Sad Australian ballad

Click the YouTube icon

Sent to me by my childhood friend Bruce Hudson

Bulldozer street fight in China

Click here to see how some Chinese firms settle a conflict.

Coral bleaching in Australia's Great Barrier Reef

I've already mentioned this question in an earlier blog post. But it has just been revealed that the situation is far worse than what most people imagined. Scientists surveying bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef say that some 93 per cent of the coral has been attacked.

Would this coral-bleaching be caused by large-scale coal-mining activities in Queensland? Nobody knows with certainty. Likewise, specialists do not know how much of the bleached coral might recover its colors, and what proportion will sadly die.

Click here for an article sent to me by my Grafton friend Jan Brown.

NOTE This sad news indicates that Alex de Waal would indeed appear to be as dull as a fragment of bleached coral.

Cultural sites in France must be protected

Depp's dogs

Readers will be happy to know that Johnny Depp's Yorkshire terriers Pistol and Boo have indeed succeeded in escaping safely from Australia in their master's jet plane, after being faced with a mortal countdown announced by the Aussie politician Barnaby Joyce. Here's an extract of John Oliver's TV presentation of the drama:

Click the YouTube icon to enlarge the show

Lianne Kent with Pistol (left) and Elly Kent with Boo.

photo: Happy Dogz Grooming Gold Coast

I've decided to follow regularly the exemplary socks decision of Richard Dawkins

This photo of Richard Dawkins was almost certainly taken recently, in the course of convalescence since his stroke:

Click to enlarge slightly

Click here to read the explanations that accompanied Richard's photo. From the moment I started to read his words, I was transformed instantaneously into an enthusiast of unmatched socks. In the space of ten seconds, bewitched by this splendid Sermon, I became a solemn Believer. And I'll possibly stay that way forever...

The Laughing Cow

This brand of processed cheese has always been very popular in France, particularly among children.

Everybody loves the crazy trademark of a bright red cow—with a white muzzle and horns, and large packet-shaped earrings (like the circular boxes in which the cheese is supplied)—that is clearly laughing... for reasons that nobody really knows. The product is 95 years old. Every day, in 120 countries throughout the world, ten million wedge-shaped portions of this cheese are eaten. The first box, created when this cheese was being delivered to French troops in World War I, was associated with the term whose pronunciation sounded, to the ears of French soldiers, like the enemy's term Valkyrie.

Click to enlarge slightly

Early versions of the circular cheese boxes were in fact metallic.

Everything about this product is associated with laughter and joy. So, it's a fabulous French marketing success, appreciated throughout the entire world.

Australian study debunks homeopathy

Here in France, most pharmacies sell homeopathic products, and countless French citizens seem to consider that it's possibly an authentic branch of medical science. This nasty subject reminds me of tales of the Loch Ness monster.

Click here for references to an article about Australia's latest negative reactions to this fashionable quackery.

Aussies are indeed a weird mob

I’ve often thought that the brains of some of my fellow-countrymen become scrambled at times, as if they’d spent too much time in the sun. Aussies who are brain-damaged in this unusual way lose their capacity to use common sense in their reasoning. They start to babble on as if they were inebriated or drugged. They start to speak in tongues, like the Disciples. Australia has always had a terrifying native collection of deadly insects, reptiles and sharks. But soft-brained inspectors persist in believing that these killers are harmless compared to the cute little puppies brought into Australia by a foreign visitor.

My wife and I were startled, long ago, when inspectors sprayed us with pesticides and confiscated products we were carrying for our baby daughter. My friend Geoff saw his cans of precious French foie gras dragged away as if they were deadly.

The scrambled brains of legal experts decided that a good way to punish the actor and his wife would consist of demanding that they put together a tourist video on the alleged splendours of Aussie scenery! Shit...

Throw a few more fucking prawns on the barbie!

A French journalist designated this punishment as "digital humiliation".
Click here for French treatment of this news. If you succeed in watching their tourist video, you'll see that Johnny Depp and Amber Heard are having trouble to prevent themselves from breaking into laughter. In a quite different domain, I'm reminded of Vladimir Putin who surely cringed in terror when he heard that powerful Tony Abbott had threatened to "shirt-front" him.
It's all so ridiculous...

DNA testing

Click here to see a video about a DNA trial carried out this weekend in a French village, Trélivan (Côtes-d'Armor), in the hope of identifying a local youth who had attempted to rape a 22-year-old jogger a year ago.

This criminal investigation reminds us of the terrible affair involving the rape and murder of a 13-year-old English girl, Caroline Dickenson, in July 1996, in a youth hostel in another Breton village, Pleine-Fougères (Ille-et-Vilaine, near Saint-Malo). In spite of systematic DNA trials, the murderer— a Spaniard named Francisco Arce Montes—was only captured by chance, 5 years later, thanks to a bright US detective, Tommy Ontko, when the criminal happened to be holidaying in Miami.

Ontko's fortuitous work played a fundamental role in enlightening the French public on the amazing possibilities of DNA testing to track criminals. Today, in the village where yesterday's testing was carried out, I would imagine that everybody was motivated by the fantastic possibilities of this kind of scientific police investigation.