The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.

Have you ever seen such bedroom eyes?

I want a true history of my city

10 Murray: to be crucified at the alter of good taste, April 2010.

A large - if not the central - part of the reason that I would not like 10 Murray to go is explained by the following poem. I want a true history of my city, not an airbrushed, tourist-friendly, blandishments dominant theme park of convicts, sandstone and trees.

PLEA FOR A HISTORY OF WORKING-CLASS LEEDS, by Barry Tebb

I want a true history of my city

FUCK THE DE LACY FAMILY AND DOUBLE

FUCK JOHN OF GAUNT ESPECIALLY

And all his descendants

With their particular vilenesses -

I met one in the sixties

Who had all the coldness of Himmler

So svelte and adored by the cognoscenti.



I want a history responsive

To the needs of the working-class

One that will minute the back-to-backs

Spread over the city like a seamless robe



SO FUCK CUTHBERT BRODERICK’S TOWN HALL

BRIDEWELL AND MAGISTRACY.



I want a history of the culture

Of the working class and not

Hoggart’s slimy gone-up-in-the-world

Jabber for the curious bourgeoisie

He was especially maladroit

On working-class sexuality

A voyeur picking humorous moments

To show the ignorance of the class

He sprang from. “Anything was an occasion” -

Or did he mean ‘excuse’? - “for intercourse,

Even a visit to the chip-shop”.



O for the gentleness

And the quiet intimacy

And joyful spontaneity

Of working-class sexuality



Reading Shelley’s ‘Defence of Poetry’

Sitting on a bus by a girl who, smiling, said,

“I told Jack if he was finished with me

He wasn’t having any but he pulled me

Into the bushes laughing all the way

So what could I say?”



I want a history of the warmth

Of working-class mothers

Explaining the mysteries of periods.

To their adolescent daughters and the

Revelations of working-class brides.



I want a history of family outings

To Temple Newsam where I saw an ass

Eating straw from the steel manger

Of Christ.

The hardest hit, as everywhere, are those who have no choice.

Why is Henry looking so sad?

Is it because we've seen (and enjoyed very much) the Hi-5 Surprise live show this afternoon, and won't see it again?

Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.

Art! Turning over a new page. April 2010.

It's art!

Apparently.

People may or may not say what they mean... but they always say something designed to get what they want.

Give me that camera!

Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge.

View from the corner of Elizabeth and Davey Street. An April morning, 2010.

It's going to have to be a very quick Theme Thursday today, too bloody busy by half.

Too busy, perhaps, even for LUNCH.

One should either be sad or joyful. Contentment is a warm sty for eaters and sleepers.

We're still at the communal showers phase here. The key concern at the moment doesn't concern hair washing or tooth brushing, it involves the dangers inherent in dancing on wet and slippery floors. Seriously, we're going to have a spill one of these evenings.

In the end, glorification of splendid underdogs is nothing other than glorification of the splendid system that makes them so.

We're getting the last of the Cruise Ships before Winter hits. I'm kind of surprised that they're still coming, to be honest. There were a lot of Canadians on this one. Canadians remind me of a New Zealander cross bred with an American.

In a puffy red jacket.

Aye.

Civilized nations never, never have selfish motives for butchering, raping and looting; only horrid barbarians have those.

I bet that you never knew Ezra was once a member of U.S. Special Forces!

Ads that I like: #94

Ah the Good Old Days™, how we miss 'em!

You might know them better as a Thermos®, but this bloke liked his vacuum bottle so much he appears to have beaten/murdered/dismembered his missus all over misplacing it!

For enhanced comedic effect, the fuzz appear to be utilising heavy-handed interrogation techniques to get to the bottom of the matter.

I've long said, we don't laugh off domestic violence enough these days...

My Homer is not a communist. He may be a liar, a pig, an idiot, a communist, but he is not a porn star.

The sun always shines on TV Bellerive. April, 2010.

Word was passed on to me the other day concerning a disturbing event that confronted crafty knitter, sometime blogger and erstwhile commenter Blackie in the middle of the night. Awoken by a rustling sound, Ms Blackie assumed that the culprit must surely be a roaming dirt magnet. However, a brief spot of reconnoitring revealed the true malefactor was not of the toddle genus, it was in fact a plain old Mus musculus exploring some half finished knitting.

Now, it is not my business to get into the rights or wrongs of musophobia, nor have I any knowledge of whether or not a Gertrude of Nivelles appeared in the guise of a strapping young man. What I can say, however, is that in the middle of the night I'd rather find a mouse explore my half-completed shrug still on the round (in a Continental fashion) than a tattoo-d escaped convict doing a poo in my handbag!

A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.

He grins even in his sleep.

A useless life is an early death.

Preparing one's leave. April, 2010..

There is something very nice about Autumn light. It might be getting colder, but it appears the Derwent is also getting blue-r more blue!

I knew a bloke once, nice bloke, he liked to swim.

That's all.

I believe, like you, that civilization is a natural and inevitable consequence, whether good or evil I am not prepared to state.

Ez and I have been practising some tackling drills. Like the best, we do it on the concrete, as it 'encourages' him to keep on his feet during the moment of body contact.

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

There are always cars going up and down the East Derwent Highway. April, 2010.

Today's Sunday Top Five? Top Five Nicknames For Henry If He Was A Heavyweight Boxer!

» The Hobartian Martian

» The Down Under Wonder

» Right Hand Hank

» Hit Him Him In The Head Again Henry

» Sweet Potato Pie

As usual, votes/alternate suggestions over the fold!