Not everyone wants to be on Instagram. But I post a lot of photos there of my travels (which are 98% on foot just around Hobart). And a few tiny drawings and paintings of similar landscapes. Here’s the last few months as teeny thumbnails. You can find me there @4boat4boat.
I haven't watched it and maybe never will. I did watch highlights of the Argentina v Netherlands quarter final. It was a pulsating game full of incident and spite, but one thing will rankle with me forever (over and above my general Qatar ranklement).
The world’s greatest player, Leo Messi, handballed deliberately in clear sight of the referee and did not get a yellow card.
He later did get a yellow, which if it had been his 2nd would have seen him sent off and miss next game. Argentina went on to win the game, putting them into a semi against Croatia which they won, thanks enormously to the not-suspended Messi.
On the other side of the draw, the heir to Messi's crown, Kylian Mbappe of France, helped his side beat Morocco in the other semi to set up a dream final, Argentina v France.
The evidence of my eyes, and the deeply contrived nature of this whole World Cup convinces me that referees were instructed to miss anything that might bring about suspensions to the superstars. I believe that the Qatar WC committee did what they needed to do to engineer the ideal final.
And – the final which played out has been described as the greatest final ever, maybe the greatest match ever. I have read a match report, it was certainly a ding dong battle. Played in a stadium that owes its existence to cheating and human rights abuses.
This is probably the biggest win ever for sportswashing and a huge incentive to others with the cash to do the same. For me it's a dark day and another nail in the coffin of my love for international football and sport generally.
There’s a popular website called Am I The Asshole where people relate stories from their life to establish who, in the story, is the asshole. Invariably the teller of the story does not think they are the asshole but is open to the possibility that maybe they are, after all.
Now I am wondering AITA on Facebook. I have an account, I have Facebook Friends but I rarely read and even more rarely comment on what everyone is doing. My main purpose is checking to see if Sunday's kickabout in the park is on and confirming I'll be there.
To everyone that I have worked with, shared rentals with, and been to school with that’s on Facebook but who I am not in touch with – I hope everyone is doing well. We’re all pretty much in our fifties or older now and our parents are getting old and frail; our kids are getting their licences and moving out of home; our cats and dogs are reaching their natural life spans and leaving us completely legless with grief without their unconditional love.
Weirdly, I am happy to write about this stuff here. I'm happy to make a pissweak passing joke about it on Twitter to an audience of strangers, who have become friends over my 12-or-so years on there. But I just don’t have any urge at all to share it on Facebook. Am I The Asshole? I don't know.
2023 marks 40 years since my cohort finished high school. There’s a reunion but I don't have any real wish to be back there. High school was pretty horrible at times; although I found some amazing friends, and we have walked alongside one another ever since.
This is my Grade 7 soccer team from 1980. I remember the names of all these guys. If I bumped into any of them I’d drop what I was doing to spend time with them, and I'd help them out if they needed help. But there is no way I am walking into a room full of 90 people from high school 40 years ago.
This is Boa Vista Road in New Town, five minutes drive from the centre of town.
I catch a bus up this way in my lunch hour sometimes and walk back into the city. The bushy hill is the Queens Domain. This road corkscrews up, over, down and around to the right to meet Park Street. A few metres beyond Park Street is the busy Brooker Highway. Then above that Cleary's Gates Road runs through the bush (lined with parked commuter cars). And even further up the hill is the jogging loop track.
I like doing these urban landscapes and like most artists I shuffle the cars out of the scene because they spoil it.
In the finished painting above, an old homestead snoozes in a quiet street with apparently untouched bush in the background - a total lie! I like an uncluttered landscape. But at the same time I really love the way the movement of a car across the surface of the earth can highlight the topography.
When I lived in Melbourne in 1990-91 I went out to Sale on the train to visit my friends Phillip and Andrea. It was about a three-hour trip. I must have been in a particularly visually suggestive mood because I saw two things that have stuck with me.
One was Loy Yang power station. I had it etched on my brain afterwards. I cranked out a series of drawings and paintings and eventually had an exhibition in 1996 of variations on the theme of a simple scene: land, sky, monolith with lit windows, and four chimneys belching steam. (It wasn’t etched in my brain very accurately because Loy Yang does not have four chimneys).
I spend a lot of time on Twitter; I post maybe 5 times a day on average. Just little observations in the main. I don't know how many followers I have, but I have good friends I met there and in most cases have never met in real life. The ones I have met; Josh and Sean and John and Craig and Dugald and Andy and Andy and Cheryl and Sue and Christine and Belinda and John and Dave and very briefly Ryan – all lovely people. All add value and meaning to my day.
It's a last day of Grade 12 vibe in there at the moment as everyone exchanges addresses, and we’re nervous and excited and sad. Elon Musk has purchased Twitter and rapidly driven it out into a paddock where it’s got four flats, smoke coming from the engine and the diff ripped out on a tree stump. Who saw that coming?! [Everyone].
The good thing if Twitter dies is I will maybe spend more time here expanding thoughts into larger forms and getting more practice actually communicating an idea in writing. The bad thing is communities will fracture, many people and groups and organisations and movements will lose their main or only voice.
Australia's soft plastics recycling industry has just gone public with the fact that they stopped recycling 6 to 9 months ago and have just stockpiled every bread bag I have given them since. This is dreadful news but it has also made me look at yesterday-me from before the news broke and say to him "oh you thought it was that easy eh? Buying everything in plastic is fine because the recycling fairies will turn it into park benches for old fellows to sit and play chess".
Similarly this rapid disintegration of something I had come to rely on too much for news, friendship, ideas and novelties has got me thinking "Oh you thought it was that easy eh? One website for touching farewells to beloved pets and news snark? And interacting with your favourite musos? And jokes?
A lot of us are going to have to work a lot harder to stay connected, stay informed, stay amused. But hard work is good, right? And Elon Musk, who in many ways is a world-historical idiot, is down $44 billion. Worse things happen.
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| Bowen Rd, Lutana and Mt Direction |
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| Opposite All Saints, South Hobart |
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| Liverpool Street, West Hobart |
It's been raining cats and dogs in Hobart, as it has been up and down the east coast of Australia. We have been spared the serious flooding that has occurred in northern Tasmania and in other states - but the Hobart Rivulet near our house has been a mighty brown torrent.
Yesterday was Sunday, and appropriately the sun came out for the first time in a week. I genuinely didn't know what to do. There were various house things that needed doing, washing to get on the line etc. But maybe I wanted to read a book in the sun? Then there were a couple of DIY things to sort out. I actually got myself into an anxious state, upset with myself that I didn't have a plan in place to make best use of the sunshine.
It seems ridiculous, but I confessed it to a workmate this morning and she said she had felt the same. The rain is coming back for the rest of this week, and we both felt "oh no, I have a small window of precious sunshine and I MUST NOT WASTE IT". That anxiety is ridiculous but when you are in it it's very real.
In the end I went off to Bunnings Hardware. When in doubt, just pretending to be a normal Australian man for a while is not a bad strategy. On the way I went past the soccer fields which are not in use now it's spring, and two bagpipers in plain clothes were bang in the middle playing at top volume. I think that was when I started feeling better. I bought some timber and drain plugs and solar lights and non-slip stuff and solvent and had a sausage and onion in bread.
I also had a walk in the sun around the old Showgrounds behind Bunnings, which is a very odd place indeed these days.
I got home, made an extension to the front yard handrail and put non-slip strips on the steps. Then I sat down to watch the Richmond women's team qualify for their first finals series with a thrilling draw. And I am back on the rails.
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| The floodlights for the Showgrounds' greyhound track |
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| Last time I sat here was to watch diving pigs in 2011 |
