 135mm lens brings up different frame lines; and in later M3 models there is a lever to switch between them (the three sets of frame lines were allegedly one of the reasons the M3 got its name. The M2 and M1 would follow later, even though they offered even more frame lines…).

In the middle of the screen is the rangefinder patch where you align two displayed images to achieve focus. Because of the wide spacing of the rangefinder window, the M3 remains the most precise rangefinder Leica has ever produced. The little tabs on the top and bottom on the rangefinder patch are intended to help you calculate depth of field. Good luck with that.

The manual that accompanied the M3 proclaimed it “as nearly automatic and foolproof as a camera can be made”, which in modern terms means not automatic at all. You set the focus via the rangefinder, exposure via the aperture on the lens, coupled with the shutter speed set via a dial on top of the camera (without the benefit of a built-in meter), and press the shutter. But in 1954 this was as good as you were going to get, and the M3 was a huge success with photojournalists, professionals, and amateurs with deep pockets. More than 200,000 were sold during the period 1954-1966 and, so robust is the basic design, most of those are likely still functional. The tag line, a “lifetime in investment in perfect photography” probably should have read “several lifetimes”, because the M3 just keeps on going, provided it receives some love and lubrication every fifteen years or so.

There are plenty available for sale, the trick is to find one that has been cared for and has been recently serviced. So let me introduce you to serial number 963142.

Discovered this lot hanging around a building site in Pattaya. I was looking for things to photograph, not entirely sure what they were doing there. It transpired they were from Nepal and probably not in possession of work permits or anything else that might make them legal.

Had a bit of a chat about their fine country and then I asked if I could take their photo. They agreed: