This will hurt me...

Men in a boat. The Derwent Estuary, as seen from Shot Tower, Taroona. May 2013. Theme Thursday already an the theme is 'LETTER'. Today's letter is... V .

Not snorkelling weather. Clifton Beach. May 2013. Sunday Top Five ? That's right, here are Five Words That We Really Need To Start Using In English! Pelinti ( Buli ): You know when you're in a rush to eat a hot pie and you have to open your mouth and tilt your head to avoid burning yourself? Ghanaians have a word for that. Myötähäpeä ( Finnish ): the nicer relative of Schadenfreude . Think, "vicarious embarrassment.” Above us the waves. Clifton Beach. May 2013. Layogenic ( Tagalog ): You know how sometimes you can see something (or someone) from far away and it/ they look pretty good, but when you get a close look it's not quite the case? That's layogenic . Cavoli Riscaldati ( Italian ): a very bad move: trying to revive an unworkable relationship. It literally translates to "reheated cabbage." Litost ( Czech ): I'll defer to Milan Kundera on this one: “a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery.” Th...

Oh buoy. Geilston Bay. April 2013. Sunday Stealing: The 5000 Question Meme, The Final Part Two 86. Name one thing that turns your stomach: Rampart inequity. 87. What was the last thing you paid for? Some apples. 88. Are you a coupon clipper? No, but I am open to the concept. 89. Get anything good in the mail recently? Nobody sends me anything. 90. Which would you rather take as a gym class... dancing, sailing, karate, or bowling? Of that selection, probably sailing. 91. In Star Trek people 'beam' back and forth between different places. What this means is they stand in a little tube and their molecules are deconstructed and sent to another tube somewhere else where they are reassembled. Only problem is when the molecules are deconstructed the person is dead. When they are put back together it is only a clone that has all the dead person's memories. Is the person who gets beamed the same person on both ends? Ummmmmmm... Perhaps... [Slowly moves toward th...

Surface. Hobart waterfront, Sullivans Cove. February 2013. Wordless Wednesday.

Good snorkelling. Bicheno Beach, Tasmania's East Coast. January 2013. Sunday Top Five ? Okay. See the picture above? How about Five Things That I Saw While Snorkelling Around In Bicheno (Despite The Very Cool Waters And The Distinct Lack Of A Wetsuit)! Macrocystis pyrifera Oligoplites saurus Latris forsteri Sepioteuthis australis Cheilodactylus spectabilis

Wind on the water. Sullivans Cove, Hobart. July 2012. High Rise by J.G. Ballard: a dystopian vision of modern life (written in the 1970s), featuring a stark urban landscape and exploring the ways in which technology can warp the human psyche in all sorts of perverted and nasty ways. Think Hobbes' State of Nature in an apartment block. Ho hum. C- . The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells: a dystopian vision of modern life (written in the 1890s). The tale of a shipwrecked fellow 'rescued' by a pair of exiled scientists endeavouring to create sentient beings from animals. Really though, the book is about God, pain and cruelty, moral responsibility, human identity and the consequences of human interference with nature. Terrifying stuff! A- . Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie: convoluted little mystery. The setup? Wealthy eccentric invites four sleuths and four (suspected) to a dinner party and game of bridge. To no-one's surprise the eccentric dandy cops a kn...

Waiting. Howrah Bluff, Howrah. August 2012. We're rapidly approaching the end of Sunday Stealing, so someone find me some new questions QUICKLY! Until then, The End is Near Meme, Part 2 21. Biggest lie that you've ever been told? That people get what they deserve in life. 22. Blondes, brunettes, redheads or bald? Brunettes. Every time. 23. Who do you phone most? Jennifer. 24. What was your first job? Delivering newspapers. 25. What were you doing before Sunday Stealing? A little series that I called " Ads that I like ". I made it up to number 123 before Iput that one on hiatus. 26. If you could get plastic surgery what would it be? I'm not interested in plastic surgery, but if anyone wants to stump up the cash to get laser surgery so that I don't have to bother with these glasses I'd happily do it. It's less about vanity than it is practicality though... 27. Why did you fill out this survey? The pass the time. 28. What do you ...

No smoke on the water. The River Derwent, Sandy Bay. August 2012. Two books this week. First up, The Death of Grass by John Christopher. This is a neat little post-apocalyptic novel that centres around the human response to a virus that kills off all forms of grass. While the swiftness with which society reverts to savagery strikes me as perhaps a little off, there is great power in the descriptions of man's culpability for the disaster. Indeed, this one is a very prescient book. Recommended. Second up is The Dying Animal by Philip Roth. For a book that is ultimately about sex, it wears out its welcome reasonably quickly. A couple of imaginative paragraphs aside - Roth can write, after all - you can't help but think to yourself, 'get over it, you filthy old bugger!' Only for the keen.

Water. The Derwent Estuary, as seen from Battery Point. July 2012. I've decided to cancel today's Sunday Top Five and go to the beach instead. Probably a bit too cold to swim, but not to have a stroll.

After dealing with the Ruskies, Ezra makes his way to Székesfehérvár...

The view towards Melbourne. The scenery atop the Nut. Stanley, Tasmania's North West Coast. February 2012. If you've ever been to the small seaside town of Stanley, you'll be familiar with The Nut . One of the more distinctive landmarks in Tasmania, The Nut is an old volcanic plug with steep sides that rises up to 143 metres with a remarkably flat top. As you can see, it is possible to walk to the top of The Nut via a steep track (even for a three-year-old). For weaklings and nancies, there is the option of a chairlift... Henry takes a break halfway up the Nut. Stanley, Tasmania's North West Coast. February 2012. Now, a poem... The Red Wheelbarrow , William Carlos Williams so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens. A Nut panorama. Stanley, Tasmania's North West Coast. February 2012.

The morning sun over Storm Bay. Calverts Beach, South Arm Peninsula. January 2012. Watery Wednesday today and we celebrate with a Watery Wednesday today and we celebrate with a shot of the lovely (slow rising) morning sun over the water as it starts to burn off the cloud. This one was taken down at Calverts Beach, and you can see Storm Bay out to the south of South Arm Peninsula. I understand that it got its name when Abel Tasman was forced by a storm to take his ships out to sea before they could anchor back in 1642. No storms on this morning though!

Ez checks out the penguin-related action at the Melbourne Aquarium.

Lost at sea. The Derwent River. Somewhere near Lindisfarne, April 2011. Need. Want. Ought . Ought. Want. Need. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Need. Know. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Want. Know. Need. Want. Want. Want.

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...

Resting for Autumn. Sullivans Cove, May 2010. Once again, an anti-Antipodean decree has confirmed those of us down here at the arse-end of the world second nay, eighth -class citizens! To “celebrate” the one-hundredth posting of the Theme Thursday meme, the Theme Thursday junta have offered the diktat that the topic for the Theme will only appear on Thursday, at 6:00 a.m. Eastern United States Time. For those in the know, 6 am eating bagels in New York means 8 pm in Hobart bathing children! Given that I have established an 8:30 am/8 pm dynamic of general shot/Henry and Ezra shot, the new format does not really work for me . Hence, today I share with you my decision to declare throw off the yoke of Yankee imperialism and declare my independence! Yes people, today I choose my own destiny through selecting my own Theme Thursday topic. Today I have a doozy: POTAMOPHILOUS . Yes, I very much fit the profile of a POTAMOPHILOUS -type, as all of you will no doubt already know by the sheer am...

Preparing one's leave. April, 2010. . There is something very nice about Autumn light. It might be getting colder, but it appears the Derwent is also getting blue-r more blue! I knew a bloke once, nice bloke, he liked to swim. That's all.

Just to the north west of Seven Mile Beach, there is its somewhat lesser sibling Five Mile Beach. At certain times of the day, Five Mile Beach shows off all of the glories that can be found in a tidal flat. Not the least of which is a tendency to mirage. Is that Garden Isle I see before thee? Today's Sunday Top Five? In honour of the terrible twosome, I present to you my Top Five Synonyms For The Word "Disturbance"! Brouhaha Kerfuffle Flap Hullabaloo Ruckus Just missing the cut were hubbub, perturbation, tumult and good ol' maelstrom! I feel all discombobulated now...

Theme Thursday already? All right, squint really really hard at the view from Nutgrove Beach, and you'll see a windsurfer on the left, and a BELL on the right. Or maybe it's a BELL on the left or a windsurfer on the right. Look, one of them is a BELL and one of them is a windsurfer, take my word for it!

Here is a shot of a penguin rookery located right in the heart of Burnie (West Beach, to be precise). You can't see any penguins because they are all fast asleep. How, I am not so sure, given that Henry and Ezra were making a terrible racket at the time.