The Woolwich Leica story by Mike Evans last week reminded me that I, too, have a copy of The Leica Manual; in my case this is a 1937 edition which I keep on my iPad for reference. And to add a bit of spice to the story, I recently acquired a full set of original user manuals for most Leica LTM and M models.

This morning I got a surprise from the postman, a promising-looking jiffy bag from Athens containing some camera bondage. It was the unusual wrist strap from Evris Papanikolas's new Tie Her Up strap company. My thanks to Denise at Greek Leica agent Skiadopoulos in Athens for sending this review copy. Evris is also sending a leather neck strap, a different design, for evaluation.

Earlier today I got my hands on the new Monochrom Typ 246 for the first time. This is the only display model around, at Leica Store Mayfair, and as far as I know no dealers have demonstrators as yet. I'm told that supplies are going to be limited for some time. 

There is nothing remarkable about this camera at first sight. It looks and feels just like an M-P and shares that camera's absence of front branding.  Like the M-P it has the tougher rear screen. It also gets the 2GB system memory that trebles the speed of rapid shooting compared with the standard M240 as I explained in my earlier test of the M-P.

Eric Kim has tremendous enthusiasm for everything he tackles. What I like most about Eric is that when he tries something different he goes for it hook, line and sinker. No compromise.