This will hurt me...

The statue of Abel Tasman stoically looks upon the Dutch flag on a sunny Hobart day. Of course, this morning it is raining yet again, and Abel is enjoying the chance to have the bird poo washed off his lovely Lutjegasti head. Abel seemed like a good bloke, even if he was a bit of a suck. Upon being the first European to stumble upon this fine island, he promptly named it Van Diemen's Land , in honour of his boss – Anthony van Diemen – head honcho of the Dutch East Indies, a bloke with big dreams and deep pockets who had visions of a grand Dutch empire that would extend into the “Great Southern Land”. So he sent Abel down here in 1642, a good year for most not named Charles I. Despite its obvious charms, the Dutch didn’t think much of the joint. Lazy buggers, the Dutch East India Company reckoned Tasman's explorations were a letdown: he had neither found a promising area for trade nor a useful new shipping route. With no existing thriving communities to leach upon – the Dutch (a...

Pebbles. Water. Sunlight. I think that's all you need to have something halfway interesting. I took this one down in Salamanca, it's part of the statue/fountain combination dedicated to Abel Tasman and the Mighty Dutch Empire plucky little Koninkrijk der Nederlanden . Time for Sunday Top Five! Five Things Better Than The English Cricket Team Henry's toilet nous: we had another poo this morning. Ezra's standing abilities: not much falling over these days. Studly North West Coast swing bowlers: Hilfenhaus is the pick of the bowlers. How the poms wish that they could call up some Tasmanians! (Given that the past two English captains are South African, you wonder why they don't.) West Indian Scab Cricketers: the motley crew of strikebreakers are trouncing Bangladesh, and would no doubt wallop the pride of England (and Wales). Turnips: turnips are better than the English cricket team. Trust me.

Here one can see the Dutch ships Heemskerck and Zeehaen battling through the notorious Southern Ocean. Of course, this is but a re-creation, as no photograhs survive of Abel Tasman's little holiday down south in 1642. I think that they got wet and mouldy. Or something. I occasionally wonder what might have happened if the Dutch got serious about settling Tasmania and crowded the Poms out. Given their tendency to set up plantations for cash crops in Indonesia, maybe they were too lazy to get their hands dirty and make a go of it in a sparsely inhabited land like ours. Perhaps it's a good thing though, as clogs give me blisters and I’m not the biggest fan of herring. That said though, tulips are lovely and grow rather nicely down here, we get plenty of wind for windmill-related hi-jinks. So maybe we missed out. Maybe the Dutch could have sent out some tall blonde women instead of all those filthy convicts and we could be cruising on bicycles through an immaculate red light ...