This will hurt me...

Looking at the sun. Heading to the Tasman Arch, the Tasman Penninsula. January 2011. Tobias Wolff’s The Barracks Thief is a quietly-told story of a restless young man waiting for something to happen. That ‘something’ happens to be a stint in the 82nd Airborne out to Vietnam, but something is – on occasion – better than nothing. The novel draws this man together with two others with similar tales, with the title giving us the apex for the story to hang off. The army seems to be a place where the restless and the lonely might be able to find the kinship that they otherwise don’t know. However, this kinship inevitably comes at some kind of cost. It’s here that Wolff effectively weaves his tale. Embracing the perspectives of both the betrayer and the betrayed, he manages to coerce us into lives that we might otherwise condemn, or to recognise depth where we might not have seen. Don’t be fooled by this novel’s apparent slightness, for there’s an awful lot going on inside it. It both reinfo...

The sunshine on the water. Eaglehawk Neck, Tasman Peninsula. January 2011. What’s that you say? Five questions about motion pictures you sure? Why sure… What is your favourite movie of all time and why? A hard one, as it depends on my mood. If I had to pick a short list, it probably include Unforgiven , The Godfather , Cool Hand Luke , Das Boot , The Life of Brian , Halloween , The Thin Red Line and Three Colours: Red . One of those, for lots of reasons… What was the best movie you saw this last year and why? Toy Story 3 . I didn’t get around to seeing a lot of movies last year, but I’m not sure that it matters. Who would have thought that an animation would be filled with such pathos and the tale of a bunch of toys so utterly ’human’ ? Who’s your favourite director and why? Like the favourite anything, it depends ! Krzysztof Kieślowski seemed to be a great combination of storyteller with an utterly fantastic eye for a shot. I think that Dekalog is about the best thing ever made with...

Escaping convicts? Coming up to the dog line, Eaglehawk Neck, Tasman Peninsula, January 2011. Just the two finished in what has been a hectic week for me, but what a two! Seize the Day is the first Saul Bellow novel that I’d ever read. It will not be the last. An intense little book, it centres on a day in the life of Tommy Wilhelm, a frustrated fellow who is suffering from what we now might call a ‘mid-life crisis’. Written in 1957, it is a rather prescient observation of the emergent egocentric neurosis that seemed to overtake many in the industrialised world in the following decades. It’s a great study of character and crisis, with one of the more beautifully-constructed endings that I’ve had the pleasure of reading. There’s no real sympathetic character in this book, but in the end it doesn’t really matter. We get our moment of catharsis. Very highly recommended. Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower has been called her masterpiece by some critics (others have been less kind...

A silver sheen in the morning. Eaglehawk Neck, January 2011. Sunday Top Five again and this week is an easy top five. Five Things That I Will Do Before F%$&*#G Jetstar Ever Get Another Cent Out Of Me ! Attend Mass. Gender realignment surgery. Door to door sales. Try out for the Dallas Cowgirls. Praise Jetstar.

A tiger snake's-eye view of cranky Hanky and co down Eaglehawk Neck way... Watch out Henry!

Marching the convicts out by the dog line at Eaglehawk Neck.

Allergies are inevitably felt more when squatting down low. Eaglehawk Neck, Tasman Peninsula. January 2011. I heard someone claim the other day that loneliness was a crisis in fracturing and shrinking rural communities here in Australia. While I’ve not inclination to deny that, it got me thinking whether or not loneliness is easier (?) to find out in the backblocks or right at the centre of big cities. If we define “lonely” as “being alone” (in a literal sense), than I guess – from a technical point of view – you might be more likely to suffer loneliness while stuck in the middle of nowhere than you are standing in the CBD of a big city or town. Yet it seems to me that (literally) “being alone” has nothing to do with “ loneliness ”. You can be alone in a literal sense, but not at all lonely. Surely most lighthouse keepers don’t suffer from loneliness, otherwise they wouldn’t put their hand up to be lighthouse keepers. Loneliness is surely more a state of mind rather than a state of be...

Who put that rock there? Tasman Peninsula, January 2011. That's Hippolyte Rock there. Apparently, it's a small granite island and part of the Tasman Island Group, close to the south-eastern coast of Tasmania around the Tasman Peninsula. I snapped this shot from around Eaglehawk Neck (to the north). The island has a flat top and is surrounded by steep cliffs up to 65 metres high. It belongs to the Tasman National Park and houses a whole bunch of breeding seabird species, including Little Fairy Penguins, Short-tailed Shearwater, Sooty Shearwater, Fairy Prion, Common Diving-Petrel, Silver Gull and Black-faced Cormorant. Australian Fur Seals also knock about the island, which makes it an attractive proposition for Great White Sharks... The view south from the east side of Tasman Peninsula. January 2011. The presence of the seals probably does enough to justify the tag "shark-infested". No sign of dorsal fins in this photo though. The Devil's Kitchen, as viewed fro...

We went spearfishing. Didn't even catch one spear. ... I'll get my coat.

Next stop, Music Hall !

The dynamic dudes are checking out the fishing to be found down at the renowned honeymoon destination of the tessellated pavements at Eaglehawk Neck. We were hoping for Great Whites, but all we found was dogfish.

Beautiful little yellow flowers. Eaglehawk Neck, on the way towards the Devil’s Kitchen. January 2011. I am many things: lover, poet, father, bureaucrat, bon vivant . Conversely, there are many things I am not . Chief of which this week is efficient trench digger . No Doctor's Today, Thank You , by Ogden Nash They tell me that euphoria is the feeling of feeling wonderful, well, today I feel euphorian, Today I have the agility of a Greek god and the appetitite of a Victorian. Yes, today I may even go forth without my galoshes, Today I am a swashbuckler, would anybody like me to buckle any swashes? This is my euphorian day, I will ring welkins and before anybody answers I will run away. I will tame me a caribou And bedeck it with marabou. I will pen me my memoirs. Ah youth, youth! What euphorian days them was! I wasn't much of a hand for the boudoirs, I was generally to be found where the food was. Does anybody want any flotsam? I've gotsam. Does anybody want any jetsam? I c...

Martin Cash, George Jones and Lawrence Kavenagh (in paper form). The Guard Station, Eaglehawk Neck. January 2011. Martin Cash was Tasmania’s best know convict bushranger. He attracted fame for twice escaping from Port Arthur, which was at the time perhaps the World’s most notorious penal colony. As a smart chap, he cashed in with an autobiography that was released in 1870 – The Adventures of Martin Cash – which was kind of like a cross between The Wire , Prison Break and Glee . As with many famous Tasmanians, he was born in Enniscorthy, Ireland. His autobiography has him entering a life of crime when he shot a man in a jealous rage for making advances on his sweetheart, but records list his original crime as house breaking. Sentenced to seven years penal transportation, he arrived in Sydney in 1828. He quickly received his ticket of leave and worked as a stockman in New South Wales, but soon was suspected of cattle stealing and did as many crims did, and relocated to Tasmania. It wa...

Millions of snakes, or more sinister? Eaglehawk Neck, Tasman Penninsula. January 2011. I have had a song stuck in my head for five straight days now. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good song, but five days on constant rotation is a bit much. Anyway, I have this theory that if I look into the story behind the song, and potentially infect others with the virus, it will leave me alone. Here goes… If I Fell is a song by The Beatles that first appeared in the 1964. It was featured in the film A Hard Day's Night , and appeared on the accompanying soundtrack. Although it seems that John Lennon alone wrote it, it was credited to the Lennon/McCartney partnership. The song itself has an atypical structure for an early (-ish) Beatles track, with an unrepeated introduction sang by Lennon, followed by sequential verse sections, each having a slightly expanded form, but with no obvious chorus or bridge section. As ever, the song features a two-part harmony – Lennon and McCartney into a single micro...

Tall eucalypts can be found in many places here. Eaglehawk Neck, Tasman Peninsula. January 2011. I would build Henry and Ezra a treehouse, unfortunately our backyard is limited to one little lemon tree and one little lime tree. I’m reasonably certain that neither would sufficiently bear the weight of my two behemoths. Especially with all that jumping about…

For some reason they opted for that well known taste combination of choc mint and banana. It didn’t seem to stop them. As as special bonus, here's Henry eating his!

Looking south down along the Tasman Peninsula. Eaglehawk Neck, January 2011. It seems to me that there are two kinds of people in the world. First, there are people who annoy me. Second, there are people who annoy me less. The Tessellated Pavement glimmers in the morning light. Eaglehawk Neck, January 2011. I am not sure that I was built for these times…

Rocky outcrop times two. Storm Bay as seen from Eaglehawk Neck, January 2011. It’s a lovely part of the world, Tasmania. If you’ve not been here, I might ask “why not?” My Mouth Hovers Across Your Breasts , by Adrienne Rich My mouth hovers across your breasts in the short grey winter afternoon in this bed we are delicate and touch so hot with joy we amaze ourselves tough and delicate we play rings around each other our daytime candle burns with its peculiar light and if the snow begins to fall outside filling the branches and if the night falls without announcement there are the pleasures of winter sudden, wild and delicate your fingers exact my tongue exact at the same moment stopping to laugh at a joke my love hot on your scent on the cusp of winter

The Tessellated Pavement. Eaglehawk Neck, January 2011. Back at work again for the year, but I don’t want to talk about that. Yesterday we all went on a little road trip down to the in the general direction of the Tasman Peninsula. We didn’t venture too far into the Peninsula, sticking around the isthmus that connects it to mainland Tasmania, Eaglehawk Neck . Some nice water above the Tessellated Pavement, Eaglehawk Neck, January 2011. The isthmus itself is about 400 metres long and 30 metres wide at its narrowest point, and is the natural gateway to the peninsula. The British in the 1830s employed a line of starved and beaten (and consequently very angry) dogs were chained to posts across the neck to warn of any convicts attempting to escape the convict prison at Port Arthur (located further south). The area was also heavily patrolled by soldiers, and the guards' quarters is still there as a handy little museum. For any convict foolhardy enough to attempt the swim, sharks patrol ...