Prima rosa

Yesterday, the snow had completely disappeared, and the sun was shining over Choranche. I wandered up the slopes, with Sophia, to take advantage of the glorious weather. Everywhere, small rocks, detached by the thaw, had rolled onto the road. I ran into Pierrot, the municipal employee, who was busy removing these rocks. At the level of Bob's house (which he would like to sell this summer), I took this photo of all that remains of the fireplace of the ancient stone farmhouse (a twin of my place), which the Nazis had burned down in July 1944.

For weeks, I've got into the habit of stretching myself out in front of my fireplace... watching TV and warming my toes, which are great pastimes on winter evenings, when the world outside is white and chilly. Looking at the decaying red bricks, some of which are charred black around the edges, I imagined that generations of farming families had probably huddled there on cold evenings, after eating their vegetable soup accompanied by a hunk of coarse bread and a glass of the nasty brew they called wine (which had replaced the noble wine that had been eliminated from Choranche by the phylloxera pest around 1860).

During the night, light rain started to fall, and the muddy ground around Gamone now squelches as if I were wearing rubber boots and walking on seaweeds.

Looking back on the last few months, I realize how fortunate I was to have had the roof restored and the ramp laid during a couple of short sunny breaks. In fact, there could be nothing better for the ramp than the treatment of snow and rain to which it has been subjected, which is compacting it ideally. No vehicle will touch the ramp, of course, before it has dried out and been covered in gravel.

This morning, from my bedroom window, I discovered with joy a tiny splash of yellow. In spite of the rain, I rushed outside with my Nikon (protected by an umbrella) to take the following photo:

The first primrose of 2010 at Gamone! Spring is just around the corner.

Basques are not as bizarre as all that

When I first arrived in France, I was amused to find people advising me, apparently in a serious manner, that the best way by far to learn French was in bed. And that's how I soon became a serious language student. For a long time, in this spirit, I've had a theory that the ideal way in which to acquire a certain understanding, not only of a foreign language, but of peoples and even regions, is through a female friend who's associated with the language, land or region in question. In any case, that's the way the cookie has always crumbled for me personally. Inversely, I've often thought that one of the explanations (cause or rather an effect?) of my aloofness concerning both my native land and the USA, for example, is the sad fact that I've never, at any moment, been involved in a passionate relationship with an Australian or an American. [This is not a distressed call for help!]

Biarritz

The ancient Basque Country covers a tiny corner of Spain and an even tinier corner of south-west France, in the vicinity of the Bay of Biscay. I've never had an opportunity of visiting this region. On the other hand, I had a Basque girlfriend in Paris for several years and, through her, I've always felt a kind of solidarity (no doubt superficial) with the Basque region and culture. Besides, as soon as she started to talk about her last visit to her relatives in the vicinity of Biarritz, she would abandon her usual lighthearted conversational style and adopt an almost solemn tone, as if to inform me that there should be no joking about her beloved region. It would have been unthinkable for me to make a remark of any kind concerning notorious events that were mentioned regularly by the media: the activities in Spain and France of partisans of the creation of an autonomous Basque nation.

Many Australians have heard of Basque beaches where surfing competitions take place. The sport that is most readily associated with this people is Basque pelota, derived from the quaint old game of "royal tennis".

Over recent decades, many curious legends have been circulating on the subject of the Basque people, who are often considered as a unique biological family, who might even be direct descendants of Cro-Magnon man. These legends probably came into existence initially because of the mysterious Basque language, which is indeed unique. It does not belong to the vast group of so-called Indo-European languages, and it appears to be unrelated to any other language in the world. Then, when blood tests appeared on the scene, it was found that 20 percent of Basques are Rh negative, as compared to only 15 percent among the English, and 3 percent among the Chinese. Even the great pioneer of population genetics Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza still looks upon this fact as evidence in favor of the Cro-Magnon hypothesis.

DNA testing then stepped into this arena, and it has clarified our ideas, and even changed them in many ways. Two days ago, a major article on the Basque question was published online [display]. It reveals that "a genome-wide survey does not show the genetic distinctiveness of Basques", who cannot be considered a genetic outsider. The authors of the article conclude that "interpretations on their origin may have to be revised". Now, I'm not sure that my former girlfriend would be happy to learn that there's nothing special about the Basques.

Much current research into the origins of Europeans concerns the famous R1b1b2 haplogroup, which is widespread throughout Europe. [I myself belong to the R1b1b2a1b5 subgroup, designated since the end of 2008 as the R-L21 family, with our own website.] Now, it has been known for quite a while that most Basques belong to this R1b1b2 haplogroup. The big question facing population geneticists has been this: What were the relative contributions to modern European populations of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers from the Middle East? In other words, were our ancestors basically Old Stone Age hunter-gatherers who finally transformed their way of life when they heard about the possibility of becoming farmers? Or were our ancestors New Stone Age farmers who migrated to Europe, maybe only 10,000 years ago, from their Middle Eastern lands of origin? The answer seems to be that there was an equivalent dosage of both these origins. But in all cases, Y-chromosome research indicates that the origin of the Basques was no different to that of other Europeans.

So, how do specialists explain the Rh negative phenomenon? Well, it now appears that blood groups are not a trustworthy standard in population genetics, since they can be influenced, over the centuries, by the spread of diseases. And how do linguists explain the strange Basque language? For the moment, they can't...

A thousand and one hamburgers

In France, a fast-food chain has just announced that their burgers are composed of beef slaughtered according to Muslim rites, and that the bacon has been replaced by smoked turkey.

Funnily enough, within the context of this enterprise whose name is an English word, nobody seems to have drawn attention to the fact that the first three letters in the term hamburger designate, for Semites of both creeds, a detestable foodstuff. At a time when all our attention might be directed towards steering kids away from nasty food and obesity, it's deplorable that religion has once again reared its distasteful head. Decidedly, even in France, society is having trouble emerging from the Middle Ages.

Awesome Amy America

I remember a short Manhattan holiday of my son and me, long ago. I had a vague wish to show my son America. In our dull hotel room, we watched TV footage about a guy who had just shot down a whole bunch of innocent folk. The journalists were interviewing former friends and associates of the killer, who were unanimous about his character: "He was a really nice friendly guy. We can't imagine what caused him to commit this massacre."

I've noticed that, whenever things gets screwed up in God's Own Country, they tend to conclude that the Normal Order of American Happenings has been interfered with, no doubt through the actions of the Devil. Then they make a feeble attempt to delve into the past... and they're capable of finding all kinds of skeletons in the closets. But they rapidly rearrange them, in an attempt to make the past fit the present.

Interesting interrogation: Is it still possible to admire America?

Three sources of inspiration

It's not surprising that my blog reflections are inspired by three principal sources: (1) My Australian homeland (2) My adoptive France (3) My longtime US role model.

Concerning source 1, I have less and less to say these days, because my compatriots no longer inspire me. On the contrary, they sadden and alarm me, and I no longer "feel Australian" in any other than a genealogical sense. As for source 3, Obama has deceived almost everybody... but what the hell. I've never succeeded in taking seriously this powerful but light-headed nation with God on its side. So, I'm left with source 3: France. That's great, because I live there, and I have an immense and unfathomable love and respect for France! For me, France has always been the center of the universe. Today, I'm more convinced than ever that this is the case, because contemporary France (in spite of its leaders) is a synonym of ancient wisdom.

I can't decide which of the monkeys should represent each land. All three beasts are beautiful, so I prefer not to choose between them. In fact, ideally, my mythical France would attempt—at one and the same time—to speak no evil, see no evil and hear no evil. As I said, my France is a glorious myth.

Second circus thoughts

I'm profoundly encouraged by readers who advise me not to simply abandon Antipodes, like an uncouth man who decides abruptly to walk out on his family. You know the charming anecdotes: Darling, I must go out and buy a box of matches... and the bastard disappears for a quarter of a century! There have been phone calls, too, including one from my ex-wife, who almost threatened to leave me if I abandoned my blog. (I'm joking. Divorced on 22 November 1977, we live conveniently in opposite corners of France.) What my dearest Christine actually said was that Antipodes has always served a useful purpose in informing friends and family members of what's happening at Gamone. And it would be silly to ignore that down-to-earth role of my blog. Besides, I prefer to write blog articles rather than send out emails or make phone calls. Curiously, in spite of being the proud owner of an iPhone, I've become relatively "anti-telephone" over the years. And, while I vaunt superficially the merits of Twitter, Google Wave, Google Buzz, etc, I'm aware of the limited scope and depth of these new-fangled vectors of communication.

As for Facebook, I must admit that I would be most happy if this so-called social networking system were to leave me alone. (To be truthful, it doesn't bother me too much.) Its ridiculous symmetry of the "Me Tarzan, you Jane, us all friends in the jungle" kind dismays me immensely. At least, in a blog, you can speak out your mind without fearing that such-and-such a sexy Jane in the jungle is going to scream out that she no longer wishes to be your friend, and walk out on you.

But I do seriously believe that Antipodes might not necessarily be the ideal platform upon which to attempt to deal with many of the most profound themes that inspire me... which are better left to my ongoing autobiographical typescript entitled Digital Me. For example, a recent straw that almost broke the Eskimo's back was a naive comment suggesting that I might be "pulling the legs" of my readers when I evoke certain marvels of modern science and technology. It's very hard to react intelligently to this kind of feedback, because it undermines the very essence of a blog, which is the possibility of expressing one's convictions and passions, while hoping that readers are sufficiently well-informed to know, at least roughly, what you're talking about (which apparently wasn't the case in the Eskimo domain). But I had committed exactly the same kind of indelicacy, as a comment-sender, in suggesting that a respected blogger friend might not have the right to talk of such-and-such a celebrity as a scarecrow. Antipodes is quits.

Maybe I should concentrate more upon my basic blog articles, rather than letting myself get carried away by comments. But, isn't that a way of saying that I'm an asymmetrical and antisocial blogger? That might be the price I must pay (willingly) in order to create the necessary operational context for the useful pursuit of Antipodes.

We bloggers are minor circus clowns, but the blog must go on...

Pondering

Blogging has become an enjoyable everyday activity for me. However, it consumes a certain quantity of my creative energy that might be devoted to other challenges. For some time now, I've been thinking of terminating Antipodes, in order to concentrate all my limited resources upon another task that fascinates me more profoundly: the pursuit of my autobiographical tale entitled Digital Me. There's also my genealogical research, which I would like to tackle more regularly and deeply (particularly my latest passion for Y-chromosome research concerning my Skyvington ancestors). And I'm also determined to bring a couple of movie scripts to successful fruition.

I haven't yet made a firm decision, but it's becoming more and more likely that I'll do this. If so, I intend to use the Accessor software I developed (see the banner in the margin) to index correctly the totality of my articles. In any case, if I were to make this decision , I would abandon my blog abruptly but quietly... not with a bang, but a whimper.

POST SCRIPTUM: It goes without saying that, having terminated the blog approach, I would rely upon Twitter, Buzz and old-fashioned email to communicate briefly but effectively with the outside world.

Inuk the Eskimo

It's truly fantastic to hear that scientists have used a specimen of permafrost-preserved hair to sequence the genome of a male, known henceforth as Inuk, who lived in Greenland some 4,000 years ago.

This feat was performed under the direction of two Danish geneticists, Morten Rasmussen and Eske Willerslev, and their results were confirmed by laboratories throughout the planet... including a DNA laboratory at Murdoch University in Perth and an Australian police laboratory in Canberra.

The basic article concerning this achievement, entitled Ancient human genome sequence of an extinct Palaeo-Eskimo, appeared in the journal Nature. [Click the banner to access the article.]

Inuk's paternal haplogroup is designated as Q1a, which characterizes peoples who migrated from Siberia into the New World some 5,500 years ago. He belonged to a cultural group called the Saqqaq. Funnily, this means that Inuk does not belong to the same family as modern Inuit populations. To obtain their spectacular results, the researchers had to identify over a third of a million SNPs (single-nucleotide polymorphisms, called "snips"). The most amazing aspect of these findings is that Inuk's genome provides the researchers with a lot of interesting facts about this man's physical features:

— His blood type was A+.

— He probably had brown eyes.

— His skin and hair were probably rather dark. Besides, he would have normally become bald at an early age.

— He probably had front teeth of a form designated as "shovel-graded".

— His earwax was probably of a dry kind, like that of Asians and Native Americans (as distinct from the wet earwax of other ethnic groups).

It's amusing to learn that, since none of the institutions involved in this project employ Saqqaq descendants, the chances of errors due to DNA contamination from laboratory assistants were practically zero.

In my recent article entitled Nativity rites [display], I made a plea in favor of the systematic DNA-testing of babies. My old friend Odile phoned me the next day to tell me that she thought I had "blown a fuse"... which suggests that many people still regard DNA-testing as a weird operation. No, I persist and sign this idea— which is not at all crazy—of nativity rites of a new kind, based upon a DNA record for the newborn child. When we observe the fascinating facts that can be gleaned from a DNA specimen that dates from four millennia ago, it becomes obvious that we should encourage the generalized registration of such fabulous individual "blueprints".

Miracles exist! God too... and He's Irish!

In 1775, the celebrated French mathematician Laplace persuaded the Academy of Sciences in Paris to waste no more time and efforts in the examination of projects for perpetual motion machines.

For the last six years, an astute Irishman, Sean McCarthy, has nevertheless succeeded in persuading financial investors that such a project is feasible. It would appear that his research company is about to save humanity from the old-fashioned threat of an energy crisis.



What does that prove? Well, we've always known that the Irish are the world's best talkers...

Bird stories

Sometimes, it's hard to decide whether certain bird stories are genuine. David Attenborough presents the amazing lyre bird, which mimics the calls of other birds in this video clip from The Life of Birds.



I'm inclined to ask whether the bits about imitating camera shutters, car alarms and chainsaws are indeed authentic.

A week or so ago, on French TV, I saw a documentary about a splendid partridge that was totally and amazingly bonded to a friendly fellow living out in the French countryside. The commentator told us that this fellow had walked outside one morning and come upon a stray partridge, which promptly ran towards him... and then never wanted to leave him. The images were indeed spectacular. The partridge would even go boating with the fellow on his private carp pond. But there was a moment of doubt when I learned that the fellow actually reared all kinds of exotic fowls as a hobby. It soon dawned on me that, clearly, this fellow had arranged things so that he would be the first being to be seen by a newly-hatched partridge, who would be bonded to him in a well-known fashion.

I was furious to think that this renowned French TV series would have joined up with the partridge fellow in an attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of spectators, with their ridiculous tale of a kind of mysterious love affair between a partridge and a human being. I feel like saying: "Go tell that to the birds!"

Atheism seen from Down Under

In today's issue of The Sydney Morning Herald, there's an article entitled Atheism's true believers gather [display], written by the newspaper's religion reporter Jacqueline Maley, concerning the forthcoming Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne. Sure, the article is imperfect, but it's better than nothing... and surprising, above all, in the mentally stultifying context of Sydney's once-great newspaper, which now specializes in trash. Concerning the celebrated Oxford scientist Richard Dawkins, here is the most sublime idiotic pearl from Jacqueline's pen: "Dawkins has been criticised for his ignorance of Christian theology, and his inability (and that of science in general) to disprove the existence of God." Saying that Dawkins ignores theology is akin to deploring the fact that Pope Benedict XVI hasn't participated in much advanced research in molecular biology. As for the inability of Dawkins to disprove the existence of God, that's the fault of human reasoning and formal logic (about which Jacqueline Maley probably knows as little as the pope about molecular biology). Until the end of time, and beyond, nobody will ever be able to prove that the famous orbiting Celestial Teapot of Bertrand Russell [display] is not somewhere out there, maybe in the vicinity of Jupiter and Saturn.

[Click to display a bigger image.]

Then there's all the exciting literature and debate concerning the fabulous Flying Spaghetti Monster [display], whose existence has never yet been disproved, not even by the Vatican.

Fortunately, if you wish to listen to Jacqueline Maley talking about more everyday matters, which she masters admirably, you can read her amusing article entitled Pastor's ban sparks unholy Anglican stoush [display], on the heart-rending theme of a Sydney suburban parishioner who declared: "I was forbidden to hand out pencils or stack chairs in church because of my theology.'' [Some kind soul might please tell me what stoush means.] But don't spend too much time delving into the archives, religious or otherwise, of The Sydney Morning Herald. You would be taking a silly risk. It's the sort of nasty reading that could well induce permanent brain damage.

Democracy has caught up with me

I've just received my French voter's card, and I'm tremendously proud.

It has my name and address inside, with a municipal stamp, and it's signed by Bernard Bourne-Branchu, mayor of Choranche. For the first time in my life, I shall be voting in a French election. What elections? Learn all you need to know from this excellent English-language Wikipedia page. And for whom shall I be voting? Now, you should know that it's not democratically correct to ask people to reveal the party for which they're going to vote. It's like asking somebody to identify the individuals with whom he/she has been sleeping lately. But I'll tell you, all the same. You shouldn't be surprised to learn that I'll be voting for the Greens.

Happiness and harmony

For those who like watching opening/closing ceremonies, I'm sure that last night's TV transmission from Vancouver was a huge source of happiness. Personally, I seem to remember that I abandoned TV transmissions of opening/closing ceremonies back at the time of the Sydney Olympics. I was overcome by a nauseating feeling of embarrassment when I discovered that the artistic director of the panorama of Aussie history and lifestyle had imagined a sequence revealing that hordes of dwellers in suburbia devote their weekends to mowing their lawns. Big deal! What an awesome bunch of people they must be in Australia! Believe it or not: They cut the grass on their lawns with power mowers! Each of the actors in this scene took delivery of a big cardboard box containing his personal lawn mower. The impact was too much for me. You can't fight nausea. I decided at that instant to give up forever the habit of watching opening/closing ceremonies.

Should we be alarmed or simply saddened by the accidental death of a 21-year-old tobogganist from Georgia? Long ago, I recall a brief Internet conversation with a woman who was disturbed to have discovered, during her genealogical research, that a great-uncle, working in New South Wales as a commercial traveler, had been mortally intoxicated in a hotel room by a cyanide-based product that was once used to fumigate bed mattresses. In those days, in many countries, there were tales of hotel guests who went to bed in similar circumstances, and died peacefully in their sleep. My friend exclaimed: "What a terrible way to die!" She was surprised to find me disagreeing: "On the contrary, it's surely one of the most harmonious ways imaginable of dying. God had decided that this salesman had visited his last customer. So, the Almighty calmly drew a line under his final order." I think it's a bit like that in the case of the dead tobogganist.

Meanwhile, here at Gamone, I'm getting fed up with the recurrent whiteness. I've often wondered whether the quiet and friendly personality of many Scandinavians might not be the longtime outcome of endless months of pure whiteness. In that respect, I'm a bad Scandinavian. With a bit more snow, I could well end up in some kind of nasty neurotic state. My dog Sophia, on the other hand, is in a constant state of happiness.

As I pointed out already in an earlier blog, the fluffy white world, for Sophia, is exactly as it should be. Incidentally, that's probably the main reason why the winter hasn't yet made me neurasthenic. It's such a joy for me to witness constantly the happiness of my dog.

My donkeys don't seem to be greatly troubled by the snow, particularly when they drop in for their massive daily dose of oats. They've taught themselves to gouge out the snow with their hoofs and snouts to access grass. On the other hand, they advance cautiously through the smooth snow, step by step, because they've discovered that the hidden earth can be uneven.

Their fur is so long and thick that one is tempted to imagine that it's the snow that actually causes the fur to grow this way. But that thinking would, of course, be bad biology. Meanwhile, in the latest issue of Scientific American, which arrived in my mailbox a fortnight ago, there's a front-page story entitled Why humans have no fur. Its subtitle: And how evolving bare skin led to big brains. Goodness me, we're expected to digest such a vast assortment of basic knowledge in our modern existence. When I've assimilated that article, I'll be able to go out and boast to the donkeys that it's all very well to be able to wander around in the snow, oblivious of the cold, awaiting solely the next bucket of oats... but I've got a bigger brain!

As for the birds, they seem to be happy with the seeds that I leave out for them. But I've learned that the situation is a little more irregular than what I had imagined. The black and yellow tits visit the wooden container, where each bird only stops long enough to pick up a sunflower seed in its beak. For the finches, though, it's a quite different procedure. They seem to be interested only in picking up seeds of other kinds that I've strewn around on the ground. If I leave the seeds in a dish, no bird ever goes near it, no doubt suspecting the dish to be some kind of a trap. So, I have to empty the dish of seeds onto the snow.

As they fly in and out of the bird-house, often waiting politely for the previous occupants to leave before barging in, the tits are so well organized that you could almost imagine that they have radio contact with a control tower. I notice however that all is not necessarily so harmonious in the existence of the finches. Whenever there's a small group of finches darting around on the ground, they seem to start attacking, or at least intimidating, one another. It's quite amazing. As soon as one bird has picked up a seed, it often moves aggressively towards a neighboring bird. I've been examining the erratic behavior of the finches, and wondering whether there might be some kind of hierarchy in the finch colony, resulting in a pecking order as for chickens. Thinking that Google might be able to enlighten me, I typed in the words "finches pecking order", which directed me to a review of a book: The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner, published 16 years ago [display]. With a little astonishment, I discovered that Weiner's book is included in the bibliography of Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins. My naive question about the birds at Gamone had landed me right back in the middle of Darwinian interrogations. Finches (rather than iguanas and tortoises) were in fact the true heroes of Darwin's revelations on the Galapagos.

Apparently Weiner's book describes the efforts of a couple of English-born scientists, Peter and Rosemary Grant, who spent two years on the desolate Galapagos island of Daphne Major studying the beaks of finches. [Click the banner to explore the finch story.] During their stay on the island, in the drought conditions of 1976-77, Peter and Rosemary discovered that "the average beak size of the larger seed-eating finches increased by half a millimeter", enabling the birds to tackle bigger and tougher seeds. [I sometimes feel that you have to be English to possess the necessary enthusiasm and stamina to make that kind of discovery!]

I'm living in a wonderful world [a world full of wonder]. Clearly, I can no longer go outside to give oats to my donkeys, or seeds to the wild birds of Gamone, without my being impregnated unexpectedly by marvelous evocations of science.

Bad day for a ladybird

Towards the end of last summer, I was happy to find ladybirds (known also as ladybugs or lady beetles) at several places near the house, since they have a good reputation for devouring aphids on rose bushes. You can even purchase a stock of ladybirds, for your garden, through the Internet. Well, my ladybird colony still seems to exist at Gamone. From time to time, I come upon specimens on the window sills, whereupon I place the insect in what I imagine to be a better spot for survival... on the earth of one of my potted oleander shrubs (which I have to keep inside the house every winter).

Now, it's possible that a specialist in this field might inform me that the chances of a ladybird hibernating successfully in an indoor oleander bush are no greater than if I were to leave it where I first saw it. I guess it's the same old illusion, which has pursued me ever since I was a child, of imagining that I might save the life of a tiny bird fallen from its nest...

In any case, there are other risks for a ladybird that might wish to spend winter inside my house. This enlarged photo (of poor quality) reveals a drama that has been unfolding alongside my desk for the last twenty minutes.

When I closely inspected the battlefield with the help of a big magnifying glass (the one I use when I'm consulting archives in Grenoble or Valence), I discovered that the spider was enclosing the ladybird in a tight silk shroud. As I mentioned in my article entitled Fabulous fig story [display], spider webs are explained brilliantly in Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins. It's his fault, rather than that of the Dalai Lama, if my house is a little more cobwebby at times than it used to be.

During the time it has taken me to write the present article, the spider and its wrapped-up prey have disappeared behind my bookshelves. It's obviously one of those creatures who doesn't like its privacy being invaded through the Internet.

Darwin Day

A year ago, I wrote my first blog article on Darwin Day [display].

This National Photographic photo must be dedicated grudgingly to the memory of our hero, because Darwin apparently thought that the fabulous marine iguana, symbol of the Galapagos Islands, was ugly. He also dared to straddle the back of a Galapagos tortoise.

That's not the first time we've heard of otherwise intelligent individuals behaving as silly sporting tourists. So, we should be prepared to pardon posthumously the young naturalist for his frivolous behavior. In any case, Galapagos is where the theory of evolution seems to have been conceived. I imagine these islands as a sacred place: our Jerusalem.

In Christian theology, certain great figures have been linked to animals.

The four Evangelists are associated with symbolic creatures: a lion for Mark, an ox for Luke, an eagle for John, etc. It's high time to update theology. I proclaim: Henceforth, our beloved Saint Charles D will be represented by an iguana, our living Saint Richard D by a tortoise.

Be a creative critic!

This intellectual exercise won't take you more than a minute, and it should be fun. Click this illustration (signed by an artist named Matthew Martin) to access a short article in The Sydney Morning Herald whose title is Fast lifestyle, faster sperm. The author of this article is Nicky Phillips. Having read this specimen of Australian journalism, I invite you to invent a terse summary of its content and style. Your suggestion can be anything from a single word up to an in-depth analysis. You might like to send me your suggestions as comments. Go for it!

Spoilsport

The dictionary informs us that a spoilsport is somebody who mars the pleasure of others. Wretched individuals who behave this way are sometimes described as killjoys or wet blankets, and I would imagine that my Aussie compatriots, great lovers of sport, could supply me with further appropriate synonyms.

I experienced my first stirrings of spoilsportsmanship when I was a boy in Grafton. At our high school, there were all sorts of competitions. A few of them were of a scholarly nature (which I often won), but most of these competitions were in sporting domains... between individuals, or school divisions known as "houses", or even between neighboring schools... provided, of course, that they weren't Catholic schools, since our community of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants preferred to avoid communicating with those people. Well, from an early age, I was often struck by the sheer inanity of sporting competitions, matches and championships. I enjoyed fun and games (such as mixed doubles in tennis, where I could observe the girls at close range as they served), and I liked to participate in certain competitive activities such as cycling and rowing. Swimming competitions, too, could be terribly exciting, especially when (as explained by my compatriot Clive James in his Unreliable Memoirs) the girls would get out of the water in their dripping Speedo costumes which, in those days, were made out of transparent skin-clinging textiles. But I could never understand why, in general, we should scream for the victory of one participant in a competition, or one side in a match, rather than another competitor or the other side. After all, weren't they all playing the same game, to the best of their respective abilities?

These days, I often watch competitive sport on TV, but I generally feel that I'm an idiot in doing so. Spending an hour or so following lap after lap of an F1 motor race (as I sometimes do) is surely just as dumb as watching a curling tournament. Or, worse still, a competition in synchronized swimming: no doubt one of the most stupid competitive sports ever imagined.

In a recent article entitled Little gods [display], I mentioned the brilliant writing of Christopher Hitchens (whose Twitter name is hitchbitch). Well, in the Newsweek magazine, Hitchens has just written the ultimate spoilsport article, entitled Fool's Gold [access].

He suggests that "the Olympics and other international competitions breed conflict and bring out the worst in human nature". Personally, I couldn't agree more. It doesn't take much imagination or logical skill, simply a good dose of common sense, to arrive at an obvious corollary. Organized sport is a universal pest to be likened, in its harmful effects, to organized religion.

Feeding the snow birds

During the night, there was a heavy fall of snow at Gamone. As soon as the sun rose, in a misty sky, groups of small birds started to drop in on the seed supply that I maintain beneath my bedroom window.

There are three categories of visitors. The balls of fat attract tits of the variety designated as charbonnière (coalman), because the males have a black apron on their breast that brings to mind the appearance of the men who used to deliver bags of charcoal for heating. Other tits aim directly for the heap of black sunflower seeds inside the bird-house. Meanwhile, finches prefer to scratch around on the snowy ground beneath the bird-house.

Google variant of Twitter

Many people persist in believing wrongly that Twitter is strictly for the birds. Often, this merely means that they've misunderstood what it's all about, or that they haven't yet got around to trying it out in a hands-on fashion.

Google has just announced its own variant of this kind of communications device. It's called Google buzz. Click the banner to access an article that describes the tool, or watch the following video:




Personally, I haven't yet got around to trying to use it. I'll keep you informed, through my blog, of my buzz experience.

BREAKING NEWS: I've just received an invitation from Google to get started as a buzzer. So, I've sent my first buzz... about feeding the birds in the snow. My buzz name (I believe) is William Skyvington. So, if you happen to be a buzzer, please let me know if you can find me, and please tell me your buzz name. For the moment, I'm not too sure what it's all about.

Mystery as philosophy

We Aussies never forget that the world is a stage, and that we are actors. No matter what our field, we have a knack of looking the part.

It goes without saying that, with my years, my rural existence in France and my thinning hair (nearly seven years ago, already, when Natacha took this photo), I'm no exception.

David Chalmers is the 43-year-old professor of philosophy at the Australian National University in Canberra. His major claim to fame was the invention of the concept of the so-called "hard problem of consciousness", which simply means that we naked apes inhabiting the planet Earth find it difficult, if not impossible, to fathom the phenomenon of consciousness. Apart from that, what else is new? Well, it appears that David, armed with a powerful Canon camera, has become the official photographer of attendees at international philosophy conferences [display], but his photos are rather dull, not particularly philosophical.

A British philosopher, Colin McGinn, has gone one step further by declaring that the Chalmers enigma has no solution. That's to say, he thinks that we'll never know why we think as we do. Big deal. McGinn has become the leader of the school of New Mysterianism.

Now, it wouldn't be so bad if these guys who claim that we'll never know everything about everything were to hibernate calmly in the background, while awaiting further revelations. But no! They attract adepts, some of whom are quite bright fellows (atheists, of course), intent upon gaining recognition.

One such latter-day mysterian is the US professor of psychology Jerry Fodor. I have the impression that this distinguished academic is upset about not being on the Dawkins/Pinker bandwagon. He feels left out of things. So, he and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini have decided to create a storm in a teacup by bringing out a book with a provocative title: What Darwin Got Wrong. It's hot off the press, so I haven't had a chance of reading it yet. But, needless to say, through its mere title, this book is going to be divine manna for all the nitwit young-earth creationists and advocates of so-called intelligent design. It's just too good to have a reputed US professor of philosophy shouting out that Darwin got things wrong.

Google video during the Superbowl

The title of the video is Parisian Love, and it suggests that Google can help a Superbowl spectator to find his French true love in Paris.



I managed to do that a long time ago... with no help from Google. As a non-American, I left out the bit about finding a church in Paris. As for Emmanuelle's lovely crib, I seem to recall that it was a gift from Christine's parents. There too, we were able to get by without Google. Thank goodness for that. In those days, Google didn't even exist!

Bretons at play

I thought I knew a thing or two about what goes on in the native land of my ex-wife Christine, but I've had occasions to discover that many Breton traditions escape me. The last time I visited Christine, she and our son took me to a simple country tavern where local musicians had decided to get together for an evening of Irish music. Although I was familiar with musical evenings in Paris cafés (where I used to play guitar and sing Leonard Cohen stuff), I have to say that this event in Brittany was one of the most unexpected and extraordinary musical evenings I had ever experienced. It was ostensibly a normal tavern with ordinary customers (like Christine and me) dropping in for drinks. But I soon discovered that almost every individual who stepped through the door of that tavern that evening was accompanied by a musical instrument: violin, flute, guitar, bodhrán, etc. By the end of the evening, we were among the few non-playing people, surrounded by some thirty musicians... who all managed to collaborate splendidly!

Today, for the first time, I heard about Breton wrestling, called gouren. You lose, apparently, as soon as you get knocked off your feet. Thankfully, during all the years I've known Christine, she never once tried to do that. This video shows Breton girls wrestling on a beach:



In traditional bouts, the grand champion receives a special trophy: a live ram, which he has the right to hoist up onto his shoulders.

I appreciate the symbolism of this trophy. Back in the days when I had a small flock of sheep at Gamone, I was often knocked off my feet by a blow from an otherwise friendly ram. Funnily enough, they always attack you from behind, and when you're least expecting it.

Now, there has been a court case in Brittany because the league opposing cruelty to animals considers that there's something immoral in the idea of awarding a live ram to the winner of a wrestling tournament. But the legal judgment was most appropriate: the animal-rights plaintiff got knocked off his feet.

French war toys

A French fishing-trawler operator who snapped this early-morning trajectory on his mobile phone might have imagined that he had sighted a falling star.

But meteorites drop downwards, whereas this fellow was moving upwards. In fact, he had photographed a test of a French ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] launched from a nuclear submarine.

The submarine is Le Terrible. No need for translation.

I'm convinced that humanity is likely to succumb, one of these days, to some kind of a "nuclear contingency" (to use a nice expression that doesn't even smell too much like death). Between now and then, I'm not entirely unhappy to know that some of the nastiest toys happen to be held in the hands of the French Republic. As a prospective citizen of the world, I'm saddened by the fact that hordes of my fellow-citizens appear to be bloodthirsty mindless morons whose skulls are stuffed full of Islamic shit and hatred, while others persist in believing politely in a magic all-knowing "God" up in the skies. Maybe, one of these days, when they all find reason and come back down to earthly objectivity, France will be able to teach them how to launch fluffy Disney-like international ballistic snowballs. Meanwhile, I love to believe in happy-ending fairy stories...

Sustainable driver

I grew up in the midst of four-wheel vehicles. (I was also immersed, from as far back as I can remember, in an exciting environment of vehicles of a two-wheeled kind: track-racing bicycles, but that's another story.) My grandfather Ernest Skyvington was the Ford dealer in Grafton, and his son Bill (my father) was employed for a while as a mechanic in this business. In the late '40s, my mother, Kath, used to drive us to school in a Jeep, while her Walker family (dairy farmers in Waterview, South Grafton) even got around in an old Pontiac.

Well, in spite of this, I never acquired any kind of lust for automobiles. I obtained my driver's license before leaving home but, during my time in Sydney, when I was employed as a computer programmer with IBM, the idea of purchasing a car never entered my mind. Apart from racing bikes, my only objects of fascination and desire (to call a spade a spade) were computers and romantic female nymphs who played the piano. It was only in France, after seeing Christine at the wheel of a primitive Citroën, that I finally got around to purchasing my first car.

These days, I believe that one of the most noble roles of an automobile in rural France consists of taking you to a nearby train station where you can maybe hop on to a fabulous TGV (high-speed train) to travel rapidly to another corner of the land. Besides, if your car happens to be rather ancient (like my 1996 Citroën ZX), then you can leave it parked near the train station with no worries that it might get scratched or bumped or stolen.

Here at Gamone, there has never been a garage... because automobiles didn't even exist at the time my house came into existence. So, my car has always stayed out in the open, in the sun, rain, hail, ice, snow, etc. At certain times of the year, oil drops from the blossoms of my giant linden trees and leaves a dirty black stain on the roof of the car. At other times, it gets covered in red dust blown across the Mediterranean from the deserts of Africa. Once, I used to scrub the car clean every so often. But now, I generally wait for the rain to lend a helping hand, and I only intervene when it's impossible to see out through the windows.

At the height of summer, it's a luxury to be able to invite Sophia to jump into the car for a trip down to the Bourne, for a swim. Then, on the return trip, the soaked dog, with muddy paws, lies down on the upholstery of the rear seat to dry herself. Later, I end up taking out my vacuum cleaner to remove a thick coating of dog hairs from inside the vehicle. Another luxury consists of being able to use my car as a utility vehicle for transporting rubbish, or for picking up a few bags of cement. For bulkier stuff, I hook on a light trailer.

Christine once remarked that the old façade of my house at Gamone (before restoration) bore scars, like an adventurer who had traveled through many dangerous lands.

This is not surprising in the case of a modest residence that was probably erected shortly after the French Revolution of 1789. My car, likewise, has collected a respectable set of scars, picked up mainly in Grenoble, Valence and various Dauphiné villages.

During the time that I've owned my Citroën ZX, my former neighbor Bob has got around to consuming his fifth vehicle. I have no trouble understanding why that's the case, because I've been in cars with Bob at the wheel (including my own). He's convinced that I'm an untalented and frustrating driver, because I don't whip my vehicle like Ben Hur in his chariot. Bob considers that, since the resale value of my Citroën is now zero, and since it still runs perfectly (in spite of its mileage: some 260,000 kilometers), then the logical economic solution is to carry on driving it until it falls to pieces. I agree with him. I'm the proud owner of a sustainable automobile.

This afternoon, I took the old Citroën along for its obligatory annual technical inspection. At the end of his 30-minute procedure, using all kinds of sophisticated gadgets, the fellow said: "Everything's perfect. The ZX is a sturdy Citroën model. Normally, you should be able to get another 100,000 kilometers out of yours."

Over the years, there have never, of course, been any miracles. Various parts of my Citroën have indeed given up the ghost from time to time. But, instead of throwing up my arms in anguish and rushing out to purchase a new automobile, I simply get the broken parts replaced in an excellent little Speedy garage alongside the Leclerc supermarket in St-Marcellin. I've got to know the mechanics fairly well, and they never try to cheat me on their invoices. Besides, they use an excellent computer system, built by their colleagues in Paris, which enables them to track down required spare parts efficiently and quickly.

In fact, the ultimate luxury for an automobile owner such as me is to leave the vehicle at home and go out on foot for a stroll to the village or in the hills, accompanied by my dog.

I've often said that I would wait until I had a garage here at Gamone before contemplating the replacement of my old car. Well, as of this morning, after an intense 24-hour period of earth-moving operations carried out by my friend and neighbor René Uzel, there's a broad ramp of rocky earth (very muddy for the moment) leading up to a corner of the house, which could soon become my garage. Observers wonder if it's wide enough for a garage. My Citroën has an external width—between the tips of the rear-view mirrors—of 2 meters. The distance between the stone wall of the house and the concrete pillar is 2.5 meters, and it's 6 meters deep.

Up until now, it was quite impossible to see the entire northern façade of the old house from this viewpoint. The roof on the right has been recently renovated, as you can see from the pale-colored wood. The empty zone beneath the western side of the house (where you can see a tall metal ladder leaning against a roof rafter) was used by former owners of Gamone as a hay loft. Besides the future garage, there's an available area of 60 square meters, much of which lies above the ancient stone cellar that was used as a winery. The following photo, taken at the southern side of the house by my daughter Emmanuelle in the summer of 1994, shows me dragging out this hay to burn it. I didn't yet own any farm animals, and I was afraid that the hay might catch fire.

One of these days, I would like to board in the upper part of the garage opening, and install a pair of big wooden doors. I would also cover the ugly new concrete pillar by a layer of stones.

I had intended to build a firewood-shed to the right of the new ramp, up against the embankment. In facts, I now hesitate, because I'm not sure that this view of the ancient house should be marred by the presence of a flimsy new wooden structure for storing firewood. There's an obvious constraint concerning the location of a shed for firewood. It must be located not far from the spot where my neighbor Gérard Magnat drops off from his big truck. That's to say, the shed must be near the road... since I don't want to find Gérard driving across the "lawns of Gamone" (where the inverted commas highlight the fact that my modest lawns have little in common with those, for example, of Windsor Castle). Maybe I could erect my future wood-shed (dimensions of about 1.5 m x 4 m) on the flat area to the left of my mail-box, which I have been using, up until now, as a place for hanging out my washing.

One hesitates (as Christine knows full well) before introducing any kind of new constructions into an ancient place such as Gamone. Even though it's a quite humble site (that adjective pleases me), with no pretensions towards esthetic splendor, I dislike the thought of polluting inadvertently this ancient environment, of a beautifully minimalist and austere sub-Alpine nature, with my Mickey Mouse erections.

BREAKING NEWS: I agree with Christine (who has always been my guide at Gamone) that the stark frontal aspect of the house, viewed from the north (as in the above photo of the new ramp), should not be disfigured by any kind of construction, neither up against the new embankment nor in the vicinity of the mailbox. The rustic charm and spirit of the place reside in its basic austerity, which must remain unaltered. We therefore have the impression that a convenient and inconspicuous spot to stock firewood might be beneath the overhanging roof on the slope to the right of the house.

I often think that my property at Gamone is a reflection of my life. Over the last few years, in the style of a Buddhist monk (which I'm definitely not), I've been whittling Gamone down to its bare but essential sustainable elements: me, for example.

Tomorrow's computing concepts

Many years ago, when I was visiting the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in Boston for French TV, I recall meeting up with a young guy on the staff of their AI (artificial intelligence) group who was apparently paid to do little more than dream up ideas of a science-fiction kind about the future of computing. This friendly one-man think tank gave me a copy of his latest paper, which was a lengthy list of possible inventions, described with an abundance of freshly-coined technical words and abstract philosophical expressions. I remember that he used the AI acronym as a noun, designating what most people at that time would have called a robot. Apart from that, though, little else in his futuristic wish-list was within my conceptual grasp.

Apparently this tradition still exists at MIT. Yesterday, my friend Brahim Djioua (himself an AI researcher at the Sorbonne) sent me a link to a fascinating video about a visionary fellow named Pranav Mistry, a graduate of the IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) who went on, while working on his doctorate at MIT, to dream up a fabulous approach to computing as it might exist in the near future. The following video speaks for itself, since Pranav has actually implemented many of his dreams in the form of real devices, but you may have to watch the video several times (as I did) for the astonishing messages to get through clearly.