Hemingway once wrote what he described as his best work - a six word short story: “For Sale: Baby Shoes. Never worn.” I often need to tell a story to accompany my pictures in as few words as possible, so I thought I’d have a go:

“You there? Speak up. Me too.”

Have you got one? (Thanks to Rob Finch for the heads-up.)

Above: On a wing and a prayer: family & friends at Melbourne airport wait for passengers of Qantas flight QF30 which made an emergency landing in Manila, Philippines after a hole ripped through the fuselage mid-flight, 26 July 2008.

At the Victoria Police Academy today, Australia’s oldest policeman, Frank Eyre, 73, retired after 43 years service. He was also the father of Constable Damian Eyre, who along with Constable Steve Tynan, were murdered on duty in Walsh Street, South Yarra on October 12, 1988.

When I introduced myself to him and explained my connection to Damian*, he could only shake his head and say, “Twenty years huh?”. Twenty years indeed.

Frank lights a candle for his son in the Chapel of Remembrance for Police at the Victoria Police Academy.

Last month, some fisherman off Victoria’s western coast, bagged a 12 meter, 245 kg monster. The largest squid ever seen in Australia and only 30 kg less than the largest ever seen in the world. Today, scientists at Museum Victoria performed a public dissection in front of 300 lucky museum visitors, and the assembled media.

Having been on ice, the smell wasn’t all that bad, although Jason South from The Age copped a handful of the very fishy brine from the autopsy table when a scientist accidentally dropped a tentacle as Jason was getting in close. For my pic above, I came away unscathed

Nothing like blue sky combined with a low winter sun when covering a colorful, family oriented rally like this.