This will hurt me...

Police HQ. Corner of Liverpool and Argyle Streets, Hobart. April 2011. Three books this week, and all rather good. Reading in the Dark is Irish poet Seamus Deane’s first. The novel is set in Derry, Norn Iron Northern Ireland and explores the fractured nature of identity, religion, memory and family. Indeed, a working title could well have been Secrets and Lies … Narrated from the point of view of a young Catholic boy, the novel is constructed from a series of vignettes that are dated and run in chronological order. However, the heart of the plot includes a number of unspoken family secret events dating back to the Irish Civil War and the bloody partition of 1923. Of course, such a setting presents some decent grist for the mill of a novelist. Thankfully Deane makes the most of it. This is a heartbreaking novel, all the more so when you realise that it could just as well be called a ‘memoir’, as events mirror Deane's upbringing. It can get a bit confusing at times, but that happen...

Caught by the fuzz. February, 2010. Why is it that I feel guilty whenever I am around police? I never do anything wrong, and I generally have a positive attitude towards them. Perhaps it is my reptilian brain actively repressing something... Happy As The Day Is Long , Edward Taylor I take the long walk up the staircase to my secret room. Today's big news: they found Amelia Earhart's shoe, size 9. 1992: Charlie Christian is bebopping at Minton's in 1941. Today, the Presidential primaries have failed us once again. We'll look for our excitement elsewhere, in the last snow that is falling, in tomorrow's Gospel Concert in Springfield. It's a good day to be a cat and just sleep. Or to read the Confessions of Saint Augustine. Jesus called the sons of Zebedee the Sons of Thunder. In my secret room, plans are hatched: we'll explore the Smoky Mountains. Then we'll walk along a beach: Hallelujah! (A letter was just delivered by Overnight Express-- it contained not...

I have no idea what this car is trying to say. I assume that it is some allusion to police corruption of some kind, but I don't really get it. I imagine that it is very very funny if you understand it, but I don't understand it. Another thing I don't understand is why the header on this blog is playing up. Rest assured that I am on the case and hope to have it sorted ASAP.

Someone has been pulled over by the fuzz. I wonder what they did? I was thinking the other day (always dangerous). I was thinking that in order to bridge the gap between what one thinks one knows, and what one knows , one must know what one thinks , and one must know what one knows and - more importantly - doesn't know . That's the trouble, don't you think?

Here is a photo of Tasmania Police's Hobart HQ right in the middle of town. Following on from the earlier post, ABC radio have had a story on loop all day saying how I have “ criticised ” Tasmania Police’s decision to utilise sniffer dogs at an upcoming music festival. I guess that I have, but I thought that what I offered was far more constructive than. I’d like to think that I have an excellent working relationship with the local constabulary. I certainly think that they do a good job more generally. But the thing with the gigs and the sniffer dogs is that it just isn’t very effective. The ABC quoted Tasmanian Police as saying they have a “no tolerance” rule for all drug users at the festival, but that doesn’t fit with how they deal with drug users in a general sense. Public policy is not a neat, simple business, and it generally doesn’t fit with black and white visions of how things work, so in this sense, I don’t envy the police when it comes to something like drug use. The law...