This will hurt me...

The park isn't all fun and games. Sometimes we go there and ponder our own mortality.

Just your standard old house on New Town Road. New Town, November 2010. Oh please of please give me a weekend free of rain... New Magic , by Kenneth Slessor At last I know—it’s on old ivory jars, Glassed with old miniatures and garnered once with musk. I’ve seen those eyes like smouldering April stars As carp might see them behind their bubbled skies In pale green fishponds—they’re as green your eyes, As lakes themselves, changed to green stone at dusk. At last I know—it’s paned in a crystal hoop On powder-boxes from some dead Italian girl, I’ve seen such eyes grow suddenly dark, and droop Their small, pure lids, as if I’d pried too far In finding you snared there on that ivory jar By crusted motes of rose and smoky-pearl.

Sometimes a man just has to decide which side he's on , and march in that direction!

Can you believe it? They can DANCE ! Home, Geilston Bay. November 2010. Four books this week, and all good ‘uns! The first is a short novel –perhaps better known as a film – from a master of Czech literature Bohumil Hrabal Closely Observed Trains . Set in [then German-occupied] Czechoslovakia in 1945, the war is turning against the Germans and the presence of the Red Army looms not too far away. The story focuses on the life of one train controller, who has just be released back to work after an unsuccessful suicide attempt in the wake of a little premature ejaculation-incident. So straightforward then. The ever-approaching war soon means that the morning trains arrive at noon, the noon trains in the evening, and the evening trains during the night, so that now and then it might happen that an afternoon train came in punctual to the minute, according to the timetable, but only because it was the morning passenger train running four hours late. For such a short novel, Hrabal crams in a

As a rule, Ezra likes to do three thousand push-ups before hitting the water for a sail. Henry is a burpee man. Fifteen hundred burpees a day, to be precise.

A rabbits eye view of things. St Johns Park, New Town. November 2010. Quiz time! To conquer the material world, human beings transformed themselves into disciplined purposive agents, and society into a bureaucratised and administered system. There is a unity of the 'autocratic' ego with the unity of instrumental reason and both, in association, impose an abstract, forced unification on the 'heterogeneous', the 'different', and 'the Other'. Psychologically, toward the inside, the autocratic ego represses the 'polymorphous perversity' of an individual's instinctual make-up to forge a unified self. Toward the social, the outside, the same 'ego' imposes a grid of instrumental reason that maps the diversity and particularity of external nature in order to control and manipulate it. The reification of external nature and the reification of internal nature, thus entail each other. What am I talking about here?

It should be no surprise that Henry can be seen sporting a t-shirt with an apple on it. Henry you see is a self-confessed appleholic . They say that an apple a day keeps the doctor away. What do you think five apples a day will do to the medical profession? Seriously, we’re looking into leasing some orchard space just to keep up with his habit.

Things are looking up at the Theatre Royal. Campbell Street, Hobart. November 2010. Lists and numbers, numbers and lists. Off the top of my head, here is a four by four [4 X 4]: Four Movies I Could Watch Again and Again: The Thin Red Line Flying High (US title: Airplane ) The Outlaw Josey Wales Finding Nemo Four Authors I Enjoy: Ernest Hemingway Heinrich Böll Pat Barker Andrey Kurkov Four Places I Have Travelled To: London Berlin Prague Stanley Four of My Favourite Foods: Pizza Gulyás Hot chips Cheese!

Dear sweet little Ezra™ here demonstrates extreme grace under pressure. In this photo, you can see the tiny troubadour [you got a better alliteration?] exhibit profound self-control at young Master Will’s second birthday party. Mere inches from Ezra’s paws sat a lush chocolate birthday cake adorned with a couple of trains. If only all children have such willpower!

I rarely see any action inside. East Derwent Highway, Geilston Bay. November 2010. My Computer Meme! Which do you prefer laptop or desktop? I use both. The grunt of a good desktop is nice, as is a big screen. If I’ve lot’s of typing, the desktop is also superior. However, the laptop good for browsing in bed. Surfing the net while on the dunny is also easier with a laptop. My answer? Depends on the task! How many computers do you have in your home? Four, although only three are set up. In terms of ‘ready to go’ – one desktop PC and two laptop Macs. Wireless Internode Extreme ADSL2+ means we’re connected 24/7! Where do you keep it? Desktop = in the living room (to the side); Laptop [x 2] in the bedroom. PC or Mac? I use both every day, but at heart, I am very much a PC man through and through. Make? Ummmm. My brother made it. What is your processor? Intel (??) How much Ram do you have? 2 gigs. How much hard disk? 250 gigs, although I’m permanently running a terabyte drive off the side t

Six million, three hundred and thirty-three thousand, two hundred and eleven. Six million, three hundred and thirty-three thousand, two hundred and twelve. Six million, three hundred and thirty-three thousand, two hundred and thirteen. Six million, three hundred and thirty-three... Hang on a tic, we'll be here a while.

Wasp or bee? You decide! Geilston Bay, November 2010. Just like this bee (or is it a wasp?), I like lavender. Other things I like? Tulips. Oliebollens. The sound of waves. Swimming in a rainstorm. The colours generated by a low-hanging sun on a summer's evening. The delicate caress of a beautiful woman while the grasshoppers chirrup away outside. Winning. What is it that you like?

[Please note: no poisoned apples were used in the construction of this photograph.]

The Picton River rages. Tahune State Forest, September 2010. The Picton is not quite the raging torrent that the Australian selectors find themselves in today - you know you're in trouble when a grown adult who 'earned' a million bucks last year for i) not spinning the ball, and ii) getting hit for sixes has his dad doing your public whining for you - but an impressive little river nonetheless. Today's topical Sunday Top Five ? Five People Who Deserve To Be Picked In The Australian Test Team Ahead Of Dreadful "Spinner" Nathan Hauritz! Xavier Doherty. Bob "Dutchy" Holland. Dirt Girl (from Dirtgirlworld). That homeless guy I see drunk and staggering up Elizabeth Street each morning. That little Quentin bloke. You know the little fellow I mean. Squeaky voice. Stunted limbs. Smokes a lot of dope (allegedly). Yeah, him. I think that he's Ray Martin's love child through Jeannie Little. He deserves a run trundle.