This will hurt me...

Cold seagull. Constitution Dock, Hobart waterfront. July 2013. Sunday Top Five Dear oh dear. Bugger me.

Coming back in. Constitution Dock, Hobart. July 2013. I like Elizabeth Bishop as a poet. She has a nice touch. One Art , Elizabeth Bishop The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster, Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. - Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look l...

Boats at rest. Constitution Dock, Hobart. July 2013. The Vikings , Kenneth W. Harl: One of my first forays into the audiobook world, Harl takes us through everything that you could possibly want to know about Vikings. An interesting - albeit weighty - diversion. B . The Tiny Wife , Andrew Kaufman: An odd little book that tries just a little too hard to be odd. Redeemed somewhat by a nice twist. C .

Shag on a buoy. Constitution Dock, Hobart. July 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... Schools of economic thought explained as bumper stickers. The World Inside a Camera. Candidate Obama debates President Obama. A Point of View: Is democracy overrated? How does a nation heal itself?

H: "Are you enjoying your dolphin sandwiches Ezra?" E: "Dolphin and Vegemite, Henry."

Boat. Sullivan's Cove, Hobart Waterfront. May 2012. Two books this week, perhaps best read as a pair. First up is 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. A publishing sensation, this is a collection of letters shared between a little-known, middle-aged American writer and the staff of Marks & Co, an antiquarian bookshop in London over two decades – from Britain’s post-war austerity to the Swinging Sixties. As such, it is an interesting document of the special relationships that can develop over a love of books. Slight, but charming. Recommended. Second up is the companion piece, Duchess of Bloomsbury Street . Essentially the diary of Hanff's first trip to London after the success of the first book,it catalogues her meeting a cast of characters the book has thrown into her life. While it's an enjoyable experience to see the effect of unexpected literary success, I found Hanff herself a reasonably annoying protagonist. Only for those who really need the closure...

The cold, cold water. Franklin Wharf, the Hobart waterfront. June 2012. Forgive me, for I am in one of those "what really is the point" kind of mood this week. Nomenclature , Alan Dugan My mother never heard of Freud and she decided as a little girl that she would call her husband Dick no matter what his first name was and did. He called her Ditty. They called me Bud, and our generic names amused my analyst. That must, she said, explain the crazy times I had in bed and quoted Freud: "Life is pain." "What do women want?" and "My prosthesis does not speak French."

BIG HENRY!

'73 in St Tropez Hobart docks in the springtime. Constitution Dock, October 2011. It's like the oil crisis all over again! Fixed Ideas , Kenneth Slessor Ranks of electroplated cubes, dwindling to glitters, Like the other pasture, the trigonometry of marble, Death’s candy-bed. Stone caked on stone, Dry pyramids and racks of iron balls. Life is observed, a precipitate of pellets, Or grammarians freeze it into spar, Their rhomboids, as for instance, the finest crystal Fixing a snowfall under glass. Gods are laid out In alabaster, with horny cartilage And zinc ribs; or systems of ecstasy Baked into bricks. There is a gallery of sculpture, Bleached bones of heroes, Gorgon masks of bushrangers; But the quarries are of more use than this, Filled with the rolling of huge granite dice, Ideas and judgments: vivisection, the Baptist Church, Good men and bad men, polygamy, birth-control . . . Frail tinkling rush Water-hair streaming Prickles and glitters Cloudy with bristles ...

HEY!!! Who stole my motorbike?

They only come out at night. Elizabeth Street Pier, looking Northwest towards the mountain. June 2011. The problem of memory. When we remember, what is it that we are remembering? Are we remembering it as it is (was), or are we remembering is as we would have liked it to be? Obviously we remember it as we remember it, which is not the same thing as it was (is). So is memory an act of reconstruction? When we reconstruct, we are bound to smooth out the edges, fix the loose seams a little bit. We reconstruct with the benefit/ deficit of hindsight. The 'in-between' bit - our experiences between the initial act, incident or occasion and our reconstruction - must inevitably influence the act of reconstruction. Hmmmm.

Green means...? Constitution Dock, Elizabeth Street Pier, July 2011. When my children are awake there is always noise. Such noise. Such very much noise. And the noise is never limited to one direction or angle. It moves. It rebounds. It echoes. It peaks and it troughs (and it peaks again). It's bickering and arguing like drunks at 3 am outside your window. It's broooom -ing and wiiirrrr -ing like a pair of fourth-rate Michael Winslow impersonators gurning through Police Academy 16. It's the screech of a banshee and the moan of a million zombies seeking out brains. Then they sleep.

Ezra’s first upskirt upshorts pic!