I ate one Easter egg for each paragraph of this post

It is Easter Tuesday, and we are now all flopped and flooped around the house like dead fish. We drove back from the north west coast this morning, after four days holidaying up yonder. Again we took Winston with us - this time he remembered not to eat his lead (twice).

We were doing a house swap with our marvellous friends X and Y and their girls, who live in a tiny country hamlet. We didn't expect to see them on the road, but Campbell Town lived up to it's reputation for bringing travellers together. We were gingerly walking Winston around the no-dogs central park, when Y hailed us from a slowly passing car. They piled out and we had a bit of time together mostly taken up with them saying "God, he's huge. Man, he's enormous. Oh Lord."

Mum and Dad have actually sold their house, so when we got to Turners Beach the hound with his EZ-shed black hair and dripping jowls was not permitted inside. We stayed Friday night there, with the boys where we would usually sleep, and us in Mum and Dad's campervan. The spot where the boys would usually sleep is just boxes, boxes, boxes.

On Saturday Mum and Dad headed to Hobart to continue their house search, so we popped across to the other end of the coast to our Swappy Home Away From Home. X and Y are renting, so our hound was not allowed in there either. As they have incomplete fences, he couldn't stay outside either, so we had to take him up the road to the local cattery, for his first experience boarding. Cattery Lady said he was very nervous at first after we left but settled down pretty well after that.

We had a quiet day in the very quiet little town, kicking the footy in the never-ending backyard, reading, drawing, and getting to know the Wii games.

Marcus leaped about like a dervish doing Wii boxing, in which you start by beating up The Dude out of The Big Lebowski.

The instructions helpfully suggest that you PUNCH THE FACE.

On Easter Sunday we spent the day in Stanley. We took the chairlift up to the top of The Nut. Last time we were there the flies were practically blotting out the sun. This time there was one fat fly welcoming visitors as they got off the chairlift, but that was all. It was a perfect day, and the views from up top would have been worth the climb that we wimped out of.

[Just remembered I should mention Elf and boys got me an Easter egg the size of a football].

Stanley was a fishing village, but with a hinterland of very rich farmland. It's very tourism-dependent these days - everything is very well presented but the town has a lovely relaxed feeling to it. You get the feeling that rather than having some committee of awning-colour-nazis, everyone is just motivated to keep their own little bit of it looking good. Folks were friendly too.

The page I pinched this pic from suggests that the "staple" of Stanley is "crayfish washed down with crab". That is a little unrealistic.

We spent some time in the cemetery, the highlight of which for me was the grave of a man named Mr Horsenail. I completely forgot until we'd left that poor old Henry Hellyer was buried there too.

On Monday we collected the noble hound, and drove over for another night at Mum and Dad's. In the morning Mum and I walked Winston on the beach for the last time as resident of and privileged visitor to Turners Beach.

The drive home was uneventful (I have copied and pasted that from every other trip away I have blogged) but I did notice a sign in the driveway of a bottleshop in Oatlands: FORM ONE LATTE. I liked it but I have no idea what it means.

Michael "Big Face" Rees, relaxing at Easter

Saltwater River weekend

Elf and I spent the weekend down on the Tasman Peninsula at Saltwater River, for our 10th anniversary. The cottage where we stayed is on the site of an old convict-era probation station, with lots of crumbling brick. We had a really lovely time, thanks to Imp and Ed and Mum and Dad for looking after the boys.

I am loving Newfoundland right now

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Labrador Baby Lunch

We just had a very social weekend. Karri and Miah stayed with us while Imp and Ed attended another one of the endless Fullagar cousin weddings (best wishes to Isabelle and James). Mum and Dad stayed with us as well, as they have been every Thursday to Monday for a couple of months, while they search for the elusive house.* Sal, Matt and the young Arthur David Warren (approaching 1) came for lunch on Sunday - making 11 at the table.

Arthur has been enjoying his occasional experiences with dogs, lately. Sally was keen to bring him over to see how he would react to a dog ten times his size (although about the same age). They just loved each other. Grown ups had to keep leaping in to stop them loving each other too much - there was face licking. Arthur is pelting around on all fours now - at on stage he crawled between Winston's legs and out the other side.

It was the opening day of soccer season on Saturday. Miah, Karri and Marcus all played, and all three teams won. Miah scored two goals, and Marcus scored one, an exceptional glancing header. You don't often see headers, let alone headed goals, in the under 9s. David, who had already scored three, clouted the ball towards the goals, high but wide. Marcus was in the perfect position to slightly turn his head and deflect it into the corner of the net. I went a little bit beserk.

*Mum and Dad have put in an offer on a house over the river - I've got everything including my tonsils crossed for them.

Outsmarting the Nazis

From the Wikipedia article on aqua regia

When Germany invaded Denmark in World War II, the Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy dissolved the gold Nobel Prizes of the German physicists Max von Laue and James Franck in aqua regia to prevent the Nazis from confiscating them. The German government had prohibited Germans from accepting or keeping any Nobel Prize after the jailed peace activist Carl von Ossietzky had received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935. De Hevesy placed the resulting solution on a shelf in his laboratory at the Niels Bohr Institute. It was subsequently ignored by the Nazis who thought the jar—one of perhaps hundreds on the shelving—contained common chemicals. After the war, de Hevesy returned to find the solution undisturbed and precipitated the gold out of the acid. The gold was returned to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Nobel Foundation who recast the medals and again presented them to Laue and Franck.

Sir Michael

Michael has gone off to school in this home-made getup this morning. Although its basically medieval, there is a bit of Egypt going on there as well. On the back of the shield he has written a traditional Egyptian prayer on the back of his shield: O, Horus please make the enemies go.

Glenorchy 16.6 (102) d Clarence 9.12 (66)

Last night Dad and Marcus and I went along to Glenorchy with Rob and Olivia for the opening game of the local footy season. There was a record crowd (8400 plus about 5000 non-paying kids). A lot of us were there to see "Aker" – Jason Akermanis, the former Brisbane Lion triple-premiership player and Brownlow medalist. It’s a long time since a higher-credentialled big league player came to the state. He was sacked last July by his second club the Western Bulldogs, essentially for being a big mouth. He was getting paid by media outlets on the understanding he would be controversial, but his club just wanted him to concentrate on footy and stop giving other clubs ammunition.

As soon as he was cut loose, the Glenorchy Magpies began the process of luring him to Tasmania. Immediately my boss smelled a documentary, and from Aker's first visits to Tasmania we have been tracking him with a camera crew. I actually put my foot in it last night, when I was down by the boundary line and Raef and Jeff walked past, filming the crowd. I gave them a big wave - you aren't meant to do that unless you are a colourful character, preferably toothless and tattooed. It spoils the footage when one of the crew's buddies spots them and waves hello.

We watched the first quarter standing near the food kiosk - it was the first spot we had come to that was out of the wind. At quarter time we walked across the ground to a better vantage point (still the best thing about local footy is being allowed on the ground in the breaks). The umpires gather in the centre of the ground during the short breaks, and we were bewildered to note that they were being guarded by Darth Vader and a number of stormtroopers ranging from rake-thin to quite fat. One stormtrooper was adjusting Darth's cape which was in disarray due to the stiff breeze.

"How goes the Foot Ball?"  "The Pies appear to have the Roos on toast, your Highness".

We watched the next two quarters sitting on the bank on the scoreboard side, and copped that breeze right in the teeth. We put on every warm thing we had brought. My ears were suddenly so cold that I stuffed my gloves in under my beanie. They hung down like Winston's ears, and I was certainly one of the most ridiculous looking people there, which is saying something.

Just a new look I'm working on.

At halftime I decided to get in the hot pies for everyone, back on the other side of the ground. Just as I reached the front of the queue, the hot pies ran out, and the kiosk started laboriously microwaving frozen ones. I waited ages for ours, but at least they were fairly hot in the end. According to the paper "while the traditional meat pie might have been cold enough to warrant being served on an icy pole stick, just about everything else ran perfectly."

The tension is palpable as the hot pies in the Kevin Baker Kiosk run out.

The football was a pretty good standard, and it was certainly a crowd-pleasing result. Aker looked rusty early but was in better nick by the end. We stayed hoping to see the famous post-match handstand, but the "New King of Glenorchy" was swamped by kids. He apparently had a to have a few goes at it before he had enough space to execute one.

Marcus loved it, even though there was no big screen or commentary to tell him what was happening every minute. I think a good night was had by all.

The front fell off

John Clarke and Bruce Dawe in 1991. They are still doing the same schtick.

Etchings

As a sometimes artist, I am always envious of printmakers who do etchings. Are they etchers? Etchographers? Etchists? Anyway.

1. They get to play with acid 
2. As a result they have an emergency shower on hand in their studio - who doesn't want that?
3. Etchings always look great. They have that spotty acid-eaten texture that other artists have to work so hard to achieve. And it's pretty obvious that the etchists know it. How often have you seen a great looking etching that has four intentional loopy lines and just a whole lot of terrific-looking mess? Heaps, that's how often.

I grabbed a book of Fred Williams prints and drawings at the library on Saturday. It is a masterpiece of the curator's profession - e.g. Landscape with Goose;

"Landscape with goose (1973)
Drypoint, roulette, electric hand engraving tool and burnisher, printed in black ink on Lavis Montgolfier St Marcel Les Annonay paper, edition 2/20"

Oh come on. The paper cannot really be called that. Really? REALLY?

The brownest belts in town

The children pictured below are now officially brown belts! Mind your Ps and Qs with them or they will block you and possibly mutter "Teh". Michael seemed to be having a good time at the first post-grading class, but when I came upstairs this morning he was making a "Boo Tae Kwon Do" poster - a pretty good rendition of the official logo, but with a red diagonal line through it.

TEH!!!!

The boys had their first Tae Kwon Do grading this morning. They were far from keen. They often have to be dragged to classes, and although Michael just floops his way through it, Marcus often complains that his back hurts, or something’s not fair. Miscellaneous grizzles. Then Michael chimes in, despite showing every indication of enjoying it when he's there.

So, grading. We promised the boys that if they at least achieved brown belt we would let them choose something else to do, as long as it was something they could do together. Over the last few days I have been trying to encourage the boys to practice by attacking them with carrots, socks, underpants, magazines, apples etc. The would wave a desultory low block in my direction and give me that "you're embarrassing" look they they have learned from teens on TV. Michael repeats like a mantra "Tae Kwon Do is useless". Marcus said "What if you are attacked by something poisonous, or spiky? You wouldn't want to block with your hand then would you?" Michael added "Or something hard, but floppy?"

We managed to get them into the white gear, keep them away from the black dog and get them in the car. Grading was in a high school gym in the northern suburbs. The boys were in a group of about 70 white and brown belts, aged from about 6-12. Some very small kids were in the upper grades of brown belt, well on their way to purple.

They judged each grade together - I was worried for the boys that they would have to stand all alone in front of all the parents etc and execute their moves. Marcus did very well, he was obviously doing his best. Michael did better than we feared (he had been rehearsing some pretty disrespectful expressions) but he at least did everything he was asked to. I don't think his block would have stopped a serious assailant with a sock or apple though.

As the grading wore on, and the moves performed got more and more complicated, I was constantly tempted to leap up and move the kids further apart. None of the highly trained senseis seemed to realise that kids were bumping into each other, and sometimes performing chops to the back of each others heads by mistake. The top grade were asked to do some free shadow-combat with blocks, kicks, punches and snappy turns - they looked a little like obstacle-sensing robots.

A sequence of moves often ends with a punch and a sharply shouted "TEH!". When the kids are asked to do the sequence in their own time, you can tell that the ones who finish last are a bit reluctant to draw attention to their last-ness with a big shout. I'm pretty sure one of them said "Murp".

The whole thing wrapped up a good deal faster than I had thought. Marcus was relieved at the end that it had been quick and not as daunting as he had feared. Michael maintained that TKD is "stupid" as well as "useless". Tomorrow they have their next class and will see if they have progressed to the Belt of Brown.

 I have just looked up some of the competition rules and now have to think about whether I want the boys participating in a sport where three points are awarded for a kick to the head.

2011

OK, you might think it has been 2011 for a while. In fact it’s just started. 2011 football season, that is.

So is here is my never-commented-on, probably entirely unread regular AFL Prediction post.

Premiers: Western Bulldogs <–  STOP PRESS: worst prediction I have ever made.
Runners Up: Collingwood
Rest of the top 8: St Kilda, Hawthorn, Essendon, Melbourne, Carlton, Adelaide
Wooden Spoon: West Coast
Brownlow Medal: Brendan Goddard, St Kilda
Coleman Medal: Jack Riewoldt, Richmond (85)
Richmond Outlook: As ever, a rolled gold certainty for ninth

Further thoughts from aboard a tuna boat

[Some more about yesterday's fishing expedition.]

We were out there for such a long time, with so little action, that after a while I was just staring into space. It was not a large boat - you had to find somewhere comparatively comfortable to lean and just settle in there.

The basalt stacks of the coastline are pretty amazing. Tasman Island has an unbelievable timber platform perched above the rocks, with an almost-vertical tramway up which supplies were winched to the now-decommissioned lighthouse.

We couldn't see the top of the island yesterday due to sea fog. Wikipedia to the rescue.

How did they ever get anything onto the platform?

Interesting and beautiful as all of this is, I was finding it less novel after about six hours of circling around. At least I wasn't leaning over the rail the whole time like Dan. It must have seemed like an eternity to him, as he couldn't even see where we were going. I started to think about eternity too.

The rocks are being bashed constantly by the sea. I understand the "constantly" part a lot better now. Every day, all night, no breaks for weekends - down here it just doesn't stop. It's been happening for hundreds of thousands of years, and will keep happening no matter what. It's happening now.

I thought about how I would go living on one of the islands. I'd be eating a lot of raw seabird eggs, I decided. The birdlife all around was very varied. Gulls and albatrosses and terns and ... prions? The albatrosses could glide into view, glide about just above the waves until your neck got stiff and your eyes hurt from watching, then glide off around behind the boat and out of view, all without a flap. Incredibly efficient. Smaller birds were flapping like nobodies' business - they must have to eat a lot more than the albatross I suppose. But not too much at once - then you can't fly. A tricky business. I love how seabird eggs are the pointiest, so that if they roll, they roll in a circle and not off the rocky ledge.

We saw a lot of basking seals on the rocks, but more fascinating were the ones in the water. In pounding waves that would have drowned me in a few minutes, the seals attitude was more akin to a Tuesday night in the lounge room, with not much on the telly. Idly rolling and lolling, waving a flipper here and a tail there. Just hanging out in the 3-4 metre swell. "Hi, humans! Catching any tuna? No? We've got heaps!! Hahahahahaha!! BRAAAAAAAP."

Rolling in search of invertebrates

If this was your job, would you ever get sick of "rolling across the surface of the cushion"?

Some pictures of the rocks I sailed around today for 8 hours

My boss paid for us all to take a work day off today, and go tuna fishing off the south coast. That's pretty good isn't it? He's a pretty fantastic boss. So I am not going to post any pictures of him asleep in the Big Fish Fighting Chair.

We were out there for eight hours - Steve was very keen to catch some bluefin. We got one bluey, and three stripy tuna, so a pretty quiet day really. After about 5 hours I was ready to get off the boat, to be honest.

We had some casualties. Two workmates threw up early on, then found somewhere to sleep. A third actually spent the whole trip bent over the rail, head down, occasionally getting waveslapped in the face while throwing up. The whole eight hours. Once we were back on land, he pulled himself together and was his usual charming self. Which to my mind wins Effort of the Day.

Nathan's face says "I caught it, but I can't eat it. Or anything else."

Like the tuna, Jeff is strangely attracted to the squiddly lures.

The Arrival by Shaun Tan

So, another birthday season has come and gone. I turned 43 yesterday, and that's it for our family for the rest of the year. Among other lovely things, Elf and the boys gave me a terrific pair of books by Shaun Tan: The Arrival and Sketches from a Nameless Land - together in a boxed set.

The Arrival is a beautiful, wordless story. A family living in the city are finding life getting harder and darker. Dangerous serpentine shadows lurk in the margins. The man leaves his wife and daughter and emigrates to a distant and very strange land. He is lonely and confused - he cannot read the signs, understand the customs or work the vending machines. He gradually makes inroads in the new world, a year passes, and his family come to join him. Happy ending.

The amount of imagination, creativity and sheer hard work involved needs to be seen to be believed. The companion volume Sketches from a Nameless Land shows how much work goes into such a book, before the final drawings are even commenced. It's like looking over the shoulder of a genius while he is kicking things around, and anything is still possible. He drew half the book before he realised he had got the style wrong, and went back to the beginning.

Shaun Tan is a national living treasure. The best thing is that he is quite young - I hope we are lucky enough to see many more books from him. Oh, and he won an Oscar the other day. Well done little guy!

Whales Must Be Saved!!

After our encounter with Sea Shepherd, Michael was filled with whale-savin’ zeal.

Ads for my imaginary cars

I am just not getting any offers on my shedload of imaginary vintage motors. I am not sure what's wrong, as they are some of the most sought after non-existent marques you will find. So  - I have dug through the vaults to find the original trade ads, full of that "new car" excitement. I am "pumping up the tires" if you like. I am by the phone, and I am ready to trade in anything for these clean, straight units.

Big thanks to www.carstyling.ru for their incredible range of Fiats.

Cheese Hub!!!

Great news: Burnie is going to be a cheese hub.