This will hurt me...

Have you checked your manhole today? Long Beach Walkway, Sandy Bay. January 2012. Last week's Top Five involved the bowling line-up of players that I've seen play , so I figure this week's top five six should finish the task. Thus, The Top Five Six Batsmen I've Seen Play Cricket To Be In My Side I Was Picking A Squad To Play A Test Against A Team Of Robots Programmed To Play Cricket Really Very Well! [In Batting Order.] [Note: this team will be playing to the rules of the mid-1980s, so we're allowed plenty of bouncers. Also, the curator has been told to prepare a tasty wicket, so no flat track rubbish that you see nine out of ten in modern tests...] C.G. Greenidge S.M. Gavaskar S.R. Tendulkar I.V.A. Richards S.R. Waugh (*) A.C. Gilchrist (wk) This team is rounded out by Imran Khan, Richard Hadlee, Shane Warne, Malcolm Marshall and Curtley Ambrose. Should be tough to beat on all tracks I reckon. Just missing the cut were Brian Lara, Mohammad Yousuf, Javed Miandad, R...

Not the most comfortable place you will ever find yourself sunbathing. Excellent skipping stone fodder, however.

There is a little bit of 'gansta' about him here. He had a fall the other day, but no worries, they glued his head back together. Yes glue. Purple glue.

Metal plus seawater equals rust. Blinking Billy Point, Sandy Bay. September 2011. The Internet can be a wonderful place. The following are some things that I've had a look at in the last few days. I might call this: a Compendium of Click-throughs for Monday Morning ... A fantastic spiced cauliflower soup with yoghurt recipe that I made last night. Well worth the [little] effort. A depressingly familiar tale from Africa, How the teachers of hope I met in the Congo were brutally killed A well researched and written piece on shark nets in Australia . Conclusion? Shark nets are a placebo that happen to be a dangerous one for other wildlife. An interview with Steven Pinker about his new book that explores brutality is waning. A big call, but his thesis is that far from being the bloodiest era in human history, ours is a time when violence has been in steep decline. To end with something lighter, 50 of the World’s Best Breakfasts ! India seems a little off, but I like to the look of Ir...

Henry likes to climb. He might not have nerves of steel, but he is as limber as a mountain goat. I'm encouraging him to climb up sea cliffs, with the instruction to avoid crashing into the rocks if he falls. We have a one-hundred percent success rate thus far.

An abandoned gun emplacement and a lighthouse (in your backyard). Blinking Billy Point, Sandy Bay. May 2011. The above gun emplacement was originally intended to stop the Russians (not the Soviets, but the Russians). Yes, at the outbreak of the Crimean War the nervous folk of Van Diemens Land were quaking at the thought of the vicious Imperial Russian Navy. Alas, they were not really very interested. Which leads me to today's Sunday Top Five: My Top Five Invading Hordes That I Wouldn't Be Too Fussed By ! Finns , Sw ed es or Nor wegi ans : any Scandinavian invasion would be welcome. They're a friendly mob, and have plenty of good-looking sheilas with liberal attitudes to beach attire. I think we'd cope. Liechte nstein : let's face it, it would have to be some kind of corporate takeover by European tax exiles. The Holy Roman Empire : any 'Empire' that manages to go by such a name despite the fact that it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, must have ...

Rocks on the beach. Blinking Bill Beach, Sandy Bay. April 2011 Good news: there’s been a lot less carry on out the front of my place of work. Bad news: it is a combination of cold weather, asbestos and jack-hammering that’s chased them off. Better than rocks in your head. Blinking Bill Beach, Sandy Bay. April 2011

The life of a daredevil is never easy. Cliffs on one side; rocks, sharks and God knows what else on the other… It’s a good thing that Henry has nerves of steel.

Is it a beach or a quarry? Not quite golden sands down at Blinking Billy Beach...