This will hurt me...

Here he is again, for the fan club. Apparently he is even bigger in India than Sachin Tendulkar! Henry's people have already been involved in some lengthy discussions with Rani Mukerji's people about a Bollywood epic about the forbidden love of an Australian toddler with a tragic past and a Bombay hooker with a heart of gold, but it's early doors yet. Like the boy with the wheelbarrow full of anvils, the job is ahead of us .

Ezra and I often play footsies. It's very romantic.

This should give you an idea of where we are at, seasons-wise.

The handsome devil himself!

A dodgy wall of a shop that sells, well, I'll leave it up to you to guess!

Really, really busy today, so I am going to offer you a photo montage through the day. The urban wasteland of a car park down in Salamanca.

It's our old friend the Oceanic Viking again. You might remember her from this post in June (with a sufficiently obscure Norweigan proverb for a title). In a bit of a rush as usual, and have got another conference presentation tomorrow that I have yet again left far too late! Looks like I'll be winging it yet again. By golly it's a good thing that I'm not afraid of crowds and can crap on (and on, and on, and on).

Got to love the news.

One does love it when the media are prepared to tackle the real issues. From the national broadcaster, the best headline of the week .

Here is a dog, not to be confused with a cat. This dog can often be spotted skulking around the Salamanca waterfront each morning. I hope that it doesn’t like in one of these high rise apartments – although I suspect that it does – as life in the inner city is no life for a breed as active as the Border Collie. I’m not a dog man though; I’m more a cat man. Truth be told, I’m more a crocodile or great white shark man but good breeders can be so hard to find these days. Anyway, I thought that I might leverage off a little discussion that I had on the artistic commune of clusterflock , and share a tale from the murky belly of history. Like all good stories, it involves a romantic entanglement with a sharp tongued woman, a murder and a dark and stormy night. It also involves a cat, hence the somewhat convoluted segue. As any cat owner will know, rats are ruthless and efficient killers. If you current have a cat on staff, or have ever had one, you will no doubt be familiar with the inevita...

Lest we forget amidst the adulation for all things Henry that I have another son, dear little Ezra ™, who is his own man and who is just as chic, clever, inimitable and downright handsome as his older brother with the cult following. Like Ezra, I am the second (and youngest) child in the family. I understand being second off the rank can sometimes translate into second in the mind. Being second can be a tricky business and intend to help guide the little one through the trials and tribulations that inevitably accompany such a burden. So I have posted this photograph of the sweetest little man of the house, to let him know that in my eyes he will always be equal first to me, never second.

One for the ladies today. Look at that style . Look at that sophistication . No, it's not a little beauty off the catwalks of Paris or Milan, but that stronghold of style Tennessee! Now you might be forgiven for asking whether or not world famous golfer Julius Boros is the original Harry Highpants ? Whether the answer is in the positive or negative, today’s advertisement makes a case for both the unnaturally high pant and the revolutionary “Tennessee Cloth” ( guaranteed 55%-polyester!) By golly, those polyester pants must be down a treat strutting around the links on a hot Nashville afternoon. But I'll be honest with you folks; I'm not convinced by these pants. I'm not convinced by the material, and I’m not convinced by the cut. But most of all, I'm not convinced that Julius has pulled them far enough up. For mine, if a pant is any less than halfway up to your tie, or it’s not touching your shirt pocket, you really aren't trying hard enough .

Here you go, a boxy building catching the morning sun in Hobart's CBD, what could be finer? Err... Actually... Off the top of my head: Eight hours straight of sleep. [I will accept five.] A healthy dose of Playstation. A bit of peace and quiet. A lovely meal without interruption. Something, anything on the TV that does not involving little red monsters, Spanish-speaking squirrels ( ¡hola Tico! ), dancing blobs or Tombliboo related shenanigans. A baby that is willing to sleep without being wrapped. Making it all the way through a picture book without someone snatching it off me yelling “ MINE !” A day without a meeting. A shop free of Christmas decorations. A visit to the toilet that doesn't involve 1) locking the door and listening to an angry toddler banging on it; or ii) carrying on a conversation with said toddler about why we don't pull out the whole toilet roll in one go. Go on then, the floor is yours, what do you think is finer than sun on a Hobart building?

I realised that I have failed to post anything regarding Henry's birthday presents and his new found vocation. Let me correct that immediately! As you can see in the above photograph, on the morning of his birthday, Henry awoke to find his father almost complete in the construction of his very own stove! Inspired by the work of Jamie Oliver, although much more similar in temperament to Gordon Ramsay, Henry (or Henri as he now insists on being called), has turned our living room into his own little Hell’s Kitchen . Barking orders left, right and centre, Henri has been churning out some rather fine examples of the culinary arts for the past week. As any follower of haute cuisine will doubtless already know, the stakes are high in the modern, ultra competitive world of cookery. After less than a week, La maison de Henri has already picked up not one, but two Michelin stars. He’s been invited to compete in the world famous 料理の鉄人 (more commonly known as the Iron Chef) and has two...

On occasions I do feel that I am out of kilter with the rest of the world...

Here is the sun as it appeared to me on my way into work this morning. It's been rather humid all day, which was foreshadowed by the hint of haze evident in the air. Think of this as a companion piece to what was lovingly called " Goatse sunrise " of a week ago. The photograph was taken in essentially the same spot, but that day was cold, today had been a beauty. A touch of Chennai (well, a Tasmanian interpretation of Chennai) about it, but as someone who doesn't mind it hot, I've been happy enough. [Note: I've been instructed by an e-mailer to remind everyone who hasn't already done so to view the video of Henry on the piano from Saturday. Never one to disappoint the mob, I have now done so.]

And what would a two year old’s party be without bubbles? No this is not a philosophical question (although I’d love to see Arthur Schopenhauer’s response), but an accompanying witticism to the above photo. Here you can see the little Aussie battler – decked out in what is at the moment my favourite shirt of his – checking out the bubbles from the extraordinarily large bubble machine that his mother hired for the occasion. Actually, I reckon that Schopenhauer and his cat would probably echo the thoughts of [the collective] Jaan Kenbrovin , referenced in the lyrics that I’ve borrowed for the title for this one. By crikey it is bleak for a jaunty little waltz and terrace anthem . Lest I dissolve into a requiem for our collective hopes and dreams, which eventually must culminate in a standpoint that rests on the advocacy of a position that assumes that the negation of an individual’s ultimate desires is an expression of his/her true freedom (and ain’t that a can of worms!), I will jus...

I will admit that this Elmo cake that I made for Henry is perhaps not the best or most handsome Elmo cake that has ever graced the Earth, but I made it. I made it despite having had a few consecutive nights without sleep. I made it in the face of the unceasing barrage of wailing from Ezra, the second loudest baby in the world. I made it even though the entire way through making it I had a pushy little toddler demanding more more MORE of something that I wasn’t actually sure of. I made it without proper planning and forethought, which left me perilously close to running out of icing (hence the slightly jaundiced look of Mr Elmo). Yet despite these odds, I still made it on time for the party . Of course, the point of any birthday cake lies in its predestined destruction. In moments of philosophical crisis, I tend to ask myself questions like is a cake a cake if it is not eaten? I answer myself - ever the conversationalist - "of course it isn’t, it is something altogether diffe...

I am endeavouring to prepare some posts that wrap up Henry's birthday festivities, but remembered that I had forgotten to post something for today. As luck would have it, Ezra and I had just completed a photo shoot for a new line of Calvin Klein fragrance, and Calvin suggested that we use this one here of the little Aussie battler doing his "moody hunk" stare at the camera. Calvin is a big fan of Ezra's work, as he was of Henry until their falling out, and is looking to line him up as the face of 2009.