The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern: every class is unfit to govern.

In order to assuage the dismayed millions in the Subcontinent, I've reached into my grab bag of stock photos and fished out a wild and woolly Ezra doing his best impression of a mountain goat.

The children no longer children.

Here is the family down on the beach at Opossum Bay. I'm not sure what they've spotted here, but I'm speculating that it might be a lump of ambergris. If so, we will be spotted driving around in a new car!

Have a poem:

Curriculum Vitae, by Lisel Mueller

1992

1) I was born in a Free City, near the North Sea.

2) In the year of my birth, money was shredded into
confetti. A loaf of bread cost a million marks. Of
course I do not remember this.

3) Parents and grandparents hovered around me. The
world I lived in had a soft voice and no claws.

4) A cornucopia filled with treats took me into a building
with bells. A wide-bosomed teacher took me in.

5) At home the bookshelves connected heaven and earth.

6) On Sundays the city child waded through pinecones
and primrose marshes, a short train ride away.

7) My country was struck by history more deadly than
earthquakes or hurricanes.

8) My father was busy eluding the monsters. My mother
told me the walls had ears. I learned the burden of secrets.

9) I moved into the too bright days, the too dark nights
of adolescence.

10) Two parents, two daughters, we followed the sun
and the moon across the ocean. My grandparents stayed
behind in darkness.

11) In the new language everyone spoke too fast. Eventually
I caught up with them.

12) When I met you, the new language became the language
of love.

13) The death of the mother hurt the daughter into poetry.
The daughter became a mother of daughters.

14) Ordinary life: the plenty and thick of it. Knots tying
threads to everywhere. The past pushed away, the future left
unimagined for the sake of the glorious, difficult, passionate
present.

15) Years and years of this.

16) The children no longer children. An old man's pain, an
old man's loneliness.

17) And then my father too disappeared.

18) I tried to go home again. I stood at the door to my
childhood, but it was closed to the public.

19) One day, on a crowded elevator, everyone's face was younger
than mine.

20) So far, so good. The brilliant days and nights are
breathless in their hurry. We follow, you and I.

Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.

Look Ma, no hands!

It's an eternal equation: (lamington + sausage roll) * no hands = MESS.

The poor are prevented from thinking by the discipline of others, the rich by their own.

Of late, I have taken to eating my lunch at this very spot. Right next to the blubber pots.

Nothing goes down finer on a dappled sunny day than a spot of blubber and chips.

You don't know what you are missing.

My whole life is waiting for the questions to which I have prepared answers.

Four hours later, the tide would be about two feet over Ezra's head...

There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.

There really is never enough time in the day. As the time stamp on this post will attest, time is something in short supply of late!

Yes, yes... Theme Thursday again, and as I walk into walk I can't help but think the sun glinting off the [no doubt solid gold] cross atop St George's Anglican Church [did you know that churches have websites now?] in Battery Point is a SIGN from upon high.

Just what that SIGN signifies, I'm not sure. I suspect that it involves time, or a donkey, or maybe some kind of immaculate conception. One thing that I do know however, is that I don't know.

Not knowing is a kind of knowing.

Perhaps that's the SIGN.

Or significance.

I'll get my coat...

It doesn't matter what you believe just so long as you're sincere.

I've invented a kind of little boy cray pot, involving a big net and a trampoline.

Bait it with a lolly snake, and Bob's yer uncle!

There's nothing more dangerous than a resourceful idiot.

Have I mentioned that the Aurora Australis is very orange? Of course, I'm talking about the ship, not the colourful southern polar lights caused by the result of the emissions of photons in the Earth's upper atmosphere, they're all different kinds of colour.

Looking at faces of people, one gets the feeling there's a lot of work to be done.

Here's a wild-haired Ez from some time ago making doe eyes at the camera.

This one is a particular favourite of Germaine Greer.

Ads that I like: #91

Nothing says "Christmas" more than "concealable weapon". If, like me, you don't enjoy the Yuletide period with its overly cheery tone, the crude mix of corporate and religious, and generally annoying songs; a handgun can be essential (if only to keep carollers at bay).

In fact, I've had my eye on a nifty little Derringer just down Henry's alley, and I know that Ezra has his heart set on one of Remington's world famous .44 Magnum (I'm trying to steer him towards the Desert Eagle, given his love of the beach and the tendency of sand to play up with the breech).

In fact, the arms trade is the only thing that keeps me going through the holiday period!

We are all worms, but I do believe I am a glowworm.

Another day, another shot of Sullivan's Cove down here in Hobart. This morning the bus arrived on time, and despite the presence of one youngster who wanted to share the latest pop s hit (think robot voice unimpressively droning over equally unimpressive synth drum beat) with all on the bus, the trip passed by as pleasantly as one might expect.

This contrasts very much with three o'clock this morning, when I (an I suspect that everyone else) was awoken by the incessant squealing of tyres and revving of engines. Not being a "car man" myself, I shudder at the thought of the incredibly minuscule penises that must lay at the root of such behaviour...

The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.

Look at this, a Henry and Ezra beefcake trifecta!


You can see them here digging themselves in down at Seven Mile Beach, awaiting the imminent Russian invasion!

You can't have everything. Where would you put it?

This is what constitutes a little side street here in Hobart. A 40 km limit for a street ten metres long, that's the kind of thinking that will put this town on top again!

Apparently, in the 1830s, Hobart was in danger of losing visitations by Royal Navy vessels due to the large number of sailors contracting venereal diseases while on shore leave in the port. It's been said that little has changed since...

Human blunders usually do more to shape history than human wickedness.

WHAT?!?!

I think that I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.

Night shots are always something of an experiment for me, so why not go the whole hog and mess about with fiddling to the max?

We had an election here in Tasmania yesterday, and the result went as expected (if not as I would have liked). However, the candidate we we're endorsing with a sign got in, continuing my stroke of good results! Well done Mr. O'Byrne.

Today's Sunday Top Five? At a push, my Top Five Pollies Whose Signs Have Been Out The Front Of My Joint Over The Years!

Michael Field: A perennial sign in the State scene. We managed to get him up as premier at one point (all because of that sign out front, I'd wager).

Greg Peart: the mid-to-late 1980s were not great for the ALP in Braddon. The lack of success in unseating the infinately mediocre Chris Miles should prove that.

Sid Sidebottom: a few goes in various elections. A solid, if somewhat uninspiring plodder.

Graeme Sturges: got him over the line a couple of elections ago. He's struggled once we've left the electorate.

Dave O'Byrne: got him in, despite the trend! He may well be future leadership material, whereupon we can call in the big favours...