Be not afraid of greatness: some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.

Here you can see some of Hobart’s finest skyscrapers from the vantage point of Davey Street. It’s easy in the midst of such awesome sights to get confused and image one’s self in one of the world’s great metropolises [metropolopoli?], like New York, Shanghai or Burnie.

On the subject of big cities... [nice segue dude]

There is a kind of Groundhog Day effect when one sits towards the back of the 4:45 Risdon Vale express. Seemingly interchangeable malnourished-looking, undersized squeaky-voiced miscreants compete in a simplistic game of one-upmanship that has a tendency to focus on five key areas. [The faint-hearted please note that the language gets a little ripe).

1. A complete breakdown of syntax and grammar (“Like this guy like was like that other guy like like that we saw at Johnnos”);

2. Tall tales of petty criminal endeavours (along the lines of “I nicked THIRTY Mars Bars from Chickenfeed the other day...” “oh yeah? Well I nicked FIFTY Polywaffles from Newtown Woolworths...”);

3. Random acts of juvenilia (burping competitions; exposing one’s underdeveloped genitals to the girls across the aisle; pathetic acts of self harming involving cigarette lighters);

4. Utterly improbable stories of sexual exploits (e.g. one pock-marked pipsqueak and four separate girls across a ‘normal’ weekend? My things have changed since my teenage years);

5. Rapid-fire substitution of perfectly adequate adjectives with filthy swear words (instead of “i briskly walked past this attractive young girl at the entry of the supermarket”, you get, “I fucken spotted this fucken slut right near fucken Woolworths”).

Actually, in truth, it usually goes more like: “I fucken stabbed this fucken ho who I fucked nines times last weekend after I fucken robbed TEN meat trays by shoven ‘em down me pants... [BURP]”

It makes for quite the pleasant ride.

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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