The person who seeks all their applause from outside has their happiness in another's keeping.

Is it art? Mayfair Plaza car park, Sandy Bay. September 2012.

Here is a crop of ten questions for today's Q and A chosen from a neat little randomiser that I designed myself...

Are you doing what you believe in, or are you settling for what you are doing?

At this point, I’m settling. That said, I generally believe in the things that I have to do on a day-to-day basis. I have no problem speaking my mind if work is not being done properly or I find it ethically or intellectually improper.

How come the things that make you happy don’t make everyone happy?

My gut answer is to blame everyone else (i.e. “because everyone else is wrong!”). I don’t know, probably an inversion of this question might be easier to answer. A lot of people seem to enjoy things that don’t give me much pleasure (i.e. “dining out” or the never-ending parade of new “gizmos and gadgets”). I don’t know. I just like a nice beach, a bit of peace and quiet and something interesting to read.

How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?

I suspect that I would be either 19 or 72. One of the two.

If a turtle doesn't have a shell, are they homeless or naked?

Both. Moreover, they’ve be absolutely stuffed.

If you could offer a newborn child only one piece of advice, what would it be?

“Try to be good.”

Is is possible to know the truth without challenging it first?

Putting aside the more difficult question about the nature of ‘truth’, I don’t believe that an unchallenged assumption is worth a lot. I think that beliefs that are carried around with people that are un-reflected upon for years on end are not as valuable as many seem to feel.

To what degree have you actually controlled the course your life has taken?

I have to take responsibility for decisions that I have made (and not made) over the years. Sure, we’re all dealt a certain number of cards (genetic, social, cultural, economic, geographical etc), but we still have to play a smart hand. I don’t think that I have played the sharpest hand, but I could have played worse.

When you choke a Smurf, what colour does it turn?

I reckon that it would go green. Eventually. Then brown.

Why are you, you?

Because I am me, silly!

You’re having lunch with three people you respect and admire. They all start criticising a close friend of yours, not knowing she is your friend. The criticism is distasteful and unjustified. What do you do?

I’ll probably sound out the reasons for their criticism before I declare my interest. If I think that it is unjustified or unfair, I’ll say so. If I respect and admire the person I should have examples to hand.

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...

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.

This will hurt me...

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