Short Holiday in Hobart - Meeting David Walsh

It has slightly more than a year since I left Hobart. I did make some very good friends, back here and I wanted to come back and catch up with them. Especially the people at MONA and fellow Salsa dancers, as well as the motley crew at the Prince of Wales. So when I was invited to visit MONA and catch up with David Walsh, I jumped at the opportunity.

While living in Hobart I used to visit the museum every Sunday. Funny how only religions are associated with regular activities, I must have signed myself upto the religion of feasting sense on the weird.

I went through the museum and noted all the changes since I was last there. Listened to the chatter from visitors and made some notes which came back to bite me when one of David's guest picked up my notebook.

David has made his made his fortune gambling. He is not the James Bond sort of poker player, rather he is a mathematician and sort of a programmer. I have some theories about why we persist in gambling in spite of the apparent losses to individuals.

Gambling exists to redistribute wealth, preventing it from accumulating over generations in one family causing resentment and decimation of the family through revolt and aggression from the rest of the society. Though decimation of powerful families does happen in spite of the gambling habits as shown by the Russian revolution or even more recently the Nepalese royal family. The best way to stave of socialism and revolts is for the wealthy to voluntarily dispense of their wealth in gambles. Just means of justifying wealth accumulated by David, under the nose of ATO. Apparently David used to work for the ATO before he declared himself dead and quit.

The conversation drifted to light rails for Hobart and the need for personal ownership of assets i.e. cars vs public infrastructure such as rails. This debate has been raging on even recently in the roads vs rails talk. A psychologist was around outlining a Jungian experiments in a Victorian mansion, people participating dreamt of fires. There were some stories about table tennis diplomacy and frame dragging, and lots of conversations with constant backup from wikipaedia.

I was invited to dinner at David's place with take-away from his restaurant. David and his wife are pescetarian. Dinner was followed by a David Bowie variety hour on Youtube and hanging out with the MONA music co-ordinator who has encyclopaedic knowledge of the songs. I finally slunk away rather dazed by the days events.

The lost generation of Tasmania - citizens of Xenophobart

There seems to be a generation of lost Tasmanian kids, 18-25 drifting around in the streets.

Begging in the mall, fighting and very obviously picking on me. Since I tend to focus their
attention by being different, wearing funny hats never helps.

I have had a few conversations with older Tasmanians today ( and lodged the information about
harassment incidences with the police). The welfare system seems to have nurtured a generation
of value nothingers who think money comes out of a hole in the wall, as far as their limited ability can penetrate the financial system( lack of education seems to be a key), it indeed does.


They feel the world owes them everything, stuff will just fall in their path. The haves have to
hand over all they have to the can't-be-bothered-to-work-for-its.

Yet I have met some amazing older Tasmanians. I carpenter whose book is choke full of quantum
physics. Intellectual giants and pranksters at the Tasmania Wilderness Society.
Nick and Nancy, amazingly creative pair of people. Not to mention my superhuman colleagues at
CSIRO.

But where does all the sanity leak away at night ?

The night the night, 
when the armies of emotions come out to fight ! 

What happened 20 years ago to produce this lost generation of Tasmanian youth ? They come to MONA, hook themselves up to the euthanasia machine and complain about not dying.

Moving to Hobart - First few days

Last few weeks I have been trudging (well driving) across Australia from Adelaide to Hobart. Before leaving Adelaide we had a small farewell. Even though my Facebook estimate was 12, I invited other people on the side and the total headcount came to 28.

The next few days were spent on the road and on the ferry, Adelaide-Melboune(and environs)-Devonport (and environs)-Hobart. We went to several national parks near Devonport. Narawntapu along the coast where we saw crabs swarming along the beach.

Then we had a close-up with a wombat at the Cradle Mountain National park. Finally we got to Hobart and had a "Bah Humbug Christmas"(according to the organizers) at the waterworks park.

In a few days we watched "Wild Oats" sail into Hobart marking beginning of the end of the Sydney to Hobart race. More exciting summer things to do in Hobart coming up.