This will hurt me...

I like the patterns here formed by the various roofs (I think 'rooves' sounds better) of Lindisfarne North Primary School. Here is a poem, for I have babies to wash and put to bed! Barbera Barbera had a (She looked as though someone had hit her in the face with a shovel) nice personality.

High winds have a tendency to make the surface of the water do unexpected things. I promise that your regular service will return as normal from here.

Work schmerk! Here is a closer look down towards the south eastern shore of the Derwent.

My apologies for the lack of commentary today, but I thought I’d share the pictures from yesterday's rather extraordinary day of weather . Here is the view south, down towards Antarctica at lunchtime. Compare it to the week before to get a sense of the haze. The wearisome excuse is that old chestnut: work . Yes, work is again out of hand and Monday is a Australia Day , where we are supposed to think about stuff like red dirt, grit, courage, determination and all that gear, but in reality it increasingly involves a bunch of pissed idiots in singlets draped in the [horrible] Austalian flag fighting and flashing their breasts. Consequently, the pressure is on to finish things on Friday.

Following on from the groundbreaking Henry on a stool , I present you you Ezra on the ground and looking about .

Here is Henry seated on a stool, after drinking a glass of milk.

There has been some pretty shocking weather today: hot, incredibly windy, dusty, and - worst of all - smoky because of some bushfires around the state. You can see the effect on the view from Salamanca Place across Sullivan's Cove to Hunter Street. I have a theory about hairdressers that involves an elaborate and sophisticated system of overlapping and interlocking – yet deviously independent – plans, plots and cunning schemes to perpetuate the greatest hoax on humankind since that whole notion of New Coke (what a gyp that was). No, I’m talking about the tendency to shamelessly exploit the vanity of women by lobbing on a thirty percent tariff for seemingly having the temerity to even walk into a salon. No, that’s an everyday garden variety scam . What I am talking about is something far more sinister , and ultimately, something far more dangerous . You may well be familiar with the concept of the Große Lüge , or – if you like – the 'Big Lie'. The Große Lüge concerns a ...

Here you can see the view westwards from the very bottom of Argyle Street this morning. It appears that discourtesy , deafness and poor motor skills are all pre-requisites of a Metro bus driver here in Hobart. Other desirable attributes include morbid obesity , limited mathematical skills , a n inability to read the time accurately and a vocabulary that does not extend beyond the range of grunts and guffaws one might expect of a troop or gorillas in the highlands of Rwanda. Now, far be it from me to cast aspersions on the good folk at Metro Tasmania (can you see how carefully I am choosing my words?), but between you and me – and judging by the sweat stains under the armpits – maybe the gorillas slightly trump them in the hygiene department. After all, I am not sure who might be willing to pick the nits off an unkempt bus driver... Bitter, moi ?

Can you believe it? Post number 900 ! Who would have thought that we'd make it this far? Time to sit back down in the Errol Flynn Reserve in Sandy Bay, gaze off over the Derwent and reflect on what has gone before me. Alright, enough of that, I've got sleep to attend to!

144 is a dozen dozens . Even better, 144 is one gross . Psalm 144 begins with the statement: Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle. Section 144 of Bangladesh Code of Criminal Procedure prohibits assembly of five or more persons, public meetings, and carrying firearms. This is probably why The Polyphonic Spree have chosen not to tour Bangladesh. The total land area of Bangladesh is 144 thousand square kilometres. As of 2005, the population of Bangladesh was approximately 144 million . Thus, if your get a dozen dozen Bangladeshis, times that number by one million , get them to praise the LORD with a rock concert (featuring The Polyphonic Spree which would be in breach of Section 144 of Bangladesh Code of Criminal Procedure) that went for 144 hours , it would smell gross . Probably.

Yesterday saw a rather misty start to the day. Here is a view from Salamanca of the Telecom [Telstra?] tower with some hills in the background. There is a couple that I know that seem as desperately in love as they were when they first met over twenty years ago. They are deeply committed to each other, treat each other with the utmost respect, and remain as passionate about each other as teenagers. They share all decisions equally , power is evenly balanced between the two, and they truly seem to respect and admire each other as human beings as well as lovers. They tell me that their love life is rich and exciting and that they continue to stimulate each other intellectually and emotionally . It really is enough to make you sick.

Sometimes things work out in ways outside of our expectations. Today’s advertisement is a good case in point. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I think that a little history lesson is in order! Iran's nuclear program emerged after a 1953 CIA-supported coup that bought Shah (King) Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to power. The Shah was keen on atoms you see, he loved them, like kids love colouring or my wife loves D'Anvers orange fudge. Eventually, the Shah got himself a sweet little civil nuclear co-operation program under the U.S. Atoms for Peace program. In 1967, he managed to secure himself a U.S.-supplied, 5-megawatt nuclear research reactor, which allowed him to indulge his love of atoms to a level that he previously could never have imagined. In fact, the Shah was so taken by the whole exercise that he approved plans to construct, with U.S. help, twenty-three nuclear power stations by the year 2000! He was like a cat in a cream factory, or a lizard in a place with lots of fl...

This tragedy was photographed at the top of Kelly’s Steps in Battery Point. Apparently robbers used to dress up like prostitutes and stand at the top of the steps and try to get sailers to come up and join them. Then they would then knock them out and steal their cash and anything else on their person. So they say. She told me that she had never felt that way about anybody else. She told me that when he touched her, shivers rocked up and down her spine. She told me that he listened to her in such a way that proved his dedication to her. She told me that she was awfully sorry , but that she had fallen in love with somebody else. She said that nothing I could do would change her mind, and with that, she left. The say that one shouldn’t ponder imponderables and that one should move on and not dwell on the past. Yet it is a very hard thing to do when you realise that you have been abandoned for a goldfish.

Here is the little bloke just this evening. I thought that you'd like this one. He's just a little different to when I first met him properly. Or when he first came home . Or when he used to sleep in the bath . Or when he'd sleep on me . Or when he first let me know that he wanted to be a dictator when he grew up. Or when he started to smile . Or when he first let Henry hold him . Or when he amused us all with his Mr Humphries impression . Or the delight he takes in bathing with his brother . Or in his conquering of the mountain . Or in his shift towards more stable kinds of leadership . You have to forgive my waltzing down memory lane you see, because dear little Ezra™ is officially six months old today!

I stumbled across this image on whilst strolling on the Information Superhighway the other day and can’t decide whether it delights or repulses me. The notion of an aged Colonel Sanders personally hand feeding broads with bouffants is an interesting one, and I wish that I had more information regarding the circumstances behind this photograph. Now, if you happen to recognise the foxy lady nibbling on the good Colonel’s juicy leg, or you know something about this whole state of affairs , I’d very much appreciate your contribution. Moreover, I’d like launch a welcome all comers caption competition in the absence of an accurate analysis of the events above. Your prize? Well, what prize could be greater than the enhanced self esteem that comes with trouncing the opposition in a meaningless game? [I dunno, a holiday, car or something...] If anyone can think of a prize that doesn't involve me, you know, having to post stuff in the mail or something, I'm open to suggestions. May...

Here one can see the Dutch ships Heemskerck and Zeehaen battling through the notorious Southern Ocean. Of course, this is but a re-creation, as no photograhs survive of Abel Tasman's little holiday down south in 1642. I think that they got wet and mouldy. Or something. I occasionally wonder what might have happened if the Dutch got serious about settling Tasmania and crowded the Poms out. Given their tendency to set up plantations for cash crops in Indonesia, maybe they were too lazy to get their hands dirty and make a go of it in a sparsely inhabited land like ours. Perhaps it's a good thing though, as clogs give me blisters and I’m not the biggest fan of herring. That said though, tulips are lovely and grow rather nicely down here, we get plenty of wind for windmill-related hi-jinks. So maybe we missed out. Maybe the Dutch could have sent out some tall blonde women instead of all those filthy convicts and we could be cruising on bicycles through an immaculate red light ...

For some reason, this building above says more 1982 to me than it does 1973 . Now, 1982 I remember, and I think that it may have been slightly rubbish. Not even Eye of the Tiger or Come on Eileen could retrieve this stinker of a year. In fact, I can't help but feel that the whole of the 1980s kind of sucked. So did the 1990s for that matter. Actually, this decade needs to pull its socks up to avoid getting the thumbs down. If I'm honest, I'd have to say that it's all been downhill from 1760. Now that was a good decade.