Debt is the prolific mother of folly and of crime.

As this blog has demonstrated over the past 1,607 posts, Hobart is home to a lot of boats. What I have not stressed is the propensity for the owners of many – if not a majority – of those boats to pick a terrible pun as a name for their boats. Believe it or not, Concerto in Sea [pictured above] is indeed one of the wittier examples to be found in our many marinas and boatsheds around town.

Just as in naming a child, the pressure of picking a moniker that will be able to weather the tests of time, trends and mean-spirited individuals is immense. I would like to think that I’ve performed well thus far with the world-renowned Henry and Ezra [with the added pressure of the puntastic surname of McCracken], and thus would flourish if faced with the challenge of a virgin ketch trembling in anticipation at the prospect of a lick of paint and a dignified name.

That said, today I face a new kind of anxiety, Theme Thursday pressure! The Powers That Be have decided – in their infinite and munificent wisdom – to utilise a suggestion of mine as this weeks’ them. Moreover, what a theme it is!

Indeed, HISTORY, is mine!

The pressure of delivering upon one’s own them is colossal. Ever the squeaky wheel, I have pissed about and moaned constructively critiqued some past themes as discriminatory against us plebs located in the Southern Hemisphere. SNOW in summer! SAMHAINHALLOWEEN – a festival about the end of harvest – in Spring! SUMMER in WINTER! Yes people, I have been a robust advocate for the rights of Antipodeans for a long, long time.

Naturally, as a vocal critic of such inequity, the pressure is firmly upon me to deliver. I expect that there are many cruel fuckwits out there willing to suggest that I myself am HISTORY. Of course, they are right. I am indeed HISTORY. They are HISTORY. Believe it or not people, you are HISTORY too!

Many idiots people fall into the trap of assuming that HISTORY is past, HISTORY is dead or that HISTORY is anything but present. They are mistaken. HISTORY can never be dead. Like the parrot in the sketch, it might be sleeping, but only the fool confuses the two. HISTORY lives, HISTORY breathes and HISTORY both drives, and moves with, the currents that create, inform, deny, change or influence HISTORY itself.

The misconception is rooted in the notion that HISTORY is about them. It is about great men and weighty matters and significant events.

BAH! I say.

BAH! and PFFTT!

HISTORY is about us. HISTORY is about you and me and Vikrim the wholesale fruit salesman in Visakhapatnam; Jelena from Jelgava who works as a chemist in the day, but plays cards at night; or Abdul of Accra who enjoys street soccer but wants to be a teacher. HISTORY is in the details. Wars, treaties, empires raised and empires fallen is nothing more than the collated detritus of everyday life.

We are everyday life, therefore my dear readers, we are indeed HISTORY...