This will hurt me...

Ezra stands astride the bridge of the oil tanker Hugli Spirit . Registered in the Bahamas, she was built 2005 in the Hyundai shipyard of Mipo Bay in Ulsan, South Korea. She has a rugged charm, at 183 metres long and 33 metres wide with over 46,889 deadweight tonnes. Unfortunately, some rather silly occupational health and safety rules prevented young Ezra from taking her out for a bit of a spin. Yes, it's political correctness gone mad!

I have no idea what this car is trying to say. I assume that it is some allusion to police corruption of some kind, but I don't really get it. I imagine that it is very very funny if you understand it, but I don't understand it. Another thing I don't understand is why the header on this blog is playing up. Rest assured that I am on the case and hope to have it sorted ASAP.

This bit of worn asphalt down near the waterfront has had plenty of work put in to drawing attention to the hazards of a crack in the footpath. Of cousre, one wonders why someone could go to all this effort, but actually avoid fixing it. Personally, it looks like overkill to me (I mean, it's been left untended for at least a month now), but I am sure that the fact it lays right on the pub crawl trail has nothing to do with the effort of looking to avoid potentially litigious drunkards. Not long ago, I discovered the beauty and challenge of the drabble . For the uninitiated, a drabble is a work of fiction exactly one hundred words in length. The purpose of the drabble is brevity, and it is a real test of an author's ability to express [hopefully] interesting and meaningful ideas in an extremely confined space. As such, it may prove a useful friend to the blogger who remains pressured to find material to continue posting a couple of times a day. So , here's a drabble I whi...

By golly I have been busy today. To ease the strain, here is Ez getting in some early bull riding practice. As is the namby pampy politically correct norm these days, I couldn't find a farmer to let us use their bull. Insurance costs, they tell me! No wonder the world is going to hell in a hand basket! [Anyone who can spot the link between the content and the title will have earned respect!]

I'm tired, so I figured that photos of the gruesome twosome might win be a free pass on the lack of droll, urbane and terribly insightful banter. Not content with pea-eating or see-sawing, both of my lads are also keen exponents of what I believe are now called eXXXtreme sportZ . However, the preposterous legislation in this feeble nanny state of ours unjustly forbids virile and eager Aussie babies and toddlers – like my own – from making their mark in the world. Thus, we have to satisfy ourselves with pallid simulacra while we twiddle our thumbs, waiting for the government to get real . Above, you can see Henry in training for eXXXtreme ice motorcro ZZ racing. Sure, there's no engine, wheels or ice, but don't blame me, blame society . Below, Ez is preparing himself for some skydiving. Obviously, he'd rather do it out of a plane, but it seems some nancy decided that chucking babies out of planes was iniquitous and disallowable . Lovable rogue that he is, Ez wo...

I only play this one every few weeks or so...

I thought that today would be little more than a mundane companion piece to yesterday’s photograph . Walking through Parliament Lawns as I usually do of a weekday morning, I noted the two council workers clearing off all of the leaves that I posted yesterday. Naively, I had assumed that this would be achieved with huge rakes and good old-fashioned muscle. Alas, I was wrong. I should have known that bulky (and extremely noisy) leaf blowers are all the rage these days. They were corralling the poor frightened leaves into the centre of the park, where a truck was waiting to haul them off to oblivion. That was that (I thought), 'a slice of Hobartian life for the world to peruse at their leisure'. As noted, I thought that this was the end of the story, I would post the photo and be done, but in the act of resizing it to make it more user-friendly, I noted something odd in the background. Like David Hemmings in the classic film Blowup , there was a strange character lurking in the ba...

I was thinking about posting on the hysterical reaction of both the mainstream press , as well as the blogging world , to the proposed cut to the one off bonuses to pensioners and carers awarded by the previous government. Aside from the logical incongruity of a 'cut' to a 'one-off bonus', I am sick of hearing about the 'proposed scrapping of the carers pension', which is something altogether different and in no way part of the announcement. If ‘journalists’ or news editors cannot get basic stuff like that correct, then public discussion around important areas of public concern has no hope. Now, I happen to think that the Howard response represented the most cynical type of politics, and is very poor public policy. Addressing some of the previous government's public policy failures – as well as some poor economic management – can only be a good thing. It's not like the present government are not targeting many areas, my day to day job has revealed to m...

You know, this kind of freaks me out a bit. Like some sick game by perverts, many of whom may well get off on it. It also reads as a slight overreaction, and will no doubt annoy these kids. For more the story behind this picture, visit the Daily Mail , those fine purveyors of nonsense.

Whether it is students, friends, or even people I don't like very much, I'm often surprised with the lack of concern, and indeed willingness to justify or explain away, some of Fidel Castro's less savoury actions over the years. Given his recent statement about retirement , yet again there is no shortage of educated, 'enlightened', reasonably intelligent people rushing out in force to pay homage to a man who by any stretch should be no friend to rational, progressive and compassionate people. Now, of course people are entitled (maybe even obligated ) to critique the actions and activities that precipitated the Cuban revolution. However, I personally fail to understand how, in the interests of identifying and condemning the political violence, interference and the poisonous influence of western hypocrisy and hegemony in the region, that so many of the above mentioned people appear to automatically grant a free pass to a fellow and regime guilty of significant abuses ...

Saw this story on Reuters this morning, and found it both depressing and amusing. It concerns the banning of the famous Cranach painting of Venus from a poster promoting an upcoming Royal Academy exhibition. It has been determined that the image is too risqué for the sensitivities of London's commuters. Aesthetically, I've never been a particular fan of Cranach's nudes (they all look like they are short of a good feed, to be honest with you), but what nonsense! How many school kids would visit the top art galleries of the world? Should we censor every Ruebens and Tintoretto because it might damage one of the sensitive dears? Or are they catering to the gender or religious sensibilities of whomever? Surely the 500 year old work of a master is no more offensive than some of the pseudo-paedophilic titillations of the ilk of Calvin Klein or some other underpants/perfume/home loan ad? It appears that the Royal Academy had the choice of placing black strips over Venus's naug...