This will hurt me...

Here you can the the little bloke crossing the vast expanses of the living room in search of water. Callously, both Henry and Jen refuse to help. I - in a rather pale imitation of the moral quandary of Kevin Carter's shocking image from Sudan in 1993 - am the photojournalist, intervening would destroy the authenticity of the shot. It's a tricky notion, the idea of objectivity and photojournalism, as I'd imagine that the presence of another person armed with a camera is going to undermine the notion of "real life just ticking along". Carter's story is well worth following up, the HBO documentary The Death of Kevin Carter: Casualty of the Bang Bang Club is one I've been wanting to see for a while.

Here you can see what must have been a big one in ye olden dayes , with a semi-big one today. Sort of. The perspective is a little off, but you can kind of get the idea of the size difference here. It must have been a great journey out here at the beginning of the nineteenth century, particularly when the majority that came down here did so against their will. That said, better than being strung up on a yardarm somewhere!

I like this one. You get a nice sense of the action here. I can't lie though, I was devastaded when one of them didn't let rip with a burst of cannon fire, scuttling the other.

Look ‘ere at this boat. She’s a beauty, she is. Love you like your mother, she will. Actually, you ‘eard of Errol Flynn? This used to be dear old Errol’s boat. Yeah, Errol loved this boat. Mind you, he hardly ever used it. Got no miles on the clock. Lovely boat this boat. 'e was a good man, our Errol. Real diamond geezer.

You want boats? I’ll give you boats! You want big boats? Here’s some big boats. You want little boats? There’s some little boats. Don’t talk to me about boats. I know boats!

It was by fortune alone that I happened upon this scene today. Alone in the office, I chose to lock up, take in some air, sling the camera over the shoulder and go for an afternoon stroll during my lunch break. And wouldn't you know it, an entire flotilla of all sorts of ships, boats and all manner of pleasure craft appeared before me! I felt like Themistocles at Salamis or Nelson at Trafalgar! Only with less bloodshed, and cannons and stuff. It’s the Australian Wooden Boat Festival , you see. Wooden boats as far as the eye can see! If you watch this space, I’ll drip feed you some boats...

Here is an old building down here in Salamanca that now houses luxury apartments, an art gallery, a gym and a hair salon. I'm not sure that the old crowd of convicts, prostitutes, drunken sailors, scallywags, scoundrels, reprobates, degenerates, ne'er-do-wells, rouges and rotters would be welcome around these parts any more. It’s all three hundred dollar sunglasses and designer pooches these days. I have been looking at a report that I am currently working on, and pleasantly note that I am trying to do my best to keep the use of lovely words alive and well in the sterile, mundane and (frankly) pitifully constructed word of public policy. That said, I’m not sure what the insipid automatons of the field make of me talking about ameliorating harm, adroit policy shifts, a conflation of interests, diffuse reasoning, ephemeral outcomes, eschewing simplistic solutions or indeed the preponderance of nebulous ideas set before us. I have a propinquity for beautiful words but t...

Here you can see a statue of Edward VII, who would have to be one of the most-statued dudes (that's the technical term for "subject of statues") going around. You know about the Edwardian period, the start of a new century, lots of sunshine and frolicking, significant changes in technology and society yada yada yada. His work in trying to get everyone in Europe to just get along earned him the soubriquet of the Peacemaker . Fair enough. The trouble is, I’m not sure how much he deserves it. I mentioned before about the whole “war that was supposed to end all wars but really just ended a bit inconclusively at the cost of something like 37 million casualties, then became a diplomatic shambles, then fostered resentment, fed into a volatile international financial and political scene, then led to a whole bunch of small wars, then one ruddy great war that had an estimate 72 million casualties”. Yeah that one. Anyway, I’m not sure that the King of the United Kingdom and the Bri...

So here we have yet another mercilessly bleak wartime recruitment poster from that war that we had because that war that we had that was supposed to end all wars really didn’t and what it actually did was set up the preconditions for another, bigger war. Yeah, that war. Now, when it comes to war, I can see the attraction of a) going off to defend your country, c) being embarrassed by girls , c) impressing the ladies , d) being nagged by greedy women, e) plain old fashioned ignorance , f) getting fired up because the other guys are a bunch of rotters and scoundrels , or even g) have a bit of adventure, see the world, meeting interesting people and killing them in all sorts of interesting ways. However, when push comes to shove, it’s best not to let me know what I’m really getting myself into before you have my name on the dotted line. Seriously, I’d see this poster and feel sorry for the poor bloke, but c’mon, the dude doesn’t have any hands ! As the kids at the bus stop say, that sh...

He is Henry, aptly surrounded by an ethereal halo (no doubt because he looks like a little angel). This one is from the Tasamanian Fruit Wine Festival down in Bellerive on Sunday. The lad's form on the home front has been reasonably consistent of late. "Henry no !" "Henry stop !" "Henry don't !" And most common of all is the ubiquitous " HENRY! " We appear to have our theme for February.

Here is a photo of Tasmania Police's Hobart HQ right in the middle of town. Following on from the earlier post, ABC radio have had a story on loop all day saying how I have “ criticised ” Tasmania Police’s decision to utilise sniffer dogs at an upcoming music festival. I guess that I have, but I thought that what I offered was far more constructive than. I’d like to think that I have an excellent working relationship with the local constabulary. I certainly think that they do a good job more generally. But the thing with the gigs and the sniffer dogs is that it just isn’t very effective. The ABC quoted Tasmanian Police as saying they have a “no tolerance” rule for all drug users at the festival, but that doesn’t fit with how they deal with drug users in a general sense. Public policy is not a neat, simple business, and it generally doesn’t fit with black and white visions of how things work, so in this sense, I don’t envy the police when it comes to something like drug use. The law...

Here is Jen and Ezra, looking for a wayward Henry in an artistic display that featured at Salamanca's Long Gallery through January. I know that it looks like a nightclub, but Ezra doesn't like them, he thinks that they are " common ". That ultraviolet light was a little disconcerting, I'll grant you that. And there is my crude segue for the day! For some reason, the local news media outlets have taken a shine to me of late, and I can now expect the phone to ring whenever someone has got something controversial to debate (when you're talking drugs and alcohol, it's always controversial). Being an arrogant kind of guy, and not lacking in confidence to express and opinion or argue a point, I'm always happy to oblige them. Yet seeing yourself or hearing yourself on the news is a very disconcerting experience. Predictably, my default news-watching setting is "who is this moron and why am I supposed to care what they think?" You would think that...

For some reason I like the way that the Tasmanian Parliament looks on gloomy days better than on sunny ones. It somehow seems more appropriate.

Madame Curie and her radiation, Newton and his apples, Einstein and his zany hair, Hawking and that voice thing, Fermi and his particles, Maxwell and his electric fields, Salk and his vaccines, on and on it goes. What is the one thing that they had in common? A fondness for the gaspers , that’s what! Do people really believe that the confluence of the scientific revolution and the arrival of tobacco in Europe is a mere coincidence? Nothing says science than late nights, pizza, loud music and a smoke filled room. Look at this dude here in today’s ad, he’s like Bill Wyman strumming away on his bass with a ciggie in hand. Just like Bill wouldn't be able to strum out that funky and sleazy opening salvo of Miss You (let alone his sleazy come-ons to underage girls) without a handy Peter Stuyvesant , the Chesterfield that you see above is perfectly weighted to maximise the fiddling of the dial on the microscope you see. That’s where they went wrong in ye olden days (that and their at...

Here is Henry zealously approaching the slide down at Bicentennial Park for the umpteenth time. Oh how I long for those blissful, carefree and innocent days of youth. A time when one's greatest concern tended towards whether one would be able to squeeze in one more go of the slide before dusk set in. [Such a memory must have been before the public housing estate really kicked off, and one's concern tended towards "is that a human poo/broken glass/a used condom/syringe on the slide?"] Where was I? Ah,the heady days of youth! A time far away from the realisation of the crushing reality of bills, mortgages and the soul destroying banality of a job you now struggle to remember even getting. Alienated from the ends of my production? Check. Uh oh. Somehow I've been denied my capacity to transform the world and it turns out that Marx was right! In having to work , rather than slide , I've become alienated from my very own nature. It is a spiritual, rather than mate...

Here I am looking right down its bow. I like the magnitude of this one, and think that the clouds set it off nicely. I'll leave the boats for now.

I've utilised the zoom a little bit to see what's happening up there on the bridge. If you look very closely, I think that you can just about see Captain Stubing chastising "Gopher" Smith for another of his whacky, harebrained schemes. I do like the fact that Gopher somehow made it into Congress after The Love Boat went off air. It seems odd to me that Captain Stubing didn’t somehow end up President though. Similarly, it seems a great shame to me that Barack Obama became the first African American President, instead of Jimmie Walker (J. J. Evans in Good Times ). Don’t tell me that the inauguration speech couldn’t have been livened up with a “ Dy-no-MITE ” and a spin.

Here is a photo from a bit further back to give you an sense of scale. The Love Boat was quite popular in my household. As a family that had a tradition of seafaring, it gritty, realistic portrayal of life at sea appealed to the salty sea dogs that are the McCracken clan. My brother had a theory that Bartender Isaac Washington had bedded more ladies than Wilt Chamberlain. The reasoning behind this was that he was so slick with the one liners, could handle any cocktail request thrown at him, and was essentially unflappable despite the shenanigans around him that his essential goodness would mean that he was just so darn nice to reject a lady who propositioned him, as it was all about making their holidays something special . You just don't see professionalism like that these days, and more is the pity.

The Diamond Princess is back in Hobart. No, not uber -moron Paris Hilton, the ruddy great ship! Registered in Bermuda, primarily cruising in Alaska and the Mexican Riviera during the northern summer, like Paris, she does spread her charms around. Also like Paris (maybe), she entertains 2,674 passengers and 1,238 crew at a time! [Ahem.] You can't miss this one on the journey into work, as the ship itself tends to tower over most of Hobart's buildings. It's a biggun. A quick look at their website tells me that this Ship has more to do than most Tasmanian towns and cities. Just some of the stuff includes FOUR swimming pools, a spa and fitness centre, a theatre for Princess' original Broadway and Las Vegas-style productions, a cinema, a Casino, FOUTREEN bars, an atrium with shops, two bars, art gallery, library and writing room, a wedding chapel, Internet cafes, a hair salon and a nine-hole golf putting course and two computerized golf simulators. Why bother leaving the b...

Here's a nice Sunday image of an empty jetty down on the Sandy Bay/Battery Point border. Someone was going on the other day about music that constituted a 'guilty pleasure', and then cited three or for acts that I just consider a pleasure. So, for the record, I'd like to state that I am happy to admit that I enjoy Carly Simon's Jesse very much. Moreover, I take delight in Rick Springfield's Jessie's Girl , and happen to think that Dragon are pretty good. I can't see why any such admission would bring forth embarrassment. Do you have any guilty pleasures? Or maybe you know of people that do, but for which you carry no guilt. Feel free to share.