This will hurt me...

A hot, humid evening. A long day's toil. A cool refreshing home brand icy pole. Bliss.

Coming in to land. Seven Mile Beach. October 2011. All I can muster is, "What would Robbie Burns say?" To which all I can reply is, "Mah god! that is indeed a body enormoos metal spyug up thaur in th' lift!" To a Mouse, On Turning her up in her Nest with the Plough , Robert Burns Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie, O what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, Wi' bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee Wi' murd'ring pattle! I'm truly sorry man's dominion Has broken nature's social union, An' justifies that ill opinion Which makes thee startle At me, thy poor earth-born companion, An' fellow-mortal! I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve; What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! A daimen-icker in a thrave 'S a sma' request: I'll get a blessin' wi' the lave, And never miss't! Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin! Its silly wa's the win's ar...

How he manages to smile like that when the water is so achingly cold is beyond me...

What would Bon Scott do? Lindisfarne Village, Lindisfarne. November 2011. Just managed to complete the one book this week, and what a disappointment it proved to be. Hans Keilson’s The Death of the Adversary is an odd little portrait of a nameless young man tracking an unnamed “adversary” whom he watches rise to power in an unnamed country in the 1930s. Keilson – a German Jew – wrote the book while in hiding in the Netherlands during World War Two. Interestingly, the novel itself has been lauded as a ‘lost’ masterpiece in the last few years. Now, I shall be frank and confess that although I think that the book is a really interesting piece of history, as a literary work it seems a little uneven to me. Perhaps it is a deliberate narrative device, but the jarring (and repetitive) series of notes ruminating on the rise of Hitler, his motives, personality, as well as the nature and causes of the rise of fascism and anti-Semitism is clumsy and wooden (perhaps this might be a poor translat...

If there is one thing guaranteed to get a double thumbs up from Henry it is DINNER OUTSIDE . Provided there is no lettuce, tomato, capsicum, chilli, sweet potato, beets, beans, melon, cucumber, eggplant, pumpkin, corn, zucchini, artichoke, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, celery, kohlrabi, swedes or turnip.

Busy bee. Royal Botanical Gardens, Hobart. October 2011. Theme Thursday today, and they've thrown me a curveball. You see - as I bemoan in an October 2009 'classic' TT post - we down here in the Antipodes (Greek for "arse end of the world") do not partake in the "Festival of the GOURD". At least, we never used to. You see, the big supermarket chains have been trying very hard in the last couple of years to muscle in on the Halloween racket and increase the profit margin of the obesity epidemic among children. I suspect that a cabal of powerful dentists may also be in league with the sugar merchants, but I have no way of proving it. Quite how we are meant to celebrate the end of the harvest festival smack bang in the middle of spring and scare the living daylights out of impressionable old folk as the evening light stretches even longer into the night is beyond me. Moreover - much like gorging on chocolate in celebration of a baby egg-laying rabbit nail...

The subject was falling. The photographer was falling. The golf ball was falling. Everybody falling all the time.

Spotted outside The Shipwright Arms. Coleville Street, Battery Point. November 2011. So I did this Myers-Briggs thing the other day, and it turns out I am a classic INTJ which pegs me at introversion , intuition, thinking and judgment – which is one of the rarest of the sixteen personality types, and accounts for about 1–4% of the population. Window #1, The Shipwright Arms. Coleville Street, Battery Point. November 2011. Quite correctly, INTJs are referred to as Masterminds , one of the four types belonging to the temperament called the Rationals . The Meyer-Briggs Foundation define us INTJs as Have[ing] original minds and great drive for implementing their ideas and achieving their goals. Quickly see patterns in external events and develop long-range explanatory perspectives. When committed, organize a job and carry it through. Skeptical and independent, have high standards of competence and performance – for themselves and others. Window #2, The Shipwright Arms. Coleville Street, Ba...

Henry doesn't know if he's King Canute or Xerxes at the Hellespont. Either way, I suspect that he's have little chance of turning back the tide.

Art Deco attraction. Fitzroy Place, Sandy Bay. November 2011. The W.T.F. Meme 1. One of my favorite TV shows recently changed the actors who played two characters. Have you ever been bothered by a TV show or movie series changing actors who play a character you love? I can't say that I have ever been so invested in a show. 2. A coworker recently shared a link to a blog listing the "five things you should know before dating a journalist." As a journalist, I can honestly say the writer was spot-on. What are some things people should know before spending time with you? That I am an emotional terrorist. 3. What is something you often do without realizing that you're doing it? Fly aeroplanes. Well, either that or biting my fingernails. One of the two. 4. Who has the capacity to make you angrier than anyone else in your life, and what in particular does he or she do to make you so angry? I find that pretty much anyone can make me angry, provided that they hit the right but...

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 (h...