Objects of Desire - Other than a 552.....

I agree Steve, Deneuve - sans cigarette,

ou avec cigarette - is one the the great beauties of our, or any other, time.

She has aged magnificently, in the way that only beautiful French women can age, with effortless elegance. She will be 70 in October.

While there are a few women for whom I am, or have been desirous, I'm not sure I'd ever regard any of them as an object.

Now, if somebody would kindly just loan me one of these for a few days, that would be rather fine. 

Interesting E Type. A customised Series 1 is my guess.

steve

A digital back for my Nikon FM3a, which I have decided is my favourite camera but the cost of film and developing these days is just getting bloody stupid. And patchy.

Friend of mine,he is on the right in the picture has one in blue. TBH he hardly ever uses it,more often than not when he turns up for our friday nite squash he is on his push bike. Then again after 5 or 6 pints !!!!!

A while back i saw 2 in an upmarket car dealers in Sheen. Both in MINT condition priced at almost £100,000.

Mista h

 I snapped a Campy Gran Sport Crank like a carrot a many years ago. I guess this stuff just isn't designed for the power I was putting out .

In fairness, I doubt that these days I make the necessary power to stress cycle parts much!

I am not much more than a flyweight at about 65 to 67 kilos.This week I weighed the Carlton at 10 kgs with a total of the cycle and me at 75 kgs, so not much strain on anything and I ride with great care over bumps and joins in the tarmac. I am good on hills, surprisingly good, and can get to good high speeds, even since the broken leg, but I don't reckon to make hair-raising acceleration under serious power. I always take the longer view that if you accelerate less frantically you get further faster!

The early Gran Sport crank-sets only had three arms carrying the chain-wheels, and this was increased to five for reasons of strength. 

All Record crank-sets were five armed for example. I don't think there is much risk of me pushing anything to breaking point/ That is the province of younger more powerful types than me, and being much lighter than the average healthy male these days, I have the advantage the everything on my bike from tyres to chains simply lasts longer than they do for most people.

ATB from George

PS: Several years ago I broke a pedal out of a Shimano crank arm at the threads! The reason was a sharp acceleration at the road junction. I also snapped a chain even longer ago. That was moving off at the traffic lights. These days, I'd never attempt traffic lights! I get off and cross as a pedestrian. 

Steve, "customised" probably does it a huge injustice.  It's an Eagle Speedster.  Utterly gorgeous and I'm told that it drives in a way that even the most sorted E types only hint at.  If you like cars, it's achingly desirable.  Only stumbling block is the purchase price of £600,000+ and the fact that production is limited to less cars than you can count on your fingers.

A Patek Philippe 3939 would be nice

Well, I was sort of right.

steve

A 3-D printer for me too. Here's a ship in a bottle for you. It's becoming unreal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQLiZle8zmI#at=10

Too many to list so my top three categories only in the objects of my desire (or as necessary as the air I breath, as I like to think).   These items serve functional purposes foremost for me yet equally so they bring such pleasure through the senses - touch, hearing, and visual.  Every object of desire for me must stimulate one or more of the five senses to even get my interest. 

I want six working pianos.  To get different qualities of sound and touch etc. my desire for pianos two through six in order: 

2) Hamburg Steinway

3) Carl Bechstein

4) Julius Blüthner

5) Bösendorfer

6) Fazioli (just to see what excites Angela Hewitt so much)    

A couple of old pianos:

A home big enough for one of these:

Beautiful old stringed instruments:

I am also fascinated by mechanical devices.   Clocks, wrist watches and pocket watches fit in this category.  I am more interested in what is in the watch than what the time is.  

A Leica Monochrom, Noctilux 0.95 50mm, APO 50mm, an MP and then some older cameras like an M3, Rolleiflex, Linhof etc.

Thanks for allowing me to dream a little...

Leica's & watches.....we're so predictable!.  I'd have that Monochrom & Noctilux in a second. G

Coming to a Maplin near you soon...

Bet the 'ink' is expensive though...

And there are health concerns about all the tiny particles that are spewed out but don't make it into the piece being constructed, wait 'til that's focussed on more than the newness of it!

How about a Lego Leica?

Yes, it's early days in some respects, but nothing will stop this technology from moving rapidly ahead in several key areas.  

Think of something as mundane as household appliance repair.  If you owned a repair depot, would you rather incur the cost of inventorying tens of thousands of infrequently used parts, or would it be more efficient to access an online database, and print what your customers need...on demand?  

The efficiecies this techology can bring to lots of different business models are mind blowing.  Manufacturers will be able to bring end-to-end manufacturing back in house, because printing will eventually be less expensive than outsourcing to cheap labor markets halfway around the globe.  This actually has the potential to turn the UK and USA back into countries that not only design things, but also builds and exports too!

How anyone can look at this technology and not feel hopeful about its potential?  

Hook

Really?

Yep

But right now they're all shiny and wonderful, so no-one's that bothered!

Apparently as harmful as passive smoking. I'm sure that can be handled.

Love it! G

Objective of desire-my wife retires later in the year. Good for her.

Bruce