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What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism.

Marching the convicts out by the dog line at Eaglehawk Neck.

Some day there will be no war

Trench in the backyard. Waiting for the Hun. April 2011. I think that everybody should have a trench in the backyard. You never know when somebody might invade. September, 1918 , Amy Lowell This afternoon was the colour of water falling through sunlight; The trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves; The sidewalks shone like alleys of dropped maple leaves, And the houses ran along them laughing out of square, open windows. Under a tree in the park, Two little boys, lying flat on their faces, Were carefully gathering red berries To put in a pasteboard box. Some day there will be no war, Then I shall take out this afternoon And turn it in my fingers, And remark the sweet taste of it upon my palate, And note the crisp variety of its flights of leaves. To-day I can only gather it And put it into my lunch-box, For I have time for nothing But the endeavour to balance myself Upon a broken world.

This is the patent age of new inventions for killing bodies, and for saving souls. All propagated with the best intentions.

Another shot of those glorious eyelashes…

If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad.

Cliff at one end of Clifton Beach. Clifton Beach. March 2011. A busy week this week means that I've only got through the one book (still a few pages left on the current). But what a book! Оди́н день Ива́на Дени́совича . [Ahem] One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's classic description of life in a Soviet labor camp in the 1950s, describing a single day of an ordinary prisoner, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. Seemingly as much known for its actual publication (a significant event in Soviet literary history), it's also a cracking read. Essentially an exploration of authoritative oppression and camp survival, Solzhenitsyn used his first-hand experience in the Soviet Gulag, having been imprisoned from 1945 to 1953 for criticising Joseph Stalin. Oddly enough, for the subject matter One Day in the Life... is actually an uplifting read. I'd very much recommend it to anyone.

In time we hate that which we often fear.

Indeed they will.

War makes rattling good history; but Peace is poor reading.

Looking south down Campbell Street, Hobart. April 2011. Too busy to type! I'm off to lecture people far more important than myself...

In any great organisation it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.

Henry, even your shadow is handsome! How do you do it?!?