Consequently, in a flash of light, like what happened to Saint Paul on the road to Damascus, I decided to change my evil ways. Now, when I come upon a lost grub, I lead it back to a nice supply of rose leaves.
The Dalai Lama would love the new me like he loves grubs.
The fruit is delicious. But, for the moment, the yield is somewhat low. Like one fig a year. Here's a photo of this year's production:
That reminds me of my former French sheep station, which my aunt Nancy once described with pride to her golfing friends at Pymble.
Burials, on the other hand, are taken care of by a compassionate middle-aged lady who lives at Pont-en-Royans. That solution might be thought of as a regression by old-timers who remember priests in black soutanes and altar boys in white laced cassocks. But it can be said that nobody buried under the auspices of this kind lady has ever complained of their treatment.
These days, he has been competing splendidly in the Vuelta, the road-cycling tour of Spain. In fact, he could seriously contemplate winning it, since he has been just seven seconds behind Alejandro Valverde. This afternoon, after a trivial mechanical breakdown, Cadel Evans had to wait by the roadside for an entire minute until the Silence-Lotto service vehicle finally dropped by. That's a hell of a lot of silence. Cadel's chances of winning the lottery have suddenly dropped considerably. To zero, you might say. That sad and silly incident no doubt puts an end to one of Australia's biggest hopes for a great cycling victory. And it probably terminates Cadel's top-level cycling career.
In this remarkable movie sequence, women are evacuating Strasbourg in September 1939, in the wake of Hitler's invasion of Poland. The evacuation wasn't a spontaneous reaction to enemy presence (since the Nazis were still far away), but rather an official order from the French government, to ensure the future safety of citizens.
A determined middle-aged lady is doing work that is normally performed by a horse. She's well shod in sturdy shoes and thick stockings, but her flimsy mauve blouse and narrow black skirt are not exactly working clothes. Besides, the backwards angle of her arms is hardly ideal for dragging a heavy load. One wonders why this unfortunate woman is performing a horse's job. The explanation, no doubt, is that the massive scale of this evacuation (some 600,000 citizens of Alsace and Moselle between September 1939 and the spring of 1940) meant that work-horses were in short supply.
This young lady in a transparent skirt might have power in her legs and arms, but it's unlikely that she'll be able to carry on pushing that cart all the way to the primary destinations of these fleeing families: the French départements of Limousin, Périgord, Gers and Charentes. Those havens of safety lie hundreds of kilometers to the south. That's a long way on foot, pulling and pushing a cart.
This fellow is riding his bike in the opposite direction to the women with their cart. Is he contemplating a forthcoming bicycle evacuation from Strasbourg? Maybe he's training for the task. Or is he simply out on an excursion, to take in a bit of the action? Could he be an evacuation inspector, checking that everything's coming along fine?
Between the tram lines, where no trams have passed for ages, this confused little dog is wondering what the hell is happening. Should it follow the women and their cart? Or is there a ray of hope that the approaching cyclist might lead the tiny animal back to its former comfortable life in the great capital of Alsace? If we return to the original photo, there seems to be a tiny patch of clear sky above the buildings alongside the tram lines. The hesitant dog, pointing neither north nor south, is wondering: "Is this maybe the end of the tunnel?" Alas, no.
It's a tax—to become effective in 2010—based upon the production of pollutant carbon dioxide... which is quite another kettle of smelly fish. Wrong again, as far as that last cliché is concerned. Carbon dioxide has no odor... otherwise the world would indeed be a stinking place. This ubiquitous gas is not even toxic in very small concentrations: less than 1% of the air we breathe.
Nicolas Sarkozy has just announced that a tax of 17 euros per ton of CO2 will be "paid by all consumers of fossil fuel" in France. Whether or not you like taxes (I feel that in France, like Guinness, they're good for you), one must admit that this is a big and politically courageous step in the right direction concerning the all-important combat against global warming.
If only the overrated Chaser's War on Everything on Australian TV had included imaginative sketches of this quality, I would have found their sense of humor less juvenile. To my mind, putting on a false beard, dressing up as an Arab and getting driven through security barriers (?) to an international conference is hardly hilarious.
In the context of France Telecom, I'm therefore surprised and saddened by front-page news stories about the high incidence of suicides, due to work stress, among their technical employees. Since February 2008, there have been 21 cases of suicide in France Telecom inside France... which is a truly huge figure. The latest case, a week ago, involved a 53-year-old technician at the research and development center in Lannion, Brittany.
The cardinal Guillaume d'Estouteville, for example, pleaded in favor of Joan of Arc.
Just before my Internet went down, I made a fascinating discovery in the context of my paternal genealogy. The ancestral line of my grandmother Kathleen Pickering [1889-1964] leads back in a highly-documented fashion—with relatively credible and complete records for most of the way—to King John [1166/7-1216]. From there, of course, we get back to William the Conqueror [1024-1087].
This document will finally include all my known Skyvington genealogy... which is not yet firmly linked in a documented fashion (contrary to what I have always imagined, and tried to confirm) to ancestors who write their name as Skeffington. The future document will also present my ancestors with surnames such as Mepham, Pickering, Latton, etc.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
Almost everybody, today, is greatly impressed by the man named Armstrong.
