This will hurt me...

How about that smile?!?!?

Ezra contemplates the weather aboard a bus.

My baby takes the morning train afternoon bus from New Town to the city, then from the city to Geilston Bay. New Town Road. August 2010. My God, it is Theme Thursday already. This one is a tricky one: BROWN . Buses to me are BROWN. Technically speaking, Metro Tasmania buses are actually white and green, with splashes of yellow; but metaphorically , and more importantly metaphysically , buses are BROWN . BROWN is functional. BROWN is enduring. BROWN in unheralded. We all need a touch of BROWN in our life, but I’ve never heard anyone claim BROWN as his or her favourite colour. Here in Australia people clamour to claim their green credentials, but forget that without any BROWN there can be no green. Green rants and raves and pats itself on the back; BROWN just gets the job done . BROWN is Earth. BROWN is work. BROWN is triumph without adulation. Nobody cheers a bus; but buses get me from A to B.

10 Murray in her Autumn finest. May, 2010. My usual bus didn't show this morning, which means that everything has been thrown out of whack. How I hate that. I'm a man of science and order . Disorder is not appreciated. You can guess how much I have relished small children.

I found myself stuck on a traffic island, drivers to the left of me, cyclists to the right, when all of a sudden a bus comes hurtling straight at me and all I had to protect myself was this flimsy sign! Today's instalment of Saturday Festival of *someone else's* Poetry features an oldie, but a goodie. Love and Hate , by Ogden Nash Love is a word That is constantly heard Hate is a word that is not Love, I am told Is more precious than gold Love, I have heard Is hot But hate is the verb That to me is superb And love, just a drug On the mart For any kiddie from school Can love like a fool But hating, my boy Is an art

Here you can see some of Hobart’s finest skyscrapers from the vantage point of Davey Street. It’s easy in the midst of such awesome sights to get confused and image one’s self in one of the world’s great metropolises [metropolopoli?], like New York , Shanghai or Burnie . On the subject of big cities... [nice segue dude] There is a kind of Groundhog Day effect when one sits towards the back of the 4:45 Risdon Vale express. Seemingly interchangeable malnourished-looking, undersized squeaky-voiced miscreants compete in a simplistic game of one-upmanship that has a tendency to focus on five key areas. [The faint-hearted please note that the language gets a little ripe). 1. A complete breakdown of syntax and grammar (“Like this guy like was like that other guy like like that we saw at Johnnos”); 2. Tall tales of petty criminal endeavours (along the lines of “I nicked THIRTY Mars Bars from Chickenfeed the other day...” “oh yeah? Well I nicked FIFTY Polywaffles from Newtown Woolworths.....

Here you can see a sad old bugger waiting for the five fifteen to Claremont. There was once a time when men were men , women were women and people were people . Dogs were dogs, cats were cats and rats were vermin and rules were rules . Citizens respected authority, children were seen and not heard , little boys were little boys , little girls were little girls and they hated each other for it. People did what they were told and everybody was happy , (or at least pretended to be for the sake of their neighbours). There was no sex , no drugs and music was kept at a sensible level. Women dressed smartly , respected themselves and had pride in their appearence. Men kept their hair short, their nails trimmed and never cursed in the street. Ladies were ladies and were thus treated like ladies and genlemen were well-mannered and the rest knew their place and didn’t cause any trouble . By Christ it was horrible .

Here is a typical morning scene in Hobart. This one was taken on the eastern shore, at about 7:37 am (or something like that), which - at this time of year - means that the sun has already been up for a good hour and a half. So it's not really a sun rise , more a sun gotuphadacoffeesometoastandmaybeashowerandthenofftowork . The thing that I like about this photograph (and you should know by now how much I like the combination of sun/clouds/water) is that I took it from a moving bus . If only they ran a double decker, then I figure that I could get a nice one coming over the bridge, as is, the railing kind of ruins the view. And not even in an artistic kind of way, more of a crap shot style. Anyway, that's the Tasman Bridge you can see on the left, and the suburb of Montague Bay just to the right of it, across to Bellerive further to the right. I best run, I have pancakes to cook.

Here you can see the view westwards from the very bottom of Argyle Street this morning. It appears that discourtesy , deafness and poor motor skills are all pre-requisites of a Metro bus driver here in Hobart. Other desirable attributes include morbid obesity , limited mathematical skills , a n inability to read the time accurately and a vocabulary that does not extend beyond the range of grunts and guffaws one might expect of a troop or gorillas in the highlands of Rwanda. Now, far be it from me to cast aspersions on the good folk at Metro Tasmania (can you see how carefully I am choosing my words?), but between you and me – and judging by the sweat stains under the armpits – maybe the gorillas slightly trump them in the hygiene department. After all, I am not sure who might be willing to pick the nits off an unkempt bus driver... Bitter, moi ?

The view from the bus last Wednesday. I have lots of Henry and Ezra pics from today. I promise to post an assortment through tomorrow. [Update: far too sparse. So I thought that I'd link this this story that reveals my home town of Burnie being voted the best port in Australia by passengers on last year's maiden voyage of the Sun Princess! When your home town is as maligned as mine, you take great pride in these things. To beat out cities like Sydney, Brisbane, Fremantle and (best of all) Hobart, well, I can't think of a better case for Burnie to replace dreary old Canberra as the nation's capital.]

A grey old day in Hobart today, but it is anything but grey in my heart! I thought after yesterday’s tale of poor parenting and the outrage that it prompted, I’d best switch on the positive vibe and look on the bright side of life. In order to do that, I felt it appropriate to post some lovely blossoms that I photographed right next to the bus stop this morning Congratulations are in order for Paul Krugman, on his receipt of the Nobel Prize for Economics. Krugman will be a familiar name to many – even those not interested in the dismal science , but I will forever remember him for helping convince me of the positives that can emerge from the on the liberalisation of trade, and more generally to the multiplicity of impacts related to the globalisation of capital. His work on Mexico and the Philippines in the mid-1990s, in particular, helped me broaden my outlook considerably and helped lead to the reconstruction of a lad who at that point was a wholly unreconstructed social democrat ...

I have posted a picture of a sign spotted on the bus today. The timing could not have been better, as I have a few issues that I would like to get off my chest. Thus, I have decided to share my letter with all of you out there in Internet-land. "Sir, I am contributing to this review as a regular patron of Metro Eastern Shore bus services, as I utilise public transport to commute from Geilston Bay to and from my workplace in the city. I shall not dwell on more technical matters, such as the need for fluid dampeners or adequate driver training. Instead, I will focus on nine (9) easy issues that Metro can address and would comprehensively improve the quality of the passenger experience. The first concerns individuals who arrive at a stop when you are waiting for the bus and ask, "Has the bus come yet?" Logic should dictate that if the bus had arrived, one would not be standing there. I feel that if at any point the driver is informed that someone has asked this, Metro shou...

I have decided to go with a two-for-one deal today, featuring clouds as seen from Geilston Bay. The first photograph was taken yesterday afternoon on the Derwent Avenue side of the East Derwent Highway. I snapped the second this morning on the Golf Links Road side of the Highway. After a couple of weeks of very cold mornings, it was surprisingly mild today. Unfortunately, I had neglected to consider that the last 40 pages of my book consisted of footnotes, so I finished it before I had even boarded the bus. That left lots of window gazing. You have to understand, in Australia, no-one talks to each other on the bus unless you are already very well acquainted. I am deadly serious when I say that if I were to attempt to strike up a conversation with someone, their assumption would be a) pervert; b) mentally ill; or c) a mentally ill pervert.

An amusing occurrence on the bus this morning that I thought I'd share. The driver had stopped to let some people on, and called out to the passengers "If you look down the river, there is a lovely view of the QE II under the bridge". Now, she was correct, there was a lovely view of the familiar (and still striking) QE II framed elegantly between the pylons of the Tasman Bridge on a slightly gloomy Wednesday morning. It was well worth the observation and I'm glad that she pointed it out. However, the entertaining part was the absolute lack of recognition among the school kids that dominate the trip. The driver's remark sparked a frenzied debate about what exactly it was she was talking about. One guy (maybe thirteen) reckoned that it was "something foreign" (perhaps hearing 'keweetoo' and mistaking it for a Finnish football team). Another girl thought that it might be an expensive Italian car. It interests me that they didn't seem to be awar...

The bus trip to work is now far less pleasant now that schools are back. High school children are horrible: they smell funny, they're noisy, they say stupid things, and they lack manners. And before anyone throws the 'you're getting old' tag at me, I've pretty much thought this way when I was in high school myself. Bloody bags on seats and in the aisle, yelling, squealing and carrying on. Hrumpfff!