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! ~~SAMHAIN~~HALLOWEEN – 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 ~~fuck~~wits 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...

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...

But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave.

Can you believe that it is time for Theme Thursday already? Today we are not talking chocolate , toddlers , mess or ignominy . No, today we're dealing with ANIMAL . Now I could have posted a picture of a possum, numbat, wombat, wallaby or any other furry killing machine that roams our fair isle, but I figure that I'd use a far more deadly creature as an example of an animal . Some people - I know them as fools - have chosen to embrace that highfalutin idea that human beans are for some ungodly reason superior to animals. Of course, what these imbeciles seem to forget is that were are simple animals ourselves ! Anyone with a baby, toddler, teenage boy or Queenslander in their household could tell you this. Look at Henry [above]. One chocolate frog in the back of the car on a sunny day and all of a sudden it's Elagabalus meets Bacchus for a quick shandy in the Serengeti and we're down on all fours carrying on like a cat in heat. Fair dinkum, anyone who chooses to ...

This will hurt me...

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