Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.

Bridge over ~~troubled~~ reasonably placid water. Richmond. February 2012.

This Watery Wednesday to the almost-still Coal River in Richmond (a far cry from the raging torrent that we visited back in June last year). Yet is not so much the water as the bridge itself that has got me thinking...

It says something about a country when your oldest bridge still in use - the heritage listed Richmond Bridge - only dates back to 1825. As you can see on the bridge itself, the foundation stone was laid in 1823 and the thing itself was constructed using convict labour (the sandstone was quarried nearby and hauled to the site using hand carts) until it eventual completion one hundred and eighty-seven years ago. All this is a far cry from some of those other bridges that you might have visited, like the Kapellbrücke (1333), the Charles Bridge (1357), Si-o-se Pol (1602), or the good-as-new Alcántara Bridge (106) [!!!]

All of a sudden, 1823 doesn't quite seem that far away.

Comments

smudgeon said…

I remember when I first popped overseas, I stayed in a house that was built in the 14th century. Even Pont Neuf, a young'un by European standards, is more than twice as old as Richmond Bridge.

Not knocking Tassie, of course, but I think on the whole, we could do with a bit of perspective.

21 March 2012 at 13:46

Kris McCracken said…

We can get a bit silly at times...

25 March 2012 at 16:36

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

This will hurt me...

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