Syntagma is taking a break over the Christmas holiday. We will be back on Wednesday January 2.

Isn’t it telling that almost all Christmas gifts have come from the Far East in recent years? Whatever happened to Lapland?

I have to confess I’m hopeless at buying Christmas presents. So is everyone else, in my experience.

At least I attempt to ensure that gifts derive from a cold, northern country where snow makes an appearance sometime during the festive season. Reindeers are de rigueur.

To escape the usual flood of Christmas gift packs of puddings and pickled onions, I usually treat myself to exactly what I want at this time of year. Early thoughts included an Apple iPhone, but the deals here are not very tempting when you already have a better phone and a superior camera.

So today I ordered up my present to myself. I’d been hoping to find a decent old Leica camera on ebay — say, an M4 — with those never-to-be-repeated optics that the Zeiss perfectionists created back in the 1960s when cameras were truly male jewellery.

Hoping is not the same as finding though.

Then, yesterday, an online ad appearered in my inbox for a Panasonic digital SLR with … a Leica “superzoom” lens. It was too much to resist :

It arrives tomorrow, and I’ll be out immediately road testing it around the town. I’ll even favour you with a few shots to brighten up your weekend.

Where is it manufactured? My guess is China — but I live in hope it may be Lapland.

It’s been a busy old week here at Syntagma Towers.

We’ve been refurbishing the office with new laptops, installing a giant HD screen with digital television, and throwing out a pile of junk.

We’ve also been optimizing our sites for the new PR Crunch era, and working on our latest projects for specialized information products.

It never ends. Blink and the world moves on without you.

But would we have it any other way? Never! Mind you, a good night’s sleep would be very nice.

Friday, and it’s the first cold day of the season. Heavy morning frost on the rooftops and a biting wind. Central heating full on, and winter woollies at the ready. It could be a cold one this year here in our northern latitudes.

Do we care? Not a jot or a tittle! Business is too good for that. Here’s what we’ll be thinking of :

Brigitte Bardot in her prime

The sun, I mean.

Mind how you go.

I want to thank everyone who has responded to our Christmas/Holidays advertising post so far.

To say we were inundated would be a slight exaggeration, but not by much. Read the post here : #

Remember, on average it takes seven sightings of an ad for it to register sufficiently to sell goods or services. So it’s in every business’s interests to begin their Holidays advertising early.

In our local town there are already people on the streets with Santa hats on, handing out flyers. I know that’s boring when it still feels like summer, but it’s a shrewd response to human nature.

Think about it.

Your contact : ads(AT)SyntagmaMedia(DOT)com.