Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish. Do not overdo it.

Could use a lick of paint. King Street, Sandy Bay. November 2011.

Another Tuesday, another Q and A stolen from Sunday Stealing. This time: The Madness Meme, Part 1

1. Have you ever licked the back of a CD to try to get it to work?
I can't say that I have.

2. What’s the largest age difference between yourself and someone you’ve dated?
It depends on one's definition of 'dated'. Running by mine, that would be three-and-a-bit months.

3. Ever been in a car wreck?
I was in a car that went through a fence into a field once. The car wasn't wrecked though.

4. Were you popular in high school?
You'd have to ask someone else. I'd suggest that I was somewhere about the middle.

5. Have you ever been on a blind date?
I'm not certain I've ever been on a date.

6. Are looks important?
Of course they are! Should they be? That is a different question...

7. Do you have any friends that you’ve known for 10 years or more?
A few.

8. By what age would you like to be married?
I was 28. That's not a bad age if you're going to do these kin of things.

9. Does the number of people a person’s slept with affect your view of them?
It depends on the particulars I guess. Numbers alone don't mean much.

10. Have you ever made a mistake?
~~Never!~~ ~~Once or twice...~~ ~~On occasion.~~ ALL THE TIME. Are you happy now?

11. Are you a good tipper?
I am a reluctant tipper. I have no issue rewarding good service, but resent it as an expectation; even moreso if it acts as a means of keeping actual salary down.

12. What’s the most you have spent for a haircut?
I think that I spent forty dollars once. I'm notoriously frugal though...

13. Have you ever had a crush on a teacher?
Probably. None very memorable though.

14. Have you ever peed in public?
I guess so. Never deliberately for an audience.

15. What song do you want played at your funeral?
I have answered this one before. If I were to have one (which I'd rather not), I'd like The Angels' Am I Ever Gonna See Your face Again.

16. Would you tell your parents if you were gay?
If it came up. I certainly wouldn't hide it.

17. What would your last meal be before getting executed?
I'm quite sure that I wouldn't have much of an appetite, to be honest.

18. Beatles or Stones?
Chocolate and cheese. Two very different acts that are difficult to compare. The Beatles have the greater range, the Stones the harder sound. I like both. If I had to pick just one album from the lot... Exile on Main Street.

19. If you had to pick one person on earth to die, who would it be?
Just one...? There are a whole bunch of people whose death would not bother me in the slightest, but I'm not going to get into the business of picking and choosing.

20. Beer, wine or hard liquor?
Cider.

21. Do you have any phobias?
Cacophobia.

22. What are your plans for the future?
Getting a good night's sleep. I try to keep these things realistic.

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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