This will hurt me...

Big Ez digs for lost pirate treasure on Howrah beach. Note Mount Wellington in the background. It follows you everywhere in this town!

West to the mountain. Lindisfarne, March 2011. You can see above one of the fine views from Henry's classroom. Look a bit further to the left (south) and you'll see the Tasman Bridge and the Derwent Estuary open up out to the sea... A poem. Salutation , Ezra Pound O generation of the thoroughly smug and thoroughly uncomfortable, I have seen fishermen picnicking in the sun, I have seen them with untidy families, I have seen their smiles full of teeth and heard ungainly laughter. And I am happier than you are, And they were happier than I am; And the fish swim in the lake and do not even own clothing.

Now, if only we can harness all off this algae for some kind of business enterprise, we'll be set!

John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row is one of the revered books of the American canon and takes its name from a street lined with sardine fisheries in Monterey. The novel revolves around the lives of its inhabitants: Chinese grocers; bums; bouncers; prostitutes; the local marine biologist (!) and other assorted chancers and ne’er-do-wells. As much a series of vignettes as a coherent narrative, the book does a supreme job reconstructing a certain time and place that seems very distant from the world today. As such, it is a masterpiece. It is incredibly funny, yet surprisingly poignant. As ever Steinbeck does a superb job recreating both the exuberance of community and the loneliness of the individual. This really is a fantastic book, one of the best I’ve read in a while. Extremely highly recommended! Second up is something a little different, Philip K. Dick’s Time Out of Joint . First published in 1959, the book captures a lot of Dick's recurrent themes concerning the nature of reality an...

Ezra ruminates on interest rates on a rock outside of the Commonwealth Bank down in Lindisfarne. His conclusion? The elasticity of substitution is under-appreciated...

Passover on the overpass. East Derwent Highway, Lindisfarne. March 2012. Theme Thursday again and I share a photograph of an overpass that sits right outside of Henry’s classroom at Lindisfarne North Primary School . I have become something of a FIXTURE on Mondays at this overpass as Henry and I (and usually Ezra as well) walk in to school and then in the afternoon I (usually sans Ezra) walk in and then we walk back. Now, I mention this because ever since I have had children I have noticed a disturbing trend. See, when people see me walking to and from school with the child you attract all sorts of comments like, “what a wonderful father!”, “great to see!”, “Henry’s so lucky!” etc etc etc. I’ll do it (probably) 25 times this year. Jen will do it closer to 150 and no one will mention it. There will be no pats on the back or words of encouragement, because people just assume that this is the mother’s role. Next week I am taking Wednesday off and will be accompanying Ezra to the Little L...

Ezra, Jen and Henry contemplate their race to the Casino (and back)...

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.

See, sometimes he is happy!

A couple of likely lads hanging about causing trouble. Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston. February 2012. Another Thursday another (belated) Q and A stolen from Sunday Stealing. This week is apt, the The Not My Year Meme ! 1. Are you in a job that you truly enjoy? There are elements of my job that I find interesting, but on the whole, no, I am not in a job that I 'truly enjoy'. 2. If you could do any job in the world what would it be? To be paid to simply follow my own oblique areas of interest would be nice. As fluctuating as they may be. 3. If you could be a character in a novel who would you be? There are times that I feel like Capt. John Joseph Yossarian, but I'd much rather be First Lieutenant Milo Minderbinder. 4. When it comes to spending time with those you love, do you think it should be about quality or quantity? A bit of both. Just being yourself is what you should be striving for. 5. Is there a job/career you wanted but realized you couldn’t possi...

Henry finds a sausage. Or maybe it was a U.F.O. One of the two...

This flower finds a way. East Derwent Highway, Lindisfarne. March 2012. The Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (as well as pictures of things that have been deep fried but should never have been deep fried.) 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... This bloke used to hate Israel, then he went there. Some thoughts on reducing complex issues to bland homogeneities. On that - and it seems almost redundant now - a plea against elevating Joseph Kony . It isn’t just a dis-empowering simplification, it is also irresponsibly naive. Might there be hope? How about a piece on healing Guatemala's emotional scars from the civil war... It’s political correctness gone mad! Dante's Divine Comedy is 'offensive and discriminatory'... The New Statesman asked a collection of writers, activists and politicians the same question: if f...

Ezra spots a U.F.O.! Or maybe it was a sausage. One of the two...

Antarctic ice core sample. Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart. February 2012. Sunday Top Five and this week I am mythbusting. Thus, I present My Top Five Common Misconceptions That Both Get My Goat And Frustrate Me Inordinately (This Week)! Sugar does not cause hyperactivity in children . Proven. Done. And. Dusted. Double-blind trials people . There is no difference in behavior between children given sugar-full or sugar-free diets. This is true even in those studies specifically looking at children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or those considered sensitive to sugar. So please, other parents, stop saying this over and over and over and over again . Your kids behaviour has more to do with getting hyped up by other kids at the party than it does with the fairy bread... Napoleon Bonaparte was not short. Actually, he was a little bit taller than the average Frenchman. of his time. He actually stood 168.6 centimetres tall (5 feet 6 inches). The average height in the ...