This will hurt me...

ANOTHER brick in the wall? Retaining wall, Royal Botanical Gardens, Hobart. April 2012. Theme Thursday. CONNECTIONS. associations links acquaintances agents allies associates contacts. go-betweens intermediaries mentors messengers networks. correlation correspondence intercourse nexus partnership relationships. Everything is CONNECTed. Nothing works.

I’m not aware of any such services in the building! Mayfair Plaza car park, Sandy Bay. December 2011. Three books finished this week, a Russian, Hungarian and American walked into a bar authors all represented. First up is A Russian Affair by Anton Chekhov, a collection of five short stories all about love. Writing in the nineteenth century, Chekhov has a reputation for mastery of the short story form, so I was really looking forward to reading it. As a collection, A Russian Affair gives us a fair insight into Chekhov’s style, which has aged remarkably well and combines both an ease to with real emotional depth. Obviously, it represents a small sample of what Chekhov has to offer, but if you’re after a taste of his work, you could do far worse than this exploration of the emotional complexities of love. Recommended, especially if you are keen on quality short fiction. Second up is Detective Story by Hungarian Nobel Laureate (and author of one of my favourite books , Fatel...

Laneway. Just off Russell Street, Sandy Bay. November 2011. Theme Thursday today brings a lot of promise. TOMORROW, you see. There is always TOMORROW. TOMORROW offers all the opportunities in the world. Whatever happens today, TOMORROW awaits. TOMORROW it might not rain. TOMORROW I might stay dry. TOMORROW I will start losing weight. TOMORROW I will get myself fit. TOMORROW I educate myself, smarten up, tart up and address all of those niggly little things that have constrained me up to this point. TOMORROW I will quit drinking so much coffee. TOMORROW I stop eating all that junk. TOMORROW I will tidy up my desk and finish up that work that’s been hanging around for weeks. TOMORROW I will walk more upright, look people in the eye and tackle everything with 110 percent. TOMORROW I will be more attractive to the opposite sex, smell better, smile better, run faster, leap higher, swim further and sing in a more harmonious voice. TOMORROW I will be a more generous tipper, lover, brother, h...

All in all it’s just another… something or other. A brick wall. New Town Road, New Town. April 2011. Crikey Moses, it’s Sunday again, and I’m stuck for another Sunday Top Five. As such, I turn to the trusty old CIA world fact book for advice… First up, the TOP Five Countries Expenditure As A Percentage Of Gross Domestic Product (Where GDP Is Calculated On An Exchange Rate Basis, That Is, Not In Terms Of Purchasing Power Parity) ! Iraq: 8.55% Jordan: 8.60% Qatar: 10.00% Saudi Arabia: 10.05% Oman: 11.40%

#35 of a series that is never used. An abandoned car park. Campbell Street, Hobart, October 2010. Who knew that number 35 was so important? Did you know that…? 35 is the sum of the first five triangular numbers, making it a tetrahedral number. 35 is a centered cube number, a pentagonal number and a pentatope number. 35 is a highly cototient number, since there are more solutions to the equation x - φ(x) = 35 than there are for any other integers below it except 1. There are 35 free hexominoes, the polyominoes made from six squares. Since the greatest prime factor of 352 + 1 = 1226 is 613, which is obviously more than 35 twice, 35 is a Størmer number. All I know is Rule 35 of the Internet!

The corner of an old church (or was it a theatre)? Campbell Street, Hobart. September 2010. In the interests of brevity, here are thirty questions with one word responses! 1. Where is your cell mobile phone? Desk 2. Describe your boyfriend/girlfriend wife? Magnificent! 3. Your hair? Brown 4. Your mother? Franny 5. Your father? BAH! 6. Your favourite item? Hmmmm 7. Your dream last night? Sex 8. Your favourite drink? Juice 9. Your dream car? Automaton 10. The room you are in? Bright 11. Your ex? Who? 12. Your fear? Forgotten 13. What do you want to be in 10 years? Calm 14. Who did you hang out with last night? Missus 15. What you're not? Starry-eyed 16. The last thing you did? Type 17. What are you wearing? Corduroy 18. Your favourite book? Countless 19. The last thing you ate? Apple 20. Your life? Duty 21. Your mood? Intemperate 22. Your friends? Select 23. What are you thinking about right now? Thighs 24. Your car? None 25. What are you doing at the moment? Thinking 26. Your summ...

Wall in Battery Point, September 2009 . Look at that wall will you? Just look at that shoddy workmanship. Bloody convicts. No wonder they got sent off to the other end of the world... Tasmanians are a funny mob when it comes to convicts. You are probably aware that one of the primary reasons for the British settlement of Australia was the establishment of a penal colony far, far away to send their overabundance of criminals. Over the whole period of transportation of convicts, over 165,000 rapists, murderers, handkerchief thieves were dispatched to Australia. For us Tasmanians, we have an extra-special relationship with these vile scum pesky miscreants. You see, the soft, feeble and indolent New South Welch-people decided that the vilest, smelliest and foulest criminals would be better suited to somewhere else, away from them. Thus, a new penal colony was established in Van Diemen's Land! All those buggerers perverts cannibals kiddie fiddlers Irish prisoners who were unable to...

Concrete, bricks, leaves, grass, trees... We've got the makings of a town here! This photo was taken down near the blubber pots here on Salamanca Lawns. As canny readers will have already noted (see the "Currently Reading" section on the side bar), I am very much enjoying Chinua Achebe's thoroughly excellent Things Fall Apart , years later than I first intended! If you've not already, pick it up. Aside from a general Molly Meldrum-esque "do yourself a favour" [and doesn't that pinpoint me in cultural, geographical and temporal place?] I thought it would be nice to share a thought that resonated with me from the text: "No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man. He was like the man in the song who had ten and one wives and not enough soup for his foo-foo ." On that score, it shames me to say that I am not much a man! It's a great read thoug...

The last of my trio of walls is now posted. Here you can see the winning combination of red brick and sandstone! I like the subtle interplay of colour here. So there are the three. Now I want you guys to tell me which is your favourite. I know which one I am presently leaning towards, but wouldn't mind an idea of what people think.

So here is number two in my planned trifecta of textures. Yes, it's some worn old red bricks, and no, not the same red bricks that I featured last October . These red bricks are on the side of a shop, and at some point must have had an advertisment or mural painted on them. I'm not sure if the degraded brickwork is because of time, or a hurried job to clean off the paint. There are some interesting gouges in the bricks themselves, but I've no idea who (or what) left them there. After reading the past couple of day's newspapers, I have developed a theory: Sharks!