Innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.

It's still winter which means that we still have our guests parked down outside my work. Yes, the Norweigan-owned (but Australian-leased) Aurora Australis and our French friends on L'Astrolabe are still hanging about waiting for that pack ice to break up before they head back down south to ~~throw rocks at penguins~~ conduct important Antarctic studies.

Time for the Sunday Top Five! Today, I've opted for the not at all clumsy Top Five Countries That If They Were People I'd Invite To A Party:

1) India: they can bring the food.

2) Finland: they can bring the girls.

3) Jamaica: they can bring the groove.

4) The Czech Republic: they can bring the beer.

5) Western Samoa: they can man the door and keep out the undesirables (I'm looking at you Wales...)

Comments

Roddy said…

Do I not notice a hint of bias there somewhere?
It is of course open to ones tastes and preferences.

26 July 2009 at 08:50

Valerie said…

I'm going on another Aurora next week, it's a mite prettier though

26 July 2009 at 21:08

Priyanka Khot said…

Hahahahha.. i like the reason for inviting India. Food is what defines our existence... apart from snake charmers of course.

BTW, what is your take on the Australian govt publishing a guideline for Indian students, who go down under to study?

Most of us up here believe that it is the violent natives who need to be educated.

27 July 2009 at 20:28

Kris McCracken said…

Roddy, I am always impartial.

29 July 2009 at 08:30

Kris McCracken said…

Valerie, never!

29 July 2009 at 08:30

Kris McCracken said…

Priyanka, the saddest part of that whole fiasco is that there are too many unscrupulous expatriate Indians who are happy to exploit the vulnerabilities of their compatriots who often face a difficult time.

29 July 2009 at 09:21

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...

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. ...

This will hurt me...

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