This will hurt me...

This photograph is obviously an old one. How do I know? You'll note those obnoxious idiots pesky rascals wanna be pirates brave eco-warriors from the Sea Shepherds and their vessel H.M.A.S. Steve Irwin docked down at Hunter Street pier. [Note: I am not a fan of the Sea Shepherds, and I don't like whales. I also don't like dolphins. I do like Great White Sharks and Saltwater Crocodiles. I would like to see Sea Shepherds swimming with the latter two to enhance their spirituality .]

Blue sky. Blue-green water. Healthy seaweed. It can only be Seven Mile Beach in Spring. Of course, this isn't today . Today it's grey and raining. This is a weekday a couple of weeks' back. Time for the Sunday Top Five! In the wake of top international statesman imbicile Hugo 'Boca Grande' Chavez's recent attempt to rehabilitate misunderstood altruists Robert Mugabe, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the dearly departed Idi Amin, I nominate five others that the Latin American strongman moron might turn to next: 5) Yoko Ono: "The fascist, imperialist and capitalistic dogs of the West could not stand an invader from the East..." 4) Pol Pot: "Pol suffered for being little more than a cheeky chappy with a big dream from a developing country..." 3) Gary Glitter: "The Fascist, imperialist, immoral Western pigs hate Gary because of his close links with the Third World..." 2) Adolf Hitler: a challenge, I know. How about "a great patriot who ...

On a clear day here at Bellerive Beach, you can see forever .

Some time ago I posted the shocking story of the natural world in all of its brutality. It should not take a Mensa-level EQ to recognise both the severity of the initial act and the trauma that inevitably, tragically echoes throughout the lives of all parties. Shockingly , there were people on this very blog who felt the incident a simple lark , a joke , and maybe even that one party was asking for it . Unfortunately this seems the way of modern life. The moral certainties provided by institutionalised religion, the rigid hierarchies inherent under a notion of the divine right of kings and feudal serfdom, the 'traditional' family and stark gender roles have all withered away leaving a hodge-podge of post-modern, post-materialist 'values' where anything goes but everybody reserves the right to be offended and offend in equal quantities. Thankfully, the Hobart City Council are a more enlightened bunch, and they've erected these statues to recognise the horror the o...

Sometimes all seagulls need on Christmas day is a stroll along the beach and a long, wistful gaze out over the ocean. I would like to think that this seagull is ruminating on the often contradictory impulses of nature, the isolation of modern life or how to build a better mousetrap, but I'd wager it's thinking about sex like the rest of us...