Local farmers

I love agricultural fairs and farm animals. Is it my particular rural childhood in South Grafton that is resurfacing? Or is this some kind of universal human sentiment? No doubt a bit of both.

I took these photos on a hot afternoon at the annual fair in the nearby village of Saint Just-de-Claix.

There weren't many animals, and not many visitors. I think this is a consequence of the simple fact that most of us, living in this Royans district, are in constant contact with farms and animals. So, we don't really need to visit a fair to see them.

I find that the faces and expressions of farmers are no less fascinating than those of their non-human friends. Often, you can read the feelings of farmers on their faces, through their physical forms, just easily as you can judge the weather by gazing up into the sky. They have a psychological and moral heritage of being direct and honest, and this renders them friendly. They can be complex individuals, capable of selling a five-legged sheep to somebody who's prepared to purchase it, but they are ruthlessly authentic human beings, who never call a spade anything other than a spade.

At an agricultural fair, though, I remain fascinated, first and foremost, by the beasts. When I look at such a litter, I have a terrible physical desire to grab hold of one or other of the squealing piglets and hold its writhing little mass in my bare hands. I recall experiencing this same muscular sensation of touch when I used to caress newly-born lambs at Gamone. (Psychologists such as Corina might detect, in my words, some terrifying sex-oriented affliction.)

Choranche lies just beyond the mountainous slopes that you can glimpse in the background. So, it was normal that the livestock of our commune should be present at the fair at Saint Just-de-Claix. In the above photo, my wild neighbor Frédéric Bourne (son of the present mayor of Choranche) is parading their prize horses.

Nice creatures... including a local cowgirl.

This is a portrait of my neighbor Bernard Bourne, mayor of Choranche, descendant of folk who have inhabited Choranche for centuries. Bernard has always maintained a courteous and timidly friendly behavior with me... even though he probably sees me as some kind of alien invader from outer space. To my mind, Choranche remains pure Wild West cowboy territory.

Visitors might get a kick out of agricultural fairs, but I'm convinced that many of the otherwise calm animals are greatly annoyed by all this silly fuss. After all, a cow couldn't give a shit about being awarded a prize. Many of them are unhappy at agricultural fairs. All they desire is to be left in peace, back on the farm.

Here, on the other hand, is a happy human creature, proud of his new-fangled metallic machine.

The above photo shows a cow emerging from his contraption. But what exactly is this device? What has been going on behind the jail-like metal bars?

That's a closeup view of the hardware. Can you guess what it's all about?

I myself had no idea what it was all about until I asked this fellow a lot of silly questions. He's a specialist in the chiropody of bovine hooves. Does that mean he's like a blacksmith, who cleans up the hooves of horses and donkeys? No, not at all, because the latter animals have a single "toe", whereas cows have two. The general idea, if I understand correctly, is that dairy cows often have hoof problems, which can influence adversely the animal's general state of welfare and productivity. So, the purpose of this giant steel contraption is to hold the beast safely in place while the hoof specialist gets into action with his various tools. Apparently, bovine chiropody is a new and lucrative professional specialty in the farmyard domain.

Talking about lucrative professions, I've been impressed during the last few weeks—while on my way to my regular Internet rendezvous at McDonald's on the outskirts of Saint-Marcellin (in fact, in Chatte)—by the intense activity in the two or three remaining fields of tobacco.

The harvesting takes place rapidly in August, with an armada of agricultural machines, and teams of hired hands to hang the precious leaves on racks. (I avoided taking photos of workers, because they might imagine me as an employment inspector.)

In case you still imagine that French farmers are miserable, with hardly enough money to buy shoes for their kids, here's a photo of a local tobacco farmer:

Driving past his place, I've often wondered about the role of all the vast hangars alongside his modern home. Today, I discovered that half of them house his impressive array of tractors, trailers and specialized farming machines, while the others are drying sheds for his tobacco production.

Tobacco is a sideline activity, because he also runs a prosperous dairy farm, and his house is surrounded by endless fields of corn. The problem with tobacco is that the market prices vary constantly, from one year to the next, and you have to be solidly settled—with cash in the bank, and not too many outstanding debts on your investments in machinery—in order to play the game safely. Outsiders might imagine that, with the drop in smoking, growing tobacco for a living would be a risky professional choice. Not at all. All the old-fashioned tobacco farmers have disappeared, and the demand for high-quality tobacco leaves exceeds greatly the supply. The three remaining farms at Chatte are run by young fellows (like the guy in the photo) who operate in a high-tech style, with computers, etc.

My question: "When growing tobacco, does your crop encounter risks of an agricultural kind throughout the year, such as diseases or other possibilities of degradation?"

Tobacco farmer: "No, not really."

My question: "Does growing tobacco involve a lot of manual work throughout the year?"

Tobacco farmer: "No, there's not much to do while it's growing."

My question: "So, what are your major problems?"

Tobacco farmer: "Finding and hiring seasonal personnel. Besides, these workers are becoming more and more demanding, more and more expensive."

He might have added that this management task lasts for no more than a week or so every year. What he was trying to say, I think, was that old-fashioned farmers (such as his ancestors) carried out the harvesting by calling upon family members, and then helping one another, working first in their own field, and then in their neighbors' fields. Today, on the other hand, you have to run your farm like a business. The fellow actually gave me a figure (which I've forgotten) indicating the precise number of hours of required labor, and its cost, for a hectare of tobacco. And I'm sure he uses the Internet to keep track of the evolution of the price of tobacco in the planet's markets and stock exchanges.

The leaves dry for a year in the farmer's hangars, and then the blending process takes another year. So, customers won't be smoking this stuff before two years' time. Naturally, it is a highly-controlled activity, because the authorities don't want farmers to be setting aside leaves for home consumption, or maybe with a view to setting up a business in home-made cigars.

With all these agricultural images in mind, I can imagine a dialogue between a teacher and her juvenile pupils Penelope and Pierre in a rural primary school:

Teacher: "Penelope, what do you want to do when you grow up?"

Penelope: "My dream, Miss, when I grow up, is to become a bovine chiropodist."

Teacher: "And you, Pierre?"

Pierre: "I want to make a fortune growing tobacco, Miss... so I can buy a McDonald's restaurant for me and my friends."

Place with a name

I can safely predict that the chances of my name being given to a village square in France are slim, to say the least. And I might add that this improbability has never discouraged me unduly, or prevented me from sleeping soundly through the night. But I think the next best thing to having your name attached to a village square is to propose the name of somebody whom you admire... and then to find that your proposal has been accepted.

The individual in question was a 19th-century priest, the historian Jean-Louis-Alexis Fillet [1840-1902], commonly referred to as Abbé Fillet. He was the author of several scholarly monographs (published in Valence) on townships and villages in our Royans district, including:

• Religious History of Pont-en-Royans

• Religious History of Saint Laurent-en-Royans

• Historical Notes on the Parish of Choranche

• Historical Notes on the Parish of Sainte Eulalie-en-Royans

Aware that Abbé Fillet was born in the nearby village of Saint Laurent-en-Royans, I suggested to the municipal authorities that their illustrious native son should be honored in the village. The place they chose is modest, like almost everything in this village.

It's a tiny square behind this monumental gate, located between the church and the former presbytery (seen on the right).

Abbé Fillet paid such microscopic attention to names, events, dates and terms in Old French and Latin that he would have surely been dismayed to find that the municipal authorities of his native village have left a letter out of his surname. But it's better than nothing. And I'm happy to think that the abbé has at last come home, in a way, to his beloved Royans.

Dog know-how

The question I'm trying to answer is: Who taught my dog to swim?

It wasn't me. I have no experience whatsoever in teaching animals to swim. Besides, I wouldn't have the financial means to hire a talented swimming coach to give Sophia lessons... which are no doubt highly expensive. The only plausible answer that comes to mind is that my daughter Manya has gone to the trouble—secretly, without ever informing me—of initiating Sophia into this sporting activity.

To be frank, I find that Sophia's style in the water could be improved considerably. For the moment, it's fairly primitive: a sort of paddling action, like a child. I don't think my dog has ever tackled anything in the way of breaststroke, butterfly or backstroke. But I guess that'll come, if she continues regular training.

Suddenly, I'm reminded of a delightful true story concerning a knowledgeable but eccentric lady in Sydney named Beatrice Miles. She was notorious because of countless amusing and less amusing incidents, often involving city taxis. Although "Bea" (as she was called) had inherited amply financial resources, enabling her to reside in the posh suburb of St Ives, her specialty consisted of often taking lengthy taxi rides, and then refusing to pay the fare... for reasons that were hard to fathom. Whenever she was in need of cash, she would resort to highbrow busking, reciting lengthy extracts of Shakespeare on street corners in Sydney.

The anecdote that just sprung into my mind has nothing to do with taxis or Shakespeare. Miss Miles had decided to visit the famous surfing beach of Bondi with a pet sheep. An inspector complained that it was against the law to bring animals to the beach.

Bea Miles: "The sign says that dogs are prohibited. This is a sheep, not a dog. The sign says nothing about sheep."

Beach inspector: "Lady, this is ridiculous. There's no grass here for your sheep to eat."

Bea Miles: "My sheep hasn't come to Bondi Beach to eat. It merely wants to do some sunbathing."

Getting back to my dog, Manya and I noticed that, after a minimum of swimming and basking in the sun, Sophia definitely likes to visit the Bourne with eating in mind. That's to say, she's likely to forget suddenly the chilly stream and the warm limestone rocks, before disappearing into the riverside weeds and bushes and searching excitedly for scraps of food left there by campers and other visitors. She always seems to be tremendously happy to find a fragment of abandoned food in the wilds, so to speak, as if her archaic hunting genes were getting back into momentary action.

It's a fact that Sophia at Gamone, like Bea's sheep at Bondi, likes to spend a lot her time simply sunbathing. And, these days, there has been a lot of sun around. Then, as soon as her internal temperature has peaked, Sophia dashes into the kitchen to cool off by lying on the cold floor tiles.

Good timing for bad communications

August is an unusual month in France, because one has the impression that half the nation is on vacation. Paris, in particular, closes down to a large extent, or at least quietens down considerably (from a traffic viewpoint), and certain residents prefer to remain there in August to appreciate calmly various aspects of the capital. The rue Rambuteau, where we lived for ages, used to take on a village atmosphere in August. You could sit down at a sidewalk table at the corner café, without being swarmed by pedestrians, and read the newspaper. Obviously, what I've just said does not apply to touristic quarters of Paris such as the Champs-Elysées, the Eiffel Tower and the Latin Quarter.

So, you might say that my Internet connection chose the ideal time to break down... when most people are outside in the sunny weather, rather than seated in front of their computer screens. Incidentally, in McDonald places, I've got accustomed to choosing a table in a corner where the sunlight doesn't affect the readability of the MacBook screen. I've also realized that, to avoid dirtying my nice little machine, it's preferable to stick to stuff such as ice cream and Coke, rather than McDonald's greasy products. For health reasons, too, this was no doubt a wise decision.

It's not impossible that many of the technical employees at Free (my Internet service provider) were on vacation at the moment that my connection went down. In any case, over the last three weeks, no Free technician ever phoned me up (on my iPhone), let alone came here to see what might be broken. Fortunately, yesterday, Free accepted immediately my request to end my contract. In my letter, I didn't even have to get around to using nasty words to describe their faulty service. So, in a few days, I'll have a new telephone and Internet service, provided by the state-operated Orange company, along with a new email address (which I do not know yet). I'll even have a new phone number:

04 76 64 18 32 (inside France) or
33 4 76 64 18 32 (from another country)

As before, I'll be able to phone free to most countries in the world (including, of course, Australia).

[Click the above banner to mail me.]

Here's a photo of my recently-acquired set of McDonald Coke glasses, to which I'm still adding new specimens:

This precious collection will be a personal souvenir of the events of August 2009. Meanwhile, I'll wait until my new Internet connection is operational before describing in detail the genealogical jackpot that hit me, when I was least expecting it, on the eve of my Internet collapse. In a nutshell, I've just discovered precisely that my 27-times-great-grandfather from France, named William, invaded England in 1066... exactly nine centuries before the birth of my French daughter. The connection (I'm talking of genealogy, not the Internet) has nothing to do with ancestors named Skyvington, but exists through my paternal grandmother, Kathleen Pickering, who grew up on a bush property in Australia. Her brother was a World War I hero who, through his sporting and military prowess, was nicknamed King. My father, born at the time "King" Pickering returned from the Western Front, then received his heroic uncle's nickname (to my mind, a silly choice) as his own official given name. My dear father could not know that, among his distant ancestors, there were no less than four genuine kings of England, including the monarch who signed the Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215.

Obliged to change my ISP

In spite of phone calls, emails and even a registered letter, the Free company doesn't appear to be doing anything to repair my Internet connection. This is an unexpected situation. So, I'm left with no other alternative but to change my ISP (Internet service provider). This afternoon, I drove to Grenoble to obtain details concerning the offer from the state-owned Orange organization. I was amazed to learn that they are proposing not only very fast Internet and free phone, but also satellite TV. Maybe this explains why Free has given up trying to compete with Orange in a rural region such as Choranche. Weird...

Still at McDonalds

I wander around with my iPhone hung around my neck, so that I won't miss a call from the French Telecom technician. Tomorrow, if there's still no appointment, I'll start screaming once again. Funnily, I'd often imagined this kind of scenario, and I guessed (correctly) that it wouldn't be simple. The other day, at Romans, I explained my predicament to an employee of the French Telecom firm called Orange (used to be Wanadoo). I asked: "If I were a customer of Orange, rather than Free, would I obtain better service in this kind of situation?" He hesitated a moment, then replied: "Not necessarily."

Meanwhile, as my former neighbor pointed out this morning, my gardening accomplishments have soared exponentially since this crash. Also, my work on the translation of the movie adaptation of Rilke's Malte has advanced enormously, since I don't need the Internet to work in that domain. Besides, I've learned how to send text messages on my iPhone... which is not a really earth-shaking achievement. The only major learning problem consisted of realizing that you can't really send messages in French from an English (virtual) keyboard. As soon as I switched to an AZERTY keyboard, the words flowed.

My Internet is down

No, I'm not on vacation. My Internet connection went down a week ago, which has also meant that I've been without the telephone. In this kind of extreme situation (this is the first time I've been hit by such a problem), the Internet service provider leaves their customer to scream for a few days, just to make sure that he has made an effort to prove that his connection is well and truly down. This might mean, for example, borrowing a neighbor's hardware in an attempt to identify the problem. (At Choranche, I know of no such neighbors.) Then, when you've screamed for a few days (using, in my case, an antiquated public phone cabin, along with a little extra screaming kindly supplied by my daughter in Paris), the service provider finally agrees to ask a France Telecom technician to make an appointment to drop in. So, that's the stage I've reached as of this afternoon.

Meanwhile, I'm lucky to have both an iPhone and a MacBook. So, I'm tasting the joys of sending the present post from the local McDonald's in St-Marcellin.

Final family

After fiddling around in genealogy for over a quarter of a century, and getting held up joyously for many years by maternal rural bush-ranger ingredients from Ireland, I've finally got around to starting to set down in words the essential paternal stuff.

The truth of the matter (which isn't necessarily "true" in any sense whatsoever) is that I've always felt that my dominant genes were essentially English. They're labeled Skyvington and Pickering: the surnames of my paternal grandparents. I would be incapable of proving (if this idea had any sense whatsoever) that my Skyvington and Pickering genes overpowered, as it were, the recessive X-rated Walker and Kennedy stuff in my DNA (not to mention the wild Hickey contribution). I'm convinced that this is what happened... but I'm ready to be contradicted.

The modest family-history typescript upon which I'm embarking will concern two marvelous individuals whom I've always referred to as Pop and Ma: Ernest William Skyvington [1891-1985] and his wife Kathleen Pickering [1889-1964].

For a long time, I had imagined that Pop came from a celebrated family whose origins coincide with the arrival of William the Conqueror in England. I still believe, more than ever, that this was the case.

But I'm amazed and delighted to discover that Ma, too, through her Pickering antecedents, was hugely ancient English... and that her ancestors included an aunt of Jane Grey.

So, I intend to write their Anglo/Australian story.

Family history

I certainly didn't grow up with any particular interest in family history. In my childhood context in Grafton, genealogy was not an everyday topic of discussion. Retrospectively, I greatly regret the fact that I never got around to asking my elders for stories about their past. Worse still, I remember times when such stories were forthcoming, but it was I who wasn't interested in listening. For example, my paternal grandmother once started to tell me about her ancestors in Northern Ireland referred to as Orange Men, and this subject bored me to such an extent that I didn't take notice of anything she said... and today I'm totally incapable of following up this link, about which I possess no data whatsoever.

I've nevertheless made progress in this domain. The time has come to start thinking about sharing the results of my research with others, including descendants. People who are no more than vaguely aware of my existence have a good chance of discovering my genealogical websites through Google. A broader challenge consists of making data available to people who have no idea whatsoever of my existence.

A good approach consists, I think, of publishing my global family tree with the time-honored RootsWeb organization, which administers an easy-to-use project named WorldConnect.

An interesting aspect this system is that people are free to download my family tree in the form of a so-called gedcom file, which they can then examine and use on their own computers.

Tour talk

French journalists have had fun with the surname of the Schleck brothers, Fränk and Andy, from Luxembourg, who were the most prominent opponents of Lance Armstrong. We got treated to puns about blank Schlecks, bad Schlecks, rubber Schlecks, Schleck-mate, etc.

This afternoon, on the moonscape slopes of the terrifying Bald Mountain in Provence, it was touching to see young Andy doing his utmost to get his brother Fränk in front of Armstrong. The brothers ride together in synergy; as if they were identical twins. But Lance was too smart to be trapped.

There was a rumor, this morning, that Armstrong might have made a proposal to the Schleck brothers to join his forthcoming US team, sponsored by Radio Shack. If this were to eventuate, let me be the first observer to coin a nickname for the new team: Radio Schleck.

There was an intriguing moment just before the riders started today's climb. French TV journalists noticed that Armstrong, while pedaling hard, was conversing briefly with one of the Schleck brothers. First journalist: "What on earth could Armstrong be talking about with a Schleck brother?" Second journalist: "He's probably supplying them with last-minute financial details of a contract with Radio Shack."

At the end of the stage, Armstrong was most pleased with the way that things had turned out on the Ventoux. He was stunned by the record-breaking crowds of spectators, including a large proportion of Americans. At times, the density of onlookers was such that the effects of the notorious Ventoux winds appeared to be attenuated by the human walls. I noticed, too, judging by the flags, that crowds of Australians are following the Tour, which has become a truly international sporting event.

Happy birthday

Sophia was born on 25 July 1998. So, today is her 11th birthday.

The "birthday cake" I cooked for her was rather special, but I knew she would find it delicious. Normally, whenever I shell prawns (which is quite often, because I'm fond of several prawn dishes), Sophia waits for the heads and shells. Today, after preparing half a kilo of prawns, I put the heads and shells in a mixer. Then I added an egg and fried the mixture in olive oil. I had the impression that Sophia was pleasantly amazed to find herself being offered such a delicacy.

Happily, she's in perfect physical form. In fact, the only problem with Sophia is that, through living alone with me at Gamone, she seems to have become somewhat antisocial... like me. So, on hot days, when I take her down to the Bourne for a dip, she often growls at unfamiliar dogs that approach her. She leads an extremely regular existence, of a clockwork kind, even to the extent of rolling around on her back, once a day, in exactly the same patch of weeds alongside the house. At another spot, near the main door of the house, there's a corner of bare earth that I've been trying to cover with grass for years. But Sophia has made it clearly known to me that she prefers to lie down there from time to time in a soft heap of thick warm dust. So, I've given up trying to grow grass there. Sophia has won. Funnily, the regularity of Sophia's daily existence (which starts early in the morning when she wanders upstairs to wait alongside my bed until I wake me up) seems to rub off onto me, and exert a kind of reassuring, stabilizing force in my own life.

Thanks for the memory

A few years ago, the price of hard-disk drives started to drop, while their capacities jumped exponentially. That's why I've got three little beasts like this sitting behind my iMac, for random backups (alongside my Time Machine backup, which runs permanently):

Like most computer users, I simply greeted this hardware affair with pleasure, without ever bothering to think about the reasons for the hugely positive evolution of the economics of hard-disk backups. I imagined naively that manufacturers had simply improved their production methods in such a way that prices could be slashed while the drives themselves could have increased storage capacity. In fact, the explanations are considerably more complicated than that. These days, customers have indeed been reaping vast benefits from the development and commercial availability of entirely new storage technologies... and things are still getting better all the time.

In a recent issue of Scientific American (the only paper publication to which I subscribe), there's a splendid article on this subject written by an English physicist named Stuart Parkin, who has been working in California on the invention of astounding new storage technologies. [Click the photo to access the Wikipedia article on this man.] In the context of my blog, I cannot of course attempt to explain the nature of the complex technologies at the origin of our low-cost high-capacity hard-disk drives. But I can't resist the temptation of quoting an amazing item of information provided by Parkin in his Scientific American article:

Today the collective storage capacity of all hard-disk drives manufactured in one month exceeds 200 exabytes, or 2 x 10-to-the-power-20 bytes [I don't know how to display an exponent in Blogger]—enough to store all the extant analog data in the world, that is, all the data on paper, film and videotape.

You might ask: Who is actually purchasing this astronomical quantity of storage potential? And what are all these storage devices being used for? Those are good questions, which I'm incapable of answering. It can't all be Google...

New Armstrong team

This evening, at the end of the time trial around the beautiful lake at Annecy, Lance Armstrong announced his new team.

Almost everybody, today, is greatly impressed by the man named Armstrong.

Shit happens

Something big and nasty can screw up when you're least expecting it. Incidentally, concerning the title of the present article, click here to see an excellent page of multifarious evocations of this short statement of wisdom. Over the last day or so, it has happened (that's to say, shit happened) twice on a large scale, on both sides of the Atlantic.

Shit in the USA. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, police arrested a black man when they found him trying to force open the door of a house in a nice neighborhood. It turned out that the black man in question was merely trying to open the door of his own house. Worse still (for the dumb cops), the black culprit, named Henry Louis Gates, happens to be a distinguished scholar at Harvard.

Barack Obama was greatly irritated by this stupid incident.

Shit in France. The French Foreign Legion looks great when they parade on the Champs-Elysées on Bastille Day. These smart soldiers are not quite so friendly when they decide to practice shooting on the outskirts of the great Mediterranean metropolis of Marseille using tracer cartridges, in which combustible chemicals leave a visible trail of fire. In this way, it would appear that mindless légionnaires sparked off a bushfire that created havoc in the suburbs of Marseille.

True enough, shit happens. Once upon a time, people believed in the spontaneous generation of living entities from non-living matter. According to theories of spontaneous generation, complex forms of life can be generated by decaying organic substances. After all, Aristotle believed that putrid matter could produce fleas, dirty hay could give rise to mice, and rotting logs in lagoons could create crocodiles. Today, we've evolved considerably. Whenever shit happens, there's a golden rule for honorable detectives: Cherchez le shitter!

BREAKING NEWS: Barack Obama has just expressed his opinion:
"I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station. I also continue to believe, based on what I heard, that Professor Gates probably overreacted as well."
The president might have mentioned a third over-reactor: himself. And, while we're at it, maybe I should include myself as yet another excessive observer in the chain reaction. These days, whenever we're tempted to comment about anything, we're inevitably doing so without sufficient information, or sufficient expertise. In such a situation, once again, as Obama discovered, a little bit of shit is often just hanging around there, waiting to happen.

Basic stuff

For a few hours after a lengthy plane trip (of the kind, say, between Europe and Australia), I always have a weird intermittent feeling that I'm still floating in the sky. I imagine that this is a common experience (like jet lag), but I've never known what it's called.

People who've had the privilege of traveling in a 2-horsepower Citroën automobile are likely to discover that their body memorizes the sensation of going around corners. I don't think I've been back in a deuche (slang abbreviation for "2 chevaux", 2-horsepower) for a quarter of a century, but my body can still feel the unsettling way this vehicle swoops down into corners. I say "swoops down" because the vehicle gives the impression on corners that the suspension is so slack that the chassis is going to grind into the macadam. It feels as if you're riding along in a hybrid contraption composed of a rocking deck chair on wheels, enclosed in an enlarged and slightly glorified sardine can.

Why am I evoking this amazing and unforgettable automobile? Well, I still laugh when I recall a shocked American couple in Paris, decades ago, describing the 2-horsepower Citroën as "basic car". I've always loved that quaint expression, which says all that needs to be said... just as the vehicle itself comprises all that is really required, with no frills attached, to get from A to B.

In fact, what I adore is the adjective "basic". It's a handy old-fashioned word... which became the name of a computer programming language with which we all had a love/hate relationship at one time or another. Nowadays, of course, just as nobody uses the Basic language, practically nobody uses the adjective "basic". In environmental contexts, people prefer more sophisticated words such as "ecological", "renewable", "sustainable", etc. For me, "basic" means all that, and more. It's an adjective that evokes, for me, the time-honored philosophical principle of Occam's razor, which stipulates, in a nutshell, that "simplicity is beautiful". If there are several hypothetical solutions to a problem, it's often a good idea to start out by preferring the simplest one.

That's my basic cake. I've been baking it regularly for years.

-- Mix 250 g of melted butter with 250 g of sugar.

-- Add 5 eggs and beat.

-- Mix in 250 g of flour. Add a packet of yeast and vanilla sugar.

-- Cut up a few apples and place them, along with sultanas, in a glass baking dish. Pour the cake mixture on top... and let your dog lick the emptied bowl.

-- Bake for 40 minutes at 200 degrees. Ease out the cooked cake (with a flexible trowel) and turn it upside-down.

In terms of culinary simplicity, I don't, of course, get anywhere near my dear mother, whose recipe for basic chook (chicken) was: Fill it with bread crumbs and dried herbs, then stick an onion in its bum and bake it until it smells good.

Babies sell French water

Evian mineral water from a locality of that name in the Haute-Savoie department, marketed by the Danone corporation, is a huge commercial success throughout the world. A few years ago, Evian decided to use the theme of water babies in their publicity:



Then they created an amazing children's chant, with a hypnotic effect, as an accompaniment for their so-called water-boy video:



Today, Evian offers us a spectacular demonstration of baby rollers:



You can find several Internet articles and videos that reveal the secrets of how the movie was made.

Silence can be golden

It's only recently that I've fully grasped the fact that there are times, particularly in a media context, when it's preferable to say nothing whatsoever about certain subjects.

The bicentennial of Darwin's birth strengthened this attitude in my mind. I've always found it outrageous that numbskulls should dare to compare the preposterous fantasy of creationism, not to mention the fable of Genesis, with the theory of evolution. Unfortunately, whenever a serious scientist gets dragged into a public argument with Genesis believers and creationists (basically the same kind of people), the supernaturalists receive extra publicity, even though they might be thrashed intellectually. And the fact that they're placed in the limelight is likely to make these silly folk more sure of themselves, and more outspoken, than if they were to be simply ignored. So, there's a strong case for refraining from ever paying attention to them in any way whatsoever.

The same thing can be said about journalists who turn their projectors towards perpetrators of the ridiculous Moon Hoax, according to which NASA's Apollo missions were mere Hollywood productions.

In general, I think it's always worthwhile, at least in the beginning, to allow conspiracy theorists of all kinds to air their views, because we can often learn from them in various unexpected ways. But, as soon as it becomes clear that such-and-such a theory is no more than hot air, its proponents should normally be ignored. The problem is that, the more an observer is convinced that he can easily debunk the allegations of a mindless conspiracy theorist, the more the intended debunking runs the risk of being transformed into nice publicity for the silly ideas.

Awaiting the plague

The current swine-flu situation provides an opportunity of experiencing the kind of anguish that must have pervaded societies in the olden days, before the advent of modern medicine. Here in France, though, things appear to be under control, and there are no advance signs of panic. Normally, the health authorities have ordered more than enough shots of vaccine for everybody, and the forces of the nation are getting ready to act.

If the worst comes to the worst, and there are doubts about whether the vaccine is capable of saving us from death, then our spiritual leaders will surely guide us in prayer... which is not a bad tool in times of calamity. Personally, though, ever since Louis Pasteur, I have had more faith in vaccines than in divinities. Logically, since God acts in mysterious ways, the best all-round approach would consist of beseeching Him in our prayers to bring about the creation of an efficient vaccine. In that way, if all goes well, not only will we all be saved, but people of all outlooks will be reassured concerning the essential forces that gave rise to this successful outcome.

BREAKING NEWS: Click the BBC NEWS banner to access a comprehensive article, dated 21 July 2009, entitled World response to swine flu crisis, which indicates what is happening in each corner of the planet.

Pergola in place

My pergola is upright, painted dark green, and the six rose bushes have been planted. One of these days, I'll place small diagonal struts at each of the upper corners of the frame, to make it perfectly rigid.

Between the central arch of the pergola and the walnut trees in the background, you can just distinguish the form of a plum tree, which is covered at present in tiny but tasty fruit.

My next major task will consist of installing wooden borders around all the eight flower beds.

On the left-hand side of the above photo, to the left of the steps, you can see that my bay laurel tree—which I had recently cut back to a few bare stumps—is once again covered in thick foliage. There's no doubt about it, certain kinds of vegetation like to be pruned and cleaned up.

In a corner of the garden, an old stone trough (which can no longer hold water) is filled with sage plants, grown from shoots that Tineke gave me, not long ago.

In the lower left-hand corner of the above photo, a lizard has crept into the picture. His skin is the same color as the dry moss on the wall. Here he is in closeup:

I admire their ability to move over vertical surfaces, more smoothly and rapidly than the most expert human rock-climbers. I've always thought that these tiny animals belong here, truly, alongside the cliffs of Choranche. They make me feel humble, like a mere recent visitor.

Memorial window

We might soon have to start thinking about a lovely memorial window that would be installed in the great pagan temple of French politics. [Click the image to display the logo of the French Socialist party, which inspired the design of my memorial window.] Following the latest bout between the stern school-mistress Martine Aubry and a boisterous Spanish-born pupil named Manuel Valls, I fear that we're facing a bloody showdown, and that this imminent day of reckoning is likely to leave no survivors. The only remaining question (to paraphrase the poet T S Eliot) is: Will it all end with a bang or a whimper? In any case, the window would be placed above a vast graveyard... of elephants.

ADDENDUM: I hesitated for a moment, yesterday, before talking about the French Socialistes as if their party were moribund, because I thought I might be exaggerating.

The French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy has expressed himself on this question in harsh explicit terms. "I've rarely seen politicians spending so much energy on self-destruction. Is the Parti Socialiste going to die? No, it's dead already. But practically nobody dares to say so. It's like the cyclist in the Alfred Jarry novel who carries on pedaling even though he's dead. Or the knight in the Italo Calvino novel whose suit of armor was empty, for he'd been killed." As for the party secretary Martine Aubry, BHL (as he's often called) said: "She's surely a fine person who has become the guardian of a house of the dead, and she can do nothing about it." BHL says that the present party, described as "a big sick body", should be "dissolved".

Doors are either open or closed

This little book—written by a local priest, Joseph Parsus (aged 84 today)—provides a detailed history of the Résistance in the vicinity of the village of Malleval, in the valley of the Isère to the south-west of Grenoble. Among other things, it describes tragic events at Choranche towards the end of July 1944, when German troops moved down from Presles to Pont-en-Royans. Their rule of thumb was simplistic. If the front door of a house were open, the house and its occupants didn't interest them. On the other hand, if the door were closed, then the occupants clearly had something to hide, so the house was promptly set on fire.

At the start of the 19th century, there were two houses on the banks of Gamone Creek. Notarial documents of that period, in the departmental archives at Grenoble, use the ancient Gallo-Roman term mas (derived from the Latin verb manere, to reside, as in mansion) to designate both houses. On that fateful day when the Nazis swept down alongside Gamone Creek, the door of the house up the road was closed. Here's a photo, taken today, of the remains of a kitchen wall:

Concerning the house that I own today, its front door had been left open. And, thanks to that trivial criterion, I'm able to live here today, in the ancient stone house, in the company of my dog.

Talking of my dog (which I do constantly), I'm obliged to admit that Sophia has a distinctly storm-trooper attitude towards lizards. Normally, she's totally uninterested in the colony of lovely little lizards that inhabit the stone wall in front of the house. But, if ever a tiny reptile happens to hide innocently behind her wicker basket, Sophia changes instantly into search-and-destroy mode. She stands there tensely, wagging her tail and barking, hoping that her would-be enemy is going to come out of hiding, so she can pounce upon the harmless little beast. Often, in this situation, I intervene by raising the back of the basket a little, enabling the lizard to scamper away into the grass or stones, where Sophia immediately loses its trail.

I often reflect upon the likely relationship, once upon a time, between wolves and dinosaurs. OK, specialists are going to tell me that they never existed on the planet Earth at the same time. But I prefer to imagine that they did. It's possible that wild wolves were in fact quite fond of dinosaurs... as friends, that is, not merely as meat. But woe betide any dumb dinosaur that tried to hide behind a tree...

Business as usual

Australian media can't, of course, be expected to change their ads as a consequence of current events. And it would be spooky to read that 79,998 hotels are henceforth available. Maybe the presence of this ad, alongside the Jakarta account, is intended as a positive statement. The world business show must go on.

Angelus at Châtelus

On the slopes of the Cournouze (see the above image in the Antipodes header), on the other side of the Bourne, there's a tiny white blob... which looks like this when photographed with a telephoto lens:

It's the center of the commune of Châtelus: a name that evokes the castellum (fortified residence) of a certain Lucius, maybe a Roman settler. The earliest surviving trace of the name of the commune was the term Castelucii in a document of the year 1100. The left-hand structure is the church of Saint Martin, which lies alongside the municipal building. Apart from that, there's little else in the village of Châtelus. The hundred or so residents of the commune are scattered over isolated properties.

Throughout the countless municipalities of France, there is usually a strict separation—both symbolic and material—between the architectural structures of the Catholic Church and those of the French Republic. At Châtelus, on the contrary, the church and the mayor's offices share a common wall, which suggests that they've always been good neighbors.

The municipal elections took place well over a year ago, but my neighbor Madeleine still speaks of Gilles Rey as the "new mayor" of Châtelus. One of the republican mayor's first operations was to repair the bells of the church.

The bells of Châtelus now ring out the Angelus at three moments of the day: 7.45 in the morning, noon and 7 o'clock in the evening. The chimes reach Gamone almost as clearly as if I were located in Châtelus.