For years my wife and I have used a Franklin/Chambers Dictionary,Thesaurus and Crossword Solver. I cannot recall the model number but although it has served us well it has had one main annoyance. Type in the available letters a and question marks where letters were missing and sure it would come up with a selection of possible answers. Press 'Dictionary' though to find out the meanings of even quite simple words and we were often faced with the familiar 'Sorry can't help'.

This Scrabble dictionary is aimed at Scrabble players but as a dictionary it is everything that our Franklin/Chambers was not. It hardly ever fails to give definitions for words we present it with and contains a Lexicon of the obscure words that are legal in Scrabble but never used by the rest of us. The reason I have dropped a star is that definitions are only good for words of up to nine letters. Now if someone would come up with an electronic device that is a pure dictionary for any length of word, we would be first in the queue.

But as a keen amateur photographer I can't see anything wrong with the quality of manufacture or with the glass. I have purchased other sizes of the same quality and have had no problems with any of them.

I have used these screen protectors on other devices, i.e. Nintendo DS and a Panasonic Camera and they have always proved to be easy to fit and durable. They do not start peeling at the corners so long as the are fitted well to begin with and are easy to wipe clean if they get fingermarked. They do however add a slight graininess to the image on the LCD screen but at the same time they are non reflective and in my opinion the trade off is worth it making the screen slightly better in some daylight conditions than would otherwise have been the case. These protectors are more expensive than a lot of their competitors but the cheap ones feel more like cling film than these much thicker and stiffer items. I wouldn't use any other.

I was taken aback when this book arrived by the sheer size of the volume. 460 pages on good quality paper makes for a large paperback and my first thought was 'will the book fall apart after opening a few times'. So far, so good, it is quite sturdily bound and has stood up well to a lot of use. It is a comprehensive manual covering every aspect of the 60D in a language that everyone should be able to understand. All references to the menus are supported by large illustrations showing the aspect of the menu being referred to. Being an American publication there are some references to U.S suppliers of accessories but all in all I have found this a very helpful book with many chapters I have yet to explore. Anyone new to DSLRS or unused to using the manual controls of the camera will find the book a great help.

Ordered for my wife who is very pleased with the stick. It sits lower in the hair than the previously reviewed Shell Stick and although it does not really resemble a tiger's eye, it has a pleasing appearance.

Ordered for my wife who is very pleased with this stick and uses it regularly. May be a bit long for some people as the shell at the top protrudes quite a long way.

I very much regret that I had to send this battery back to Amazon for a refund. This is the first time a Hahnel battery has failed to fulfill expectations. It was ordered for a wedding I had promised to video as my other three batteries were well over two years old and their capacity had diminished. Sadly the same was true of the new Hahnel. After charging it lasted barely an hour whereas it should have lasted for two. There is no way of telling but perhaps it had been on the shelf too long as I understand Li-Ion batteries start to deteriorate soon after manufacture and eventually fail through chemical action after about two years.

I chose this lens hood as a mid priced alternative to the genuine Canon based on the reviews already available for it. The hood is well made and fits perfectly in the correct orientation. Note that the hood is mounted by matching the white dot on the rim below the EW-78E lettering with the red index mark on the lens. The hood has a matt inner surface which appears to be quite durable. The only hood I have for comparison is one supplied by Tamron with their 10-24 zoom and I would say that the quality is about the same although the Visionaer feels slightly more rigid. I am very happy with it especially as should it fail I could buy two more and still not spend as much as I would have on the Canon.

I pondered for months over every test report for a whole range of DSLRs across the Pentax, Canon, Sony and Nikon ranges. My choice was limited as I have been used to having an articulated screen on my Powershot G5 and G12 and this is a facility I did not want to lose. I take a lot of pictures of railways and use the versatility of the articulated LCD frequently.

Having read so many DSLR reports and opinions on forums I ended up suffering from information overload. Then Canon brought out the 650D and immediately my mind was made up. The recall of the 650Ds due to a dodgy grip intervened though and no one seemed to have even a demonstrator for a while.

Finally I found that Jessops in Exeter had them (sorry Amazon) with the 18-55mm kit lens so after a cursory inspection I threw all caution to the wind and bought one on the spot. I have only had it three weeks at the time of writing but so far I am very pleased with it. Before I touched the camera I read the whole of the quite comprehensive A6 sized manual up to the movie section. Not having had a DSLR before some of it seemed like double Dutch. On picking up the camera though most things fell into place and I began to feel pretty confident. The 18-55 kit lens is a trifle soft at both ends but nothing I can't live with as I am unlikely ever to make prints at maximum size. In fact I am impressed with just how precise the focusing is on a DSLR. My G12 produces lovely pictures but the smaller sensor means not having to think too much about depth of field. Something that definitely comes into play with a DSLR.

I find the camera a nice weight and size. I have average size hands but on my G12 fingers and thumb are constantly pressing buttons by mistake. Not so the 650D. There is ample room for my thumb to rest between two banks of buttons on the back but almost everything is accessible when needed by thumb or forefinger. The video button could be better placed nearer the shutter release but for me it is OK. I do shoot a lot of video but with a dedicated video camera. I may use this camera as a backup for the odd video but prefer my usual Sony and DV tapes.

Half pressure on the shutter release is easy to find and hold. Being a spectacle wearer this is a boon. Wearing glasses means that half pressure has to maintained longer than usual in order to look around the viewfinder for settings or focus confirmation.

One of the most significantly useful features is the Q button which brings up a screen full of options that can be easily altered by buttons or by touchscreen. I prefer to use buttons as the LCD panel can get very messy very quickly from finger grease marking when it is used as a touch screen.

Where the touch screen comes into its own is in live view for setting focus. Just touch the screen where you want the main focus to be and camera does the rest including taking the shot. There is quite a delay though between touching the screen, focus being found and the shutter firing so this facility is only useful for static subjects. With the screen extended to the left of the camera it is very easy to hold the camera steady with the right hand and adjust focus and firing the shutter with the left . I am not left handed but this could be handy for anyone who is. I cannot compare the touch screen to any on smart phones as I don't possess one.

One thing lacking is fn buttons which can be user defined. The manual says that the `Set' button can be user defined but doing so you would lose that facility for setting any parameters you have decided upon and the touch screen would have to be used for `Set' confirmation. I could be wrong about this. Further investigation is necessary.

There are three user defined settings available in Picture Styles but the parameters the user can set appear to be confined to brightness, contrast, colour saturation and sharpness. It was in using picture styles that I made my deliberate mistake which took me a couple of weeks to correct. I don't like garish colours so I started shooting with the Picture Style set to neutral. Everything seemed fine so far as I knew but when I attached the Tamron 10-24mm lens that I purchased at the same time as the camera, I could barely achieve focus no matter what I did. After dozens of trial shots I was on the point of returning what I thought was a dreadful lens. Reading once more through the manual and playing with Picture Styles I discovered to my surprise that setting the Picture Style to Neutral sets the sharpness to zero whereas every other style sets it to half way between zero and seven. Problem solved and the Tamron lens is really very good.

In bright sunshine I find the LCD screen just as poor as every other I have ever tried in spite of what manufacturers would have you believe. Angling the screen helps a bit but the time taken to find an acceptable angle could mean lost pictures. There is an adjustment available via the menu to increase the brightness and that is something else I will have to investigate. In anything other than bright sunshine the screen is fine.

I have now tried the Video setting briefly. I don't possess a full HD TV but it will accept 720 so I used the 650D on that setting and the pictures were excellent. Much better than my elderly video camera but it is this that I will be staying with for video as holding a DSLR away from my body and using Live View seems very alien. I like eye level viewfinders for video. Everyone says that the 18-55mm kit lens is too noisy for video when focusing and I would agree with this. I am unlikely to buy the 18-135 stepper motor lens though so will not be able to comment on the 650D's full movie capability.

I have plenty more to discover about using this camera especially as I am so new to DSLRs but I think the 650D will keep me busy for a long time to come. I would certainly recommend it to a friend.

A Night to Remember is simply the best of all the portrayals of the 1912 Titanic disaster. I usually take the expression 'digitally remastered' with a pinch of salt but in this case I believe it to be true. I would not be surprised if they had added 'frame by frame', the quality of the film and sound is that good. A real pleasure to watch a film of this stature and quality in it's original monochrome which adds to the drama and suspense.

Also on the DVD is a documentary on how the film was made. I found this astonishing and had to watch the film a second time to see if I could see the 'joins' but it is so well done it is hard to believe that most of the film was shot on one side of a much smaller ship which was already in the process of being cut up. This was cut together with the final 'panic' scenes acted out on a studio reconstruction of the lifeboat decks with the whole set built at an inclined angle to simulate the sinking Titanic. Remarkable