This will hurt me...

Bellerive Oval, home of the might Tasmanian Tigers. As seen from Rosny Hill. December 2011. Two quick reviews today. Raymond Radiguet’s The Devil in the Flesh was written when the author was just 18 years old in 1922. A grubby little tale about a nasty, selfish young Frenchman as he conducts an affair with a married woman whose husband is off fighting in World War One. I dunno, but the narrator – a very superior and self-aware bastard – put me right off the whole thing. This book has a world of admirers, but I can’t help that it has more to do with the author’s early demise than it does the quality of his prose. I didn’t like it much. Give it a miss. Thankfully, I liked the second book this week much more. I’ve read all of Dan Rhodes’ novels, and have to say that his latest Little Hands Clapping is probably his oddest yet. If you’re familiar with his oeuvre, that comment might come as a little shocking itself. A plot synopsis? Set primarily in a German museum dedicated to suicide – c...

The current record is three blue-tongued lizards and six tiger snakes.

Looking south. The Derwent Estuary, as viewed from Rosny Hill. October 2011. Watery Wednesday again and what an awful lot of water I have for you today. I took this photograph while precariously perched atop a rock at Rosny Lookout (a lookout with the view almost completely obscured by tight bunches of ugly shrubs). Looking south, you can see Taroona, Kingston and probably Blackmans Bay further down south. Now, locals will tell you that this particular stretch of H²O is called the River Derwent , but I would argue that at this point the Derwent has ceased to be a river and would be more correctly referred to as the Derwent Estuary . Some have claimed that this estuary forms the the deepest sheltered harbour in the Southern Hemisphere, but I’ve been unable to confirm that even using the magic of the Internets. Suffice to say, at this point the water is incredibly deep and unreasonably cold.