This will hurt me...

Henry. Henry! I see the light, Henry!

There is light at the end of the tunnel. And my wife. Alexandra Battery, Sandy Bay. January 2012. Friday Book Club sees me with just the two books finished this week, but what a two! First up is The Painter of Signs a novel from 1976 by Indian author R. K. Narayan. This one is a lovely little book that follows the rather unusual courtship of a proud sign painter in an ordinary Indian town and Daisy, a career-oriented feminist fanatical in her mission to make family planning available to all of India. Narayan has a keen sense of capturing the subtitles of human relationships and the rhythms and sounds of the city, the taste and smells of food, the colour and movement of the crowds. It’s clear that the city is growing and changing as the locals try to find some personal purpose within the juggernaut of “progress.” Torn between the traditional and the modern, the ‘hero’ of the tale represents the Indian everyman in a nation on the cusp of something far greater than the individual. This i...

Ezra re-enacts his birth experience with his mother. It's all part of the healing process. As part of the festivities, I give you the week of his birth ! [Start at the bottom and scroll up.]

Through a tunnel underneath a large roundabout, I can just about see the light! So it is Theme Thursday again, and this week those of us fortunate enough to live in the Southern Hemisphere - the greatest Hemisphere in the known universe - are once again disadvantaged! SNOW! Yes, SNOW ! We're just into summer and I am supposed to talk SNOW?!? Sorry fellas, SNOW chance of that! A Story I once knew a fellow who was charming, in a roguish way. He had a cutting wit, and although his manner to my mind drifted into the unnecessarily cruel, he remained quite the hit with the ladies. An attractive gent, he was aware of his physical charms. Knowing this appeared to empower some of his less attractive features. That said, he was the life of the party, and his trademark bons mots always ensured a steady bevy of beauties hanging off his arm. Moreover, despite what many of the legions of his callously discarded conquests might like to tell themselves, he really, truthfully was happy and con...