This will hurt me...

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...

Here's Henry trying out the public bidet up in Burnie back in February. We really do need some of those around here...

They aren't shy when it comes to lil' folk. Especially when there are adventures to be had...

Well well well, it's the Aurora Australis! As seen from the Derwent, Hobart, May 2011. After last week's free-for-all, this week has seen the ratio drop considerably; with a combination of no bus trips, no lunch breaks and both children and PSP close to hand has seen me finish just one (and slowly make my way through another). The Beacon is an odd little novel that explores concepts like family, ambition, truth (all that jazz). Riffing off the question of what happens to those implicated by the rise of 'misery memoirs' ('grief porn'?). At the centre of the book is the strangely stilted May Prime, sister of Frank, who has written a bestseller called about his cruel childhood at a remote North Country farm through the 1950s. In it he accuses his late father of terrible cruelty and his family of collusion. Although Frank's memoir portrays himself as a victim, the actual novel [ The Beacon ] revolves around his siblings, who must live with what he has written. ...

Sand worm, or sand? You decide.