As I am sure none of you are aware, today is apparently world photography day; the 175th anniversary of the first practical photography process. As this was invented by the French, I should on principle ignore it; but it is so long since I used my camera I thought I should make an effort.

The bad news was that I had agreed to take a day off from house moving and take she who must be obeyed to Ikea for a vital house accessories purchase trip. The good news was that Ikea is close to Bitec which is currently hosting a motor show of sorts.

It was a strange affair, with more Lamborghinis under one roof than you would ever expect to see. especially in Thailand.

The last few days has been spent moving stuff that was deemed too delicate for our amateur moving boys. A wise decision, because we only broke a few things in transit. Current condo is looking pretty empty now, much to the consternation of the cat who has lost all her usual dossing places and is left with a few pieces of cardboard and a mattress to choose from.

She who must obeyed has consulted the on-line oracle at length and announced that next Friday will be an auspicious day for us to finally move; so we now have six days to prepare for that. Having set the date, she has since been researching further and making extensive notes, so I expect much of the moving day will be taken over by assorted rituals. I am prepared to accommodate this provided the final ritual involves sitting in the pool and drinking something expensive and fizzy, I believe we will have earned it.

In my previous life I always moved house with professional movers. An army of packers would arrive and swaddle every object in layers of protective covering before gently laying same in stout boxes. If I was moving to another part of the world, the many boxes would be placed in a container which would arrive in my new country several weeks later; and a different army would undo all the swaddling.

Yesterday marked the completion of the interior work on our new home. Actually, there are still a couple of jobs outstanding which will be completed on Monday, but these are trivial compared to the large number of additional tasks that our contractor has undertaken at no additional cost (the result of new ideas popping into the fertile mind of my wife); so it seemed only fair to deem work complete, pay the contractor what he is owed, and mark the occasion in some fashion.

Stage 1 of our home migration project, the identification and purchase of a new abode, occupied most of June. Stage 2, which has made July into one of the more exhausting months I have experienced, has been the refurbishment of our new dwelling. This is almost complete and we are heading into the final stage which requires us to move all our shit into the new house before the end of August in order that the sale of the current Spike Mansions can be completed as per contract.

Dragged this from my collection to illustrate on a forum what the Olympus 45mm F1.8 can do. Seemed a shame not to share it as an antidote to all the house moving nonsense.

I have spent many a happy hour with my neighbour Nik discussing the inevitable downfall of the world banking system. Doom and gloom videos are exchanged; all of which point to the same conclusion: we are economically fucked.

Nik decided that he could defer his inevitable financial shafting by moving his banking to somewhere that is perhaps less likely to collapse financially than the UK: Singapore.

He reported that it was not the easiest process; but as I had already decided that I had had enough of HSBC Jersey; I decided to follow suit.