This will hurt me...

Unfortunately I appear to have left an important piece of camera equipment at work, which means that I haven't been able to retrieve the photographs that Henry and I took today. So, I have dipped into the grab bag and will give you a photo taken at West Beach in Burnie LAST Saturday instead. This is a typical winter's day on the North West Coast of Tasmania, bright sunshine, not wind, birds singing and kiddies playing. Well, either that or torrential rain and gale force winds. There's always something happening!

Spotted on the side of a power pole. Unfortunately I was sans camera: "It IS as bad as you think, and they ARE out to get you!"

When? This afternoon at around four o'clock. Where? Salamanca Place. Silos end. Why? Waiting for inspiration. All of this reading about Hitler has forced me back to the German Idealist philosophers. I have mentioned my interest in the Idealist School on this blog previously , and retain the admiration developed for them a few years ago now. As an aside, I will admit to having a particular fondness for Fichte, and am forcefully making the case for the present bump to be called Johann or Gottlieb should it turn out to be a boy. I do not expect to be victorious. But back to Hitler and the idealists. It seems tragic to me that to many, Hitler was in many respects the culmination of Hegelian thought. Yet, as in many aspects of his life, Hitler was just a tad off course on his interpretation. And thinking about this, I was reminded of Hegel's last words, which I have heard to have been: "Only one man ever understood me... And he didn't understand me." Some say that ...

If there is one thing guaranteed to get my goat, it is the continuing tendency of people – often people employed in the media – to immediately blame the state of the road for fatalities. You know what people; highways don’t lurk about in the dark, plotting and scheming before cunningly setting about to “ claim victims ”. If the road DOES happen to be dodgy, show more bloody caution! On this theme, it is about time we got rid of this word ‘accident’ from the reporting of car crashes. Someone falling asleep at the wheel and running headlong into another car is not an ‘accident’. Someone four times over the legal limit flying off a cliff because they can no longer see straight is not an ‘accident’. Someone doing 175 kilometres an hour in an 80 zone losing control and hitting a wall is not an ‘accident’. To my mind, an ‘accident’ is a quite specific, identifiable, unexpected and unusual external event, without apparent or deliberate cause but with marked effects. The person that drives...

I found yesterday a very nifty little application – Wordle – that lets you generate ‘word clouds’ for just about anything you like. For the uninitiated, word clouds are simply groupings of words with the most-frequently-used words in the larger, bolder font. The visual effect of the grouping is that of a cloud. Now, I decided to whack in all of the words that I have posted on this blog over the past couple of months and see what shows up. In my defence, each post has “posted by Kris McCracken”, so I am not SO vain as to refer to myself quite as frequently as the word cloud suggests. [I have had a little trouble with the HTML on this, so have posted the cloud as a JPG file for the moment. Hopefully I can get it sorted at some point.]

Budget lock in this afternoon and evening, so the photo is a little delayed. The sector that I am currently working in fared much better than it had expected, so they should be happy. No doubt though, people will find plenty to complain about, as people inevitably do. But onto something FAR more interesting, another picture from Burnie. As was a common feature in my first incarnation as a photographer many years ago, I am back down at the Emu River. I failed to get a picture of some platypussies, but did snare plenty of shrubbery.

Inspired by a discussion on the high-brow clusterflock group, and frustrated by technical issues with a post that I have had to put in cold storage this morning, I have been thinking about plurals and animals. For example, there exists no universally agreed upon plural of “platypus” in the English language. The egg-headed among us generally use “platypuses” or simply “platypus”. Colloquially (and in some dictionaries), “platypi” is also used, although this really is cod-Latin. The Greek plural would be “platypodes”, but only a nob would go around saying that. In the spirit of the English language’s lack of rigidity in relation to hard ‘n fast rules, I myself have been endeavouring to get “platypussies” up and running, but have had little success thus far. In this manner, I am beginning to use “fishies” instead of “fish”, “sheepies” instead of “sheep” and “deeries” instead of “deer”.

Here is a shot taken this afternoon right outside my building. I liked the mix of colour in the sky, the iron work of the lamp and the sandstone building. So I have posted it for your ocular gratification. On another tangent, I have been reading a remarkable little book from the late 1970s titled The Meaning of Hitler , by the terribly interesting Sebastian Haffner . It is a brisk read and offers a broad analysis of the life, work and meaning of Adolf Hitler in a calm, rational and neutral manner. This is not something always associated with work around such a notorious figure. Without wanting to make a song and dance about it, I would recommend it to anyone interested in a first-class, accessible exploration upon a theme not easily entered into. In the words of David Beckham, “It makes you fink, ya know?”

I am not totally sure what this vintage French advertisement is selling, however I very much like the design. While I am certain that it is really about smash-proof glass or motor oil or some such, I have my own little interpretation of what it might be, based on the steely resolve in the eyes of the fellow in the ad. Triplex Amphetamines for busy people If you have to be somewhere in a hurry, try Triplex amphetamines We will get you there!

Now, I already have done a fuller feature on my home state. But today I thought that I would feature a veritable FEAST of photographs from our trip from the delicate South to the rugged North West of the Apple Isle , and my home town of Burnie. It was Henry’s first trip to the ‘Coast of Love’ - as I like to call it - and he seemed to enjoy it. As you can see from this first photograph, the weather was not too kind to us. A real chill in the air, fog and rain greeted our journey northward as we passed through the badlands of the Southern Midlands. This would have been taken somewhere not too far north of Pontville, as we entered the plains of central Tasmania. However, the weather did clear a bit, and allowed me to get a snap of what I like to call ‘the Midlands Steppe’. It’s not REALLY a steppe, but as a fan of all things Eastern Europe, I like to think of it as our little version of "the Great Steppe". As the video I posted earlier today shows, we had a break in Campbell To...

Back in Hobart safe and sound. First I shall share a video of Henry testing the slide that can be found at Campbell Town, which sells itself as "the heart of Tasmania". For us, it served as the halfway point of the five hour journey from Hobart to Burnie.

The view of Tranmere from Elizabeth Street Pier. This was taken the same morning as the picture posted on Saturday. The fellow in charge should have a fresh batch by this evening. I expect that they'll be back by then. I bet they won't have bought me anything. They never do. I will post one of Mr McCracken's favourite poems. He wishes to dedicate it to his lovely wife, and the mother of his 1.8 children. It is not one of his (he wishes). It is by the splendid ee cummings. I have not stuffed up the retelling, ee just likes them this way. i love you much(most beautiful darling) i love you much(most beautiful darling) more than anyone on the earth and i like you better than everything in the sky -sunlight and singing welcome your coming although winter may be everywhere with such a silence and such a darkness noone can quite begin to guess (except my life)the true time of year- and if what calls itself a world should have the luck to hear such singing(or glimpse such sunlight ...

The Tasmanian Parliament. In the morning. In the rain. Yes it is cold. Very cold. Yes. It is still the robot. Today I have a quiz. Today I will name five names and you have to guess what it is that these people have in common. Here are the names: Raquel Welsh Teri Hatcher Cameron Diaz Sandra Bullock and current US President George W. Bush Answers in the comment section. First correct answer wins a prize. The prize will be the deep satisfaction that can only come with knowing that you have won a meaningless contest.