This will hurt me...

It is Christmas Eve, and these two little mountaineers have conquered a little mountain to keep an eye out for someone dressed in red...

Little boys and their little toys. Sandy Bay Rowing Club, Sandy Bay. December 2011. Boys and their penises... will they ever learn to get over them. Judging by the graffiti around these parts, it is highly unlikely. On this theme, I share with you perhaps my favourite poem about the phallus . The Fury Of Cocks , Anne Sexton There they are drooping over the breakfast plates, angel-like, folding in their sad wing, animal sad, and only the night before there they were playing the banjo. Once more the day's light comes with its immense sun, its mother trucks, its engines of amputation. Whereas last night the cock knew its way home, as stiff as a hammer, battering in with all its awful power. That theater. Today it is tender, a small bird, as soft as a baby's hand. She is the house. He is the steeple. When they fuck they are God. When they break away they are God. When they snore they are God. In the morning they butter the toast. They don't say much. They are still God. All the...

The current record is three blue-tongued lizards and six tiger snakes.

It's a long way to the top (if you want to rock 'n roll). Liverpool Street, Hobart. December 2011. A couple of books this week as we near the end of the year. These two represent numbers 98 and 99 for the year and I should finish Martin Amis's Times Arrow shortly to crack the hundred! First Love by Ivan Turgenev was first published in 1860 and concerns the memory of the narrator’s first love. I have read that the novel is regarded as a Russian 'classic' and an important book in teaching young Russians. The conclusion itself is masterfully done, not really a surprise as such, but it does force the reader to reassess what had happened up to that point. While the romantic tensions inherent in First Love might seem somewhat naive to present sensibilities, it has a restrained charm that makes it an enjoyable read. Highly recommended. The second book is Revolutionaries is a collection of reviews and essays by Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm written through the 1960s. ...

The bottom teeth have come in a bit more since this photo was taken. That said, any photo where you can get Henry smiling is always a keeper.

All I want for Christmas is a... new door? King Street, Sandy Bay. December 2011. As Theme Thursday rolls around again, we are sucked into the exploitative cycle of GIFT-giving, GIFT-receiving, GIFT-rejecting and GIFT-resenting otherwise known as Christmas. It is certainly beyond my comprehension quite why we so will-fully allow this bloated Satan Claws character to waltz so freely into our houses and dump rubbish about the place with a careless disregard for our wheelie bins. I put this Claws fellow on notice: any GIFT that appears in our house on Sunday morning that meets any of the following criteria will be removed to a discrete offshore facility for immediate destruction. The exclusions list is brief and bars any GIFT that: Sings any kind of song. Requires more than a single battery to perform a function. Demands some form of repetitive hammering. Involves food that contain some form of immunoglobulin E or other anaphylatoxins, which thus provoke a release of histamine a...

Just when the weather gets us back in to a position that encourages visits to the beach, we get another cold snap...

WATCH OUT! Underneath the Tasman Bridge, as seen from the western shore on the north side. November 2011. Watery Wednesday , and I very nearly captured a tragedy here. I can neither confirm or deny whether or not this intrepid crew of marine security services foiled a plot devised by a ruthless cabal of shags - on the rock broken pylon in the centre of the picture - to blow up the Tasman Bridge and sever connection between Hobart's eastern and western shores.

Forward! I'm tipping Henry to lead North Korea into a peaceful and prosperous future! Well, that or a nuclear catastrophe...

I'll take one of those! Sandy Bay Rowing Club, Sandy Bay. December 2011. Another Q and A stolen from Sunday Stealing . Today we rip off Tom Baker from his blog Morning Erection and tackle The Community Meme 1. As a blogger, what do you draw inspirations from for your posts? The world! 2. If you could swap blogs with another blogger for a post, who would you switch with and why? Someone very, very wealthy. Maybe I could earn enough to kick back and relax... 3. If your blog had a theme song, what would it be? Why? Great Southern Land by Icehouse 4. What is your writing process for a post? Just vomit it out when I have a spare few minutes. 5. Your blog requires a cute, new, mascot: what would it be? Replacing the two cute ones that I already have? Hmmm. Maybe a cartoon saltwater croc named “Henry” and a cartoon great white shark named “Ezra”. 6. Do you feel you express your "true self" on your blog? Yes. Only with less swearing. 7. What is your biggest online pet-peeve? An...

A hundred times one hundred metres. Every time he splits in over twelve seconds, I add another hundred. It's the only way that he'll learn.

Cop shop. Approaching the corner or Argyle and Liverpool. Hobart CBD. December 2011. The Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (and videos of fat people getting upset over the treatment of rich and famous people they will never know.) 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... It's devolution baby. The Twentieth Century as America’s cultural landscape altered every twenty or so years. These days popular style is stuck on repeat , consuming the past instead of creating the new... Wired offers its Five Best Toys of All Time . Best of all? You can snare all five for X-mas for less than a dollar! Moral philosopher Joshua Cohen touches on some hot button issues in this interview . I think he nails it on the topic of inequality. Vladimir Putin . He's back in the news. Mitt Romney leaps on Vietnam Vet for a photo opportunity , Vet happ...

Mine. ALL MINE.

Sheep on a hill. Clifton Beach. November 2011. Blogger seems to have buggered up the header (again). Fingers crossed that it will correct itself without any need for me to lift a finger (again). A very special Sunday Top Five today, with the now annual Top Five NINE Books That I've Read This Year ! The rationale is pretty straightforward, it doesn't have to be a new book, just something that I've read this year. The nine were decided from the marking system I've been using on Goodreads (a handy tool for tracking your reading habits). All of these books received the illustrious Five Stars . If you click the link, you can read the review. I generally avoid giving spoilers. Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively Animal Farm by George Orwell The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene Götz and Meyer by David Albahari The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald One Day in the Life of...