This will hurt me...

Faith. St George's Church of the Martyr, Battery Point. September 2012. Wordless Wednesday.

Faith. St George's Church of the Martyr, Battery Point. August 2012. Theme Thursday and I have been busy all day. 'What AROMAS did you smell?', well might you might ask. Discontent. Anger. Resignation. The usual...

The sun also rises. St George’s Church, Battery Point; as seen from Queen Street, Sandy Bay. September 2011. A couple of books this week, of decidedly mixed resonance (and indeed esteem). First up, the good! I read John Braine’s debut Room at the Top a few weeks ago and enjoyed it very much. Set ten years from the events of that novel, Life at the Top chronicles the life and trials of Joe Lampton, a once ambitious man of humble origins who has discovered that ‘life at the top’ (well, in the upper middle classes) is not all it was cracked up to be. A fantastic snapshot of a certain time and place (England’s industrial north in the early-1960s), of a certain class consciousness (a rising proletariat and declining landed gentry) and a shifting gender and sexual politics. Life at the Top was seemingly lost in the rush of ‘angry young men’ novels that emerged in the UK in the late-1950s and seems now long forgotten. This is a shame, because it’s definitely a worthwhile addition to the ca...

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...