{"id":709,"date":"2005-01-25T01:16:00","date_gmt":"2005-01-25T01:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/u75blog\/?p=709"},"modified":"2005-01-25T01:16:00","modified_gmt":"2005-01-25T01:16:00","slug":"inbetween-the-tax-return-hell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/inbetween-the-tax-return-hell\/","title":{"rendered":"Inbetween the tax return hell…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I finally managed to get a refund on my 5 month old Sony DSC f88<\/a> digital camera, which had proved to be a bitter disappointment.<\/p>\n

I’ve been using various versions of these small, swivelling super Sony marvels for many years, but this one proved to be a duff one, suffering from horrendous ‘blooming’ (white light bleeding into the picture form the corners) and a moody shutter release that would sometimes decide to have long moments of quiet contemplation before taking the bloody picture!<\/i><\/p>\n

After much faxing (note to readers: if you want something done, send a fax: the technology may be ancient, but it works!), Micro Anvika generously refunded the cost of my camera and I replaced it with the super-sleek new Sony DSC V3 – a semi-pro, 7 megapixel digicam that has picked up rave reviews from the likes of dpreview.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\"urban75<\/p>\n

I had the chance to try out my shiny new purchase the next morning, when I took on my role as tour guide for the January urban75 walk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As are the rules for walk organisers (we take it in turns), the route has to be carefully researched with local landmarks and historical oddities pointed out on the way, so I headed off to the met up point at the fabulous Duke’s Head in Putney armed with a swathe of print outs.<\/p>\n

The walk took us along the south bank of the Thames, from Putney through Hammersmith up to Barnes where we grabbed a few drinks. We then crossed the Barnes Bridge and walked along the north bank to Hammersmith, stopping off at the Doves, en route. <\/p>\n

It was a lovely day: the weather was sunny and crisp (until the very end) and I had a fine set of companions for the walk!
Expect a photo report in the London features section<\/a> soon!<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

Tonight, we paid a visit to the New Piccadilly Cafe, Denman Street, Soho, London W1, an almost untouched celebration of formica and 60s design in the heart of Soho.<\/p>\n

The food is cheap and no-nonsense, the owner Lorenzo warm and friendly and – being a bring your own booze kind of place – the ideal place to get quietly squiffy.<\/p>\n

The sad news is that bastard developers are threatening to up the rents so high that this fabulous example of a traditional London cafe will be lost forever and – no doubt – be turned into bland yuppie hell hole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I finally managed to get a refund on my 5 month old Sony DSC f88 digital camera, which had proved to be a bitter disappointment. I’ve been using various versions … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stuff"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/walk01.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-br","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}