Robert M Estall

Could even be in UK though the time is a stretch. The only times I have ever issued refunds or credit notes have been to be able to reclaim the VAT I had already paid on a bad debt

First thing in the morning is probably enough but there do seem to be some zooms show up later in the morning. I used to check late Friday afternoons when there seemed to be an end of week flurry. But that doesn't seem to happen these days. Frequent viewing sounds a lot like watching for the old kettle to boil

Aha! so it's a real thing not just a one-off lashup. Interesting to see how many trombone variations there have been. My Euphonium shared the same mouthpiece with the trombone and could hit pretty well all the same notes, but couldn't produce the same effect

Once upon a time I played a Euphonium very badly. The main part looks like one of those (like a half sized Tuba) but the rest is made from odd parts of other instruments. The valve paddles look like from a French Horn; there are 4 of them. Most brass instruments only have three The best part of being in the band was we wore rather smart red hats rather than the drab rigs of the rest of the cadets and we could move about a bit rather than the rest of the parade who had a tendency to pass out from the heat That was Canada in about 1960. Only boys! We all hated it, but the highschool received a hefty grant they couldn't resist

You shouldn't believe everything those humans tell you.

I'm a 14 year old labradoodle, but don't write me off any time soon. I don't smell like an old dog and am still learning new stuff

5 out of my somewhat meagre 7 sales so far in July reported as PU. I don't think that will cover the cost of a case of claret

This is an odd story; an experienced photographer with many really good photographs who made the one query on the forum and went off in a huff when he was told he should do more in the way of captioning. A lot more! The question is, how did he learn so much about photography with such little grasp of how this business works? These images don't appear that old and I don't object to the heavy processing look. Don't do much of that myself, but there is room for all. And yes, old images can sell. I was dead pleased to see an image I recovered from the days they were building the St Lawrence Seaway taken when I was lad. Must have been about 65 years ago. Kodachrome just about survived although the scan needed a lot of help.

Agfa was a nightmare to dupe. The shadows went a horrid misty green. We had some shots of fairly dark African men and I could never get anything decent out of them. There were several stunning shots from Africa Adorned I could not risk letting the originals out but the dupes were horrid. Then came scanning and I could just about manage, but they certainly were grainy

sooth, I have no idea what you are saying. Are we supposed to recognize who CT might be?

I too will take the trouble to bend a bit to pick up a dime but certainly not switch my camera on nor upload any images with the likely prospect of earning peanuts. I need at least the prospect of reasonable remuneration. The market seems bust to-day. Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow with a more positive attitude.

when I operated as an agency in a very small way, pretty well the only reason for issuing a refund was a way of claiming back the VAT on a sale which had turned into a bad debt. Tony Stone's accounts used to show refunds from time to time and I came to reckon that was salesmen perhaps making some sales to meet targets and showing them sliding away later. I had an Italian agency certainly operated that way occasionally. In an earlier life I worked in sales for a specialist oil company and would have to admit to similar practices once in a while. I'm not suggesting any of that at Alamy, there would be no point in doing it on lower value sales and there is no indication of any trend in that direction. Refunds always leave a bad taste somewhere

Yup, Cecile's link worked, but I can't for the life of me see what the difference might be. Under different circumstances you might have settled into Liverpool a little more quickly, but my experience is, it usually takes about a year before you meet a few solemates and start to settle in. You need better social skills than I possess to be quicker unless you just get lucky. When I decided to settle in UK, it took all of that plus some. When we moved to this Suffolk village we hit the ground almost running, but Jane has better social skills and the neighbours appreciated that we were not commuters . After 33 years, we are almost the old guard

tried both Chrome and Safari and both took me to a page thinking I wanted to create a blog

When I still lived in Canada amongst the dinosaurs, July 1st was called Dominion Day and I have no recollection of a Quebec Day. But, then, I lived in Ontario.Things have changed! Mostly for the better I think

This virus theme may have quite a lot of run-time left. So many people running out of patience, I hope they don't find grief after their partying. I'd love a long hot summer but not if it means trouble in the cities and gridlock trying to get to our beaches. Just think, there would have been no mud at Glastonbury this year!

I'm partial to gulls. We do have herring gulls at our Suffolk beaches but the smaller terns are more acrobatic and dive & wheel eagerly for crusts from sandwiches tossed in the air and soon spot anyone getting towards the end of their picnic. Aldeburgh and Dunwich shift a lot of fish & chip suppers so are popular with Herring gulls. Also both land quite a lot of cod and flatfish which they fillet on tables near the beach. The gulls gather and are eating something closer to their more natural diet. I remember Cornish gulls being beyond eager. We used to often visit North Norfolk where the gulls were almost mute and not very pesky when it came to tidbits.

Liverpool is not alone, all over the country the first queues forming were for McDonalds. I despair!

Pity to say farewell to such a positive ikon. She seemed set on going on forever and almost did.

That's the one! They had pastel pink ones, pastel green ones and another; I forget exactly but I think it was pastel yellow. BAE 111s. The stewardesses had similar coloured uniforms which often were not matched to the aircraft colour. I even liked the mixed colours. They copied the idea from a Texan airline.Court Line were the first cheap flight operators to order new aircraft. I quite liked the colour schemes but clearly we differ on that one. At least it was a departure from corporate logos. The trimmed sandwiches packed into little trays in the seatback were not such a good idea but enabled them to do without a galley so they could fit an extra row of seats. Just before they went broke. they took delivery of two or three big wide bodied jets but I don't think they ever went into service. I must have made about 50 flights on those lollipop planes but fortunately had made a shift to another operator just before they went down. Just got lucky!

when I was doing brochure work for Holiday companies I usually used Luton airport along with hordes of fairly inexperienced travelers. Remember Court Line? As we all approached passport control on the way back, all too many put down their hand baggage consisting of clanking bottles of duty-free as they fished for their passports. The area had unforgiving hard floors. On most flights there was at least one arrival put their bag of duty free down a bit "clumsily" with ensuing disaster. Your mishap with the bottle of Rioja brings back that awful sinking feeling. We've all done it at least once and once is quite enough!

The best thing about the old rotary phones was that they had a bit of heft and were really solidly made so that they made a very satisfactory sound when you hung up anglilly with a good emphatic slam. I have known people attempt the same fit of pique by throwing their cell phone across the room, but that usually doesn't end well. For a few short years they made the same basic phone with a push button dial which pretty well combined the best of both worlds

The tourist industry relies on idealised images, not realism. Trust me, I did a whole lot of photgraphy for travel agencies. But, of course we are where we are for now and masks and distancing are highly relevant for some time to come. I have always worked towards long lasting images which is directly opposed to the Live News way of doing things. At Alamy, you can do both.

Tony Stone's mantra was "maximum fee for shortest duration and most limited rights" Most of use tried to emulate. Sadly we have moved on such a long way

Andy you're selling it well, where do I book? I have met -35 with a stiff breeze out in the Canadian Prairies. That was quite far enough! Flin Flon used to hold the record. I remember taking our son to Ottawa en route to my Dad in Kingston. I guess he was about 5 and it was pretty cold. He joined up with the neighbours kids and played in the snowbanks. I was really impressed with the kit these kids had: snowsuits with space age technology. None of this wooly mittens and rubber boots with an extra pair of socks we relied on when I was a youngster