After spending months vacillating between the tiny new MacBook and the more traditional and speedy 13in MacBook Pro with retina screen, I have reached a conclusion. Last week I bought the MacBook for test purposes, confident that if I didn't like it I could return it for cash or part exchange.

It's not only Leicaphiles who are drooling over the Q—they are queuing in droves for this camera all over the world—the general press is feeling pretty enthusiastic too. British tech website, Pocket-lint has been testing the new Leica and pronounced it the best fixed-lens full-frame compact ever made. That's praise indeed, and praise with which I fully concur.

This week I have spent a couple of days setting up a new 12in retina-screen MacBook. I bought it with the intention of trying it and then swapping it for a more powerful 13in MacBook Pro if I don't like it. So far, though, the omens are good. I do like it; and above all I love the lightness and thinness. This is one gorgeous little laptop that, frankly, makes the iPad Air redundant.

The problem with small screens is menu-bar creep. The utilities you add, the longer becomes the right-hand platoon of icons. It soon threatens to engulf the lefthand application menu bar and it can be difficult to see the wood for the trees.

The recent Macfilos story on the Swiss alpine railways bought back memories for me of a quite remarkable railway journey I made in October 1982. It was in an Orient Express reenactment from Istanbul to Interlaken in Switzerland. We travelled in a train using the original Orient Express rolling stock and pulled for much of the journey by steam locomotives. As I recollect, at that time the carriages were owned by a Swiss railway enthusiast who also ran a travel company.