Skip to main content

If a man aspires to the highest place, it is no dishonour to him to halt at the second, or even at the third.


William Leonard Hunt was a well known nineteenth funambulist that went by the name of The Great Farini. The Great Farini made a series of very famous tightrope performances at Niagara Falls in 1860, and his feats included crossing a high wire with a man on his back; with a sack over his entire body; turning somersaults while on the rope; hanging from it by his feet; amongst other seemingly impossible manoeuvres.

This, on the other hand, was something rather different.
Labels:

Comments

Roddy said…
Of course this was different! This is Henry with his first steps on his way to greatness. Sometimes the balancing act is a little more refined.
27 January 2010 at 20:52
ratatouille's archives said…
Hi! Kris,
Nice photograph of Henry...Steady Henry, Steady Henry, Ste...

Thanks, for sharing the quote too!
DeeDee ;-D
27 January 2010 at 22:25
Magpie said…
The quote goes perfectly with this picture. I can imagine the two structures in the background as being the second and first highest places, but Henry is handling the third just beautifully.
28 January 2010 at 01:50
Unknown said…
This was one of my favourite things to do as a child... I still do it occasionally!
28 January 2010 at 06:01
Kris McCracken said…
DeeDee, he was very careful.
28 January 2010 at 11:53
Kris McCracken said…
Magpie, just about.
28 January 2010 at 11:54
Carola said…
Have you seen the film ¨Man on wire¨?
Greetings from Iquitos, Peru. Imagine beeing in a town, that can¨{t be reached by road. We came on the river.
31 January 2010 at 11:08
Kris McCracken said…
Carola, I have not, although I've seen footage of the bloke on the wire!
5 February 2010 at 19:07
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...
62 comments
Read more

But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave.

Can you believe that it is time for Theme Thursday already? Today we are not talking chocolate , toddlers , mess or ignominy . No, today we're dealing with ANIMAL . Now I could have posted a picture of a possum, numbat, wombat, wallaby or any other furry killing machine that roams our fair isle, but I figure that I'd use a far more deadly creature as an example of an animal . Some people - I know them as fools - have chosen to embrace that highfalutin idea that human beans are for some ungodly reason superior to animals. Of course, what these imbeciles seem to forget is that were are simple animals ourselves ! Anyone with a baby, toddler, teenage boy or Queenslander in their household could tell you this. Look at Henry [above]. One chocolate frog in the back of the car on a sunny day and all of a sudden it's Elagabalus meets Bacchus for a quick shandy in the Serengeti and we're down on all fours carrying on like a cat in heat. Fair dinkum, anyone who chooses to ...
42 comments
Read more

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

This is the moon. Have I mentioned how much I adore the zoom on my camera? It's Theme Thursday you see, and after last week's limp effort, I have been thinking about how I might redeem myself. Then I clicked on the topic and discover that it was BUTTON. We've been hearing a lot about the moon in the past couple of weeks. Apparently some fellas went up there and played golf and what-not forty-odd years ago. The desire to get to the moon, however, was not simply about enhancing opportunities for Meg and Mog titles and skirting local planning by-laws in the construction of new and innovative golf courses. No, all of your Sputniks , "One small steps" and freeze dried ice cream was about one thing , and one thing only : MAD Now, I don't mean mad in terms of "bloke breaks record for number of scorpions he can get up his bum", no I mean MAD as in Mutual assured destruction . When I was a young man you see, there was a lot of talk about the type of m...
50 comments
Read more