This will hurt me...

I'm not certain that it's still on the market. Macquarie Street, South Hobart. January 2013. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , Robert Louis Stevenson: Madness! A nice exploration of Victorian social hypocrisy with the dichotomy of outward respectability and inward lust. I also enjoy the fact that I am reading a book by the same author as Henry. B . The Glass Key , Dashiell Hammett: An enjoyable romp with convoluted set up and a sufficiently colourful cast of rapscallions, brigands and ne'er-do-wells. Not Hammett's finest writing though. Really, any time a character says something "carelessly" "cautiously" or "callously" nine times on a page, time to get a new editor! B .

Faith. Greek Orthodox Church, Antill Street, South Hobart. January 2013. The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder: A cosmic exploration into the meaning of life (and death). Heavy going for such a short novel. C+ . Extreme Animals: The Toughest Creatures on Earth , Nicola Davies: In many respects, this stands as a paean to the magnificent Tardigrade . Excellent stuff. B+ . Inside Hitler's Bunker: The Last Days of the Third Reich , Joachim Fest: The definitive text on the subject, it seems almost passée but I defy anyone to read this book and not put it down every few pages and scratch your head wondering how things ever got to where they did in Germany. Frightful. A- .

This was taken just before Ezra decided that wearing shorts at zero degrees Celsius on a cold Sunday morning was decidedly not something that he approved of...

For some reason my children resent being taken on lovely Sunday morning strolls on paths of frozen mud in the dead of winter. Bloody soft southerners!

This is the point at which Ezra decided that wearing shorts to a winter's morning stroll in South Hobart was an idea that he could not endorse any more. We turned back.

Greek Orthodox Church prepares for a new day. Antill Street, South Hobart. July 2011. Cripes, I forgot again! I am going to recycle something that I wrote in a previous comments page just to stir up the possums... It concerns the outrage that many have with regards to the issue of gay couples having children. Now, my opinion on the matter is that too many people attach far too much significance on the concept of ‘ natural ’, which seems to me itself an incredibly subjective and contestable idea rather than some immutable scientific ‘ fact ’. Yet let us not get too sidetracked on that point. My belief is essentially one that assumes the only acceptable or correct equation in this area is "man + woman = parents" is wrong. Moreover, it is such a simplistic notion that barely seems worth arguing about. Surely anybody with any experience in the world much have collected by now innumerable examples of how the "man + woman = nothing like a parent (should be)". For me - i...