This will hurt me...

Fearing the collapse of civilisation as we know it, and acutely aware of Tasmania's strategic location in terms of the forthcoming resource wars; Henry and Ezra have begun to construct a mighty fortress that shall withstand hordes of assorted barbarians, infidels, traitors, rapscallions, brigands, scoundrels, wastrels, ne'er-do-wells, blackguards, deadbeats, desperados, hoodlums, malefactors, miscreants, reprobates, ruffians, scalawags and wretches. That should keep us safe for a while...

Wrest Point Casino. Sandy Bay, October 2011. Wrest Point Casino was Australia's first legal casino – but by no means the first Australian gambling den – opening for business in Sandy Bay in February 1973. Now I’m no wowser , square , straight , puritan roundhead ; but I’m not a fan of casinos. The house always wins, and most of the punters really can’t afford to lose. If you could somehow ensure that losses only cost the mug punter I might not mind so much, but they don’t. They affect their partners, their kids and eventually you and me and everyone we know.

The track is now well and truly built. They still need to build a bridge over the creek though...

The sixth-ugliest building in Sandy Bay. Marieville Esplanade, Sandy Bay. September 2011. So I have the flu. Bravery / foolhardiness compelled me to go to work yesterday (that and a meeting that I really didn't want to have to reconvene), and it was indeed a struggle. To give you an idea, try this on for size: work up a nice little temperature and then chair a meeting in the late-afternoon (with teleconference), within which you also have to do a fair whack of the talking, as you arranged the thing. After valiantly making my way through the meeting (relatively) unscathed, the voice completely gives up the ghost in the cab on the way back to the office. Thus I find myself 'resting' at home today. Kogel mogel all around! Have you ever tried to pull to rowdy children through the delicate art of mime?

Sometimes all in life you really want to do is sit atop a giant chick on a spring and watch the heavy machinery go about its business.

Careful now, men at work. A crane as seen from the corner of Liverpool and Argyle Streets, Hobart. January 2010. I treat the discovery of somebody else’s library due date slip – now helpfully printed out by some kind of bibliophile robot – as a rare insight into the mind of somebody else. Thus, when I found tucked in the back of Vladimir Nabokov’s Transparent Things a slip from the Burnie Library, I eagerly pocketed it for my perusal. What might it tell me about the puzzling punter who had previously perused the putative plot of a perplexing pederast? Let’s have a look shall we? The Critique of pure reason The very best of Bert Kaempfert [sound recording] Water music : and, music for the royal fireworks [sound recording] Immanuel Kant’s bold – and utterly impenetrable – attempt to understand understanding , a collection of the hits of a German ‘easy listening’ orchestra leader, and GF Handel’s most famous piece paired with a suite written to celebrate the end of the War of the Austri...

Hobart: On The Go ! The view from the eastern end of Liverpool Street. December 2010. We might not quite be rivalling Shanghai when it comes to cranes, but whenever you see three cranes on the go in Hobart, you know that something is going on. This one is part of a development that will comprise a supermarket, shops, an additional 544 parking spaces for the Argyle Street car park (just what Hobart CBD needs, more cars ) and new “A-grade” office space. Whether or not there will also be a slippery dip, wholesale ball bearing emporium, underwater aquarium, Turkish baths, Finnish sauna and Liechtenstienian superstore, I am unsure.

Waiting for the bus in Campbell Street on a Friday afternoon. Hobart. July 2010. Part Three of my "too busy and thus tired this week to think up posts" meme answers! 31. WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO TELL SOMEONE HOW MUCH THEY MEAN TO YOU? Revolutionary concept that it is, how about “telling them”? 32. SAY A NUMBER FROM ONE TO A HUNDRED: Seventy. 33. BLONDES OR BRUNETTES? Curvy brunettes named ‘Jennifer’. 34. WHAT IS THE ONE NUMBER YOU CALL OFTEN? I never really ‘call’ numbers. I text Jen’s mobile a lot though. 35. WHAT ANNOYS YOU MOST? How long have we got? A lot of things annoy me. People not thinking things through or reflecting on something before shooting their mouth off really annoys me. 35. HAVE YOU BEEN OUT OF THE U.S.? I’ve never been IN the US! 36. YOUR WEAKNESSES? I could be a mite more sympathetic. I have high standards, and lack patience with those that don’t, sometimes unfairly. 37. TATER TOTS OR FRIES? Chips. 38. FIRST JOB? Delivering newspapers. 39. EVER PRANK CALLE...

Oh 10 Murray! What will I do when you're gone?!?! To console myself, we're all heading up to The Salmon Ponds for the morning. I am hoping that watching Henry and Ezra swim with the fish will brighten my spirits...

Another day, another photo taken from below on of the corners of the Hydro building. Forgive my indulgence in such shots, after endless grey skies, that expanse of blue is a sight for sore eyes!

Three buildings in a line, all showcasing the progression of office buildings across the past 150 years. This was taken on the corner of Davey and Macquarie. How about a Sunday Top Five? My Top Five Teams In The Australian Football League! 1: Essendon . The Bombers remain my team. A return to the finals was a welcome relief from a few barren years. 2: Geelong . I did enjoy their win yesterday. The Cats go about it the right way. 3: Richmond . Maybe it's pity, but I still have a soft spot for the Tigers. That said, they used to be my default soft spot team, but their sustained mediocrity ineptitude - coming up to thirty years now - has whittled away what little respect pity I have for them. 4: ... 5: [ahem] To be honest, I pretty much dislike the rest. I'm drawing a blank for any teams that I might have a positive inclination towards. The best I can give you is a list of those I don't actively dislike ; step forward Melbourne , Fremantle , Adelaide and (depending on my m...

Here we are looking up at the Hydro building one morning last week. Christ I have been busy!

Here is the corner of Kirksway Place here in Battery Point, better known as the HQ of such luminaries as the Tasmanian office of the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing; the Department of Family and Community Services; Girl Guides Tasmania; the Hobart Embroiderers' Guild Inc; and the Southern Tasmanian Spiderman Sexual Addiction Support Service. I've made one of those organisations up, but I'm not saying which one.

Another morning, another one of 10 Murray, another one of the moon in the sky. Are you sensing a pattern? I am as busy as a Marxist beaver today, the masses against the classes and all that jazz. That said, I am making headway, so HURRAH COMRADE!

Here is another of what I label my 1970s Yugoslavia photographs. More Tuzla that Sarajevo perhaps, but a wet winter's shot nonetheless. Yes it is 10 Murray again looking tired. I promised it on Wednesday , so here you can have it now: part one of Ten True Things About Me : As a lad, my favourite colour was RED. At some point, my favourite colour has shifted to BLUE. I believe that this relates to a temperamental shift, rather than any unconscious political motives. When I was in high school - a period I broadly detested, by the way - people would often say "these are the best years of your life". I do not have the words to possibly express how depressing and disheartening that was to me. Gladly, they were quite wrong. [As an aside, how miserable their own adult lives must have been!] The depth of my feelings for both of my sons surprises me on occasion. Ultimately, it is something of a relief, as I honestly wasn't too sure how I'd feel about them before they arr...

Rounded corners on a building? What witchcraft is this? Here is the corner of a building currently being erected in town. I know it has something to do with the medical research faculty of the University, but that is the extent of my knowledge. Beyond that, I am Sgt Shultz. Sunday Top Five ! Henry's Top Five Words For The Morning Bikkies Picture Hankie Crumpet Nanna

This is a house of God. Apparently. It seems he has extravagant tastes. This is St David's Cathedral - the most obscenely overblown principal Anglican church in Tasmania - which was built between 1868 and 1936. As you can see, it was built in the Gothic Revival style. Westminster Palace she ain't, but it's all we've got! A cavalcade of grizzling, sulking, wailing and everybody shouting at each other, prompted a group decision to take a road trip to Richmond this morning. As is our wont, we conducted a "roadkill challange", with the somewhat surprising result of: Possums (my tip): THREE Wallabies (Jen's tip): THREE Wombats (Henry's tip):ZERO Rabbits (Ezra's tip): FOUR As usual, Ez was the victor. I guess that we can safely declare rabbits the loser on the day.

Here is an old building down here in Salamanca that now houses luxury apartments, an art gallery, a gym and a hair salon. I'm not sure that the old crowd of convicts, prostitutes, drunken sailors, scallywags, scoundrels, reprobates, degenerates, ne'er-do-wells, rouges and rotters would be welcome around these parts any more. It’s all three hundred dollar sunglasses and designer pooches these days. I have been looking at a report that I am currently working on, and pleasantly note that I am trying to do my best to keep the use of lovely words alive and well in the sterile, mundane and (frankly) pitifully constructed word of public policy. That said, I’m not sure what the insipid automatons of the field make of me talking about ameliorating harm, adroit policy shifts, a conflation of interests, diffuse reasoning, ephemeral outcomes, eschewing simplistic solutions or indeed the preponderance of nebulous ideas set before us. I have a propinquity for beautiful words but t...

For some reason, this building above says more 1982 to me than it does 1973 . Now, 1982 I remember, and I think that it may have been slightly rubbish. Not even Eye of the Tiger or Come on Eileen could retrieve this stinker of a year. In fact, I can't help but feel that the whole of the 1980s kind of sucked. So did the 1990s for that matter. Actually, this decade needs to pull its socks up to avoid getting the thumbs down. If I'm honest, I'd have to say that it's all been downhill from 1760. Now that was a good decade.

I think that I am beginning to like 10 Murray Street. For some reason, the building's 1970s aesthetic vibe is starting to grow on me. Every time that I look up at it I feel like growing a moustache, whacking on a pair of bell bottomed slacks (brown, of course), and get myself a winged collar going on. Maybe it’s the global economic downturn or another crisis in the Middle East ™, but it all feels a bit 1973 to me. How that can be is a little strange, because of course 1973 had been done and gone a few years by the time I came along. So I turn to the world and ask: is 2009 shaping up like 1973? Is that a good or a bad thing?