This will hurt me...

Free advertising. St Davids Park, Hobart. July 2013. No Sunday Top Five today. I'm on strike for Fathers Day.

The view east of the bay of Geilston Bay. October 2010. Rain, rain, rain. Rain all night and it's still raining this morning. Which leads me to today's Sunday Top Five: My Top Five Songs Featuring The Word 'Rain' In The Title ! Rain , by The Beatles Have You Ever Seen the Rain , by Creedence Clearwater Revival Rainy Days and Mondays , by The Carpenters I Can't Stand the Rain , by Ann Peebles It's Raining Again , by Supertramp Just missing the cut (and in no particular order) were Blind Melon's No Rain , Garbage's Only Happy When It Rains , The Be Good Tanya's Rain and Snow , Here Comes the Rain Again by The Eurythmics, Walking in the Rain by The Ronettes and Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain by Willie Nelson. All right, what have I missed?

Life goes on. Tahune AirWalk. September 2010. Sunday Top Five! An interesting one today that I've extrapolated upon: My Top Five Tracks By Aussie Rock Legends Cold Chisel ! First, some context... I’ll admit that for a very long time Cold Chisel have existed on the periphery of my consciousness. Being from Burnie, Tasmania, you can’t help but recognise all the hits. Undeniably, I’d always quietly liked the tracks, but found the boozing image and yob fan base a little alienating. Thus, I kept my distance and stuck to more exotic (if you can call Gram Parsons and the whole West Coast Country Rock experience ‘exotic’) sounds. Thus, my real discovery of the Chisel is something of a surprise. Originating in Adelaide, Australia, they one of the most acclaimed Australian rock bands of all time, with a string of hits throughout the 1970s and 1980s and huge domestic sales, although for some reason they never could crack that overseas market in the way that contemporaries like Midnight Oil or...

The morning sun on the corner of Liverpool and Elizabeth Streets. Hobart CBD, September 2010. Inspired by regular commenter "Me", and an afternoon spend wading through the Bowie catalogue, today's Sunday Top Five seems a relatively straightforward one: Pick My Top Five Bowie Albums ! Low [1977] Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) [1980] Station to Station [1976] The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars [1972] Hunky Dory [1971] Looking upon my list, I can't help but suggest that it appears I enjoy Bowie's seventies output the best. My apologies to to you Tin Machine aficionados out there, most of whom live in Norway, I believe...

The world's ugliest concert hall? March 2010. Aove you can see the exterior of Hobart's Federation Concert Hall . Nothing says ' class like dented corrugated iron sheets! I've not been in there, but I suspect that it looks like a dog kennel, only with red velvet seats. Today is the first day after I finally managed the last day of wage slavery at the previous job, and what am I doing? Going to school!?!? It's a good thing that we're talking pre-kindergarten. I reckon that I'll ace the tests and should be able to throw my weight around the playground. Lindisfarne North Primary , here I come!

A palm tree in the dead of winter. June 2010. If you've not had the chance to get onto the new master of the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street , get out there and get your grubby little hands on it. Don't make the mistake and think that it's sloppy . It's relaxed , but dudes, it is tight . Name of a Tree , Catherine Anderson Some days I am Ana's teacher, some days she is mine. This morning, we look through her kitchen window, the one she can't get clean, cobwebs massed between sash and pane. The sky is blue-gold, almost the colour of home. Ana, I say, each winter I get more lonely. Both of us would like the sun to linger as that round fruit in June, but Ana says it's better to forget what you used to know...

The morning sun warms DHHS HQ on the corner of Davey and Murray, May 2010. In a few week's time, DHHS will be in receipt of a far brighter ray of sunshine, if you catch my drift... It's time for this week's Sunday Top Five, The Top Five Most Played Tracks On My PC Since August 2005 (According To My Last FM Profile ) The Spencer Davis Group: Gimme Some Lovin' Plastic Bertrand: Ca Plane Pour Moi Marah: Eventually Rock The Ronnettes: Be My Baby Pavement: Zurich is Stained

I'm saying all the things that I know you'll like, making good conversation. I gotta handle you just right, You know what I mean. I took you to an intimate restaurant, then to a suggestive movie. There's nothing left to talk about, unless it's horizontally. Got it yet?

If Jen, Henry and Ezra ever started a three piece post-punk combo - Jen drums, Ezra bass/vocals, Henry guitar/vocals - I'd use this photo for on the inner sleeve. Two questions remain though, what do I call the band? And, what is the album called?

Henry received a guitar for Christmas. He fancies himself as a balladeer in the vein of a John B. Sebastian or Richie Havens, but he sounds more like an incredibly drunk Bob Dylan. I see big things on his horizon.

Here is a blast from the [recent] past: Ezra tickling the ivories [ooh err missus]. I have been trying to encourage a taste for Chopin, but he is veering dangerously into honkeytonk territory. If he stays on this course, he's gonna end up playing in some flea-bitten house of ill repute somewhere in East Baton Rouge.

The clock tower at Hobart's General Post Office bathed in nice winter afternoon sunlight. We've had too little of this lately, as it's mainly been raining. Time for the Sunday Top Five! Today I am revisiting my Top Five Ever Karaoke Performances Total Eclipse of the Heart : for the amateur vocalist, the sheer overwrought emotion of Bonnie Tyler's raspy voiced paean to wandering lovers the world over is a good song for the confident (or inebriated) to belt out. Come on Eileen : a rousing, jaunty little number that harks back to the music hall. The chanting bit in the middle can rescue strugglers. The fact that there are not many words also helps. Sexual Healing : easily the most challenging of the bunch, as not many are blessed with the pipes of Marvyn Gaye. That said, the degree of difficulty makes it a triumph if pulled off, especially if the intent is to send a [ahem] message to any ladies in the audience. Suspicious Minds : you can't have Karaoke with an Elvis t...

Here is Ez spinning some discs just a couple of days ago. At the moment, he's a bit Lee "Scratch" Perry in terms of mood, and I'm hoping that he doesn't descend into Phil "Loony Tunes" Spector. At this point, I'd take Cliff Richard...

Not even one year old, and the little bloke is a virtuoso on the piano already! Like his brother before him, junior is delighting the masses with his travelling road show. That said, whereas Henry is a Lisztomaniac - all about passion , brilliance, strength and precision - Ez is all about Chopin. As a Chopin fan, Ezra is less bluster and more nuance and expressive depth: with dissonances, through dissonances, and in dissonances. Ez is all about the dissonances. Dissonances coming out of his ears. If you don't believe me, check out the video .

Following on from Henry's interpretation of Liszt's Années de Pèlerinage - as previously seen on this blog - Ezra joins him for a little duet. Aside from Ezra's masterful tinkling of the ivories, Henry showcases here a fine tenor. In fact, I dare say that he has inherited his mother's fine signing voice...

Here is a seagull looking for a place to go. I have it on good authority - an authority of distinct totalitarian bent named Henry - that this seagull's name is "Constantin", and that he is headed to Glasgow to buy a pizza. I captured this fellow down in Lindisfarne, Lindisfarne down the road from Geilston Bay, not the tidal island off the north-east English coast most famous for being sacked by angry Vikings. Given that, the pizza is most likely going to be cold by the time he gets there. Today's Sunday Top Five Ten ! My personal favourite Ten Michael Jackson tracks (in chronological order): I Want You Back ABC Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough Billie Jean Beat It Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' Man in the Mirror Dirty Diana Smooth Criminal Liberian Girl For mine, the stand out is Billie Jean (one of the all time great pop tracks), but all of them are terribly good , and come highly recommended.

Here's a Hobartian winter sunrise (when it isn't raining), for your perusal. I think that the two columns there are masts from a couple of super maxi yachts parked down in Constitution Dock. I have just heard that poor old Michael Jackson has died. As someone of the firm opinion that Whacko Jacko's work enables him to stand in the column marked Musical Genius (at least until it all started to go pear shaped . I am wondering, what do people think of the guy? Pop genius ? Kiddie Fiddler ? Tortured child trapped in a man’s body ? Punch line to a thousand jokes ?

SO the other day I promised a close up of the mountain. Here you go, with bonus cloud! In the the spirit of "running short of time and ideas", I've introduced a new theme for Sundays, the WORLD FAMOUS Sunday Top Five ! This week I start with off the top of my head a meticulously researched list of my Top Five Cover Songs : The Gourds bluegrass interpretation of Snoop Doggy Dogg's Gin and Juice manages to turn a turgid mess into a stoke of genius. A generous helping of banjo sees Marah's version of Streets of Philadelphia liven up Bruce Springsteen's laid back original. Although Marvin Gaye improved on Gladys Knight (and the Pips) I Heard It Through the Grapevine , I think that Creedence Clearwater Revival have to take a bow for taking it in a whole different direction. Love her or hate her, you have to admit that Sinead O'Connor manages to make a pretty decent single out of an ordinary Prince album track with Nothing Compares 2 U . The last spot I'm...

I took this photo back in February, down in the Salamanca district. As you can see, there are four Zebra Finches perched on the neck of what may or may not be an authentic Les Paul . The guitar was plugged in and run through a distortion pedal to an expensive stack of Marshall amps. The finches themselves were strumming out what sounded like to my ears the outro to a song I like very much: Elton John's 1972 paen to astronauts and cosmonauts the world over, Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time) . Like me, they like Elton's old stuff much better than his new stuff (by new stuff, I'm talking post-1983). Quick question to the mob though, what do you think is going on here? What's the point supposed to be?

Sometimes the morning brings with it such sunshine of which dreams are made. This sunshine presents a five minute window whereby the reflection off the McMansions on the hill renders them quite interesting (whereupon the sun shifts, and they revert to hideously ugly monstrosities that are a blight on the landscape). Fun fact of the day! I like the song Fat Bottomed Girls in an equal but opposite correlation to the song Bicycle Race . Think of it as Queen with magnets .