Google tells me that October is the tenth month of the Roman calendar, It retained its name from the Latin octo meaning "eight" as it was the eighth month in the old calendar. January and February were inserted into the new Gregorian Calendar in 1582. (I don’t really need Google, my wife knows everything.) However, if you want news that is not nearly 500 years old - Fordingbridge Camera Club’s New Year started on 14th September.

We meet at Avonway Community Centre at 7.30pm most Wednesdays. Our website, www.fordingbridgecameraclub.org.uk contains some details of our new programme. It is a mixture of talks by visiting top photographers coupled with opportunities to show your work on top quality equipment and have it commented on by experienced photographic judges. Visitors are always welcome for a small fee. In addition to our regular meetings, we devote many evenings to those who want, as a group, to set themselves new challenges and then to review the results collectively. These additional sessions have proven to be very popular but are only open to club members. They are usually creative evenings so cameras are recommended to be brought for those evenings.

The Edinburgh Festival is now over but as usual it brought in some new jokes; “I saw an article which said 16 year olds in Britain drink twice as much as they did 10 years ago. Of course they do, they were only 6 at the time.” (Mark Nelson,) “Why is it old people say there’s no place like home, yet when you put them in one…” – ( Stuart Mitchell) I think the winner was – “Apparently one in three Europeans are conceived on an IKEA bed, which is crazy because those stores are really well lit.” (Mark Smith)