This will hurt me...

When climbing on stuff, particularly metal stuff on hard rock stuff, it is best to show caution.

Our meat stuff, blood stuff and bone stuff doesn't bounce as much as some of us might like or need.

Looking south. The Derwent Estuary, as viewed from Rosny Hill. October 2011.

Watery Wednesday again and what an awful lot of water I have for you today. I took this photograph while precariously perched atop a rock at Rosny Lookout (a lookout with the view almost completely obscured by tight bunches of ugly shrubs). Looking south, you can see Taroona, Kingston and probably Blackmans Bay further down south.

Now, locals will tell you that this particular stretch of H²O is called the River Derwent, but I would argue that at this point the Derwent has ceased to be a river and would be more correctly referred to as the Derwent Estuary. Some have claimed that this estuary forms the the deepest sheltered harbour in the Southern Hemisphere, but I’ve been unable to confirm that even using the magic of the Internets.

Suffice to say, at this point the water is incredibly deep and unreasonably cold.

At some point my children will tire of climbing through such objects again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.

Until then...

Dienstag! That means another Q and A stolen from Sunday Stealing. Today we are ripping off a blogger and blog called BlueLifeMemories. Welcome to the Blue Memory Meme, Part One

1) If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?
"Hello everybody!"

2) If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?
Someone with some answers.

3) You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?
Take me to Prague.

4) What do you think about most?
I have a tendency to run whatever is on my mind through a whole bunch of lenses. Over and over and over again.

5) You have the opportunity to spend a romantic night with the music celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?
"Romantic"? At least it beats the usual "date" question. Oh I don't know. Someone fun. Maybe someone like Pink or Katy Perry. She could bring Elmo.

6) You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?
Some stuff that happened that didn't need to happen.

7) What's your strangest talent?
The ability to recall seemingly random factoids at will, across multiple disciplines. I have yet to lose a game of Trivial Pursuit.

8) What would be a question you'd be afraid to tell the truth on?
It would very much depend on who is doing the asking.

9) Ever had a poem or song written about you?
I did have a mysterious fan who was leaving song lyrics up on school classroom blackboards and my name entwined way back in 1995. That's the closest that I am aware of.

10) When is the last time you played the air guitar?
On Sunday. The song? Saints by The Breeders. Top tune.

11) Do you have any strange phobias?
No phobias, just a few sensible fears.

12) What's your religion?
N/A. Never had a faith to speak of.

13) What is your current desktop picture?
It cycles through. Currently it is this.

14) When you are outside, what are you most likely doing?
Walking somewhere, with a book and a camera.

15) What's the last song you listened to?
That's Not My Name by the Ting Tings.

16) Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?
Wilco. That was easy actually.

17) What was the last lie you told?
"Yeah, it looks great."

18) Do you believe in karma?
Not in the slightest. It seems that it is quite rare in this life for people to get what they deserve.

19) What is a saying you say a lot?
"Well, that's one way of looking at it..."

20) What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?
Weakness? Stubbornness. Strength? Willpower.

21) Who is your celebrity crush?
I'm not sure that I have one.

22) Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word: heart.
"Attack".

23) How do you vent your anger?
Ranting and raving.

24) Do you have a collection of anything?
I'm starting to get a pretty impressive collection of photographs of Henry and Ezra.

25) What is your favourite word?
Today I like Sanguinolent.

I'm thinking of harvesting his eyelashes to sell to one of those millionaire US reality TV people who are prepared to pay the big bucks to look like a star.

I reckon that might pay for a boat.

On the way to work. Kirksway Place, as seen from Sandy Bay Road. December 2011.

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

The world is an amazing place. Need Proof? Awkward Family Pet Photos.

Here is something that I bet you didn't know: Infants prefer a nasty moose if it punishes an unhelpful elephant.

Follow the toads! New research may well help establish how animals predict earthquakes...

A good example of public policy gone bad over in Hungary.

A late nomination for headline of the year (and further proof that ornithologists love to 'do it' in the bushes): Great Tits give insight into personality.

On more serious matters, Tyler Cowen offers a really good exploration of the European debt crisis. Well worth five minutes of your time.

Someone is about to drop a nuclear bomb on you. Would You Pass the Panic-Proof Test?

There is nothing wrong with knowing that you don't know. Actually, it's exactly the right thing to know.

My favourite Twitter at the moment: Soviets Invade Finland, in Real Time.

Automaton racism? The 1930s hysteria about machines taking jobs and killing people.

One of the great under-reported atrocities of the WWII is re-assessed: the Siege of Leningrad.

Vote 1 Blender! The weird and wonderful party logos of Egyptian politics.

This is a pencil sharpener.

German engineering.

Fünfzig Bleistifte in 20 Sekunden.

Two holes.

Ein Paradigmenwechsel in der Zeichnung Technologie.

Be afraid.

Boats, you say... No. I can't say we have any of those around here. Sandy Bay Yacht Club, Sandy Bay. November 2011.

Cripes! Not only is it Sunday already, 2011 is nearly finished! Sunday Top Five? Hmmmm... Let me think about it.

...

...

...

Okay...

Okay, how about 'My Top Five (In No Particular Order) Shades Of Green!'?

Sea green

Office green

Hunter green

Fern green

Bottle green

Two stray waifs fleeing apocalypse.

What are they doing in there? St David's Park. November 2011.

Oh I do love peeking over a fence.

Two Songs, Adrienne Rich

1.
Sex, as they harshly call it,
I fell into this morning
at ten o'clock, a drizzling hour
of traffic and wet newspapers.
I thought of him who yesterday
clearly didn't
turn me to a hot field
ready for plowing,
and longing for that young man
pierced me to the roots
bathing every vein, etc.
All day he appears to me
touchingly desirable,
a prize one could wreck one's peace for.
I'd call it love if love
didn't take so many years
but lust too is a jewel
a sweet flower and what
pure happiness to know
all our high-toned questions
breed in a lively animal.

2.
That "old last act"!
And yet sometimes
all seems post coitum triste
and I a mere bystander.
Somebody else is going off,
getting shot to the moon.
Or a moon-race!
Split seconds after
my opposite number lands
I make it--
we lie fainting together
at a crater-edge
heavy as mercury in our moonsuits
till he speaks--
in a different language
yet one I've picked up
through cultural exchanges...
we murmur the first moonwords:
Spasibo. Thanks. O.K.

It's a hard slog getting up that dune, but once you're there: the ocean!

Mindless violence. King Street, Sandy Bay. November 2011.

Just the two books this week, but what books they were!

The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark ventures into a genre that I am more familiar with in film than print: the Western. A brief plot synopsis might lead you to think that this novel is little more than a cliché: two drifters are drawn into a lynch mob to find and the rustlers presumed to be the killers of a local man.

It is in fact much more than that. Written in 1940, the novel is a somber, unsympathetic examination of the ease with which men slip into violence and resist the urge to ‘justice’. It explores starkly ‘masculinity’ and the tendency of the fear of exposure in terms of physical cowardice to trump moral courage when it comes to groups of men.

It is a fantastic collection of set pieces that affords Van Tilburg Clark the opportunity to explore these themes and remain able to keep the pace cracking along and tense narrative to the (inevitable) ugly conclusion. What really works well is the dénouement. In a naturalistic way, the author enables the characters to attempt to reconcile the events and further demonstrate the central points of the tale.

Very highly recommended.

Shifting from the American frontier in the late-1870s, the great Vladimir Nabokov’s debut novel Mary is set in 1920s Berlin, amongst the exiled Russian community in the immediate wake of the Russian Revolution.

Yet this is no political novel, rather a very personal account of one’s first love. A brilliant series of portraits of drifters thrown into circumstances beyond any of their control allows Nabokov the scope to explore some big themes of love, desire, memory, happiness, nostalgia, freedom and belonging in interesting and innovative ways.

Again, I very much liked the ending, which I really won’t talk about because I’d rather you read the book yourself. Very highly recommended.

At this depth, one is only at risk of being licked to death by a ferocious pack of very small great white sharks.

A view from the toilet. Mayfair Plaza, Sandy Bay. November 2011.

Theme Thursday already, and today's post comes from INSIDE the toilet here in the complex where I toil away. There are a few options if you are in need of a lavatory during business hours, but I prefer this dunny.

For one, it is close by. A quick nip through the car park, and you're in the privvy!

Secondly, how many times can you say that you've enjoyed the magnificent (and not at all repetitive) artistic styling of Stark (Sandy Bay's answer to Banksy) while sitting on the can?

Certainly, other johns might not be so decorated with the detritus of urban decay, but I find those loos, khazis and latrines far too cramped for my style. Honestly, who wants to go about one’s business like one of those calves penned up in a veal factory farming enterprise?

Not this little black duck!

If I have to use a bathroom INSIDE, I need space. I need to be able to stretch my legs out lift my arms up and roar like a wild beast.

Or something.

Yes, a decent WC really needs to be generous with its space. Really, must we be confined and crowded and rushed and hushed while we absolve ourselves of our sins? (I think I’ve invented a new euphemism there.)

No, I don’t want to be stuck in a netty like a head in a submarine!

Give me land, lots of land under starry skies above. Don’t fence me in…