Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.

The ballot for the next family holiday. November 2019.

As a young lad – in the years before smart phones, the Internet and more than two television channels – I would spend hours pawing over atlases, encyclopaedias and novels from all over the globe. Sure, I might have been stuck in a dying, deindustrialising town (downgraded from a city, such was our fortune) on the north west of an island that served as the butt all the jokes of the rest of the state (which itself served as the punchline of the jokes of the rest of the country), at the arse end of the World; but that very same World was at my fingertips, with a little bit of help from a library card.

While I may have lamented never getting the chance of crossing those seas and seeing much of that World myself, I tried to keep my mind and imagination open. Therefore, now we are of means, and my kids are old enough to survive a bit of discomfort, I am keen to help them see as much of the planet while I have some kind of influence on how open their minds and hearts open.

I have been shocked to learn that – for all intents and purposes – this blog has been on hiatus for over six years. Quite a bit has happened in that time, not least the fact that we’ve been fortunate enough to visit thirteen different countries (that’s thirteen more countries than I had visited by the age of 26). Readers have missed our trips to Singapore (twice) and Malaysia. You’ve missed our galivanting around Japan. We’ve seen Rome, eaten oranges in La Spezia, stalked the Cinque Terre, battled smoking hordes in Firenze, braved snowstorms on Munich and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, waltzed in Vienna and bathed in Budapest.

You’ve missed us braving the cold and rain of London, dodging the seething throngs of Chinese and Russian tourists in matching tracksuits crowding the streets and alleyways of Prague. You’ve missed the joys of Hamburg, the grumps of Copenhagen and the happy young things of Malmö. You missed the fascination (and Henry’s horror) at the markets of Hong Kong. You missed us climbing mountains. So many mountains.

You missed Seoul. You missed Sokcho. You missed hours and hours and hours of us hanging around airports and train stations. Of course, we’re about to do it all again. Above, you’ll see our family holiday annual ballot. We run a democratic ship in terms of holiday decision-making, with my vote weighted the same as the kids (I even let the wife vote). We ran with an instant runoff voting system, with full preferential voting enforced. This is the second, and final round of voting. The first was an additional member variant, with a much larger ballot to narrow the choices.

The winner?

Egypt. A cradle of civilisation. Home of pyramids, mummies and gods with all manner of heads.

Which leads me to a question… Have YOU visited Egypt? Hints and tips? Must dos and must avoids?

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. ...

But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave.

Can you believe that it is time for Theme Thursday already? Today we are not talking chocolate , toddlers , mess or ignominy . No, today we're dealing with ANIMAL . Now I could have posted a picture of a possum, numbat, wombat, wallaby or any other furry killing machine that roams our fair isle, but I figure that I'd use a far more deadly creature as an example of an animal . Some people - I know them as fools - have chosen to embrace that highfalutin idea that human beans are for some ungodly reason superior to animals. Of course, what these imbeciles seem to forget is that were are simple animals ourselves ! Anyone with a baby, toddler, teenage boy or Queenslander in their household could tell you this. Look at Henry [above]. One chocolate frog in the back of the car on a sunny day and all of a sudden it's Elagabalus meets Bacchus for a quick shandy in the Serengeti and we're down on all fours carrying on like a cat in heat. Fair dinkum, anyone who chooses to ...

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

This is the moon. Have I mentioned how much I adore the zoom on my camera? It's Theme Thursday you see, and after last week's limp effort, I have been thinking about how I might redeem myself. Then I clicked on the topic and discover that it was BUTTON. We've been hearing a lot about the moon in the past couple of weeks. Apparently some fellas went up there and played golf and what-not forty-odd years ago. The desire to get to the moon, however, was not simply about enhancing opportunities for Meg and Mog titles and skirting local planning by-laws in the construction of new and innovative golf courses. No, all of your Sputniks , "One small steps" and freeze dried ice cream was about one thing , and one thing only : MAD Now, I don't mean mad in terms of "bloke breaks record for number of scorpions he can get up his bum", no I mean MAD as in Mutual assured destruction . When I was a young man you see, there was a lot of talk about the type of m...

This will hurt me...

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