This will hurt me...

Baby pandani. Lake Dobson, Mount Field National Park. April 2013. As you know, the Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (and RSS feeds.) 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... After Newtown shooting, mourning parents enter into the lonely quiet. 24 Incredible Yarnbombs From Around The World. A gay island community created by Italy's Fascists. How Lobster Got Fancy. Secret life of the cat: What do our feline companions get up to? Uneasiness about a woman in power unleashes a sexist maelstrom. Icky insects are actually tasty treats that are good for you. Outstanding mistakes of all time.

On the road to Mount Field National Park. The Derwent Valley. April 2013. Wordless Wednesday.

Little Pandani. Pandani Grove, Lake Dobson, Mount Field National Park. April 2013. As you know, the Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (and RSS feeds.) 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... The most curious thing about the DSM-5, the “psychiatric bible,” is that anyone would view the scientific-seeming manual with reverence… Puffins! The Skeleton Lake of Roopkund, India Confessions of a Sociopath. Key point: "Parents are paying for more than a good education understood in academic terms when they shell out for independent school fees. But I suspect that many take it for granted that their money will also be buying superior teaching. They might be shocked to learn that on average the schools are turning out what they took in: children who were already well placed educationally but have not become more so....

Henry and I are looking for creatures.

Snow Gum, Eucalyptus pauciflora. Lake Dobson, Mount Field National Park. April 2013. Marry me. Go on, I dare you to. To Friends behind a Frontier , Tomas Transtromer I I wrote so meagrely to you. But what I couldn't write swelled and swelled like an old-fashioned airship and drifted away at last through the night sky. II The letter is now at the censor's. He lights his lamp. In the glare my words fly up like monkeys on a grille, rattle it, become still, and bare their teeth. III Read between the lines. We'll meet in 200 years when the microphones in the hotel's walls are forgotten and can at last sleep, become trilobites.

Russell Falls. Mount Field National Park. April 2013. Wordless Wednesday. Everyone at Russell Falls. Mount Field National Park. April 2013.

Autumn bodyboarding #1. Calverts Beach, South Arm Peninsula. May 2013. As you know, the Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (and RSS feeds.) 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... Ridiculous Indie Rock Band Photos. An exploration of gendered book covers. Tax obscene profit levels? Mandness! The Invention of David Bowie. Autumn bodyboarding #2. Calverts Beach, South Arm Peninsula. May 2013. There’s a growing unease in modern society with the line between disease and difference. The New Yorker traces the historical roots of how we define disease – and how we gave doctors the power to decide. ‘The line between sickness and health, mental and otherwise, is not biological but social and economic,’ he writes. How is this for an opening paragraph? "This is the saddest moment in my 45 year career of studying,...

The weather may have turned, but the flowers abide. Royal Botanical Gardens, Hobart. March 2012. Tuesday again. That of course means that it is time for another Q and A stolen from Sunday Stealing! This week: The April No Fools' Meme 1. What was the last clothing item that you bought? The last time I bought clothes I actually purchased two items: a new jacket for winter and a pair of jeans. For as long as I remember, I have always worn my clothes ‘loose’, and since Christmas I have actually lost a bit of weight. These two factors have meant that my clothes are now all far too big for me to wear. Thus, there has been a significant rollover in terms of my wardrobe of late, and I expect that it will continue. 2. If you could stay one age forever, what age would you choose? I don’t like this question much because of the implications that it holds! Physically, twenty-one is a good age. The body held up well to pressure and I looked good. The brain is another matter. There remains somet...

Self-portrait with Ezra in the late afternoon. Bellerive, March 2010. I can't deny it, both my sons and I have very long legs . The late afternoon autumn sun demonstrates this most effectively. For The Foxes , Charles Bukowski don't feel sorry for me. I am a competent, satisfied human being. be sorry for the others who fidget complain who constantly rearrange their lives like furniture. juggling mates and attitudes their confusion is constant and it will touch whoever they deal with. beware of them: one of their key words is "love." and beware those who only take instructions from their God for they have failed completely to live their own lives. don't feel sorry for me because I am alone for even at the most terrible moments humor is my companion. I am a dog walking backwards I am a broken banjo I am a telephone wire strung up in Toledo, Ohio I am a man eating a meal this night in the month of September. put your sympathy aside. they say water held up Christ: to ...

Autumn on Parliament Lawns. May 2010. I know that it is Autumn, but it is feeling more like winter. I must have taken this one in the first week of May, as these trees are nearly nude now. It's kind of sexy, only the cold takes the edge off the excitement...

Parliament lawns in Autumn. May 2010. May 7. 127 days into the year. 238 days to go. 65 years since the Germans surrendered. It's my birthday and with any luck I'll be getting presents.

Sunflowers struggle outside Parliament House. February, 2010. Sunflowers always seem such an inappropriate choice out the front of Parliament House. I rather like the pansies or the daffodils myself.

It's official, Autumn is here! Here, Henry is doing an excellent impersonation of Robert Frost .

The late afternoon sun through trees devoid of foliage, and yes, that is indeed 10 Murray Street again. That building appears to follow me around wherever I go. I like the sharp patterns generated by the light through the barren limbs of trees that you find in winter and autumn. One of the real bonuses of living here in Tasmania is that we have four very distinct seasons, which always keeps things changing [just] enough to keep one sane.

No it is not a webcam, but this photograph was taken a mere forty-five ago on my way in to work. Here you can see a good old fashioned Hobart autumn morning, with the rain pelting down and me getting drenched. This one was taken on the corner of Macquarie and Elizabeth, while I was waiting for the lights to change. Come on Ampelmännchen ! Today is my wedding anniversary, an apparently I need to be showering Jen with leather -related goodies. Va-va-vaVOOM! To you Jennifer, here is a poem I wrote this very morning. Anniversary I love you i love you iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou I LOVE you I love YOU iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou I LOVE YOU iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou Happy anniversary

I like photographs involving water. I like photographs involving reflections. I like photographs involving the autumn light. I like photographs involving the morning sun. Here we have all four taken just last Thursday down in Sullivan's Cove! I am currently enjoying Timothy Gaton Ash 's excellent History of the Present . If you don't know his work, he's an academic/historian/author/journalist with a way with words. I will probably expand on my thoughts when I've finished it, but one brief comment struck me as I read it on the bus this morning. It concerns a point early on in the siege of Sarajevo. There was a bombed-out post office with a common piece of graffiti/political comment, " This is Serbia! " Apparently someone had scrawled underneath the retort, " No, you idiot, it's a post office ". I like that. It pretty much captures the sort of inanity that drives people to war, ethnic cleansing and all of the kinds of atrocities within. It'...

So we went to the beach yesterday. It was a bit overcast, and a bit too cold to swim (unless you're a Great White Shark). That didn't stop Henry demonstrate his superior penmanship in the sand. I got plenty of photos, so expect to be drip fed over the next few days.

I am a big fan of the changing of the seasons. The shift from summer into autumn - with winter peeking its head over autumn's shoulder - is a great time of year. Here you can see the mist slowly rolling over the hills at the back of Geilston Bay. Thank You Samuel Morse there was a bus there was a bus stop stop there was a bus stop stop there was a bus stop stopped stop there was a bus stop stopped dead stop there was a bus stop stopped dead stop no bus stop there was a bus stop stopped dead stop no bus stop

Today’s photo should beyond any doubt confirm that Tasmania has indeed switched into Autumn mode. This is Parliament Lawn taken this morning, shrouded in a blanket of leaves; the sun was still quite low and cast some interesting shadows through the trees. I will not lie to you, I like this time of year and don’t mind the brisk weather. Of course, I can say this that we now live in a house with great insulation and decent heating. I wasn’t really so keen when I lived in share houses. I’m sure most people have experience of an old house where you can see the sunlight outside shining in through the gaps that had opened between walls and the foundations had shifted (and feel the cold wind!). One of the great ironies of the gentrification certain suburbs here in Hobart is that the now trendy suburbs were once slums, and often the houses there were (understandably) rather shoddily built. My experience of living in Battery Point in my first year of university was that the house was not a pa...

The photo I’ve posted today was taken a two mornings ago. It was just too cold and wet to stand around today looking for a decent shot before going to work! You know it must be cold when there are barely any people around at 7:40 am on a business day. The weather has certainly turned for us down here. Only a couple of weeks ago we we're sweltering in 38 °C, today it will be lucky to crack 14 °C. What a day to forget your beanie! This shot was taken on the city side of Davey Street, looking over Sullivan’s cove. I’m not sure what you call these clouds, but no doubt it begins with a ‘c’.