Skip to main content

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.
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! :-)
Julie said…
Wow! That means that Kris has about 4,000 offspring! Does Jen know?
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!
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?
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.
smudgeon said…
Depressing, but true. Nobody seems to care for the difference between Mauritius and Mauritania anymore...
Kris McCracken said…
I am very much a map man myself. I've spent many an hour poring over a map.

Popular posts from this blog

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...

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. ...

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...