New Hobart city council

We've just had local government elections. Voting is compulsory here and we had about 85% turnout, so it's a mass-participation event.

The last council was majority-progressive and the tactics of the minority became more and more nasty as time went on. The new council is 5-4 majority conservative. The new lord mayor (former journalist Charles Wooley) kicked off by saying he wants to "make Hobart great again" ... and then gave the departing Lord Mayor a serve. Disappointing and just ... inept. I realised; this guy needs an editor. Elf says he will not hack it, and will quit inside a year.

He and the others (Liberal / Nat aligned and in one case, a budding Pauline Hanson) are planning to wind back and erase a lot of progressive changes to the city. I think they will find going back to doing things the way they were done is not going to bring back a thriving downtown.

Someone wrote to the paper celebrating the new council, and said they came back recently after 20 years away and cried at what Hobart has become. I would say to them and anyone else talking the place down, that Hobart is magnificent. It's going fine. People are flocking here from all over the world. We can't stand still, we've got to look after it especially when it is at risk of being loved to death. 

It's got problems... in common with all other cities in Australia and around the globe. You won't fix them by taking out bike lanes.*

*I say this as a person who thinks our bike lanes are half-arsed and as a daily pedestrian finds cyclists quite irritating.

A shift back to blogging

I have been posting pics to Instagram for about 10 or 12 years now. I never write much, I just plonk the pics in; they are said to be worth 1000 words or so anyway.

I just had a moment today when I'd had enough of all of Meta's (Zuckerberg's) bullshit. That's pretty well documented, and I have no fresh take to add to it.

So I've quit posting and my whole ton of posts will come down at the end of the month. I will miss it and undoubtedly lose touch with some people. But in many ways,  it's too easy. And Facebook is too easy.

I will try to resume regular posting here. Sometimes it might be an Instagram-style pic from my local wanders with no caption or context. Feel free to ask if you're interested!

If you have come here from Insta, hello! This blog started 24 years ago and now has a lot less teething and school chat than it used to have. My boys are working in Hong Kong (Marcus) and about to solo travel in Japan (Michael). I won't rename the blog but I need to tweak the subtitle.

I will park the photo archive from Instagram somewhere. It already exists in backups but in two separate bits for some reason. I will look at what to do to make it easily accessible for anyone that wants to. 

I am still on BlueSky (the Twitter replacement) but I have a feeling this sense of freedom from the timeline might be intoxicating; maybe I'll stroll away from that also. 

Like Twitter once was, BlueSky is primarily a place for jokes, snark, snippets of observation and daftness. Once I wrote all that here,  so maybe I will again. 

Burton / O'Loughlin at Bett Gallery until Nov 7

I dropped into the Bett Gallery today to see Jane Burton's show. I was at at school with Jane, and saw her for the first time in at least 20 years, at Alex & Chonny's wedding last year. Bombshell: this isn't her work!!

Jane's remarkable work is situated on the surreal /darkly erotic continuum like 20thC painter Paul Delvaux but photography... and i did not feel relaxed about taking photos of it. But follow the link above or get in to see it in person, ends Nov 7.

This work was in the room next door,  and is by Nicole O'Laughlin. I've never seen anything like it and it was ingeniously presented. Floating embroidery! Have a better look here or again in person, this show also finishes on Nov 7.

Welcoming two new family members to NSW

This month two members of our extended family have arrived, both in New South Wales. Beatrice of Winterthur, Switzerland, daughter of Chonk and Irma, niece of Elf; has arrived in Wollongong to study at the uni. And Theodore Gregory McTaggart arrived on 6 August, a son to Emma and my nephew Brin and a new brother for Thomas and Evelyn. They are in Taree.

Welcome Bea and Teddy!

Some of my recent Bluesky posts

The expanded World Cup has its pros and cons but a corner of every TAB in the land is decorated with a slew of Arab/Muslim world flags and that's pretty cool. Build your perfect multi then go stand under the flag of Iraq as it all falls apart in the 3.40 at Doomben.

Pride leads to a fall

After my morning run today, I thought I should top up the big water bowl we leave out for the wallabies. It’s up a steep slope from our back gate; and I usually carry a bucket of water up there to do it.

In winter I wear a head torch for my run. I came inside to fill the bucket and took the torch off, meaning to put it back on to find my way back up the hill and down again safely. But… I started thinking about how lovely and shiny my bucket is. It’s shiny silver metal; maybe meant for florist displays or something? I snaffled it when we were having a big clean out at work.

So I was thinking about how proud I was of my shiny new bucket then… damn. It’s dark. No torch.

I stumbled going up the hill but managed to get there, and fill the bowl. Coming downhill through the wattles I was grabbing at branches to steady myself, then a branch snapped and I fell, suffering minor abrasions and major loss of dignity. The bucket went CLANG. 

No-one else heard or saw this classic case of Pride Leading To A Fall: Bucket Category.

On my own wavelength

In Grade 10 my soccer team were the North West coastal champions. This entitled us to go to Launceston to play Brooks High School (to be Northern champions, I guess?) Before the game we all lined up for some reason; I don't think it was a national anthem but maybe someone said a few words. I went along the opposing line and shook hands with each of them; as I had seen players do on TV in this sort of setup.

No-one else on my team followed my lead. I wasn’t captain or anything, I just felt like I should do it. Every guy I shook hands with, transmitted through his handshake and expression that they thought I was a real specimen. Check out this guy willya.

Anyway how I felt then is how I feel every day in my new spot in the large office at work. I am in a team of one and on some sort of emergency wavelength not shared by anyone else.

World Cup Boycott 2026 version

“If you don't stick to your values when they're being tested, they're not values: they're hobbies.”
― Jon Stewart

It’s World Cup time again. It’s been on for about a week. I am looking forward to the 2030 World Cup which will be hosted in an array of countries; at this stage none of them are actively evil. And I hope against hope that FIFA is broken up and rebuilt from the rubble, between now and then.

I boycotted the 2022 World Cup, which was really hard. I struggled with it. The hardest part is friends and family that want to talk about it. I do not want to say “oh, I am better than you; I am boycotting it”. I cobble together some lame explanation but I don’t like having to do it. I caved in and watched just Australia’s games with Marcus last time.

This time there is FIFA – which gets worse by the day under Gianni Infantino; and there is Donald Trump’s USA which is a perfomatively evil place. Canada and Mexico are also hosting and I apologise to those nations for boycotting their big moment. But come on; this is the 3rd time Mexico has had it. 

The US immigration regime has relished the opportunity to abuse and discriminate against brown people, on a larger than usual scale. They turned away a FIFA-appointed Somali referee on the eve of the tournament. They knew he was Somali. They could have made their bigoted objections earlier and he could have officiated in Mexico and Canada. They wanted a highly-visible controversy, it’s how they like to operate.

Again I am permitting myself to watch Australia's games only.

But I bloody hate my boycott. I loathe myself. Why can’t I just enjoy it? Why can’t I be normal? It’s just soccer, it’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s a wonderful treat just once every four years. 

This time it is 50% bigger, so there is a ton of group games and they are being played in daylight work hours in Australian Eastern Standard Time. My team has recently been moved into the big room at work; so I am surrounded by people. And we have a TV set up with the sound up broadcasting every game. People are chatting about it, it's part of the social currency of the office.

Why can’t I just enjoy it? Why can’t I be normal? Why do I have noise cancelling headphones on most of the day? 

The reason why comes down to the Jon Stewart quote at the top. Not cheating is important to me. Not being racist is important to me. And in 2022 and 2026 I have had big opportunities to prove it to myself.

Far North Queensland trip part 1: Wonga Beach, Mossman, Port Douglas and Cape Tribulation

I have just had a week in Far North Queensland, visiting my sister Jacki. And I met her new partner Dave who is a good man, but who beat me at both pool and backgammon. We both stayed most of the week at Dave’s place in Mossman where there is more space than at Jacki’s more remote place at Wonga Beach.

Jacki picked me up at the airport in Cairns and we drove north to Wonga Beach, which takes about 90 minutes at the moment. There are a handful of stops on the highway which is being rebuilt after the most recent cyclone damage.

We stopped at Ellis Beach for lunch and for a look.
The beach is patrolled and netted; this massive cable is here to hold the net. 

This beachside bar by the highway brought back deep down memories
of stops on bus trips in Peru and Ecuador, where the climate was similarly steamy.
But this place was clean, had good food and the beer was kept in the fridge. 

There are automated traffic lights instead of stop-and-go lollipop men,
but the lights have to be supervised.

A walk on Wonga Beach itself. The tide was in and we had to hop
over a lot of recumbent palm trees. That is Snapper Island out there.

Jacki has a couple of immense orb weaver spiders in her driveway

Mossman District Hospital is a jaunty art deco / Spanish mission hybrid

Dave’s local, the Post Office Hotel (cash only).
The cane trains used to run right past it.

Still from an YouTube clip only a few years old

On Day 2, Jacki took me down to Port Douglas for a look. It’s 8km as the fruit bat flies and 20km by road, because of swampy mangrove flats. We took an interesting boat tour up the creek; and I learned a lot about mangroves and crocs. I saw my first croc; about 60cm long.

I think Port Douglas is the first hot and humid yet swanky place I have been. The main shopping strip has galleries and designer fashions, as well as many gentrified pubs. I had occasional vague flashbacks to being a kid taken to fancy enclaves on Sydney’s north shore in summer; and to visiting the bourgeois side of Lima, Peru.

Full of crocodiles

I’ve heard Jacki talk about the Sugar Wharf; this is it.
Recently redeveloped; the shed is used for events.

This is the view north from the wharf towards Mossman and Wonga Beach.

St Mary’s By The Sea in Port Douglas, a very popular place for weddings.
Wonderful stained glass.

On Day 3 Dave did the driving and the three of us went ‘over the river’, north of the Daintree to Cape Tribulation. To a Tasmanian this feels like you are just about in New Guinea; and you are closer to PNG than to Brisbane. But there is so much more Queensland to go. 

The ferry across the Daintree River costs $50 return for a tourist car and is free for locals.

We did the Madja boardwalk through the rainforest at Noah Beach which was terrific.

Then we had a walk along Noah Beach (or this might be Thornton Beach?)
and I imagined sharks, crocs and deadly jellyfish lunging at me from every rockpool.

Dave and Jacki

Above is today's haul of critters, starring a wild cassowary. We had pulled up at one of the traffic queues, I think we had just crossed a one-lane bridge; and there he was. I snapped him heading left then he changed his mind, crossed over again and disappeared into the rainforest on the right. This was obviously exciting for me but more so for Jacki and Dave who understood how rare this is. Neither had ever seen one.

We got home, showered and changed and then it was time for a night out at the Mossman Bowls Club where both Jacki and her son Malachy work. She’s on food and beverage service and he’s assistant chef. He's also one of the club's star bowlers. 

We were there for a birthday party for one of Dave’s friends, who happened to be manager of the Mossman Woolworths. 

Dave and I snuck into the ‘Sports Bar’ and he beat me at pool but it was really nice to see the traditional colourful set of balls; you mostly just see reds ‘n yellows these days.

Dave said again and again what a wonderful day he’d had. He’s lived in Mossman for 10 years, but he works pretty hard and he has never once been over the river before.