This will hurt me...

Ezra scoots in amongst the vegetation.

What's going on? Derwent Avenue, Lindisfarne. January 2012. Happy birthday Jen! You don't look a day over [please insert most appropriate age here] ! Implosions , Adrienne Rich The world's not wanton only wild and wavering I wanted to choose words that even you would have to be changed by Take the word of my pulse, loving and ordinary Send out your signals, hoist your dark scribbled flags but take my hand All wars are useless to the dead My hands are knotted in the rope and I cannot sound the bell My hands are frozen to the switch and I cannot throw it The foot is in the wheel When it's finished and we're lying in a stubble of blistered flowers eyes gaping, mouths staring dusted with crushed arterial blues I'll have done nothing even for you?

Hot day. Sunglasses. Hat. Calippo . For that moment, nothing else matters.

Who (or what) is being protected? Ford Parade, Lindisfarne. January 2012. Two books this week, with one departure of the norm and another collection of short stories from an unknown German. The first is Tasmanian Tiger Ed Cowan’s In The Firing Line . Essentially the diary of the Australian domestic cricket season as seen through a player [then] on the periphery of the international game, Cowan struck lucky to decide on this endeavour the year that Tasmania won its second Shield title. While these books are often dry affairs, Cowan is both brutally honest in his assessment of himself, his cricket and the impact of his chosen career path on his loved ones. Moreover, he offers great insight with some considered and oft-unspoken views on the state of State cricket in Australia and the future of the game. I was particularly drawn to his observation on the effect of Twenty20 on both the domestic and international game. His frank and portrait of life as one of the invisible ‘not quite top-run...

Ez has a new pet. Unfortunately it is dead.

A rock set among the shells. Derwent foreshore, Bellerive Boardwalk. January 2012. A very special Theme Thursday today, and all that I am seeking is a little BALANCE. It's Australia Day you see, and I hate Australia Day. Now don't get me wrong, I don't hate Australia (some of my best friends are Australians!), I hate Australia Day . I hate the dickheads who shout AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE all day. I hate the pissed dickeads. I hate the dickheads decked out in Australian flag thongs , Australian flag shorts , Australian flag singlets , Australian flag hats waving little Australian flags . In the course of my lifetime Australians have gone from taking pride in their wry snub of ostentatious hubris and wrapping oneself in bits of cloth representing an empty symbolism to the kind of moronic culture that fuses heavy drinking, wrapping oneself in bits of cloth representing an empty symbolism and the kind of macho aggressive xenophobic posturing that has always been present bu...

Just a couple of dudes sitting down, shooting the breeze and waiting for something to happen...