This will hurt me...

In the footsteps of Charles Darwin. Waverley Wildflower Walk, Bellerive. December 2012. Let's call this Sunday Top Five Five Things That Just Might Surprise You On This, The Ninety-Third Anniversary Of Poland's Wedding to the Sea ! The probability that, in a set of randomly chosen people, of finding a pair who the same birthday will reach 100% certainty when the number of people reaches 367. Moreover, 99% probability is reached with just 57 people, and 50% probability with 23 people . Researchers from the University of Queensland found that for every hour you watch TV you may shorten your life by as much 22 minutes . Furthermore, it suggested that watching TV could increase your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Bill Clinton only sent two e-ails as President of the USA . Nikita Khrushchev "we will bury you" speech that escalated the Cold War was probably a mistranslation. It received as threat to bury the U.S. with a nuclear attack. However, the ...

Surprised seagull. Geilston Bay Boat Ramp, Geilston Bay. June 2012. It’s Theme Thursday time again, and these week – like the perplexed seagull above – I am left to wonder about LIFE'S UNCERTAINTIES. Certainly, we wouldn’t like life to be too certain. I normally try to eschew the deterministic understanding of events that some espouse. Not for me is the Wu wei [ 無爲 ] of the Tao. I just can’t get behind a philosophical standpoint of “non-doing” and just drift along with events and shrugging my shoulders at all around me. If there is one thing that history has taught me, the path of least resistance often leads to a place where you don’t want to be. Biological or genetic determinism just scares me too much, so I prefer not to think about it. Besides, you really don’t want to be on a journey with fellow travellers like Herbert Spencer , Francis Galton , Charles Davenport right through to Dr Mengele and his crowd . I am probably more sympathetic to historical determinism th...

Moss part I. Southern forests, Hastings Caves State Reserve. June 2011. This is a lovely poem, that kind of sums a lot of things up for me. Napoleon , Miroslav Holub Children, when was Napoleon Bonaparte born, asks teacher. A thousand years ago, the children say. A hundred years ago, the children say. Last year, the children say. No one knows. Children, what did Napoleon Bonaparte do, asks teacher. Won a war, the children say. Lost a war, the children say. No one knows. Our butcher had a dog called Napoleon, says Frantisek. The butcher used to beat him and the dog died of hunger a year ago. And all the children are now sorry for Napoleon. Moss part II. Southern forests, Hastings Caves State Reserve. June 2011. On another note, I spent all day as parent help in kindergarten yesterday, which was good fun. Henry did me proud and was easily one of the top three behaved. It seems that he is always very good in class! He is also a very popular lad, which never hurts. Moss part III. Southern ...

A bacon and egg roll and we’ll just wait and see what happens. Campbell Street, Hobart. January 2011. History – and historical memory – can be an odd business. It is hard to get a sense when you are in the present of the true historical magnitude of the events taking place around you. Conversely, it’s nigh on impossible to comprehend truly the importance of events that happened with the distance of time between you and it/them, removed as you are from the proper context. That does not stop us from trying of course. You may have seen the (most recent) attempt to tally up the views (and scores) of British historians along a set of criteria and deduce the “best” President of the United States . It is an interesting exercise, and makes for some great arguments (you can read all about it here), but ultimately it strikes me as being a bit of a futile exercise. While I will confess to be an FDR fan, I really couldn’t tell you if he was really X percent superior to (say) Grover Cleveland; or ...

As ever, Henry leads the way with bold and purposeful strides. Here he re-enacts Mussolini’s ‘March on Rome’. Henry has broken ranks with historical reality and pretends that Benito actually marched himself (rather than took a car), with Jen cast in the role of General De Bono, and Ezra the vicious little Balbo. Of course, I assumed the role of Victor Emmanuel III. By the end of things we got a little closer to reality. Indeed, it ended in tears.

Matthew Forster knew where the bodies were buried. St Johns Park, New Town. July 2010. Theme Thursday , and I am dwelling on death and memory. Matthew Forster got this obelisk for his hard work, I'd rather a nice ARECACEAE...

As this blog has demonstrated over the past 1,607 posts, Hobart is home to a lot of boats. What I have not stressed is the propensity for the owners of many – if not a majority – of those boats to pick a terrible pun as a name for their boats. Believe it or not, Concerto in Sea [pictured above] is indeed one of the wittier examples to be found in our many marinas and boatsheds around town. Just as in naming a child, the pressure of picking a moniker that will be able to weather the tests of time, trends and mean-spirited individuals is immense. I would like to think that I’ve performed well thus far with the world-renowned Henry and Ezra [with the added pressure of the pun tastic surname of Mc Crack en], and thus would flourish if faced with the challenge of a virgin ketch trembling in anticipation at the prospect of a lick of paint and a dignified name. That said, today I face a new kind of anxiety, Theme Thursday pressure! The Powers That Be have decided – in their infinite ...

You might be fooled into thinking that the top of Mount Wellington is a peak of some kind, with Henry, Ezra, Jennifer and I all precariously balanced on tip toes while endeavouring to take photographs and spit on the people below us. Alas, you'd be wrong! The top of Mount Wellington is in fact a Mars-like landscape. In February 1836, Charles Darwin himself visited Hobart and climbed the vicious beast. In The Voyage of the Beagle , Darwin described the mountain thus: "... The summit of the mountain is broad and flat, and is composed of huge angular masses of naked greenstone. Its elevation is 3,100 feet (940 m) above the level of the sea. The day was splendidly clear, and we enjoyed a most extensive view; to the north, the country appeared a mass of wooded mountains, of about the same height with that on which we were standing, and with an equally tame outline: to the south the broken land and water, forming many intricate bays, was mapped with clearness before us. ..." ...

The statue of Abel Tasman stoically looks upon the Dutch flag on a sunny Hobart day. Of course, this morning it is raining yet again, and Abel is enjoying the chance to have the bird poo washed off his lovely Lutjegasti head. Abel seemed like a good bloke, even if he was a bit of a suck. Upon being the first European to stumble upon this fine island, he promptly named it Van Diemen's Land , in honour of his boss – Anthony van Diemen – head honcho of the Dutch East Indies, a bloke with big dreams and deep pockets who had visions of a grand Dutch empire that would extend into the “Great Southern Land”. So he sent Abel down here in 1642, a good year for most not named Charles I. Despite its obvious charms, the Dutch didn’t think much of the joint. Lazy buggers, the Dutch East India Company reckoned Tasman's explorations were a letdown: he had neither found a promising area for trade nor a useful new shipping route. With no existing thriving communities to leach upon – the Dutch (a...

From last weekend, you can see a still hairy Henry, with an increasingly scrappy Ezra, both enjoying the mess that they have made of the lounge room. Here, they are re-enacting the Second Punic War, with Henry taking the role of Hannibal, and Ezra the role of Scipio (that would be Scipio Africanus). It did not result in a cleaner house.

Here you can see a statue of Edward VII, who would have to be one of the most-statued dudes (that's the technical term for "subject of statues") going around. You know about the Edwardian period, the start of a new century, lots of sunshine and frolicking, significant changes in technology and society yada yada yada. His work in trying to get everyone in Europe to just get along earned him the soubriquet of the Peacemaker . Fair enough. The trouble is, I’m not sure how much he deserves it. I mentioned before about the whole “war that was supposed to end all wars but really just ended a bit inconclusively at the cost of something like 37 million casualties, then became a diplomatic shambles, then fostered resentment, fed into a volatile international financial and political scene, then led to a whole bunch of small wars, then one ruddy great war that had an estimate 72 million casualties”. Yeah that one. Anyway, I’m not sure that the King of the United Kingdom and the Bri...

On occasions I do feel that I am out of kilter with the rest of the world...

Here is the little grin machine at five months. The title today is something that Dag Hammarskjöld said to Nikita Khrushchev . Sometimes Henry reminds me of Khrushchev, particularly when he's holding a shoe. Thankfully, sometimes Ezra reminds me of Hammarskjöld, which brings a bit of balance back into the household.

Quoting Oliver Cromwell in the title, I am rock solid in my belief that I already have access to a few honest men in my household! In many ways Ezra is already beginning to demonstrate a Cromwellian temperament, against Henry’s Jacobin flourish. At nearly two now, the elder lad reminds me of Robespierre quite a bit: intelligent, zealous, and obstinate. Although I count both historical figures amongst my heroes (of a sort), as one half of the hegemonic power base at home, I am sure that you realise keeping a close eye on these two is very much in my interest. But onto other matters! Given that tomorrow we shall surrender dear little Ezra ™ to the eight week vaccinations, I felt it an opportune time to assess and compare the two. Although in some ways comparisons are indeed odious ( cf. Sir John Fortescue), I have chosen to present both of them for your gratification.