This will hurt me...

Stability. Hobart, February 2021. Crimes of the Father by Thomas Keneally As a lifelong and devout atheist, I've always viewed the Catholic Church through a sceptical anthropological lens. Given the very many crimes and betrayals committed in her name since the very beginning, I am often paused for thought about why anyone might remain wedded to such an organisation. It's in this spirit that I approached Tom Keneally's  Crimes of the Father . This is a meaty book that explores faith, the church and conscience. The central character - Father Frank Docherty - remains a man of faith. Both a priest and practising psychologist, his professional areas of speciality are the abused and the abusers. Through a confluence of events, Docherty is drawn into the lives of several victims of abuse by an eminent Sydney cardinal, who himself sits on a commission investigating sexual abuse within the Church. In this milieu, Keneally delves into an exploration of faith, loyalty, identity, and...

You're so vane. Corner of Brisbane and Elizabeth Street, North Hobart. July 2013. Q and A time and today I am Thinking about ... Feeling: Relaxed. Reading: After The Wall by Jana Hensel. Listening to: A history of the Vikings. Wondering: About how those Viking coped in the cold. Looking forward to: A few days of peace and quiet. Missing: Oddly enough, the early morning walks! Watching: Jen, Henry and Ezra become absorbed into the weird world of Minecraft . Why do they feel the need to bash those sheep to death with a mallet? Eating: Lots of soup. Making me happy: Doing my own thing!

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- .

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...

Three Confessions, one Exposition, a couple of Benedictions and no, I don't want any Baptisms with that. St Josephs Catholic Church, Macquarie Street, Hobart. November 2011. The Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (and My Little Pony porn). 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... Ever wonder why one in four women is on psych meds ? Ear stretching: Why is lobe 'gauging' growing in popularity ? Want to fight the man? How about you join in to the latest in trending memes: Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop ... The pill’s 50th anniversary: do we have freer sex and better managed fertility? Jürgen Habermas has had enough. He's going to save the EU or die trying! The BBC want to know just why are so many Poms leaving Australia ? Right here, near the end of 2011, it seems a good time to ask ourselves: where are women at ...

Lord won't you save me because I sure have sinned... St George's Anglican Battery Point, as seen from King Street Sandy Bay. July 2011. When I first moved down to Hobart I used to live directly opposite this church. It was lit up with spotlights all through the night and would ring its bells religiously every Sunday morning. ALL morning. Christ it was annoying.

Fare thee well, St John's Church. St Johns Park, New Town. June 2011. Last day today! One of the positives of my shifting career path will be less need to tear down Liverpool Street in the early morning trying to make the connecting bus through to New Town. The 7:48 am to Glenorchy is a far more pleasant journey, as the 8:02 generally involves a bus packed to the rafters with reeking and deafening teenage boys on their way to school. In fact, anyone who queries the likelihood of man’s evolutionary link with our ape cousins really needs to catch the 8:02 Glenorchy Express and wise up! After last week’s dismal effort, I’ve lifted my game this week and steamed through a few books. The first, The Drowned World is a 1962 sci-fi novel by J. G. Ballard that differs a little bit from most post-apocalyptic fiction. The central character, rather than being disturbed by the end of the old world, embraces the changed existence that is coming. It’s an interesting little book. Ballard has done ...

Their own cross to bear. St Johns Park, New Town. April 2011. Sunday Top Five day and what possible top five could top The Top Five Churches That I Have Been Into And Find Firmly Stuck In My Mind ? As a person of no faith [and believe me, at this point I have no faith in anything at all…] you know that a church must have something going for it to either have me going inside, let alone remember much about it. Nürnberg Frauenkirche , Nürnberg. Seriously, how could you go past a church where the Holy Roman Emperors were crowned? St. Vitus Cathedral , Praha. A spooky number located inside the castle, we were fortunate enough to see just towards the end of the restoration of the façade out front. Notre Dame de Paris , Paris. Jean de Jandun nailed it in 1323: “that most terrible church of the most glorious Virgin Mary, mother of God, deservedly shines out, like the sun among stars..." You really do have to see it to believe it. St Paul's Cathedral , Melbourne. A testament to the w...

Walking into work with the spirit of Jeebus in my heart. St Johns Park, New Town, December 2010. You know that you have graduated into a new strata of society when you miss a day of work – bit of a cold, not too bad thanks – and the next day the bus driver asks in an accusatory tone “ Where were you yesterday?

A message from above? St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne. April 2010. Of course, the bird is not a raven, but it would be far better if it were! Planning is underway to introduce Henry and Ezra to the delights of the metropolis that is Melbourne, so before too long you may well see a couple of familiar faces lurking in the corner of a similar photograph… nobody loses all the time (X) , E. E. Cummings nobody loses all the time i had an uncle named Sol who was a born failure and nearly everybody said he should have gone into vaudeville perhaps because my Uncle Sol could sing McCann He Was A Diver on Xmas Eve like Hell Itself which may or may not account for the fact that my Uncle Sol indulged in that possibly most inexcusable of all to use a highfalootin phrase luxuries that is or to wit farming and be it needlessly added my Uncle Sol's farm failed because the chickens ate the vegetables so my Uncle Sol had a chicken farm till the skunks ate the chickens when my Uncle Sol had a skun...

"The Hall", formally a church. St Johns Park, New Town. August 2010. Struggling for ideas, I dipped my toe into the Intertubes for ideas and plucked out the My Life in Films Meme . At one time in my life, I watched a lot of fillums. Now I have children, and I watch Shrek every few weeks. Feel free to steal and apply as you see fit. Films That Remind Me of Childhood Anything featuring Sylvester Stallone punching people, getting punched, or blowing things up. The brother and I were avid fans of Sly and all things Stallone. That said, I wanted Ivan Drago to triumph and demonstrate the historical inevitability of Communism. Things obviously didn’t go to plan. That said, nothing beats Rocky or Rambo at the Drive-In (remember them?) Childhood Films Where Removal was Necessary I don’t remember much about it, but I am told that there was a traumatic response to that part in The Muppet Movie where Animal eats one of the "insta-grow" pills, turning him into a giant. I bel...

Mid-morning in Winter and the sky already looks like this. New Town. August 2010. Crikey Moses, it is Theme Thursday yet again, and – all things being EQUAL – it was forty years ago today that Betty Friedan lead a US-wide Women's Strike for Equality. This strike was held to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment, which effectively gave women the right to vote in the United States. This timing inevitably causes raised eyebrows to those of us down here at the arse-end of the world .. Unrestricted women's suffrage in terms of voting rights was granted in New Zealand in the 1893! The [then] self-governing colony of South Australia granted both universal suffrage and allowed women to stand for the colonial parliament in 1895 . Upon Federation, the Commonwealth of Australia provided this for women in Federal elections from 1902 (except, of course, Aboriginal women). So that puts us Antipodeans a good twenty years ahead! Spare a thought for the...

I’ve seen the light! New Town, August 2010. I thought that I found Jesus this morning, down the back of the couch along with a hair band, a red pencil and half a dried apricot that was beginning to develop a sense of itself. Only it wasn’t Jesus, it was a rubber band. Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Enjoy the buffet on the right… Now for part XXVIII in our seemingly never-ending installment… 61. WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE TOY AS A CHILD? Perhaps the trampoline. 62. HOW MANY NUMBERS ARE IN YOUR CELL PHONE? Six. 63. DO YOU USE SARCASM? Less so now that Henry takes my “thank you for that Henry” too literally. 64. DO YOU KNOW ANYONE FAMOUS? I have met the odd person recognisable from the news, but ‘famous’? Not famous enough. 65. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN A MOSH PIT? A number of very pissy mosh pits. 66. WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A GUY/GIRL? I’m not currently looking for a guy/girl. 67. WHAT ARE YOUR NICKNAMES? I’m not sure that I have any these days. At least none that are used around me. 68. HOW...

Is that Christ in the bushes? St Johns Park, New Town, July 2010. I've been doing a lot of writing for the new job of late, churning out words by the thousands! While that's good news in some respects, it has left me a little dry by the time it comes around to thinking up things to say in the daily posts. I had been hoping for some divine inspiration, but would be content with any suggestions from the [virtual] floor...

There really is never enough time in the day. As the time stamp on this post will attest, time is something in short supply of late! Yes, yes... Theme Thursday again, and as I walk into walk I can't help but think the sun glinting off the [no doubt solid gold ] cross atop St George's Anglican Church [did you know that churches have websites now?] in Battery Point is a SIGN from upon high. Just what that SIGN signifies, I'm not sure. I suspect that it involves time, or a donkey, or maybe some kind of immaculate conception. One thing that I do know however, is that I don't know. Not knowing is a kind of knowing. Perhaps that's the SIGN. Or significance. I'll get my coat...

Fortunately St David's church spire is blocking the hideously ugly functionalist tripe of a building on the corner of Liverpool and Murray Street. Quick tip for new players: Google is your friend. If you have a question, ask Google.

I am not a man of faith, but one must admire the local Anglican hierarchy for renting out a building right next to their local HQ (pictured above) to a nightclub that features events like "topless pool" and the Tasmanian leg of the "Miss Nude Australia Quest". It's that sort of thinking that will once again locate the church at the centre of people's lives! It also represents an excellent example of value adding. You get the rent accrued through reckless debauchery , then hit the punters' guilt over all that filthy and wicked sin . Everybody wins. Next up: wet t-shirt contests in the Holy font!

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.