This will hurt me...

Just to correct a vicious, vindictive hate campaign in the comments, while today is indeed my birthday, it is number thirty-two, not the forty proposed by the privately-educated (and thus spiritually and emotionally crippled) forty-something Hallam. As noted this time last year, 1977 was the year of my birth, not the far inferior 1969.

So, to celebrate me having eight years up my sleeve until the dreaded forty, here is a photo of myself, a battered fit and broken down healthy old young man with two little rapscallions in either arms and a duck just behind as I shift past Brian Epstein, Bruce Lee, Mama Cass Elliot, Karen Carpenter and Keith Moon in the years spent alive column.

The answer blowin' in the wind, Mr Zimmerman, but where is the question? A celebratory Theme Thursday today where I eschew cheap laughs and steer clear of matters flatus and share with you a photo of a windy Salamanca summer's day. Today I advance the bold hypothesis that Mr Zimmerman may well have caterwauled that "the answer, my friend, is leaves".

Can you guess the theme yet? That's right, it's WIND.

So I was thinking Zimmerman's track, and was thinking what it was all about. Some poseurs posit that the song is nothing more (or less) than a series of rhetorical questions about peace, war, and freedom. The notion that the answer "blowin' in the wind" is merely a metaphor for the supreme "unknowableness" [the Germans will have a word for this] of such questions.

I beg to differ.

In order, the answers are:

1. Eight.
2. One.
3. Trick question, the answer is never.
4. Approximately fifteen million.
5. Männer werden nie frei sein, bis er erst befreit die Rotkehlchen.
6. Until the point that RSI kicks in.
7. Once. [That one's easy.]
8. Two. [Another easy one.]
9. It depends.

So there you have it!

Can you believe it, I've finally managed to capture Henry with a smile on his face!

This is right up there with the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, and Brett Lee taking a crucial wicket!

Showcasing the excellent zoom on my camera, this snap was taken laying flat on my back underneath a very tall tree. The leaf in question was very near to the top, a good seven or so metres away. I quite like this one.

Here is a poem based upon an unfortunate experience that I had just last Sunday evening...

To find a poo

To find a poo
is a shock.
"Whose poo are you?"

Looking hither,
looking thither.
The culprit remains

at large.

In many respects, Henry and Ezra have looked markedly different in each of their first year with us. Henry has always looked older than his age might suggest (the consequence of arrive a good three weeks late?), whereas Ez had more of the 'classic' baby features (basketball head anyone?).

Yet as Ez enters into his tenth (already?!?) month outside the womb, and as his cheeks are filling out nicely, he is starting to resemble one Henrysaurus Rex, in both looks and temperament!

I appreciate good art, I really do. The problem is that there is surprisingly little of it. While the good stuff does exist, the majority of modern art in Tasmania today is more likely to resemble a junkyard of any old crap with a five hundred word bit of justification sticky-taped up on the wall next to it.

Honestly, if bullshitting equates to art, then say hello to Monet!

What compounds my distaste, is the fact that most of the bullshitting is all so clichéd and predictable. Man, if all you've got to do is ramble on, at least make it original!

That's why my eye was drawn to this little bugger above. Is it art?

It is nestled in what used to be a working port, and features a little plague that someone has managed to work up in their spare time:


Of course, the mysterious art critic loses marks for failing to close their quotation marks, an odd capitalisation of the word "foundry" and "bollard", "where" instead of "were", both misspelling and not capitalising "Picasso", the grammar Nazi within can't let that slide, but I appreciate the effort more than some of the other efforts around here!

That said, like Mr or Ms "Thru" the other day, I call nong!

There are lots of little pricks here in the world famous cactus enclosure at the Royal Hobart Botanical Gardens, but rest assured, Henry isn't one of them.

I thought that I'd share another self portrait with you, this time down near the Supreme Court down here on the Salamanca/Battery Point/Hobart pivot.

In the spirit of sharing, I thought that I'd supplement this self-portrait with a brief pen portrait of ten things about me that seem to exist around these here Internets:

1. I have never lost a sock.
2. I hate easily.
3. I love to think about water.
4. I honestly believe that my two lads are the best going around.
5. I would like to eat clouds.
6. I think that women, and not dogs, are a man's best friend.
7. I want for little.
8. The colour blue is my favourite.
9. It's my birthday on Thursday.
10. I try each day to be a little bit better.

Sometimes nibbling on some keys is all one needs to do. Here are two of my top three having a lay down while I do my thing with the camera.

Back to the Errol Flynn Reserve in Sandy Bay again, and luck meant that I caught these three birds all engaged in their varied pursuits at the same time within the same shot. Some people don't like seagulls, but I am not one of those. Lesbians or not, I admire these wee beasties for their resilience, force of will, and adaptability.

However, don't let me tell you that, renowned twitcher William Leon Dawson firmly hits the nagla in the galva with his summation of the ubiquitous Western Gull:

Much that is good and all that is evil has gathered itself up into the Western Gull. He is rather the handsomest of the blue-mantled Laridae, for the depth of colour in the mantle, in sharp contrast with the snowy plumage of back and breast, gives him an appearance of sturdiness and quality which is not easily dispelled by subsequent knowledge of the black heart within. As a scavenger, the Western Gull is impeccable. Wielding the besom of hunger, he and his kind sweep the beaches clean and purge the water-front of all pollution. But a scavenger is not necessarily a good citizen. Call him a ghoul, rather, for the Western Gull is cruel of beak and bottomless of maw. Pity, with him, is a thing unknown; and when one of their own comrades dies, these feathered jackals fall upon him without compunction, a veritable Leichnamveranderungsgebrauchsgesellschaft. If he thus mistreats his own kind, be assured that this gull asks only two questions of any other living thing: First, "Am I hungry?" (Ans., "Yes.") Second, "Can I get away with it?" (Ans., "I'll try.")

William Leon Dawson, Birds of California, 1923

I think that this very much says it all.

There is nothing more that Henry loves to get out in a field of clover, let the hair down and let loose a medley of hard rockin' hits. Here you can see him start with his own special interpretation of Ram Jam's rework of Leadbelly's Black Betty. This segued into an awesome take on Stevie Wright's opus Evie (Parts I, II and III). Not to be outdone by the pint sized pop impresario, Henry has extended pop masterpiece by adding an extra fourteen parts! He closes with a controversial cover of Cocksucker Blues that has seen him banned in 49 US States. Somewhat ironically, Iowa (the one state to have not banned him), are considering his version for the state theme song...

I've opted for a "two for one deal" today, because I couldn't really make my mind up as to which image that I liked better. I am rather pleased with how these turned out, because I took them from a moving vehicle on our journey through the valley of love last weekend.

Can you guess what they are?

Those of you who are familiar with Tasmania's most excellent BEER would have no doubt jumped to your feet and shouted "MY GOD, I THINK THAT IT IS A FIELD OF HOPS!!!"

If you did so, well done, they are precious hops. A crucial element to a successful amber liquid, Tasmania has the finest hops in the world.

As we drove past, I did note a slight tremor in Jennifer's voice, and a speck of a tear on her cheek. As she has spent a the best part of the past three years pregnant and/or breastfeeding, she has forced herself to forgo what was once her favourite activity: getting out on the razzle.

I can't decide. Is Ezra thinking about his upcoming date with renowned vixen Riya Sen? Is he thinking about a potential Mexican Pig Flu outbreak in Hobart? Is he thinking about the transitory nature of balloons?

Maybe he's just thinking about lunch.

While on a jaunt to meet the bigwigs at HQ, I spotted this odd bit of graffiti on their sign right at their very front door.

Despite my firm opposition to vandalism - outside of the Silesian region of Central Europe around 400 A.D. - I am almost able to endorse this as a mark of oddball genius. Alas, the use of "thru" compels me to dismiss the author as a nong.