Mike Meade, one of the nicest and most valued of my academic colleagues, retired today. This is him in characteristic mode when replying to the toast.

Tom Catchesides has a great picture of Bill Thompson in full flow at the Cambridge Film Festival.

Seen on a kitchen table this afternoon.

Excuse the variation on the Dorothy Parker Walter Kerr joke*. Also, non-photographers and all readers infuriated by gadgeteering, please look away. Those of us who follow these things have been pondering the extent to which Leica seemed to have lost the plot. Its moves into digital cameras have been, to say the least, patchy. And its flagship M8 model was beginning to look a bit outmoded with the launch by Canon and Nikon of ‘full-frame’ (i.e. 24x36mm sensor) digital SLRs. My expectation was that we would soon see a full-frame M9 limping into sight.

But it now turns out that Leica was switching strategy and going for the very top end of the professional market — the folks who use Hasselblads for magazine and advertising work. Yesterday news leaked out of the Leica S2 series — a DSLR with a 37 megapixel sensor. That’s equivalent to the sensor in the Hasselblad HD3-II (£18,265.00 exc VAT to you, Sir).

Needless to say, there’s no pricing available yet for the new Leica product. But the old rule applies: if you have to ask the price then you can’t afford it.

*FOOTNOTE: Hmmm… I’d always been led to believe that “Me No Leica” was Parker’s verdict on the theatrical adaption of Isherwood’s I Am A Camera. But this source, among others, attributes it to Walter Kerr. Still, it was a good line, no matter who said it.

Burnham Overy Staithe yesterday afternoon.

Nice photo essay by New York Times photographers.