This will hurt me...

Springs and Magnets They come from grey concrete buildings, fibro dwellings faded pastel suburban nightmare landscapes varnished viciously with repressed energy that explodes at night. The night is like any other, the kids move slowly yet surely creeping across crumbling bridges from afar (and not-so-far), nervous impatience growing steadily. The room is a pulsating beat spewing forth blue veils, whispering secrets as eyes adjust to the flickering lights. Fascinating flesh tones shifting at an unfamiliar speed- slow motion flashes interfused within the experience. Through the smoke and the pounding ultra bass ambience, they twist cool, yet somehow impersonal.

Looking out. Lookunout. Lukunout. Lukunoot. Look a nut! Look an out! Luke an owl. Look leek soup. Loop-de-loop. The loop. The hoop. Circle. Perfect circle. Acquaintances and friends. They don't come in conveniant sizes. Round. Roundabout. Roustabout. How about you? How about me? You and me? about me? Nothing doing. Nothing? Not a stitch. He's a god now. He's dead now. And now. And now. The moment. BECOME. BEING. BECOMING. GONE. Opportunity. Window. Windowless mirror. Image. Image is everything. Anything goes. Going. Going. Gone. Forever. Permanence. Forever. Never. Ever. Together. Two of us. Going. Nowhere. On our own. Own. Possession. Loss. Empty. MT. MG. Racing green. Leaf. Idea. Idea leaf. Imperative. Mission. Plan. Master. Slave. Morality. Ammorality. Herd. Sheep. Flock. Frock. Jesus. Christ. Right. Wrong. Write on. Write off. Right off the planet. Right now. Right then. How about you? You? You? You and me? NEVER! Together. Pieces. Puzzle. Quandry. Quantity. Quality. Qu...

I'm tired, so I figured that photos of the gruesome twosome might win be a free pass on the lack of droll, urbane and terribly insightful banter. Not content with pea-eating or see-sawing, both of my lads are also keen exponents of what I believe are now called eXXXtreme sportZ . However, the preposterous legislation in this feeble nanny state of ours unjustly forbids virile and eager Aussie babies and toddlers – like my own – from making their mark in the world. Thus, we have to satisfy ourselves with pallid simulacra while we twiddle our thumbs, waiting for the government to get real . Above, you can see Henry in training for eXXXtreme ice motorcro ZZ racing. Sure, there's no engine, wheels or ice, but don't blame me, blame society . Below, Ez is preparing himself for some skydiving. Obviously, he'd rather do it out of a plane, but it seems some nancy decided that chucking babies out of planes was iniquitous and disallowable . Lovable rogue that he is, Ez wo...

It's morning here in Tasmania, but as you can see, I step out the front door and here is the moon. Henry pointed it out to me. Well, actually he first thought that it was a ball of some description, but he soon realised his error. Once we had that sorted, he wanted to know what the moon was doing out in the morning. You see, he's been indoctrinated by thousands, nay, millions of children's books that assure him that the moon only comes out at night, and then buggers off during the day. Because I never smoked cigarettes , I lack the requisite scientific skills to fully understand, let alone explain, the whole notion of crescents, quarters, gibbons blah blah blah I do know that it involves the reflection of sunlight, the phases of the moon, and that in a nutshell, parts of the Earth can see the reflected sunlight off the moon while that portion also faces the sun. Hence Henry and I can see the moon during the day. Or maybe it’s got something to do with magical elves. I ca...

Jen makes a return appearance, accompanying Ezra on the see-saw down near Errol Flynn Reserve in Sandy Bay. Ez is quite adept at see-sawing and showed Jen a few tricks that he likes to try. In fact, the little bloke tells me that he is lining up to represent Australia at see-sawing in the Olympics, and practices his technique for six whole hours every single day. I haven't got the heart to tell him that the see-saw was removed from the Olympic schedule after Antwerp in 1920, along with the tug of war and the egg and spoon race...

So what would Thursday be without ‘ Theme Thursday ’? My keen skills of deduction tell me that the answer is ‘Thursday’. The theme delivered from upon high this week is ‘fish’, which affords me the opportunity to revisit Henry's favourite part of the Salamanca district, the Tasall Salmon Shop . No, I’m not here to bet a snap of some lifeless wee beastie, but a bona fide , fair dinkum , fit and healthy feisty young specimens in their large salmon aquarium! As you can imagine, getting a decent photograph of a pack of randy fish in an indoor aquarium can be a tricky business. This is compounded when you are dealing with an unlit aquarium, as is necessary with a fish like the noble salmon. So my apologies for the poor quality of the image. In the flesh though, they remain quite the attraction. Indeed whenever we are within a five kilometre radius of the joint, Henry begins a mantra that we are all now quite familiar with: Henry see fishies now? Henry see fishies now? Henry see fishi...

Henry has embraced the humble pea! His mother informs me that he woke up this afternoon and told her " I love peas ", followed with a " more peas please ". I only wish that I were there.

So here is the sky this morning, at about 7:45 am. Some interesting cloud formations going on, and if there are any meteorologists out there that can explain to me why you get these ‘cotton ball’ clouds, I’d be most appreciative. I don’t watch a lot of TV. I do stick it on for the morning news headlines though, so even with my limited exposure I haven’t been able to miss the almost-pornographic orgy of grief that appears to have overtaken Australian television screens over the past few days. I’m all for covering important stories, and I understand that capturing the ‘human element’ is important when endeavouring to understand the magnitude of an event like this, but there is a point that aiding comprehension becomes gratuitous exploitation of other people’s misery . This morning the TV crews appeared to have run out of locals to goad into crying for the camera, and had resorted to the old standard of “one branch of the media talks to another branch of the media about the locals”. In ...

Sometimes the sign of new little teeth can light up the world at a time that it needs it. Here is Henry doing his best to get his little brother to smile. He had great success. I'm thinking of taking Ezra out on tour to smile at people. It seems to help.

Here is a photograph taken on my way to work this very morning. Yes it's another couple of ships, but you'll need to forgive me that one. It's hard not to take pictures on the waterfront when it remains the dominant feature every day. Feelings seem to be very flat here in Australia at the moment, due to the bushfires. I'm not sure that I can remember anything like it before. Mind you, with so many stories like this one dominating the news, it is kind of hard to avoid being a bit down about it.

Some time ago I posted the shocking story of the natural world in all of its brutality. It should not take a Mensa-level EQ to recognise both the severity of the initial act and the trauma that inevitably, tragically echoes throughout the lives of all parties. Shockingly , there were people on this very blog who felt the incident a simple lark , a joke , and maybe even that one party was asking for it . Unfortunately this seems the way of modern life. The moral certainties provided by institutionalised religion, the rigid hierarchies inherent under a notion of the divine right of kings and feudal serfdom, the 'traditional' family and stark gender roles have all withered away leaving a hodge-podge of post-modern, post-materialist 'values' where anything goes but everybody reserves the right to be offended and offend in equal quantities. Thankfully, the Hobart City Council are a more enlightened bunch, and they've erected these statues to recognise the horror the o...

Nothing says "Hobart" more than a crane-lifting bridge made in Leicester. This one is no longer used any more, but for some reason they've left it there. I assume that they did so, because they were British, and thus scared to muck in and put in a hard day's work (c.f. all out for 51 against the West Indies the other day). On behalf of all Australians, I'd like to thank the English cricket team for giving us all something to laugh about in troubled times. It's sacrifice like this that keeps the bond between us and the Mother Country so strong! It is a public holiday here in Tasmania (Regatta Day), and I have just finished 'playing' with Henry. The result? A fat lip, black eye, bleeding ear, swollen eyebrow, and bruised jaw. I'm thinking of getting an Apprehended Violence Order against him.

With the unpleasant news of the rising death toll from the bushfires in Victoria this weekend, Henry thought that he'd strut his stuff and try to cheer people up. Here he is doing his impression of Tom Cruise in Risky Business , before he went all weird and made everybody feel uncomfortable.

Here you can see a shag take wing on the Derwent. Yesterday we had an odd sort of a day. Lots of rain, started off cool but got increasingly humid as the day wore on. It was rather uncomfortable by late afternoon, with everyone sweaty and cranky. The icy poles didn't last too long after the were broken out. The above photo is mine, but I have a few others to share below that I can't claim credit for. It's a big country, Australia. Sometimes events in different states serve to illustrate that very well. Over the last couple of days, two stories have featured heavily in the news. One concerns the intense bushfires that appear to have killed quite a few people across the state of Victoria. As this photo courtesy of the ABC demonstrates, it must have been pretty unpleasant out there. The other story is happening in North Queensland . Heavy rains have caused some reasonably severe floods in a lot of areas. The photo below isn't of a fish farm, it's some cattle yards c...