This will hurt me...

Crane in the mud. Geilston Bay Creek, Geilston Bay. May 2013. A linktastic Sunday Top Five today, with my Top Five Songs Recently Reconsidered By My Good Self As Actually Much Better Than I Ever Gave Them Credit For At The Time! Eclectic? Of course! Ratcat, That Ain't Bad The Housemartins, Caravan of Love The Fixx, One Thing Leads To Another Cheap Trick, Surrender Divinyls, Boys In Town

It's a long way to the top (if you want to rock 'n roll). Liverpool Street, Hobart. December 2011. A couple of books this week as we near the end of the year. These two represent numbers 98 and 99 for the year and I should finish Martin Amis's Times Arrow shortly to crack the hundred! First Love by Ivan Turgenev was first published in 1860 and concerns the memory of the narrator’s first love. I have read that the novel is regarded as a Russian 'classic' and an important book in teaching young Russians. The conclusion itself is masterfully done, not really a surprise as such, but it does force the reader to reassess what had happened up to that point. While the romantic tensions inherent in First Love might seem somewhat naive to present sensibilities, it has a restrained charm that makes it an enjoyable read. Highly recommended. The second book is Revolutionaries is a collection of reviews and essays by Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm written through the 1960s. ...

There was this guy. And there were these chickens. Oh, and there were a bunch of rabbits. So there was some kind of argument about something. I think that it was over chocolate. And eggs. T This guy's dad wasn't happy. It had something to do with fish as well. I’m pretty sure that it had something to do with loaves and fishes. Or chocolate fish eggs maybe. Anyway, the rabbits eventually must have won and these chickens got nailed to this guy. I think. Anyway, his father wanted to prove a point. Yeah, his dad wanted to prove a point and that’s why they nailed the chickens to him. Because he sinned. Or we sinned. Or maybe the chickens sinned. Or something. The father sounds like a bit of an arse really. Nailed them to a cross I think. Something like that. S o we eat chocolate eggs delivered by rabbits in bonnets and there's nothing good on TV.

Ezra woke everybody up and three am this morning, and I couldn't get myself back to sleep. Fair dinkum, I needed a crane to lift me out of bed to get ready for work. Above is a photo of the CSIRO crane down here in the Salamanca district of Hobart. I cannot confirm or deny that this crane is used to lift up whales to measure and weigh their farts (thus helping solve the global warming/cooling conundrum). My wife wasn't allowed to watch much commercial television when she was a child, so her knowledge of pop culture references is limited, to say the least. I, on the other hand, had no such limitations. Thus my head is filled with all sorts of useless interesting and informative bibs and bobs of ephemera. This affords me many opportunities to scoff and shake my head at Jen's inability to identify my subtle reworking of J.J. from Good Times DY-NO-MITE! catchphrase or humorous "someone should blow those nuns up" that evokes the very best of Ted Bullpit. Of course,...