This will hurt me...

The morning sun at the right angle can trick you into thinking that it is Autumn. Franklin Square, Hobart. June 2012. It's cold. So very, very cold. Long Distance I , by Tony Harrison Your bed's got two wrong sides. You life's all grouse. I let your phone-call take its dismal course: Ah can't stand it no more, this empty house! Carrots choke us wi'out your mam's white sauce! Them sweets you brought me, you can have 'em back. Ah'm diabetic now. Got all the facts. (The diabetes comes hard on the track of two coronaries and cataracts.) Ah've allus liked things sweet! But now ah push food down mi throat! Ah'd sooner do wi'out. And t'only reason now for beer 's to flush (so t'dietician said) mi kidneys out. When I come round, they'll be laid out, the sweets, Lifesavers, my father's New World treats, still in the big brown bag, and only bought rushing through JFK as a last thought.

Early morning chess. Franklin Square, Hobart. June 2012. The Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (blah blah blah). 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.. A lovely article on the value of procrastination, or what the game of tennis can teach us about decision making. ”There is both an art and a science to managing delay." . It's something we've become less skilled at in our high tech age... Here you are: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/design/2012/06/button_history_a_visual_tour_of_button_design_through_the_ages_.single.html">A history of the button. Sitting is killing you! Do you ever wonder about the names we give colours? If so, you might like this one: The crayola-fication of the world: How we gave colors names, and it messed with our brains .

Sunshine on my shoulder. Franklin Square. March 2012. Theme Thursday already and it seems clear that we have well and truley had a change of SEASON down here at the arse-end of the world ™. Unfortunately, we appear to have waived goodbye to Summer and are entering into the gloomier mornings of Autumn. I cannot be certain, but I suspect that the shift has triggered a dose of SEASONal affective disorder in the youngest member of the clan. The fact that he is three-years-old and a boy seems to rule out early-onset-menopause as the cause of his sudden cantankerous irritability. Everybody else in the house just seems flat, and I suspect that we won’t snap out of it until the leave shift to a raging red and golden yellow and start committing suicide.

Christ Almighty, Theme Thursday already?!? I haven't even had BREAKFAST! Nor have these slightly dodgy looking seagulls lurking about Franklin Square this very morning . Dudes and I had a bit of a poke about in the turf looking for the odd grub, but coming up with little more than a discarded cigarette butt. Thus, far from the Bacchanalian feast envisaged, we are left looking at a mess on a public lawn with an empty belly. The problem, you see, is that seagulls (love 'em as I do), are well and truly pococurante . As I'm sure you know, the pococurante have a tendency to perendinate . Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae are without doubt perendinacious pococurantes ! BREAKFAST!

Sir John Franklin looks up towards a nest of bureaucrats no doubt readying the flak brigades as a State election looms. Franklin was Governor of Van Diemen's Land from 1836 to 1843. It is rather ironic that he spends his days staring at a building filled with civil servants, as they were the ones who eventually got him sacked for the ludicrous ideas of around incorporating more humane elements through reform in the penal colony. There's been a lot of talk about Franklin recently, which leads me effortlessly into Theme Thursday , and my advice of treating everything you READ with a critical eye. For instance, if you READ the inscription beneath Franklin (through the seagull poo), you'll find the fact recorded that he " discovered " the Northwest Passage. This, of course, is nonsense. He did disappear (and die eventually, of course), while attempting to chart and navigate a section of the Northwest Passage. Indeed, the entire crew of the expedition succumbed to sta...

Water jets in Franklin Square, Winter '09 . Theme Thursday today, and what a task I have! The theme is RHYTHM, so I set myself the goal this morning of penning a lightning fast drabble on today’s them on my way to work on the bus this morning. Alas, my trusty notebook was elsewhere! Thus, I fished out a receipt from the fresh fruit market in Salamanca [APPLES GRANNY SMITH SML KG], and set about squeezing out 100 words on the back. I’m glad to say that I had the requisite number done and dusted by the time I hit the bridge and was able to dip back in to Dame Rebecca West’s interesting little tale The Return of the Soldier . Let’s take the easy way out and call this one RHYTHM . The rhythm of their relationship was a familiar one. He worshipped her, she loathed him. He adored her, she was disgusted . He would whisper the sweetest, gentlest paeans of his affection into her lovely ear as they made love, and she would shun his offerings a cat might a command. When he arrived home, h...