Skip to main content

"...You're a fool," he said calmly. "A man who has no shoes is a fool."


The work of building hospitals in the 1960s must have been an interesting time. One wonders why the task to construct the most featureless, boring, unattractive, ordinary-looking and dull buildings was taken up with such vigour. Here is the Argyle Street side of the Royal Hobart Hospital, and it's uniformity is surpassed only by its lack of character.

That said, both Henry and Ezra were born here, so it will hold some interest to future historians.

Comments

smudgeon said…
There's an alarming lack of anything to either love or hate about these kinds of buildings, and how is anyone supposed to get worked up when it's so blandly middle of the road?

As a Tasmanian, it's my right to have a strong opinion about everything...
Kris McCracken said…
Me, I try to focus my anger on the lack of focus for my anger.
yamini said…
More than the exteriors, I find hospitals to be dreary and depressing from Inside.
I hate going to a doctor or visiting a hospital but sometimes have to do it anyway, if someone close is suffering.
Coach said…
Is the quote from The Truce?
Sue said…
A monument to the boys should be commissioned immediately to be erected outside for future generations to acknowledge the importance of this hospital as the birthplace of two legends!!!
And so say all of us!!!
PS I deleted my last comment to enable a correction to my hasty and inaccurate typing.
Carola said…
Have they tryed to make it nicer inside, some colours etc. ?
Nathalie H.D. said…
LOL Kris and "me"!
But you're right about the interest to historians.
Kris McCracken said…
Yamini, it is pretty boring inside too.
Kris McCracken said…
Coach, indeed it is. An excellent book!
Kris McCracken said…
Sue, what will they children say?!?
Kris McCracken said…
Carola, the children’s ward is, but the rest is very plain.
Kris McCracken said…
Nathalie, good ol’ historians...

Popular posts from this blog

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

This is the moon. Have I mentioned how much I adore the zoom on my camera? It's Theme Thursday you see, and after last week's limp effort, I have been thinking about how I might redeem myself. Then I clicked on the topic and discover that it was BUTTON. We've been hearing a lot about the moon in the past couple of weeks. Apparently some fellas went up there and played golf and what-not forty-odd years ago. The desire to get to the moon, however, was not simply about enhancing opportunities for Meg and Mog titles and skirting local planning by-laws in the construction of new and innovative golf courses. No, all of your Sputniks , "One small steps" and freeze dried ice cream was about one thing , and one thing only : MAD Now, I don't mean mad in terms of "bloke breaks record for number of scorpions he can get up his bum", no I mean MAD as in Mutual assured destruction . When I was a young man you see, there was a lot of talk about the type of m...

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...