This will hurt me...

Now this bloke has started to recognise and identify letters, you can't STOP him reading!

'73 in St Tropez Hobart docks in the springtime. Constitution Dock, October 2011. It's like the oil crisis all over again! Fixed Ideas , Kenneth Slessor Ranks of electroplated cubes, dwindling to glitters, Like the other pasture, the trigonometry of marble, Death’s candy-bed. Stone caked on stone, Dry pyramids and racks of iron balls. Life is observed, a precipitate of pellets, Or grammarians freeze it into spar, Their rhomboids, as for instance, the finest crystal Fixing a snowfall under glass. Gods are laid out In alabaster, with horny cartilage And zinc ribs; or systems of ecstasy Baked into bricks. There is a gallery of sculpture, Bleached bones of heroes, Gorgon masks of bushrangers; But the quarries are of more use than this, Filled with the rolling of huge granite dice, Ideas and judgments: vivisection, the Baptist Church, Good men and bad men, polygamy, birth-control . . . Frail tinkling rush Water-hair streaming Prickles and glitters Cloudy with bristles ...

The complexity and range of Henry and Ezra's science experiments are increasing ten-fold. Here, you can see Henry taking a container of water highly enriched in the hydrogen isotope deuterium over to Ezra (out of shot), who has somehow managed to get his hands on some unenriched uranium (don't ask) and has a little scheme to reduce our electricity bills...

Bee! Bath Street, Sandy Bay. October 2011. Two books this week, both very different. The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald features a small town filled with odd characters who are at once marvellously horrid, pathetic and courageous. It’s a short novel, and with an oddly unredemptive conclusion (which is generally up my alley). As it is, the chief moral is the ways in which bullies can be given enormous power by lots of people not bothering to do very small things. One of the chief pleasures of this book is the vivid recreation of time and place: a bleak seaside village during the late-1950s in a Suffolk, England. The weather and the topography of the area are characters in themselves. I've really enjoyed everything I have read by Fitzgerald, and The Bookshop is no different. Highly recommended. The Comfort of Strangers is Ian McEwan's second novel, a tale set in Venice that explores a disintegrating English couple that endeavour to resurrect their relationship through a seri...

If I could fit on Jen's tummy, I'd like to lie down there too...

Cloud and trees and leaves and things. Royal Botanical Gardens, Hobart. October 2011. Theme Thursday is back with an all NEW process that suits the Antipodean amongst us! Of course, when I say NEW I mean back to the way that it used to be. Do you remember? Remember how we laughed when the gods offered up the modern form of GEWRINCLOD ? Remember the MYSTERY of that box floating in the river? The one that may (or may not_ have contained body parts? I certainly know that the tale of those crafty seagulls going about their filthy business on me left an IMPRESSION on many... A good Theme Thursday topic lets us explore the SURFACE of things; delve into HISTORY ; the vampiric tendencies of children on HALLOWEEN ; and the fundamental nature of MAD ness. Theme Thursday, how we have missed you...

Despite her size and potential power, Henry has Jen well and truly done for sheer scooter speed...

Wrest Point Casino. Sandy Bay, October 2011. Wrest Point Casino was Australia's first legal casino – but by no means the first Australian gambling den – opening for business in Sandy Bay in February 1973. Now I’m no wowser , square , straight , puritan roundhead ; but I’m not a fan of casinos. The house always wins, and most of the punters really can’t afford to lose. If you could somehow ensure that losses only cost the mug punter I might not mind so much, but they don’t. They affect their partners, their kids and eventually you and me and everyone we know.

Consider this a unique Tasmanian variant of a traditional game: nude spotlight .

I'm on an island. Intersection of Grosvenor and York Streets, Dynnyrne. October 2011. I want to eat a hare. I could cope with a rabbit. I won't eat a guinea pig. Rats are off limits.

Without one of those track dolly thingamajigs, I had to rely on good old fashioned feet running running running to get the shot...

Metal plus seawater equals rust. Blinking Billy Point, Sandy Bay. September 2011. The Internet can be a wonderful place. The following are some things that I've had a look at in the last few days. I might call this: a Compendium of Click-throughs for Monday Morning ... A fantastic spiced cauliflower soup with yoghurt recipe that I made last night. Well worth the [little] effort. A depressingly familiar tale from Africa, How the teachers of hope I met in the Congo were brutally killed A well researched and written piece on shark nets in Australia . Conclusion? Shark nets are a placebo that happen to be a dangerous one for other wildlife. An interview with Steven Pinker about his new book that explores brutality is waning. A big call, but his thesis is that far from being the bloodiest era in human history, ours is a time when violence has been in steep decline. To end with something lighter, 50 of the World’s Best Breakfasts ! India seems a little off, but I like to the look of Ir...

All the streets are crammed with things, eager to be held. I know what hands are for and I'd like to help myself. You ask me the time but I sense something more, and I would like to give you what I think you're asking for.

S-Express? Near ANZAC Park, Lindisfarne. October 2011. Today's Sunday Top Five is another for the etymologists out there. Today I am thinking about My Top Five Words Beginning With The Letter 'S' This Sunday! Succulent , as in "My wife's thighs are indeed succulent ." Scurrilous , as in "You sir must die for the scurrilous filth you have been peddling about my wife!" Sempiternal , as in "Yes, my love for her is sempiternal ." Skullduggery , as in "She may disrobe in front of the window, but that does not justify this kind of skullduggery !" Supercilious , as in "Alas sir, that kind of supercilious display may impress other women, but it will not with my wife."