The Leica 0-Series camera, which was built in 1923, was sold after a furious bidding war with hopeful buyers placing bids via the phone, the internet and in the auction room itself. Only 25 of the cameras were produced in 1923 as test pieces for the 35mm film market. Only 12 of the cameras are now known to have survived. The Telegraph.
We take no pleasure in the distress of others but the moaning coming up from the Bloor St West shopping area is a bit ironic. It appears the City has been busy chopping down trees. Not all the way down mind you. Just about half way down. That way the ugly stump if left there looking like a dead man walking. If any of this sounds familiar it will be because South Bayview was the site of a similar pointless slaughter of trees back in 2008. Many, but not all, the maples on the east side were lopped off half way and left to rot. They were there for the better part of two years before the elegantly named Urban Forestry Branch came along to rip them out of the planters prior to sidewalk work. New trees were planted the same day and in a few months they were uprooted for the sidewalk work. A sidewalk tree if just a sidewalk tree but you would have to say this episode was more than careless. Two years. There is a lesson here about how merchants money might be spent. The Bloor Business Improvement Association spends (and is assessed) millions each year to make itself beautiful. Among all the costly flowers and artistic planters it gets tree stumps. Those who think a BIA is the way to make Bayview beautiful may wish to ponder whether they would be further ahead just to buy some planters and hire a gardener for pennies compared to what the City will cost. And the trees? Just hope for the best. That’s what they do down on Bloor Street.
A reminder that tomorrow sees a variety of South Bayview preps for Mother’s Day. Notably, the giveaways and promotions at Tremblett’s Valu-mart are worth checking out. Go early.
Melanie Aitken and the lawyers of the Competition Bureau are throwing everything they’ve got at Visa and MasterCard these days. Ms Aitken is the Commissioner of the Bureau and since her appointment by the Conservatives in 2009 she has proven herself to be a strong defender of the consumer. At stake in the current round of hearings in Ottawa is the way the two main credit card companies charge merchants rates that are, as the Bureau puts it, among the highest in the world. The Bureau thinks that properly competitive rates would save merchants and consumers some $5 billion a year. More than that, says Aitken’s chief counsel Kent Thomson, Visa and MasterCard are running a “perverse” system that extracts unreasonable fees. The issue has come to a head as the two leading card companies have decided to produce so-called premium cards which set fees of up to three-percent of the amount of each transaction. This is the way American Express does it and the allure of giving people “gifts” purchased with their own money was just too much for Visa and MasterCard. Did somebody say there’s no free lunch? Retailers have lobbied for permission to tack a surcharge on purchases, so customers would be more aware of the costs. But the contracts offered by the major credit firms prohibit any such surcharges. They also forbid retailers from selectively accepting only credit cards from the same company with lower fees and denying customers with so-called premium cards.