This will hurt me...

Do you remember that scene in Jaws when they find that arm washed up on the beach. This was kind of like that. What do you think that they are looking at?

Someone has made a run for it at the traffic lights at the corner of Davey and Murray, but it appears that they didn't make it. I once saw a fellow walk straight into heavy traffic here one morning - we're talking the busiest and most dangerous it gets here in Hobart - and somehow miraculously avoid being squashed. He did fit the profile of someone with comorbid mental health/alcohol and other drug affected (and believe me, I've had far more experience with that crowd that I'd care to relive), which would explain his not following my advice against wading into heavy traffic (and evading my grasp of his shoulder). Which reminds me, I am often given pause for thought on why the socially isolated and [ostensibly] mentally unbalanced , are drawn to me when it comes to public transport. Now, you know the ones that I’m talking about, the flotsam and jetsam of our society. The people that ride the buses for somebody to talk to and because they have little else to do. Those ind...

I can't decide, a young James Dean or a young Marlon Brando?

Peeking over the fence, you can see the Hobart CBD from Battery Point. I think that this poem truly signals my break from sanity. babies babies babies babies babies babies babies babies it tastes like babies babies taste like bananas tastes like bananas it babies babies is tastes like ripe babies babies plump babies tastes like something

Like The Old Man and the Sea , it is prize game fish for me. You can keep your mullets, flatheads, blob fish, gropers, grey nurses, box jellyfish and the like. It's Great White Sharks, Toothy Babies or nothing for me!

So Theme Thursday again, and I managed to guess the theme in advance. That has not made it any easier to find something to say. After ANIMAL, then VEGETABLE, it was no shock that this week we're talking MINERAL. What do I talk about? What photograph to show? Minerals are everywhere, and in everything! Do I show everything? Nothing? BAH! I could talk about the reliance on mineral exports to China, Japan and (a lesser extent), India, that Australia's economy developed. We used to make stuff with our stuff. Now we sell stuff to other people to make stuff to sell stuff to us. More cheaply, of course. But what photograph? BAH! So I'm looking around the office, for something to photograph. I'm thinking "c'mon, it can't be hard, minerals are everywhere !" Yet in being too common it's just too hard. So I settled on the light right above my head. Figuring that I might get a halfway interesting photo out of it, I take the snap. There has to be a host of mi...

Last week you saw Ezra at the fish 'n chip joint by the water front, this week I can present Henry from that very same day. Sweet little angel that he is, when we'd served up the various squid, scallops, prawns, fish and (most importantly) chips; Ez decided that he wanted milk right there and then. Now, please understand that my children - being the engaged, interested lads that they are - generally refuse to breast feed if there is anyone else talking, moving or breathing within a twenty metre radius. This necessitated the holder of the milk (poor old Jen) removing herself from the plate of tasty treats in order to find a quiet spot up on the pier to quell the brewing storm within young Ezra. Easy enough, one might think. The chips can wait. Enter Henry. Jen was barely one foot out of the door when Henry made a dash for her assorted seafood and chips. Ever the gent, I stepped in and said "no Henry, they're Mummy's chips". Henry tried again, and I again trie...

This bit of worn asphalt down near the waterfront has had plenty of work put in to drawing attention to the hazards of a crack in the footpath. Of cousre, one wonders why someone could go to all this effort, but actually avoid fixing it. Personally, it looks like overkill to me (I mean, it's been left untended for at least a month now), but I am sure that the fact it lays right on the pub crawl trail has nothing to do with the effort of looking to avoid potentially litigious drunkards. Not long ago, I discovered the beauty and challenge of the drabble . For the uninitiated, a drabble is a work of fiction exactly one hundred words in length. The purpose of the drabble is brevity, and it is a real test of an author's ability to express [hopefully] interesting and meaningful ideas in an extremely confined space. As such, it may prove a useful friend to the blogger who remains pressured to find material to continue posting a couple of times a day. So , here's a drabble I whi...

I think that the central reason that both of my boys love the beach so much is that deep within - underneath the manners, dictatorial tendencies and transcendental philosophy - lurks the spirit of a pirate. Check out that grin. You'd have thought that he'd just scored an extra ration of rum!

Here is another of my experiments in photography water surfaces. You might remember some of the others that I have posted in the past . There is one more thing that I would like to say: I love you all so much .

So we went to the beach yesterday. It was a bit overcast, and a bit too cold to swim (unless you're a Great White Shark). That didn't stop Henry demonstrate his superior penmanship in the sand. I got plenty of photos, so expect to be drip fed over the next few days.

I have said on a number of occasions - and apologies in advance to my Latvian readers - that I miss the Red Menace™. It was a simpler time when honest, God-fearing folk knew who the enemy was: the heathen, black-hearted Soviet hordes from those countries where people ate turnips and lived in soulless grey cities lacking in jazz clubs and technicolour films. Their women were hairy legged peasants (or untrustworthy vixens), men nicotine-stained meatheads, and children mindless zombies pre-programmed to know nothing of love, family or nylon stockings. We had our bombs trained on them, and were ready to destroy the world, lest their bland Bolshevik tendencies overwhelm our fun loving will to strip malls, strip clubs and ready access to hardcore pornography! Better DEAD than Red , remember!

I am a big fan of the changing of the seasons. The shift from summer into autumn - with winter peeking its head over autumn's shoulder - is a great time of year. Here you can see the mist slowly rolling over the hills at the back of Geilston Bay. Thank You Samuel Morse there was a bus there was a bus stop stop there was a bus stop stop there was a bus stop stopped stop there was a bus stop stopped dead stop there was a bus stop stopped dead stop no bus stop there was a bus stop stopped dead stop no bus stop

So he was set to sleep through the night for a third straight night but a panicking mother worried about potential case of sudden infant death syndrome meant that he was awoken by accident at three in the morning. Compounding the little bloke's poor start to the day was Henry trapping his finger in an old cassette deck that was on its way out of the house. In her panic, Jen forgot the location of the vital "Open" button (well, it was my old ghetto blaster ). I managed to free him with the digit still attached, but seemingly not much worse off than a nasty bruise on his driving finger (the one that alerts other drivers and pedestrians to their own infractions). Consequently, young Ezra has not really been on form today. Hence the pensive look.

I like lines on buildings, as some of my previous photographs can attest to. There is a potentially cruel consequence from wandering around armed with a camera looking for interesting images: I'm starting to appreciate, and indeed even like Brutalist architecture . There. I said it. I had a Trini Lopez kind of day yesterday. Fair dinkum, I was like little Trini with his hammer nonstop. I hammered in the morning, I hammered in the evening, I hammered out danger, I hammered out a warning, I hammered about the love between my brothers and my sisters. Really, I hammered all over this land. Thank Christ I didn’t have a bell! [Yes, I am aware that it is Pete Seeger’s song, but there is a part of my heart that remains forever Trini...]