This will hurt me...

Kelp gull on wing. Derwent foreshore, Lindisfarne. August 2013. Wordless Wednesday.

Coming back in. Constitution Dock, Hobart. July 2013. I like Elizabeth Bishop as a poet. She has a nice touch. One Art , Elizabeth Bishop The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster, Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. - Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look l...

Boat race? The Derwent Estuary, as seen from Napoleon Street, Battery Point. July 2013. Theme Thursday ? SPACE? Object. ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ →                                                                        ← ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ Object.

Sunrise on the Derwent. Hunter Street, Hobart. June 2013. Don't kill. It's not nice. How to Kill , Keith Douglas Under the parabola of a ball, a child turning into a man, I looked into the air too long. The ball fell in my hand, it sang in the closed fist: Open Open Behold a gift designed to kill. Now in my dial of glass appears the soldier who is going to die. He smiles, and moves about in ways his mother knows, habits of his. The wires touch his face: I cry NOW. Death, like a familiar, hears And look, has made a man of dust of a man of flesh. This sorcery I do. Being damned, I am amused to see the centre of love diffused and the wave of love travel into vacancy. How easy it is to make a ghost. The weightless mosquito touches her tiny shadow on the stone, and with how like, how infinite a lightness, man and shadow meet. They fuse. A shadow is a man when the mosquito death approaches.

Shot Tower. Bonnet Hill, Hobart. May 2013. Still going on the Sunday Stealing Q and A: The 5000 Question Meme Continues... Part Six 131. Can you identify any of the following lyrics? A: Nothing to kill or die for... John Lennon's Imagine , one of the more absurd records ever made. B: Late comings with the late comin' stretcher... A far more likely scenario! 911 is a Joke by Public Enemy. C: I could make a film and make you my star... I'm going to have to plead ignorance on this one. Shot Tower, from the inside. Bonnet Hill, Hobart. May 2013. 132. Are you worried about North Korea? Not in the slightest. Until it's confirmed that they had an apocalyptic religious nutjob in charge, they're not much of a threat. They don't even have air cover! 133. Would you rather be a world political leader or a talk-show host? Neither, really. If you held a gun to my head: give me the talk show. 134. Have you ever given someone a love letter that you wr...

Two little boats. Long Beach, Sandy Bay. February 2013. Today's Sunday Top Five is a very special one. Yes, it is Events That You Can Only Celebrate In May! May 7: C'mon . Don't make me say it ... May 9: National Lost Sock Memorial Day May 10: Clean Up Your Room Day May 29: End Of Middle Ages Day May 30: My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It Day

Walking to work. Murray Street, looking out over Sullivans Cove. March 2013. Wordless Wednesday.

So you go through here... Fossil Cove. February 2013. To celebrate today's Sunday Top Five I thought that I'd offer up My Top Five Sentences Found At The Beginning Of The Third Paragraph Of Page 73 In Books That I Can Reach From My Bed! "On 7 March, Hitler signed the directive." "Use an immersion blender to purée the soup in the pot, but only partially; leave some of the mushroom chunks intact." "The boy squatted in the mouth of the cave watching the sun disappear behind the mountains and deep shadows gliding across the valley floor." "That's a horse," I protested; "not a locomotive." "His caresses were so delicate that they were almost like a teasing, an evanescent challenge which she feared to respond to as it might vanish." I shall leave it to you, dear reader, to figure out which selection belongs to one of A Spy In The House Of Love , The Second World War , Bring The Jubilee , I Am The Cla...

The last races of the season. Boats on the Derwent Estuary, as seen from the rocks at the bottom of Bellerive Bluff. February 2013. I shall plead for your forgiveness on today's post. The dual forces of illness, work deadlines and the unwavering challenge of two loud children have made it a little too hard of late...

Eastern Shore entrance on the old Hobart Bridge . Rose Bay. December 2012. What's to Become of the Boy: Or, Something to Do with Books , Heinrich Böll: A brief memoir of a boy's life in Köln in the years immediately following the Nazi seizure of power. An interesting angle of the coming of age tale. B . The Stranger , Albert Camus: It's hard to believe that I've managed to avoid the classic exemplar of the existential novel this long. I feel silly about doing so. A+ . End of a Mission , Heinrich Böll: Extremely funny, in a quiet, dry sense. As usual with Böll, a fantastic tale with fully realised characters. I loved it. A- .

Flowers. Bellerive Bluff, Bellerive. September 2012. A special Christmas Sunday Top Five today: My Five Favourite Kids Books That Venture Into Slightly Uncomfortable Territory But Impress The Children Immensely From 2012! Whatever , William Bee Tadpole's Promise , Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross Duck, Death and the Tulip , Wolf Elrbruch The story of the little mole who knew it was none of his business , Werner Holzwarth Poo: A Natural History of the Unmentionable , Nicola Davies and Neal Layton

We need a bigger boat. The Derwent Estuary, as seen from Bellerive. November 2012. The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham: Fantastic premise slightly undermined by sloppy execution. The great set up is spoiled by too many lengthy, turgid monologues. That said, the central theme (i.e. human/ species 'nature', survival and society) is a powerful one, and the conclusion (albeit somewhat predictable) delivers. C .

Destiny calls!

Tasman Bridge, Eastern Shore side. Hobart. October 2012. A Burnt-Out Case , Graham Greene: Faith, belief and unbelief. And lepers. A bleak and miserable cast of characters in deepest, darkest Africa ponder the existence of God. B . The Sixties , Lesley Jackson: A nice big book that concentrates on the design and architecture of the 1960s, this book traces the transition from the 1950s "Contemporary" design to the geometry of "the look" and styles that proliferated throughout the 60s to the proto-high tech developments of the 1970s. It covers all aspects - architecture, ceramics, glass, textiles and furniture - and is well worth a look if you're into that kind of thing. B . The Bird Room , Chris Killen: Dirty grubby people not doing much other than being dirty and grubby. Oh, and it's unclear who is who or even if there are more than two actual characters, neither of whom is in the remotest likeable. Not pleasant. F .

You might have seen this somewhere before... The Derwent Estuary, looking over to Tranmere and beyond. July 2012. Theme Thursday ? Stormy, eh? Looks okay to me...

You heard. Corneilean Bay, Hobart. October 2012. Wordless Wednesday.

Self portrait. Ross Patent Slipyard site, Napoleon Street, Battery Point. September 2012. Wordless Wednesday.

I know boats. Errol Flynn Park, Sandy Bay. September 2012. As you know, the Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (and RSS feeds.) The following are some things that I've had a look at in the last week. I call this: a Compendium of Click-throughs for Monday Morning... Are Neanderthals Human? Some great photos of life in North Korea. Has the UK seen the end of the stiff upper lip? Yet more REALLY great photos in the National Geographic Photo Contest 2012 . Some interesting thoughts in this BBC piece on child obesity: Why do parents let their kids get fat?

Sometimes I feel/ like my only friend. Tasman Bridge, looking south. September 2012. Here are the Top Five Reasons This Sunday That This Sunday Top Five Is Essentially A List Of Why This Sunday Top Five Is Why I Have Not Done A Sunday Top Five! An artistic expression of the principle of least action . Or at least a Sunday Top Five-related variation on the theme The Anna Karenina principle . Or at least a Sunday Top Five-related variation on the theme. The Euthyphro dilemma . Or at least a Sunday Top Five-related variation on the theme. Issues related to the identity of indiscernibles . Or at least a Sunday Top Five-related variation on the theme. An intense fear of conforming to the mediocrity principle . [Ahem.] Or at least a Sunday Top Five-related variation on the theme. Thank you. You can move along now.

Looking south. The Derwent Estuary, as seen from Tasman Bridge. September 2012. That Schopenhauer fellow must have been a miserable bugger. He believed that woman, by her very nature is meant to obey, which goes to some way why he seems so irritable in retrospect... To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage, Robert Lowell "It is the future generation that presses into being by means of these exuberant feelings and supersensible soap bubbles of ours." —Schopenhauer The hot night makes us keep our bedroom windows open. Our magnolia blossoms. Life begins to happen. My hopped up husband drops his home disputes, and hits the streets to cruise for prostitutes, free-lancing out along the razor's edge. This screwball might kill his wife, then take the pledge. Oh the monotonous meanness of his lust. . . It's the injustice . . . he is so unjust— whiskey-blind, swaggering home at five. My only thought is how to keep alive. What makes him tick? Each night now I ...