French navy versus pirates

It's reassuring to learn that the French frigate Nivôse has succeeded in capturing eleven pirates off the coast of Kenya.

This French frigate is part of the Atalante task force set up by the European Union with the aim of combatting piracy in that region.

This morning, I read an interesting article in the US press that summarizes the various methods that might be adopted by merchant vessels to protect themselves against heavily-armed pirates. The basic premise is that merchant ships are not allowed to carry lethal arms... for many obvious reasons. One of the most promising anti-pirate techniques consists of installing remote-controlled fire hoses capable of washing off anybody who tries to scramble up the flanks of a vessel. Another solution would consist of installing an electric fence all around the vessel. Then there are a lot of science-fiction gadgets that are theoretically capable of deterring invaders without actually killing them. But by far the best solution of all consists of calling upon the services of a navy, because they've got all the right goods to deal with attackers. That, after all, is what navies were designed to do.

My DNA data

I guess I could say that this is the first official certificate I've ever received from an American institution. And I didn't even have to do any hard work to obtain it. Now, this is terribly personal information, like the image of my skull in one of my early blog articles [display], which greatly disturbed my longtime friend Odile. But there's no personal copyright attached to my DNA certificate, and I wouldn't mind at all if this data were to get stolen by all kinds of hackers and scientists with secret plans to clone me.

The Texan folk who tested me have also supplied a nice little map showing how my ancestors moved away from the territory of our African patriarch known as Adam, and finally ended up here in France... where members of the family were called Cro-Magnon long before they got around to adopting a nicer surname, Skyvington. Without wishing to appear snobbish, I'm happy they made that name change, because Cro-Magnons were as common, back at that time, as today's Smiths and Duponts.

My folk are indicated by the arrow marked R1b, which means that they followed a long trail through central Asia before getting here. In fact, it's a mere 25 millennia since they moved away from the territory marked R, located in the vicinity of modern Kazakhstan, and set off westwards towards Europe.

For the moment, I haven't found any genetic cousins (individuals with exactly the same marker values) with a surname like mine, but I'm trying to persuade various Skivington and Skeffington men throughout the world to get tested. This genetic genealogy adventure will be followed up in my specialized Skeffington Genealogy blog [display] whose banner appears in the right-hand column of the present blog. At an anecdotal level, I've mentioned there that I was proud to learn that Richard Dawkins happens to be one of my genetic cousins.

Death of a great author

The great French writer Maurice Druon, senior member of the Académie Française, died yesterday at the age of 90. With his uncle, the novelist Joseph Kessel, Druon wrote the words of the Chant of the Partisans, with music by Anna Marly, which was rapidly adopted as the hymn of the French Résistance. It contains the memorable stanza:

Comrade, if you're killed,
Another comrade will emerge from the shadows to take your place.

I first heard this chant in extraordinary circumstances, on 19 December 1964, when the ashes of the Résistance hero Jean Moulin were transferred to the Panthéon. On that day, while catching sight of the president Charles De Gaulle, I listened to a moving speech by the minister of Culture André Malraux that would go down in literary history as one of the most celebrated French orations of the 20th century. Mysteriously, towards the end of Malraux's speech, the strains of the great Résistance hymn emerged—softly at first, then louder and louder—from a massed choir in front of the Panthéon.



Much later, Druon wrote a vast series of historical novels entitled Les Rois Maudits [The Accursed Kings] describing the troubled lives of French monarchs from Philip the Fair to John II. These stories were adapted to form a fabulous TV series, a few years ago, which I've already watched enthusiastically on two separate occasions.

A poem lovely as a tree

I think that I shall never blog
A tree lovely as a dog.

Paraphrasing the indelibly wonderful words of the US journalist and poet Alfred Joyce Kilmer [1886-1918], slaughtered on the insane battlefields of France, I would say that blogs—like news dispatches—are made by fools like me, but only Darwinian evolution can make a dog... or a tree, for that matter.

Kilmer, for his valor, was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre (Cross of War) by the French Republic.

Country-music sisters in Australia

When I was a boy in Grafton, I was often in contact with a cultivated lady named Mavis McClymont, who was involved in urban affairs and also in charge of the public library. These days, in Australia, the McClymont surname refers particularly to three singing sisters from Grafton, grand-nieces of Mavis, known simply as The MyClymonts.

[Click the photo to visit their website.]

In their Chaos and Bright Lights album, the sisters reveal a beautifully clear country sound of Australian vintage. Besides, their fresh lyrics are pure country without becoming corny.

Their song My Life Again has overtones of Shania Twain.



Click the photo to hear a second extract, Shotgun, which has an infectious lilting melody. I like the unexpected style of the invitation to drop in: There's no shotgun hanging around my door tonight. Those words are incongruous in a land where you can now get thrown into jail for owning a rifle to shoot rabbits.

I'm convinced that these girls would be received enthusiastically here in France, where Australian country music is still largely unknown.

Tough place for trees

At Gamone, life is not necessarily leisurely for trees.

If the trunks of this quince tree have a naked look, it's because the donkeys seem to enjoy gnawing away at its bark. Insofar as I've never tried to taste it, I'm incapable of suggesting why the animals seem to like this stuff. On the other hand, whenever the tree is loaded with yellow quinces, the donkeys are not attracted by the fruit.

The abundant blossoms on this small pear tree, on the edge of my lawn, indicate that there could be a lot of fruit this summer... provided that birds and insects don't attack it before then. If you look closely, you might notice a few strange fruit on the tree.


These old CDs, which flash in the sunlight, and clatter in the breeze, are an excellent device for scaring away birds.

Great guests on French TV

In the state-owned French TV organization, the staff in charge of handling guest-star appearances do a marvelous job. A few days ago, on the midday news, we were treated to a friendly interview with Lionel Ritchie, followed by a couple of songs, live.

The charming news anchor, Elise Lucet, who has the personality of an efficient office secretary, was totally awed to find herself being serenaded by Ritchie in an intimate setting.

This evening, the star-studded Saturday show hosted by Patrick Sébastien offered viewers a fabulous live appearance of the Village People, who give the impression that they're not a day older than when they first stunned world audiences with their delightfully tongue-in-cheekish YMCA and Join the Navy.

Views from Gamone

Between my property and the Bourne, there's a rugged slope where I hardly ever venture, because the bushes and weeds are so thick that you need to be equipped with a machete, in places, in order to cut your way through. But the effort is worthwhile, because there are nice views of the Bourne valley from that place.

In the above photo, we're looking eastwards along the road that leads through the village of Choranche and then up onto the Vercors range at Villard-de-Lans. Even the familiar silhouette of the Cournouze looks different when viewed from this spot.

The following photo, looking due south, shows the homes of my closest Châtelus neighbors, whose geographical sector is named Gérassière.

The white house belongs to the Testoud couple. Through their kitchen window, they have an excellent view of my land at Gamone. Funnily enough, from my own house, because of the slopes, I do not have a global view of my property, so I've often been grateful to Jacques and his wife, over the years, for phoning to let me know that my donkey or sheep have escaped onto the road.

The place where I've taken these photos used to be planted with grape vines, and the ruins of the winegrower's stone cabin are still standing.

For Sophia and me, even though we're only a few minutes away from the house, this new perspective on the surroundings is a little like an excursion to a faraway land.

Incidentally, I was happy to receive a newsletter yesterday informing us that a local government association has just been set up to implement a major project designed to clean up the waters of the Bourne.

Spring parade

Once again, the village of St-Jean-en-Royans has chosen a queen and two princesses for the annual spring parade.

The weather was sunny, and local girls danced divinely in the street in front of Chez Ernest.

Among the onlookers, a young filmmaker was recording scrupulously every moment of the artistic performance of her friends.

As usual, there were several bands in the parade. And they did not, of course, play the same music, every when they were separated by a distance of no more than fifty meters. Obviously, if they were to play the same music, in unison, there would be no point in having more than one band in the parade.

Notice that the fellow with the hunting horn has an ordinary trumpet hung over his left shoulder, just in case he gets bored with the limited tones of a hunting horn.

The theme of this float was the comical image of a priest's housemaid, seen as a pious lady who can get up to mild mischief. There were no less than three men dressed up as old-fashioned priests in cassocks, a couple of middle-aged maids in black, and even a young woman in a red devil's costume. Their church was a copy of the village church of St-Jean, and the float made its way slowly past this edifice just as worshipers were leaving with Palm Sunday branches in their hands.

On the edge of the parade, there were dozens of typical attractions for children and teenagers. I suppose there are cases where parents give their kid a handful of coins to go and have fun at the fair, and the child returns home later on, proudly, with this kind of a prize:

I'm not sure that many onlookers were fascinated by this train:

On the other hand, I was totally charmed by the hair style of this smiling princess:

All in all, this spring parade at St-Jean-en-Royans is a rather quiet event, bordering on dullsville. There were no Japanese tourists, and it's not at all the kind of happening where Sarkozy's riot police have to be called in to subdue the excited crowds.

Man in charge of getting things back on track

Today, the G20 leaders, assembled in London, decided to enable the International Monetary Fund to distribute an astronomical amount of money (the actual figures don't really mean much to an ordinary fellow like me) in order to help out nations that are running into trouble as a consequence of the financial crisis. The director of this organization is a Frenchman, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

He was interviewed recently, on French TV, concerning his analysis of the crisis and his hopes for the G20 summit. It's safe to say, I would imagine, that Strauss-Kahn's basic hopes have been fulfilled, and that he will now be able to guide the IMF through countless operations aimed at halting the crisis by the end of 2009... which would mean that most economies would be able to get back to normal during the following year.

Like many French observers of this brilliant man (whom I've admired for ages), known familiarly as DSK, I hope he succeeds in the gigantic task that has been assigned to him today. And I hope too that this success might then become a significant factor enabling Strauss-Kahn to be elected, in 2012, as the next president of the French Republic.

Rural day

One of the joys of living in the country is that, when you wake up in the morning, you never know what kinds of situations you might find yourself in during the day. This morning, I was woken up by the noise of a tractor on the road up to Gamone. It was the municipal employee of Choranche, Pierre Faure, cleaning up the edges of my road.

As you can see, Pierrot (as we call him) was combining roadworks with baby-sitting. In fact, for Pierrot, working at Gamone is a kind of recreation, which he seems to enjoy. Even when there's little more than a few stones and scattered leaves on the macadam, Pierrot can spend hours scraping away (at my land, that is, on either side of the road) until the road looks like the head of a little boy, almost bald, who was sent to the barber's shop by his mother for a military-type "short back and sides". I've always disagreed with Pierrot in this domain. I believe that no problems would arise if Pierrot were simply to let the grass grow a bit alongside the road, instead of creating vertical walls of bare earth, sometimes 50 cm high. But rural natives like Pierrot grow up with the ingrained idea that grass and weeds are necessarily unkempt, indeed "dirty", and must be eliminated. For me, on the contrary, lots of grass and a few weeds at Gamone don't bother me at all. The only things that would drive me mad are candy wrappers, cigarette butts, plastic bags... which are fortunately absent here.

I received the planned visit at nine o'clock of another municipal employee, attached to the group of communes on the banks of the Bourne, who's in charge of inspecting sewage installations. A new law was voted in France, a couple of years ago, instigating a regular nation-wide inspection of sanitary systems in every corner of the country. On TV, a few evenings ago, there was a short news documentary on this exotic subject. In many cases, in suburban and rural environments, people simply don't know where their septic tank is located, or in what state it might be. They showed a case where an inspector, to find the septic tank, had to tear up the floor boards of a living room.

Here at Gamone, the septic tank is located twenty yards down from the house. Knowing that the inspector was coming, I had to spend a few hours locating the tank, which involved removing thorn bushes and even a layer of earth that had glided down that way about ten years ago, when a local fellow removed a giant linden tree that had been blocking the afternoon sunshine. The inspector suggested that I purchase a black plastic cylinder, to raise the access to the tank... which I'm encouraged to inspect once every six months. My installation is in a faultless state (the inspector even delivered a signed certificate), but he suggested that I should renew the bed of volcanic rocks (I'm not joking) at the top of the tank, which operate as a filter, so that the charming little bacteria (which need to breathe, if I understand correctly) can carry out their work in optimal conditions.

Now that's where things get interesting. I had no trouble finding the black plastic cylinder in a hardware store. But where does one purchase volcanic rocks? No problem. This stuff is available in a depot down in the delightful village of Saint-Nazaire-en-Royans, where the Bourne flows into the Isère.

But volcanic rocks are not exactly an ordinary product, and this depot is not the kind of place where you buy stuff like in a store. Upon my arrival, a secretary told me to put my automobile on a weigh-bridge, then a worker handed me a shovel and pointed to a remote corner of the depot where there was a huge pile of volcanic rocks. Fortunately, I had an empty plastic bin in the car, so I backed my vehicle up against the rocks and used the shovel to fill the bin... while admiring the glorious river scene, surrounded by gentle slopes: a former port, called Roquebrune, where the Chartreux monks used to put mountain timber on rafts that would float all the way down to Provence. Then I drove back to the weigh-bridge, where I was informed that my purchase would cost me a total of fifty cents.

Looking back over my day, I realize that, when I woke up this morning, I was completely ignorant of the subtle relationship between shit-eating bacteria and fragments of dusty red rock that were formed long ago when the province of Auvergne was the scene of volcanoes. So, I'm a little more knowledgeable now. This morning, I didn't imagine that I would get around to talking, in this blog, of my septic tank. But, as I said at the beginning, when you live in the country, you never know what's going to happen.

Steel, nutwood and stone

I've put a protective coat of anti-rust product on the steel carcass of my recently-constructed iDesk, and polished the walnut slabs with lovely-smelling wax.

My neighbor Bob was impressed by my furniture design, but he considers that the wheels detract from the "nobility" of the steel and the walnut. When I talked to the wood supplier about the idea of marketing my iDesk model, he said that customers ask him to build computer desks with a means of hiding cables. That request surprises me, for modern wifi computers don't have too many dangling cables.

Sustainable symbols

In France, it's fitting that the ministry of Jean-louis Borloo , which promotes wind energy, should have a long-winded name: Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and Land Use Planning (Aménagement du territoire). Yesterday, I noticed that this ministry has announced that this is Sustainable Development Week. Thank goodness they reminded me!

I was intrigued by the symbols in their banner. I see a low-energy light bulb, a plastic garbage bin and another plastic container that might hold anything at all, maybe garden compost. The tap symbolizes one of the world's most precious substances, water, and the bicycle stands for non-polluting transport. The house symbol is probably intended to remind us that we should pay attention to domestic energy consumption. That leaves us with an apple symbol. What, in fact, is it meant to symbolize? Maybe it's meant to promote fresh fruit and vegetables. Fair enough, but the Apple symbol also makes me think of a marvelous range of modern electronic gadgets that are not directly associated with fresh fruit and vegetables. Thinking that the sense of the symbols might be explained inside their web site, I accessed it... and here's what I found:

Hey, that apple symbol has evolved a bit, and it's starting to evoke explicitly the famous products that I had in mind. Is it thinkable that Borloo's ministry in France is promoting my favorite computer? Why not? The latest Apple products are relatively ecological, and I can vouch for the fact that the Macintosh is a tremendously sustainable tool. I imagine, too, that concerned specialists could use Macintoshes profitably to perform projects in land use planning.

Incidentally, the sustainable energy domain provided a theme for an excellent April Fool's Day joke yesterday, on the national TV news. The likable anchor man David Pujadas, who's good at keeping a straight face while making preposterous statements, announced that recent research has revealed that the countless wind machines scattered over the French countryside are slowing down the rotational movement of our planet, and that drastic steps will have to be taken to make amends for this unexpected situation.

One of the consequences is that our traditional 24-hour day is being stretched out into a period that's slightly longer, and that the nation's clocks and watches will have to be replaced sooner or later. Everybody knows that the French complain constantly about everything. The owner of a shop that sells clocks and watches, interviewed by a TV journalist, complained bitterly that this change is likely to leave him with a lot of unsellable stock. A radical solution would consist of reducing the height of existing wind machines, so that they create less drag in the upper atmosphere, with a reduced effect upon the speed of the Earth's rotation. This would have an unpleasant consequence, though. The tips of the giant whirling blades would pass just above the heads of motorists, cyclists, farmers in tractors, pedestrians and all the other innocent citizens of our Gentle France (douce France).

Sarkozy insists upon results in London

Nicolas Sarkozy has made it perfectly clear that, if the outcome of London's G20 summit is not acceptable, he will simply get up and leave. "The crisis is too serious to permit having a summit meeting for nothing." Sarkozy is insisting, above all, on the installation of regulatory procedures in the international financial domain. This desire for regulations is shared by the German chancellor Angela Merkel, and also by the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, who declared: "One of the goals, accepted at Washington, is that no institution or major financial entity should remain beyond control and supervision. That is what I hope to see confirmed and consolidated in London."

Furthermore, as France's minister of Finance Christine Lagarde has pointed out, the French president is adamant that tax havens throughout the world must be eradicated. The latest rumors, expressed on French TV this evening, are optimistic, in the sense that Britain's prime minister Gordon Brown has echoed Sarkozy's belief that tax havens should cease to exist in the modern world. The big question, of course, is whether Barack Obama will be prepared to acknowledge the priority of these European themes.

In France, current events have caught up with the G20 syndrome. It was revealed today that several large French corporations appear to have been using a bank in Liechtenstein to whitewash money that should have normally been declared in France as taxable profits. In this context, news broadcasts in France today evoked the whistleblower, Heinrich Kieber, who was responsible for unleashing a planetary affair by revealing the identity of tax fraudsters in the above-mentioned bank. For the last twelve months, there has been a persistent rumor, aired once again today on French TV, that this wealthy gentleman—formerly a skilled data-processing professional—has ended up in a luxury hideout, under an assumed identity, down in a big sunburned country in the Southern Hemisphere.

Our daily bread

For many months now, I've got into the habit of using constantly the same fixed menu for my bread machine.

The local supermarket sells an ideal whole-grain flour, produced by the Francine company, which also sells the yeast. The recipe is simple: just under a third of a liter of water, a heaped teaspoon of salt, half a kilogram of flour and a packet of yeast. As soon as the machine has been mixing these ingredients for a few minutes, I drop in a plate of walnuts. About three and a half hours later, here's the result:

I find it tastier and better textured than any bread I could buy in a local bakery. It keeps well, too, wrapped in a dish towel in the refrigerator.

My dog Sophia joins me when I'm kneeling down on the floor and using a hammer to crack open the walnuts on a thick wooden chopping block that I bought in Bangkok long ago. She's entitled to every fifth or sixth walnut. During the final thirty minutes, when the bread is baking, a fantastic aroma invades the house. Later, Sophia dashes up to me, in the kitchen, whenever she happens to see me about to cut a thick slice of bread. Needless to say, she's entitled to a chunk from time to time.

POST SCRIPTUM (after tasting, this morning): The abundance of walnuts at Gamone causes me to exaggerate at times. To make my product a little less like cake, it might be good if there were a bit more basic bread with my baked walnuts.

Donkeys and dog dishes

Shortly before the death of my billy-goat Gavroche (from causes that still remain a mystery), I had bought him a big bag of goat food. A fortnight ago, I decided to see whether the donkeys might appreciate this factory food in the same way that my dear departed Gavroche did. Well, they certainly do.

Often, when it's fine weather and the donkeys glimpse me walking around outside, they stand waiting for me on the edge of the lawn, just beyond the electrified ribbon (in which I often turn off the current for weeks on end, because the presence of the white ribbon is sufficiently dissuasive). And, if they don't soon see me moving to the place where the food is stored, and coming back out with their silver dog dishes piled high with green pellets, they start to bellow... in a way that only donkeys can bellow. But it's not as if they're starving, because the slopes of Gamone are starting to get covered in luscious grass.

Normally, I'm wary of taking food that was intended for one animal and feeding it to another, but I don't think there's any problem in this case, since sheep, goats, horses and donkeys must surely eat the same basic stuff. I made a huge blunder of this kind, many years ago, when I fed caged rabbits with green pellets intended for horses. All four rabbits were dead the following day. If I understand correctly, the horse pellets contain small quantities of minerals that are great for horses, but apparently mortal for rabbits. When I told this story to an employee of an agricultural supplies store, he said: "Ah, Sir, our life in the agricultural business would indeed be so much easier if we could sell some kind of standard food to be eaten by all farmyard animals." As they say in French, that situation will surely come about, one of these days in the not too far-distant future... when hens have developed teeth. Meanwhile, I can vouch for the fact that donkeys are eating goat food from dog dishes.

Dédé back on the road

A few days ago, I was happily surprised to find that my neighbor Dédé had strolled up to Gamone on foot, like at old times.

With his knee problems, it's not an easy excursion, but the fact that he has got back into the walking act is good news. I suspect, too, that Dédé appreciates the possibility of being able to chat with somebody other than his dear Madeleine. I'm not suggesting that Madeleine is not an excellent conversationalist. On the contrary, I think it's her favorite activity, and she's a prolific talker. When Madeleine and I start chatting together, for example, it soon becomes quite difficult for one or other of us to get a word in edgewise, as the saying goes. But I would imagine that Dédé likes to have a change of voice from time to time.

Four new blogs

For several reasons (both communicational and technical), I've decided to attach blogs to four of my existing websites. These new blogs have the following banners, which I've placed in the right-hand column of the present blog. In fact, all my blogs and websites are linked together in such a way that it's easy to move from one to another.












































These are not diary-type blogs, like Antipodes, but rather forums for discussion. In the context of my family-history research, the first two blogs will of course be associated with my genealogical writing. As for the two blogs in French, Choranche is the commune where my Gamone property is located, and Pont-en-Royans is the neighboring village. Concerning these two places, I have been doing extensive local-history research.

In the case of any of these four blogs, I would hope that other individuals might join me as so-called team members, meaning that they can post their own articles in an autonomous fashion. People wishing to accept this proposal should contact me by email.

Steelnut desks for computer users

Click the image on the left to see a larger version of the Steelnut ad.

I'm proud of my iDesk line of Steelnut furniture, "designed and manufactured by skilled Dauphiné craftsmen".

The small iDesk shown in the poster is my recently-designed Blogger model (of which I took delivery only this morning). At Gamone, my main iMac sits on a much bigger iDesk: the original Webmaster model. I also designed a lightweight iDesk that I refer to as the Browser model, which I use as a bedside table.

Steelnut furniture is supplied in an unfinished form. That is, the steel tubes are fresh out of the workshop, and need to be treated with some kind of metal product, while the walnut slabs should be polished with wax. Steelnut products are made to order, and prices are very reasonable. Once an order is placed with the craftsmen, an iDesk is manufactured within about a week.

You will have guessed that Steelnut is a figment of my imagination. Its products exist only in my house at Gamone. But I'm convinced that many computer users might be interested in this low-cost approach to heavy desks and tables of a rugged and rigid nature.

POST SCRIPTUM: Webmaster iDesk in a working environment: