Every hero becomes a bore at last.

Yes, it is the barbed wire that can be found on the fire escape at my work site again! Yes, there is barbed wire on the fire escape, such is the genius of our dominant classes here in Tasmania. Featured here is one of the very many cruel means that concentrated power utilise to stifle the revolutionary intent of proletariat. Of course, I have either

a) had a small victory in securing the shift to a four day working week; or

b) been duped into a further - and unknowing - web of Repressive Tolerance.

Either way, I now have Fridays off!

To escape the drudgery of a further neo-Marxist critique of Australian non-government service delivery, I have turned to noted scholar (his book on Marx and human nature is well worth the effort), and proficient blogger Norm Geras, and his meme of En-title-meant.

The concept is a simple one: answer the questions using only the titles of books you've read this year and without repeating one.

Describe yourself: If This is a Man, Primo Levi

How do you feel? [like a] Penguin Lost, Andrey Kurkov

Describe where you currently live: Another World, Pat Barker

If you could go anywhere, where would you go? A Small Town in Germany, John Le Carré

Your favourite form of transportation? Night, Elie Wiesel [sleep being the only trip I take these days]

Your best friend is: The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, John Le Carré

You and your friends are: [similar to] The Spies of Warsaw, Alan Furst

What's the weather like? [like] When the Wind Blows, Raymond Briggs

You fear: Ignorance, Milan Kundera

What is the best advice you have to give? No One Belongs Here More Than You, Miranda July

Thought for the day: Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe

How would you like to die? Towards the End of the Morning, Michael Frayn

Your soul's present condition? The Truce, Primo Levi

Thankfully I've kept a list of everything of read since Henry was born. I knew that this here blog would come in handy one day!

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...

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. ...

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...

This will hurt me...

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