Being 42

Tuesday 8th April 2025, 11.00am (day 4,975)

In the years I have been doing this blog I have made my way through five cameras, giving an average lifespan, for each, of somewhere between two and three years. The latest came quite close to dying today: a few minutes after I took this picture I thought it had gone, in the same way as they always go, namely the zoom lens freezing up permanently. This would have been a major problem seeing as I am still stuck out in the mid-Atlantic, a few thousand miles from a reasonable camera retailer. However, after putting it in the fridge (literally), it has recovered, for now — but I will be using it sparingly for the rest of my time here. In which case, this is not going to be the very last shot taken with the Leica; but it was close to being.

This is the BBC World Service’s station on Ascension Island — from here, programmes are received, converted and relayed to South America and Africa, including until quite recently the Voice of America, but DOGE put paid to that, and as the manager of the station told me today, who is going to take up the slack? Russia and China, certainly. Thank you so much, MAGA. A fascinating morning in fact, but not an edifying prospect for the future, even if I do know more about global communications technology than I did last night.