This will hurt me...

Me! Castray Esplanade, Hobart Waterfront. September 2012. Sunday Stealing is back! The Who Are You Meme ! 1. What is your biggest pet peeve? People's general selfishness/ lack of concern for others consistently frustrates me. 2. Where and when were you born? I was born in Burnie, Tasmania in the week that Hotel California by The Eagles was top of the Billboard charts in the US. 3. Where did your parents meet? You would have to ask them that question. I assume that it was in Melbourne, Victoria. 4. Do you have any siblings? What are/ were they like in four words? I have an older brother. He was an older brother. 5. Where do you live now, and with whom? I live in Hobart with Jen, Hen and Ez. 6. What is your occupation? I like to call myself a "Policy, Research, Communications and Academic Professional". 7. Write a full description of yourself. I'm just a sore and sorry little bot who needs to be loved. 8. To which social class do you belong? ...

Corners. Castray Esplanade, Hobart waterfront. October 2012. I like looking up while standing at the corners of buildings. What can I say? Poetry , Marianne Moore I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle. Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in it after all, a place for the genuine. Hands that can grasp, eyes that can dilate, hair that can rise if it must, these things are important not because a high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because they are useful. When they become so derivative as to become unintelligible, the same thing may be said for all of us, that we do not admire what we cannot understand: the bat holding on upside down or in quest of something to eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf under a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that feels a flea, the base- ball fan, the statistician-- nor is it valid to ...

Go on then. Castray Esplanade, April 2010. It can be good advice, that found above. I am endeavouring to work up my own poem inspired by the sign, but am struggling for an appropriate final stanza. But it is today’s poem that I wish to praise. Spike gets buttonholed as a “funny man”, but he could turn out a fine bit of poetry or prose when required. I REALLY like this one, particularly those last two lines… Goodbye S.S. , Spike Milligan Go away girl, go away and let me pack my dreams Now where did I put those yesteryears made up with broken seams Where shall I sweep the pieces my God they still look new There's a taxi waiting at the door but there's only room for you

Here is a shot down Castray Esplanade, which runs down the waterfront opposite Salamanca Place. On the left there, you can see Princes Wharf Shed No 1. It acts as a car park for most of the year, but in Summer it hosts The Taste of Tasmania . I will admit that it gets a bit cramped for my style, as someone who is more comfortable with more rather than less personal space. There has long been talk of knocking it down and building something of a more modernist (or at least useful) bent, but I kind of like it the way that it is. Anyway, this is Tasmania, nothing much gets done down here, people would rather just sit around and argue!