This will hurt me...

Even on a scooter he is too loud!

RECY indeed! Byron Street, Sandy Bay. October 2011.

The Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (and ladies with zebras). The following are some things that I've had a look at in the last few week. I call this: a Compendium of Click-throughs for Monday Morning...

The arms trade relies on business-speak and foggy language, writes Will Self for the BBC in Why euphemism is integral to modern warfare...

Read about the true story behind the Savoy's surface glitz and glimmer during the Second World War...

Paul Keating talks!

A tale of what happened when Wikipedia asked its users for money...

The jury is in (again): sugar DOES NOT make kids hyper...

For map lovers the world over: a power socket map of the world...

Something else we have known for a while: universities are broken...

One day Henry, this will be all yours...

Their legs must get tired. Little Howrah Beach. October 2011.

Another Sunday means another Top Five. I have had the chance over the past month to give Chicago experimental rock combo Wilco's latest album The Whole Love, and it is a cracker.

All this has got me thinking, how might I narrow down their records thus far to a top five? Thus I have today's list, My Top Five Wilco Albums!

First up I am ruling out a host of collaborations that are extremely worthy in their own regard. The two albums with Billy Bragg - Mermaid Avenue and Mermaid Avenue Vol. II - working over some found Woody Guthrie lyrics are quite the achievement. I am a Bragg fan, but the Wilco efforts blow his away. Well worth tracking down.

I am also excluding Down With Wilco, the collaboration with The Minus 5 and the very interesting The Sun Came Out with Neil Finn.

This leaves nine. The elimination was easy, as 2005's Kicking Television was immediately ruled out, as I'm not counting live albums (however good). I am unsure whether having babies about the place at the time had an effect on my enjoyment of 2007's Sky Blue Sky and 2009's Wilco (The Album); but for whatever reason these two failed to connect with me. Sorry lads! Rounding out those that missed the cut was the debut effort A.M.. It's a top little record, but very much straight Alt-Country that doesn't quite challenge conventions of the peak periods.

Which gives me to Top Five:

5. The Whole Love. I'm putting the latest one fifth. It could rise higher, but it has done very well to crack the five and signals a real return to form.
   
   
4. A Ghost Is Born. Number four seems very low for what is an extraordinarily good record. Really, I could shuffle picks 4 through 2 and still not get it right. If you don't own it, please get it.
   
   
3. Being There. A very different Wilco here, and probably their most conventional. Very much country in flavour, there is a fair bit here to signal the diversions to come.
   
   
2. Summerteeth. The bridging effort in many respects. Classic country-flavoured pop with experimental diversions, this would be the album to introduce the newcomer too without scaring them off with the experimental noise.
   
   
1. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. My tip for "greatest album ever". It just is. Just accept it.
   

I like to call this: James Dean, with tongue.

Bleak times. Jetty as seen from Errol Flynn Reserve, Sandy Bay. October 2011.

James Wright is one of my favourite poets. Here is one of his poems.

Youth, James Wright

Strange bird,
His song remains secret.
He worked too hard to read books.
He never heard how Sherwood Anderson
Got out of it, and fled to Chicago, furious to free himself
From his hatred of factories.
My father toiled fifty years
At Hazel-Atlas Glass,
Caught among girders that smash the kneecaps
Of dumb honyaks.
Did he shudder with hatred in the cold shadow of grease?
Maybe. But my brother and I do know
He came home as quiet as the evening.

He will be getting dark, soon,
And loom through new snow.
I know his ghost will drift home
To the Ohio River, and sit down, alone,
Whittling a root.
He will say nothing.
The waters flow past, older, younger
Than he is, or I am.

Henry and Ezra re-enact the Battle of Rorke's Drift down on a dirt pile in Geilston Bay. We employed an assortment of bumblebees, grasshoppers and beetles in the role of the Zulu attackers. A wallaby played Prince Dabulamanzi kaMpande.

As ever, it was Victoria Crosses all round when the dust cleared!

Under the Tasman Bridge, and not a troll in sight! Under the Tasman Bridge, western shore. October 2011.

Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively is in many respects a conventional sad, romantic tale you may find familiar. However, in terms of construction, craft and style; this is a decidedly original book.

Lively has constructed a shifting, jagged narrative that is a thing of beauty. Shifting tenses almost every other page, the book also frequently alternates narrative voices and chronology. Although this might sound confusing, it works wonderfully well.

Thus, there are many occasions within the book where we get multiple presentations of the same event from different viewpoints. Those passages in the present tense are narrated in the third person, though the central character – the elderly and dying Claudia – is always present.

From here though the novel shifts backwards and forwards through time, reconstructing Claudia’s life from both her memory and standpoint, but also those of the significant people in here life. This technique allows Lively to create a character in three dimensions and a complexity that one rarely sees in literature.

In Claudia, we have the ultimate in flawed, but realisticly beloved character. That is the true mastery of the work. Very highly recommended!

Don't go in the water Ezzie...

Don't go in the water Ez...

Don't go in the water Ezra...

Don't get any more wet Ez...

Don't get any more wet Ezra...

Don't get any more wet Ezzie...

We don't have a spare set of undies Ez...

We don't have a spare set of undies Ezzie...

We don't have a spare set of undies Ezra...

Windmill at the Spring Festival. Royal Botanical Gardens, Hobart. October 2011.

Theme Thursday again, and this week I am in a "railing against" mood.

You see, I currently hold the controversial opinion that there are too many gizmos and GADGETs these days. It used to be that the most advanced gadget you'd see at a meeting was the humble retractable pencil. Then overhead projectors got a foothold. As they died out, along came the laptop and with it the dreaded PowerPoint.

Alongside this bloated behemoth you will now find your audience (that's how I view meetings, d'you wanna make something of it?) came the mobile phone, the I-Pod, the I-Pad, the touch pad maxi pad taxi pad plus-double-plus-plus. There are the coffee machines on the way in. Fax machines on the way out. The boom gate in the parking bay and the pay-as-you-go before you can go machine.

There are the octopus phones and the video-conference gear that never works and the stapler that never works and the laminator that never works and the air condition is too loud and the thingamyjig that should open the blinds won't open the blinds and there are high tech blinds that don't work and curtain rods have been superseeded by microchipped bells and whistles that don't ding and don't tweet.

Ultimately, despite all this stuff; despite the gizmos, despite the GADGETS and despite the technological advancement that the rapid growth in the industrial output of India and China has afforded us; we STILL couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery.

Bitter, moi?

LegoDuplo vehicles as panopticon.

A great leap forward in totalitarian omnipresence Henry. Congratulations!

Purple flower. Royal Botanical Gardens, Hobart. October 2011.

Today I am in Launceston. If you have not been to Launceston, you are not missing much you are missing out.

Launceston was the site of the first use of anaesthetic in the Southern Hemisphere (appropriate enough), the first Australian city to have underground sewers (well needed) and the first Australian city to be lit by hydro-electricity (light is always welcome).

Launceston has an incredibly ugly flag.

There is not much more that I can say for Launceston, other than "must try harder".

You know that 'rage virus' in the film 28 Days Later? The one where people run at you screaming and screeching with hate in their eyes?

Sometimes I think Ezra has that.


Then it just goes away.

Also, note the t-shirt which on this day qualified as 'ironic'...

A view towards the Tasman Bridge. Hobart Cycle Path, River Derwent. October 2011.

Today we reach the end of the road for the Questions Galore Meme, as we complete Part 3...

41. What is a quote that you love?
"If you have the choice between humble and cocky, go with cocky. There's always time to be humble later, once you've been proven horrendously, irrevocably wrong." - Kinky Friedman

42. Do you think of pure hate as something humanity created?
I'm not convinced that there is such a concept as "pure hate".

43. When was the last time you wanted to scream?
On Friday, and it involved an overload of poo jokes.

44. Do you ever at times see the world in black and white?
Often, then I slap myself and snap out of it.

45. Have you ever thought that cell phones are too obtrusive?
Pretty much most of the time.

46. In your life, where do you thank the rainbow will end?
Rainbows are an optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines on to droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere. As a "rainbow" is not a physical object, and cannot be physically approached and thus has no physical 'end'.

47. What is something that you never want to do again?
Have another baby. Two is enough for me.

48. When was the first time you realised the world was small?
When I started seeing things second time around. That said, it's a big as your prepared to accept.

49. How you spend your time contemplating life’s mysteries?
I'm not certain of what "life’s mysteries" entail...

50. Ever discuss your political beliefs with people?
Yes. I usually like to bamboozle them with some obscure bit of political theory to trump any argument though.

51. Do you care about the environment?
Every day.

52. What’s your motto for life?
Anyone who isn't confused doesn't really understand the situation.

53. Is progress destroying the beauty of the world?
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To put it another way: is smallpox beautiful?

54. Do you believe there is life somewhere else in the universe?
I believe that it is a highly logical proposition.

55. Would you like to rule a country?
Only if I could be the benevolent (and beloved) dictator.

56. Do you believe everything has a purpose?
I don't believe that anything is planned.

57. Is war ever for the best?
There will always be situations whereby a recourse to violence will be necessary. This doesn't make it "the best" or the ideal, merely a reality.

58. Could you kill anyone in defense of self or loved ones?
See the above answer.

59. How do you react to people (Such as Governor Rick Perry) who don't believe global warming is really our fault?
I understand cynicism and denial. I also understand vested interest. How do I react? I guess the same way with any ignorance, I sigh.

60. Does love conquer all?
Not in the slightest.

61. Is euthanasia morally acceptable?
Legislatively it is a tricky question; morally it seems more straightforward. People have a right to people have a right to self-determination, particularly when one's quality of life is poor.

62. Is world peace impossible?
It is a nice thing to aim for, judging by the answer to question 57 (and 58) suggests that it is unlikely.

63. Is pride a good or a bad thing?
Like most things, it has good and bad aspects. In moderation, pride is an essential component of a healthy person.

64.What do you think is the purpose of your life?
I am not self-important enough to believe that my life has a 'purpose'. I just try to get along getting along.

65. Do you believe in karma?
Experience tells me that the concept is little more than wishful thinking.