The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.

Early morning boat race. Sullivans Cove, June 2010.

Today's Sunday Top Five? How about my Top Five Australian Prime Ministers! Try and guess the theme...

John Curtin [ALP, 7 October 1941 – 5 July 1945]

Bob Hawke [ALP, 11 March 1983 – 20 December 1991]

Ben Chifley [ALP, 13 July 1945 – 19 December 1949]

Andrew Fisher [ALP, 13 November 1908 – 2 June 1909; 29 April 1910 – 24 June 1913; 17 September 1914 – 27 October 1915]

Chris Watson [ALP, 27 April – 18 August 1904]

Who's winning? The one on the left? Right? Middle? June 2010.

I'm pretty sure that boat in the middle is being steered by Andrew Peacock!

Unleash the spinnaker! (Is that legal?) June 2010.

Look! It's Bill Hayden!

Comments

Roddy said…

They are all Labour Prime Ministers. Do you give an answer if I am wrong?

27 June 2010 at 20:03

Kris McCracken said…

Roddy, yes they are. Pat yourself on the back. I considered Alfred Deakin because of some of his reforms in the workplace, but just couldn't stick him in there.

28 June 2010 at 09:07

Julie said…

What did Watson do in his 119 days? Did you consider Keating a better
Treasurer than PM?

Were you only considering their +ve contributions rather than their cock-ups? Otherwise why no EGW, purely for Medicare ...

5 July 2010 at 18:30

Kris McCracken said…

Julie, Watson gets the nod for being the first Labor PM anywhere. According to Percival Serle, Watson "left a much greater impression on his time than this would suggest. He came at the right moment for his party, and nothing could have done it more good than the sincerity, courtesy and moderation which he always showed as a leader". It must also be remembered that he was only actually 37 (still the youngest ever PM).

I do think that Keating was a better Treasurer than PM, that said, much of what happened on his watch was well beyond his control. Moreover, most of the Howard boom was actually down to Keating's reforms. He did lack the kind of discipline to build support though, which harms his legacy.

I'm not a Whitlam fan. He showed poor judgement and progressed too much too quickly at the wrong time ('73 oil crisis etc). Hawke's Medicare was a significant improvement of Gough's Medibank, which was not embedded enough to resist Fraser's meddling. Plus, Gough just comes across as an egocentric tosser, without the humour that saves Keating.

6 July 2010 at 16:20

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...

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. ...

This will hurt me...

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