Up at 05:00 to take She Who Must Be Obeyed to the bus station. Lucky girl is avoiding Pattaya Songkran day by attending a two day seminar in Bangkok. I return to bed and doze a little longer before arising to check out the box of goodness that finally arrived yesterday, no thanks to the wankers at TNT.

Within the box is a new tripod. I confirmed the need for a new tripod by having the wife carry around the old one a few times on photo trips. “This is very heavy and falling to pieces; you should buy a new one” was her sage advice. I did’t really care about the first part of her sentence, but the “you should buy a new one” phrase is always taken to heart.

But she was right about the old one too. It’s an aluminium monster that I have had for years. It weighs too much and is developing a tendency to shrink in length when it shouldn’t.

The tripod of my dreams (I do dream of tripods, and in my dreams the tripod always has two long legs and one tiny, stubby one. I don’t know what this means.) has always been a Gitzo; big bucks, light weight.

But then I discovered a British company called Three Legged Thing, with a sense of humour and a new range of tripods; and before you could say “Paypal”, I had slapped down an order for a “Brian” (all their tripods are named after famous rock guitarists).

It was my Brian that finally arrived yesterday, and I spent much of today fiddling with his many features, plus taking a photo of him next to a temple; just to prove there was a tripod from 3LT in Thailand.

At some point there will be a review which no doubt pleases you greatly.