This will hurt me...

Mount Wellington in Winter. As seen from Battery Point. June 2013. Can you guess today's Sunday Top Five ? Phaseolus vulgaris. Cicer arietinum Pisum sativum. Lens culinaris. Pisum sativum.

Wires. Quayle Street, Sandy Bay. December 2012. Sunday Stealing: The 11/11 Questions meme What is your favourite possession? Probably my camera. Do you like to read? If so, which books do you love best? I love to read. I'll read most things, so am not sure I can pin down any particular type that I "love best". My list of favourites contain a lot of dark novels, however. Do you have any pets? No. Unless you count two rug rats. What was your favourite food as a child? Is it the same now? I probably liked sausages best. I still do, but I don't think that they are my 'favourite' any more. What is your favourite thing about blogging? Interacting with people from all over the world. If you could live anywhere, where would it be? Somewhere close to the beach. What is your favourite number? Seven! Which of these things would you find hardest to give up for a year? Chocolate, reading, coffee or smoking? Reading. Without a doubt. I've ne...

Lines. East Derwent Highway, Geilston Bay. June 2012. And yes we are continuing our slog through the Q and A shamelessly stolen from Sunday Stealing. This week, The Imaginary Meme, Part Four 61. Ocean or pool? It depends on the weather. If it’s too cold I am heading to the pool. 62. Fridays or Ruby Tuesdays? Fridays, although I don’t mind The Rolling Stones. 63. Did you want to go to college? Again? I wouldn’t rule it out, but it is probably a longshot. 64. What did you buy last time at a mall? Some presents for Ezra. 65. Which close friend have you known the longest? It depends on how you define ‘close’. Probably my wife. 66. Why do you like the music you do? Because it makes me feel something that I like feeling. 67. Do you read much? I read all the time. I love reading. 68. Favourite country? At the moment I have a hankering for Finland. 69. What is something you wish you were better at? Tranquillity. 70. What’s your favourite album/ CD? This is a v...

Me and my shadow. Quayle Street, Sandy Bay. May 2012. Another Q and A, you say? Sunday Stealing, you ask? Why yes, this week, it's Part Two of the Get Out of Jail Free Meme! (And appears to have been written by someone with low literacy levels...) 21. Has there ever been anyone that now you regret meeting? There has been more than a few of these. Charlatans, timewasters and generally anyone with dishonest intent. There are a few of them about. 22. What's the last film you saw? Would you recommend it? It was Disney’s Peter Pan . If you have kids, I’d recommend it. It kept them transfixed throughout, so on that score it is a winner. I’m not sure why Peter needed that ‘moms, pops and apple pie’ accent though. It grated with me. 23. Would you rather have roommates or live alone? Why do people say ‘roomates’ when I assume that they mean ‘housemates’ or ‘flatmates’? Or do people in the US actually continue to share rooms into adulthood? No wonder people are always sh...

A little something in another something. Quayle Street, Sandy Bay. January 2012. I had the privilege of taking the full group of kids out for their warm up jog at Auskick training yesterday afternoon/ evening. I consider my rigorous training methods a success, given that I had a good fifteen or so 5 and 6 year old kids reduced to wheezing lumps prostrate on the turf afterwards! Henry, of course, was spritely and smiling, having had the good fortune to have undergone a brutal, systematic, Soviet-style training regime since he was six weeks old. If only he could kick... Sad Steps , Philip Larkin Groping back to bed after a piss I part thick curtains, and am startled by The rapid clouds, the moon's cleanliness. Four o'clock: wedge-shadowed gardens lie Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky. There's something laughable about this, The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart (Stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs ...

The succulent's edge. Quayle Street, Sandy Bay. January 2012. This Blinding Absence of Light by the Moroccan writer Tahar Ben Jelloun is a very dark book, in more ways than one. Its narrative is essentially a reconstruction based on the testimonies of the former inmatse at Tazmamart, a Moroccan secret prison for political prisoners that operated with the harshest of conditions. A hole in the middle of the desert, Tazmamart was a place where prisoners were give us subsistence level of food and water to keep them a live, but deprived them of every aspect of life, including that of light. Thus, we the reader are primarily left with the voice of a solitary prisoner, a voice all the more powerful for being draped in darkness. As one might expect, there is a starkness to the crystalline, pared-down prose. The author certainly rises to the challenge of maintaining interest in such a limited environment and utter hopelessness facing those characters held here. Thus we are treated t...

Day of the Triffids? Quayle Street, the Battery Point/ Sandy Bay border. February 2012. A blue sky? It's been a few days since we saw one of those... Full Moon and Little Frieda , Ted Hughes A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket - And you listening. A spider's web, tense for the dew's touch. A pail lifted, still and brimming - mirror To tempt a first star to a tremor. Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the hedges with their warm wreaths of breath - A dark river of blood, many boulders, Balancing unspilled milk. 'Moon!' you cry suddenly, 'Moon! Moon!' The moon has stepped back like an artist gazing amazed at a work That points at him amazed.

Rusty hinge on an old door. Quayle Street, Sandy Bay. December 2011. The Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (and photos of awkward families looking awkward). 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... Reuters have compiled their best photos of the year 2011 ... A fan of classical painting? You'll love Ugly Renaissance Babies then... One for cricket buffs: Which was the most dominant Test side ever? The decline and fall of the Kodak empire ... There is also this fantastic exploration of feminism in 2011 that explores the divides within the female sex . It's a long one, so set aside some time... More heavy reading: a postmortem of the British riots ... On those riots, the Guardian has been running an extended series that has been quite interesting, this one in particular drew my eye: about the women who rioted , and how they d...

Puddle on Quayle Street. Sandy Bay. September 2011. I reckon that I have read George Orwell’s Animal Farm at least a half-dozen times. Indeed, I have studied and taught the bugger at University! Thus, writing this review should be relatively straightforward. An allegorical short novel first published in 1945 (although written in 1943–44), the book alludes to the Russian Revolution, the Western invasion of Soviet Russia in 1918, the Russian Civil War and the strengthening of Stalin before World War II. The novel explores the corruption of revolutionary ideals by its leaders but also how indifference, ignorance and myopia of the people undermine any possibility of a Utopia. Orwell's achievement is immense with this book, the best introduction to the political history of the Soviet Union 1917-1943 [all achieved with pigs, horses, sheep and other assorted animals]. A top read, and always one that leaves me regretting that he never had the chance to do a sequel that explored the post-...