This will hurt me...

Clouds. Marion Bay, Tasmania's South East Coast. March 2013. Sunday Stealing: The 5000 Question Meme, Part Three B 63. What is the kindest thing you have ever done? Just letting go... 64. Have you gone to WTIT's Facebook page and hit "like" yet? If not, why not? (No pressure.) I don't know what 'WTIT' is. 65. What holiday should exist but doesn't? An individually nominated day of self-actualisation. 66. What holiday shouldn't exist but does? Any day that glorifies war and killing. 67. What's the best joke you ever heard? I like any joke that can be a good gauge of someone's sense of humour. For example: Q: What's the difference between Neil Armstrong and Michael Jackson? [Allow some time for them to formulate an answer, most likely centering around walking on the Moon or some such.] Answer: Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon and Michael Jackson liked to fuck small boys in the mouth. No, by no means is this the b...

Cumulus cloud. As seen from Clifton Beach. December 2012. Wordless Wednesday.

The bus won't be far away now. Hobart GPO, Elizabeth Street. October 2011. Just the one book finished this week, although that was enough to push me past my nominated 85 book challenge at the beginning of the year (more on that later). This week it was Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child . Billed as a "contemporary gothic horror", it centres on the unravelling of a serene family-life upon the arrival of their fifth child. I'm not sure about this book. I think that I can grasp the key themes: modern society's drift from its more brutal past, the notion of a maternal bond, the authoritarian character and the thin veneer of civility. I'm just not convinced of the characters. I'm not sure how I'm to feel about the characters, and hope that the sympathy I felt for the 'monster' at the centre of the piece is a fair result. Nonetheless, it is a decent read and can be recommended. I'd avoid it if you're expecting a baby any time soon though...

Cloud and trees and leaves and things. Royal Botanical Gardens, Hobart. October 2011. Theme Thursday is back with an all NEW process that suits the Antipodean amongst us! Of course, when I say NEW I mean back to the way that it used to be. Do you remember? Remember how we laughed when the gods offered up the modern form of GEWRINCLOD ? Remember the MYSTERY of that box floating in the river? The one that may (or may not_ have contained body parts? I certainly know that the tale of those crafty seagulls going about their filthy business on me left an IMPRESSION on many... A good Theme Thursday topic lets us explore the SURFACE of things; delve into HISTORY ; the vampiric tendencies of children on HALLOWEEN ; and the fundamental nature of MAD ness. Theme Thursday, how we have missed you...

What is this pose all about?

Heading in a north easterly direction. Looking up from the vantage point of Bathurst Street, Hobart. March 2011. I stick the thumb out, but they never stop. Why not?

Hélicoptère sur la ligne. Hobart, February 2011. I really love this one. The power line cutting across was unintentional, as I had to move quickly to get the shot because the helicopter was heading nor’ east. I do like how it turned out. I wish that I had a helicopter. I’m sure that I could arrange a parking spot on the roof, it’s not like it’s being used for anything else.

Clouds seen in the hospital windows. Argyle Street, Hobart. February 2011. Sometimes the best way of looking at something is by looking at something through something else. We often fool ourselves that when we observe something for ourselves, we can achieve some kind of objectivity. Of course, all observation is mediated through the observer. If we consciously choose to observe something through something, we immediately abandon that pretence, and factor in the potential refractive points. We won’t get objectivity, but at least we might get something more contemplative. What that has to do with clouds is anybody’s guess.

Hobart Private Hospital building, as seen from Collins Street. Hobart, January 2011. This is now the Hobart Private Hospital, which used to be the Queen Alexandria maternity wing, attached to the [ public ] Royal Hobart Hospital. One government sold it off in ’98, and a different government tried to buy it back in ’05 when they suddenly realised that they needed the space. Not the best example of sound public policy… Here is a little questionnaire that I like to call Getting to know you, getting to know all about you… Do you have any pets? I have two children. What was the last book you read? See the sidebar to the left. Do you like to cook? Yes I do. What kind of food do you like? I like savoury, spicy and sour things. Do you have brothers and sisters? One brother. Which sport do you like? Wii Sports Resort. Do you live alone? No, I do not. Do you live in a house or an apartment? A house. Have you ever lived in another country? No, I have not. Have you ever met a famous person? It dep...

The chips are slow, but the seagulls are patient. Salamanca Square, Hobart. December 2010. Sometimes it is best to wait and see before committing yourself. These seagulls understand this all too well. Not wanting to reveal their hand wing too early, they are content to hang back and await a change in circumstances. Have you ever seen a seagull half squashed on a road? They are the ones that rushed in before being in full receipt of the facts… These are Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae , more commonly known as the Silver Gull or the ubiquitous “seagull” here in Tasmania. These fellows should be eating worms, fish, insects and crustaceans, but I suspect this gang favours hot chips, meat pies, Hawaiian pizzas and the odd chocolate torte.

Clouds of DOOM appear in the east. New Town, December 2010. I’ve read a couple in the past week. The first, A Rumour of War is an autobiography/war memoir by Philip Caputo about his experience in the United States Marine Corps in the early years of American involvement in the Vietnam War. Caputo does an excellent job rendering the gravity, tragedy and absurdist nature of warfare. This is one of the better of the type that I have read. Caputo’s greatest success is the ease with which he constructs a narrative that really does elucidate the confluence of rigorous training, demanding circumstances and external pressure that leads the reader to contemplate how they might act in similar conditions. In this way, the comfortable self-assurance of one’s own moral safety net is not quite so secure. This is not so much a polemic as it is a plea. Very much worth the effort, although it’s intensity is rather draining. The second is Screwtop Thompson , a collection of short stories by one of my f...

A rabbits eye view of things. St Johns Park, New Town. November 2010. Quiz time! To conquer the material world, human beings transformed themselves into disciplined purposive agents, and society into a bureaucratised and administered system. There is a unity of the 'autocratic' ego with the unity of instrumental reason and both, in association, impose an abstract, forced unification on the 'heterogeneous', the 'different', and 'the Other'. Psychologically, toward the inside, the autocratic ego represses the 'polymorphous perversity' of an individual's instinctual make-up to forge a unified self. Toward the social, the outside, the same 'ego' imposes a grid of instrumental reason that maps the diversity and particularity of external nature in order to control and manipulate it. The reification of external nature and the reification of internal nature, thus entail each other. What am I talking about here?

The actual dam part of Risdon Brook Dam. September 2010. Bright sunshine and blue skies! What a welcome return after seemingly endless days of grey. It is just a pity that such lovely weather is wasted on meetings trapped in infernal, internal, inadequately ventilated rooms. Don’t even get me started on the cake…

Ominous skies above New Town. July 2010. So it is Sunday, which means time for the Sunday Top Five. Today, I'm nominating my Five Favourite Television Shows ! Demonstrating my existence on the cutting edge of televisual delights, the list doesn't contain much in the way of contemporary programs, but makes up for it with foul language (well, one show does at least...) Seinfeld Spaced Deadwood The Royle Family Yes Minister / Yes Prime Minister

Morning is breaking over Flagstaff Gully. Geilston Bay. May 2010. This was not taken this morning. This morning you would be lucky to see the hand in front of your face; fog as thick as pea soup! All the better to be having day two off from work, this time recovering from the dreaded gastro.

A van full of money makes its way through Geilston Bay. April 2010. Some days you start work more tired than you left work the day before. Today is one of those days.

It is autumn and here are some clouds. May, 2010. So it was my birthday and all I got was two cranky little boys. And some really cool stuff. As I Step Over A Puddle At The End Of Winter , I Think Of An Ancient Chinese Governor, by James Wright And how can I, born in evil days And fresh from failure, ask a kindness of Fate? -- Written A.D. 819 Po Chu-i, balding old politician, What's the use? I think of you, Uneasily entering the gorges of the Yang-Tze, When you were being towed up the rapids Toward some political job or other In the city of Chungshou. You made it, I guess, By dark. But it is 1960, it is almost spring again, And the tall rocks of Minneapolis Build me my own black twilight Of bamboo ropes and waters. Where is Yuan Chen, the friend you loved? Where is the sea, that once solved the whole loneliness Of the Midwest?Where is Minneapolis? I can see nothing But the great terrible oak tree darkening with winter. Did you find the city of isolated men beyond mountains? Or hav...

We're getting the last of the Cruise Ships before Winter hits. I'm kind of surprised that they're still coming, to be honest. There were a lot of Canadians on this one. Canadians remind me of a New Zealander cross bred with an American. In a puffy red jacket. Aye.

The sun always shines on TV Bellerive. April, 2010. Word was passed on to me the other day concerning a disturbing event that confronted crafty knitter, sometime blogger and erstwhile commenter Blackie in the middle of the night. Awoken by a rustling sound, Ms Blackie assumed that the culprit must surely be a roaming dirt magnet . However, a brief spot of reconnoitring revealed the true malefactor was not of the toddle genus, it was in fact a plain old Mus musculus exploring some half finished knitting. Now, it is not my business to get into the rights or wrongs of musophobia, nor have I any knowledge of whether or not a Gertrude of Nivelles appeared in the guise of a strapping young man. What I can say, however, is that in the middle of the night I'd rather find a mouse explore my half-completed shrug still on the round (in a Continental fashion) than a tattoo-d escaped convict doing a poo in my handbag!

Theme Thursday today, and leaving the post again to the last minute has me striving to think outside the BOX . This is a - hopefully - moody little photograph of what I believe is Earth's most unpopular bird feeder . We have no cats, no dogs, plenty of birds about, lots of healthy and nutritious bird seed, and a beautiful BOX feeder right there waiting to be visited; but not one . None. Zero. Keiner. Neviens. Absolutamente ninguna!