This will hurt me...

Next stop, Music Hall!

Sign #1. St Johns Park, New Town. March 2011.

Still going...


Sign #2. St Johns Park, New Town. March 2011.

Still going...


Sign #3. St Johns Park, New Town. March 2011.


Still going...

Handsome Henry harnesses his habromania.

This seagull is checking out the potential Sheffield Shield final location. Bellerive Oval, Bellerive. March 2011.

Top Five Cricket Teams.

1. Tasmania



2. Tasmania



3. Tasmania



4. Tasmania



5. Tasmania

The dynamic dudes are checking out the fishing to be found down at the renowned honeymoon destination of the tessellated pavements at Eaglehawk Neck.

We were hoping for Great Whites, but all we found was dogfish.

Beautiful little yellow flowers. Eaglehawk Neck, on the way towards the Devil’s Kitchen. January 2011.

I am many things: lover, poet, father, bureaucrat, bon vivant.

Conversely, there are many things I am not. Chief of which this week is efficient trench digger.

No Doctor's Today, Thank You, by Ogden Nash

They tell me that euphoria is the feeling of feeling wonderful,
well, today I feel euphorian,
Today I have the agility of a Greek god and the appetitite of a
Victorian.
Yes, today I may even go forth without my galoshes,
Today I am a swashbuckler, would anybody like me to buckle
any swashes?
This is my euphorian day,
I will ring welkins and before anybody answers I will run away.
I will tame me a caribou
And bedeck it with marabou.
I will pen me my memoirs.
Ah youth, youth! What euphorian days them was!
I wasn't much of a hand for the boudoirs,
I was generally to be found where the food was.
Does anybody want any flotsam?
I've gotsam.
Does anybody want any jetsam?
I can getsam.
I can play chopsticks on the Wurlitzer,
I can speak Portuguese like a Berlitzer.
I can don or doff my shoes without tying or untying the laces because
I am wearing moccasins,
And I practically know the difference between serums and antitoccasins.
Kind people, don't think me purse-proud, don't set me down as
vainglorious,
I'm just a little euphorious.

Oh to be young and carefree.

The waves churning in at a beach somewhere. Calverts Beach, South Arm Peninsula. February 2011.

The other day I was fortunate enough to move desks at work. I’ve moved away from strip florescent lighting, a main street-type thoroughfare and some noisy neighbours to a big picture window, with a million dollar view of the river and (best of all), no florescent lighting.

I’m prepared to tolerate the effing and blinding of some of the clients down below.

We might have to talk about all those car horns though.

Onto books!

Circumstances have seen me pressed for time this week, so I only finished the one: Victor Pelevin’s collection of short stories, The Blue Lantern.

As a fan of post-Soviet black comedies, Pelevin is right up my alley. The Blue Lantern appeared in 1992, and is infused with the kind of disorder that you’d expect to find in the confusion of the collapse of the USSR. Very ‘Russian’ in tone, this is a fantastic collection well worth checking out.


Still more waves. Calverts Beach, South Arm Peninsula. February 2011.

The boy in the bubble just got bigger, twenty three millimetres in three weeks, to be precise.

If he continues growing at this rate, I calculate that he will stand TWENTY FOUR METRES TALL by the age of fifty.

Zen and the art of getting closest to the jack. Buckingham Bowls Club, New Town. March 2011.

I used to play bowls once. It’s a fine game, but – as with most sports – very much dependent on the selection of your team mates.

Give me uncoordinated and generally useless – but pleasant – colleagues over skilled, talented and hungry – but aggravating – contemporaries any day of the week.

Except Saturdays.

Saturdays are serious.

Like Warren Beatty in an aquatic version of Bonnie and Clyde, Henry showcases an exceptional range of charisma, charm and spunkicity.

[For the purpose of the analogy, I shall be assuming the role of Faye Dunaway.]

Martin Cash, George Jones and Lawrence Kavenagh (in paper form). The Guard Station, Eaglehawk Neck. January 2011.

Martin Cash was Tasmania’s best know convict bushranger. He attracted fame for twice escaping from Port Arthur, which was at the time perhaps the World’s most notorious penal colony. As a smart chap, he cashed in with an autobiography that was released in 1870 – The Adventures of Martin Cash – which was kind of like a cross between The Wire, Prison Break and Glee.

As with many famous Tasmanians, he was born in Enniscorthy, Ireland. His autobiography has him entering a life of crime when he shot a man in a jealous rage for making advances on his sweetheart, but records list his original crime as house breaking. Sentenced to seven years penal transportation, he arrived in Sydney in 1828.

He quickly received his ticket of leave and worked as a stockman in New South Wales, but soon was suspected of cattle stealing and did as many crims did, and relocated to Tasmania. It wasn’t long before he got himself in trouble again and got nicked for stealing from an employer. Sentenced to seven years in a Hobart prison, he briefly escaped and got another 18 months. Seemingly not enjoying his time inside, he escaped again (but was caught, again) and copped another years at Port Arthur for his troubles.

Never a man to learn, his first attempt at escape from Port Arthur failed. His effort did see him manage to swim across the ‘shark-infested’ – i.e. there are occasionally sharks found there – Eaglehawk Neck, the first person known to have done so. This experience would later prove useful as it earned him a lot of credibility from other prisoners. I’m sure that Martin assailed his fellow cons with tales of barehandedly strangling three Great Whites, punching a Mako, kneeing eleven gummies.

On Boxing Day 1842, the three you can see above took off from a work party and journeyed up to Eaglehawk Neck. Braving the swarming sharks, they paddled with their clothes tied in bundles above their heads. Alas, when they found themselves on the other side, all three of them had lost their bundles and were as naked as they day they were born.

As renowned (if not very good) thieves, they pinched some clothes and began a twenty month spree of bushranging, robbing anyone who happened to cross their path. Unfortunately, Cash’s Irish temperament got him into trouble yet again when he discovered that his missus was set up with another fellow in Hobart.

His honour tarnished, Cash swore to kill them both, but was quickly spotted. As all such tales end, a gunfight ensued. After a copper was shot and killed by Cash, he was overpowered and tried for the murder.

Cash was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging, but somehow scored a last minute reprieve. Sick of the sight of him, they sent to Norfolk Island, 2399 kilometres away!

Once there, it didn’t take Martin long to get his ticket of leave. He then went back to Hobart and got a job in the Royal Hobart Botanical Gardens. He then moved to New Zealand where he kept several brothels.

All’s well that ends well!

Black Bart Roberts, Stede Bonnet, Sir Francis Drake, William Kidd, Blackbeard, Calico Jack, Redbeard, Jean Lafitte, Henry Morgan and John Hawkins eat your heart out!

Millions of snakes, or more sinister? Eaglehawk Neck, Tasman Penninsula. January 2011.

I have had a song stuck in my head for five straight days now. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good song, but five days on constant rotation is a bit much. Anyway, I have this theory that if I look into the story behind the song, and potentially infect others with the virus, it will leave me alone.

Here goes…

If I Fell is a song by The Beatles that first appeared in the 1964. It was featured in the film A Hard Day's Night, and appeared on the accompanying soundtrack. Although it seems that John Lennon alone wrote it, it was credited to the Lennon/McCartney partnership.

The song itself has an atypical structure for an early (-ish) Beatles track, with an unrepeated introduction sang by Lennon, followed by sequential verse sections, each having a slightly expanded form, but with no obvious chorus or bridge section.

As ever, the song features a two-part harmony – Lennon and McCartney into a single microphone – with McCartney's voice seemingly struggling towards the end under the strain of dozens of young lovelies chasing him about. I like the effect though, and the pleasant imperfection is duly repeated within my ear worm.

Now, treat yourself and let me know if it gets stuck in your head!