This will hurt me...

I suspect that no gardener lives here. King Street, Sandy Bay. July 2011. James Wright is one of my favourite poets. I can't comment on whorehouses in Wheeling, West Virginia... In Response to a Rumor That the Oldest Whorehouse in Wheeling, West Virginia Has Been Condemned , by James Wright I will grieve alone, As I strolled alone, years ago, down along The Ohio shore. I hid in the hobo jungle weeds Upstream from the sewer main, Pondering, gazing. I saw, down river, At Twenty-third and Water Streets By the vinegar works, The doors open in early evening. Swinging their purses, the women Poured down the long street to the river And into the river. I do not know how it was They could drown every evening. What time near dawn did they climb up the other shore, Drying their wings? For the river at Wheeling, West Virginia, Has only two shores: The one in hell, the other In Bridgeport, Ohio. And nobody would commit suicide, only To find beyond death Bridgeport, Ohio.

Here you can see the world Famous [ you're reading about it, ain't ya?] Japanese Garden at the Royal Hobart Botanical Gardens. Today's Sunday Top Five encompasses other, less well known gardens: 5: the Western Samoan Garden (but you can't see it wearing those shoes) 4: the upper Angolan Garden (machetes in dirt) 3: the lower eastern Lichtenstein Garden (stamps?) 2: the F.Y.R.O.M. Garden (figure it out) 1: the People's Republic of Democratic Change in the Former Republic of Zaire Garden.

People in Tasmania store all manner of things in their front yards: cars, broken washing machines, unwanted children et cetera. In Battery Point, however, things are quite different. Ever since the suburb threw out the prostitutes and drunks was gentrified, the front gardens have assumed an air of little England circa 1907. Roses, violets and stiff upper lips reign supreme. Houses named " Charlesworth ", " Heathcliffe " and " Edgar " abound, and one assumes that the abodes simmer with firm manners, forced smiles and repressed sexuality. Occasionally though, one bucks the trend. This little split terrace features an old weather beaten plough shear not fashioned into a tank, rather a novel little perch for a concrete cockatoo. This household better be careful, I suspect that the neighbours are already preparing the giant wicker man to burn them in, lest they continue to bring down the tone of the neighbourhood....