If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried

As Chrissie Hynde sang in 1982, back on the chain gang for me today. And wouldn’t you know it, more meetings. Seven-point-six hours in a day and already three vanished in bloody meetings. One has to smile. Throw in catching up on correspondence and pleasantries, and can understand why I am pressed for time.

Of course, I have not let this prevent me from getting a big ol’ bunch o’ snapshots this morning on the way in. Thankfully, it was a crisp but clear winter morn, rather than an overcast beginning to the day. The light, it must be said, was tremendous.

But I want, for a moment, to comment on other matters. Despite making little effort of either keep an eye on or steer clear of them, I am already mightily sick of these blasted Olympics.

It is the media you see, as usual they are starting to get my goat, and he doesn’t like it one bit.

You see, Australian ‘journalists’ (as a pack) can be an infuriating bunch. When we’re doing well, it is all “GOLD! GOLD! GOLD! By Christ We Aussies Are Tops!” When others (the poms in particular) are doing slightly better, whaddaya know, sometimes silver is better than gold. Yeah, it’s suddenly about big hearts, big efforts and beautiful, bounding, bouncing babes (come on, do you really think Stephanie Rice is that interesting?!?)

Just a bit of free form thinking here, but maybe the thing that has ruined it for me is how the Australian Institute of Sport in set about churning out dozens of elite athletes across the disciplines, but somewhere along the way ensures that each and every one of them is completely and utterly sterile and devoid of any personality. You see, they are just so profoundly dull.

Oh yes, they each wave their little flag with a bit of a wink and a giggle that suggests naughtiness, but even that looks coached. You can’t help but feel that anyone with a bit of go in them, with a bit of flair or (heaven forbid) character was screened out long ago by some faceless apparatchik of the automaton factory up there in Canberra. As my teachers used to say to me: “nobody likes a smartarse”. Weet-bix don’t want a threat to the brand on the box, they want a big smile, nice abs and bronzed arms.

You want character? The Beijing 2008 notion of ‘character’ doe s not extend beyond wheeling out Laurie f@$&*#g Lawrence with a poem about ‘Aussie Grit’ or ‘the Larrikin Aussie spirit’. Quite Laurie, nothing says ‘larrikin’ like rhyming couplets!

Let’s face it; the Australian Olympic committee don’t want characters. The current crop is reminiscent of the interminable gangs of Big Brother contestants: young, fit, toned and easy on the eye, but not a whole lot going on underneath. It’s battle of the bland here. Ho hum, what else can be expected of the hot-housing of kiddies from age ten that professional sport has become these days?

Where are the fatties? The moustached blokes in headbands? The angry lesbians? Where are the blokes chucking their silver medel in the river because being the first loser is just not good enough?

Bloody Olympics.

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.

This will hurt me...

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