Live one day at a time emphasizing ethics rather than rules.

Tasman National Park Coastline #1, Tasman Peninsula. September 2013.

Longitude, Dava Sobel: A bit of background first: the "longitude problem" was one of the trickiest practical and scientific dilemmas of the eighteenth century. Lacking the ability to measure longitude made sailing around on unchartered oceans decidedly dangerous. For example, in October 1707 the English navy lost 2,000 men after the Admiral misgauged their position (by quite some margin). Even more bittersweet was the fact that the very same Admiral had earlier hanged a seaman who – having illicitly kept his own careful log – challenged those who argued that the fleet was in safe waters.

This disaster in particular prompted the English government to establish a Board of Longitude and it offered £20,000 – an immense amount for the time – for a solution to the greatest problem of the day. The quest to solve the riddle of longitude is at the heat of this book, which is in alternated moods a history of astronomy, navigation and horology (that’s the art of measuring time, for the uninitiated). It’s also a bit of a morality play in which the central figure is one John Harrison, a self-taught Yorkshire clockmaker, and his 40-year obsession with building the perfect timekeeper.

Although the concept of the popular history or popular science book written for the general reader is now very familiar, Longitude was one of the earliest success stories. It shouldn’t be surprising that science is full of great yarns, yet they are often not told because many of the critical components are beyond the reach of the layperson. This is a pity, as science resembles any other human activity, performed by people that sleep and breathe and cry and hold the same passions and prejudices as everybody else.

As such, Longitude has the hallmarks of such a tale. There are good guys and bad guys. You have an honest, hardworking fellow doing his best for the common but striking obstinacy from an establishment resistant to change and facing attack from more cynical types out to make a quick buck.

So we have the story. Interweaving these characters with interesting asides and cameos from some of the famous people of the day – Cook and Bligh, Galileo and Newton, King George II and a host of government ministers – as well as explorations of related scientific developments fill the book up with an awful lot of ideas.

I liked it, but must admit the sections delving into detailed explanations of advancements in theoretical physics or astronomy was somewhat hard-going. That said, I survived and no doubt you will too. C+.

Tasman National Park Coastline #2, Tasman Peninsula. September 2013.

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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