This will hurt me...

Another Moon (well, another photo of the same Moon). Sullivans Cove, Hobart. July 2013. Theme Thursday and the HEAT is on for me to get everything ready in time for Ezra's birthday!

The Moon! The Moon , Gunnar Ekelof The moon passes her hand softly over my eyes, Wakes me long into the night. Lonesome among the sleepers, I lay wood on the fire, fuss about with smoking sticks, Move quietly among the shadows, shadows flapping high Above the brown logs, richly Decorated with glistening fish-lures... Why did I wake? Lonesome among the sleepers, Backs turned to the fire, I open the door quietly, Walk around the corner in the snow, tramp on the clumps, see Moonlight coldly calling me over the snow... Why did I wake? Lonesome among the sleepers, Backs turned to the fire, I open the door quietly, Walk around the corner in the snow, tramp on the clumps, see Moonlight coldly calling me over the snow...

Kuu. As seen from Geilston Bay, Tasmania. March 2013. I love the moon. It's great. I'm off to donate blood. The Moon , Gunnar Ekelof The moon passes her hand softly over my eyes, Wakes me long into the night. Lonesome among the sleepers, I lay wood on the fire, fuss about with smoking sticks, Move quietly among the shadows, shadows flapping high Above the brown logs, richly Decorated with glistening fish-lures... Why did I wake? Lonesome among the sleepers, Backs turned to the fire, I open the door quietly, Walk around the corner in the snow, tramp on the clumps, see Moonlight coldly calling me over the snow... Why did I wake? Lonesome among the sleepers, Backs turned to the fire, I open the door quietly, Walk around the corner in the snow, tramp on the clumps, see Moonlight coldly calling me over the snow...

As you know, the Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (and bacon.) The following are some things that I've had a look at in the last week. I call this: a Compendium of Click-throughs for Monday Morning... The public implications or pubic hair... A repository of Turkish recipes online... In search of a baby called Derek... A good little discussion and collection of photos in this little piece, The photographer’s war: Vietnam through a lens .

Gute Nacht Mond. As seen from Sandy Bay. July 2012. Lord Byron was a filthy bugger. Even through he liked a swim, he never could wash that stink out... She walks in beauty, like the night , Lord Byron She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies, And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes; Thus mellow'd to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies. One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impair'd the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress Or softly lightens o'er her face, Where thoughts serenely sweet express How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. And on that cheek and o'er the brow So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent.

Ground control to Major Tom… Top of Mount Wellington, Hobart. April 2012. This Sunday Top Five I am taking the opportunity to vent just a little bit. Yes, it is my Top Five Things This Week That Are Annoying Me (That Do Not Involve Children)! Hipsters. Or just anyone who is generally badly dressed but looks down their nose at other punters in the street because of their clothes/ haircut/ appropriately-sized eyewear. People who push in line to order food, but when they eventually are asked their order they don’t know what they want. Having to flick through all your tabs in your browser just to see which page is playing that stupid and annoying music so you can kill it. Forms that ask questions requiring an answer but don’t provide anything like the amount of space for you to adequately respond. When people say ‘literally’ but they really do not literally mean it.

Greek Orthodox Church prepares for a new day. Antill Street, South Hobart. July 2011. Cripes, I forgot again! I am going to recycle something that I wrote in a previous comments page just to stir up the possums... It concerns the outrage that many have with regards to the issue of gay couples having children. Now, my opinion on the matter is that too many people attach far too much significance on the concept of ‘ natural ’, which seems to me itself an incredibly subjective and contestable idea rather than some immutable scientific ‘ fact ’. Yet let us not get too sidetracked on that point. My belief is essentially one that assumes the only acceptable or correct equation in this area is "man + woman = parents" is wrong. Moreover, it is such a simplistic notion that barely seems worth arguing about. Surely anybody with any experience in the world much have collected by now innumerable examples of how the "man + woman = nothing like a parent (should be)". For me - i...

A moon over Davey Street. Hobart, December 2010. The chimney belonged to the Hobart Gas Company, and was built in 1854 to establish a gasworks to lighten the city streets. This was the third gasworks in the southern hemisphere, but we all know that it really was the best. A lot of bricks, piled real high... Hobart, December 2010.

November moon, as seen in a backyard in Geilston Bay. November 2010. Friday Book Club and a productive week of reading has just gone by. Three for three in terms of quality, although when you have the ninth all-time bestselling book ever published and a Nobel Prize winner’s most fondly remembered novel in the mix, you would hope so! The first one to mention is Imre Kertész’s wonderful self-autobiographical novel Fatelessness . When he won the Nobel Prize in 2002, the committee noted that his writing “upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history". This is very much a theme in Fatelessness . Ostensibly the tale of a young Hungarian boy swept away from his life in Budapest through the changing fortunes of the Second World War. Ethnically, the boy is a Jew; yet his family (bar an uncle) do not actually practise that religion. In this way, the notion of being persecuted – to the extent of Auschwitz – for something you are unsure of your...

Inspiration for Ezra's birthday cake. June 2010. A quick Sunday Top Five today, as we have Ezra's second birthday to host, but no doubt a controversial list! My Top Five Painters (Off The Top Of My Head)... Paul Klee Claude Monet J.M.W. Turner Wassily Kandinsky Natalia Goncharova

10 Murray and the moon in June, 2010. T minus 5,491 minutes and 8 seconds. I shall miss 10 Murray when she's gone. I am only thankful that I shall not be in the vicinity when they knock the Grand Old Dame down. [Wipes tear.]

The Moon as seen in the evening from a backyard in Geilston Bay in March, 2010. Like Henry, I am somewhat infatuated by the moon. One day, I shall like to visit the moon. Unlike Henry and Ezra, I don't envisage getting there in some kind of modified carrot.

Another morning, another one of 10 Murray, another one of the moon in the sky. Are you sensing a pattern? I am as busy as a Marxist beaver today, the masses against the classes and all that jazz. That said, I am making headway, so HURRAH COMRADE!

This is the moon. Have I mentioned how much I adore the zoom on my camera? It's Theme Thursday you see, and after last week's limp effort, I have been thinking about how I might redeem myself. Then I clicked on the topic and discover that it was BUTTON. We've been hearing a lot about the moon in the past couple of weeks. Apparently some fellas went up there and played golf and what-not forty-odd years ago. The desire to get to the moon, however, was not simply about enhancing opportunities for Meg and Mog titles and skirting local planning by-laws in the construction of new and innovative golf courses. No, all of your Sputniks , "One small steps" and freeze dried ice cream was about one thing , and one thing only : MAD Now, I don't mean mad in terms of "bloke breaks record for number of scorpions he can get up his bum", no I mean MAD as in Mutual assured destruction . When I was a young man you see, there was a lot of talk about the type of m...

I love the zoom on my camera. I don't even need a tripod! If you can't guess, this is the moon, as seen from Geilston Bay yesterday morning while waiting at the bus stop. Yesterday was Bastille Day. I love Bastille Day. My favourite Bastille Day story relates to the initial storming. While many like to think of the brave folk liberating hordes of unjustly held political prisoners (and sawing their heads off the guards to dance about with the heads on poles), they actually found four forgers, two lunatics and one dirty old man. And a dog. No wonder they were so angry. Vive la révolution!

I took this photo looking up while down in Salamanca Place last Thursday afternoon. High above the Silos and the trees, that speck of white you can see is the moon. A new thing for me: TUESDAY Q and A ! Right now , at this very moment , what is your favourite word? Right now? I am going to have to go with dénouement .

Yeah, it's Theme Thursday again, and again I'm a bit stuck for words. The picture, no problem. I took this photograph last week as I came into work featuring 10 Murray (which is very much solidifying its presence in my heart), Henry's mate the moon, and some tasty looking clouds. I like the picture a lot, and it features today's theme, ROOF . But what more is there to say about it? "A roof is the covering on the uppermost part of a building." Thrilling stuff. I will tell you the three things that came to mind when I thought about roofs today (and I'm not promising it to be interesting or funny): 1) I know a bloke who, on his eighteenth birthday - and in a drunken state, (of course) - was taken up to the roof of the local scout hall, bound to a plastic lawn chair with packing tape, and then tossed off in celebration to the delight of a cheering throng. It went down in local folklore as "a top night". 2) When I was a kid, if you took the televis...

Here you can see Henry's very best friend just last night. Yes, it is the moon . So Theme Thursday is upon us again and the theme actually has nothing whatsoever to do with anything lunar, space, sky or suchlike. The theme - as I am sure that you have guessed already - is EGG . Egg?!?! Yes EGG . You see, when I look up at a nice moon like that, in a clear dark sky, I think of the precious little EGG that cute little babies are before that filthy little tadpole appears and turns into a baby. I have this whole notion of the egg sitting there in the womb uterus cervix pancreas – wherever it is that eggs sit in a lady's tum – and it sits there and glows like the moon in a dark sky. It’s a very romantic notion of a lady's reproductive system I think, and doesn’t involve blood or amniotic fluid. Maybe any stray stars can be platelets of something... Anyway, at some point I imagine my two young fellows were once lovely little moons eggs lurking within their mum, waiting all ...

It's morning here in Tasmania, but as you can see, I step out the front door and here is the moon. Henry pointed it out to me. Well, actually he first thought that it was a ball of some description, but he soon realised his error. Once we had that sorted, he wanted to know what the moon was doing out in the morning. You see, he's been indoctrinated by thousands, nay, millions of children's books that assure him that the moon only comes out at night, and then buggers off during the day. Because I never smoked cigarettes , I lack the requisite scientific skills to fully understand, let alone explain, the whole notion of crescents, quarters, gibbons blah blah blah I do know that it involves the reflection of sunlight, the phases of the moon, and that in a nutshell, parts of the Earth can see the reflected sunlight off the moon while that portion also faces the sun. Hence Henry and I can see the moon during the day. Or maybe it’s got something to do with magical elves. I ca...

I don't care what anyone says, I think that this photo is lovely. I am posting it as a companion piece to the sunrise I posted the other day. Only this time, I am going to call this a ‘moonset’. It is my firm belief that the moon gets a raw deal from people. The moon is also closely linked to two of my favourite things. First, many cultures link the monthly cycle of the moon – in contrast to the annual cycle of the sun – to women's menstrual cycles. That’s got to help explain why so many of the mythological lunar deities are ladies. Think Selene , Phoebe , Artemis and Diana . Second, the words 'lunacy", ‘lunatic’, and ‘loony’ are derived from lunar because of the folk belief in the moon as a cause of periodic insanity. Think about werewolves assumed their shape shifting abilities because of appearence of the full moon. So the next time that you find yourself accusing your wife of reacting like a rabid werewolf or crazy loon at ‘that time of the month’, you may well ...