You can't make up anything any more. The world itself is a satire. All you're doing is recording it.

There is one pastime that is making extreme headway into our present lives - for both Henry and Ezra - that is, of course, puzzles. Here Henry reconstructs Africa for us, mired deep in the Congo Basism trying to sort out the difference between São Tomé and Príncipe and Gabon.

Dare I say it, but our Henry already has a firmer grasp on geography than 98% of adult Australians!

Comments

Roddy said…

Don't forget that 99.98% of Australians don't have you as their father.

6 May 2010 at 21:26

prashant said…

I second that Roddy.

By the way Kris, Happy Birthday 45 minutes in advance.

Enjoy your day with the family and do put up a birthday cap for sure! :-)

7 May 2010 at 03:50

Julie said…

Wow! That means that Kris has about 4,000 offspring! Does Jen know?

7 May 2010 at 13:24

Sue said…

It must be in the family...my boys enjoyed naming capital cities of each country of the world as a pastime whenever we had a long drive. And Cody would read the atlas and the Melways (maps of Melbourne streets)at bedtime instead of novels!

7 May 2010 at 18:18

Baino said…

OK it aint Theme Thursday but I have to tell you that our last Christmas celebration was the obscure country olympics and my niece and I represented Sao Tome and Principe. That being said . . .my kids did puzzles and still don't know where the bloody hell they are! Where's Hobart?

7 May 2010 at 19:33

Carola said…

Happy Birthday Kris!

Greetings from Nairobi, Kenya.
We drove north from Cape Town and found Africa. Elephants and Giraffe crossing the street (but not at the same time) and all the myth. And humans living in a diffrent world. And for my kids it is, for sure, intersting. Only traffic jam in Nairobi is annoying.

And again - great title.

9 May 2010 at 14:10

smudgeon said…

Depressing, but true. Nobody seems to care for the difference between Mauritius and Mauritania anymore...

9 May 2010 at 16:32

Kris McCracken said…

I am very much a map man myself. I've spent many an hour poring over a map.

13 May 2010 at 15:24

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.

This will hurt me...

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