Seafarers

In my article of 2 December 2007 entitled Reenactments [display], I mentioned a Norwegian adventurer named Thor Heyerdahl [1914-2002], who was a hero for young people of my generation.

Click the photo to see original footage of the balsa-wood raft Kon-Tiki on its 1947 voyage from South America to Polynesia. Heyerdahl and his companions were trying to demonstrate that the Pacific islands could have been colonized by seafarers who drifted westwards from the American continent.

Today, we're practically certain that Heyerdahl's theory was wrong. Recent linguistic research suggests that ancestors of the future Polynesians probably sailed from the island of Formosa (present-day Taiwan) around 3,000 BC. As indicated in the following diagram (with French captions), these seafarers ended up settling in such scattered islands as the Philippines, Fiji, Madagascar, Hawaii, New Zealand and Easter Island.

[Click the above diagram to obtain a more readable version.]

Many millennia before these long voyages across the Pacific and Indian Oceans, intrepid dark-skinned seafarers from Asia had reached the Australian continent. These ancestors of Australia's Aborigines made this voyage well before the time of the Homo sapiens sapiens individuals whose remains were found in 1969 and 1974: Mungo Man [see photo] and Mungo Woman, who lived out in western New South Wales, not far from Mildura, probably some 40,000 years ago.

Besides the various tests aimed at dating these bone fragments and the geological context in which they were found, DNA testing of modern Aborigines confirms beyond doubt the "out of Africa" origins of this indigenous people. Haplogroup C4 is the most common Y-chromosome result among indigenous Australians, and it has not been found outside of that continent. For an R-haplogroup individual such as myself, this means that the latest common ancestor of today's Aborigines and me lived in southwest Asia around 60,000 years ago. Genetically, his haplogroup is known as CF, but not the slightest trace of such a human being has ever been found yet.

Incidentally, if there are any Aborigines reading the Antipodes blog, I take this opportunity of letting them know that I've got into the habit of referring to my Old Stone Age CF-haplogroup ancestor by a tender nickname: Dreamtimer. It goes without saying that, if anybody were to find traces of him, I wouldn't be personally offended in any way whatsoever if present-day Aborigines were to take photos of old Dreamtimer (they don't need to ask my permission), or if his remains were to be put on display in a museum.

At the time of these epic voyages, there were land links between Asia and Australia that have since been submerged, but the seafarers were no doubt obliged to sail across an expanse of at least a hundred kilometers. Consequently, the ancestors of the Aborigines have been considered, up until now, as the greatest navigators of prehistory.

A month ago, the seafaring supremacy of the sons and daughter of Dreamtimer was subjected to a rude shock, of Titanic proportions, when a report from the the American School of Classical Studies in Athens was made public. Apparently, archaeologists have found the following prehistoric stone implements on the island of Crete:

[Click the image to access the original story in the New York Times.]

They're at least 130,000 years old. At that time, there were no land links inside the Mediterranean. Consequently, prehuman seafarers must have been able to leave the European mainland and sail to the distant island of Crete.

This new discovery pleases me immensely, because I like to think that there were ancient mariners in the Mediterranean at that early date. It's hardly surprising that this great sea, in the middle of planet Terra, went on to acquire a reputation as the home of illustrious navigators such as Ulysses. Obviously, Ulysses and our Antipodean Dreamtimer were distant "genetic cousins" of these Cretan sailors... who might have been smart Neanderthals. (Naturally, we cannot exclude the possibility that they might have been dumb Neanderthals who fell asleep in the branches of a tree that got struck by lightning and then washed out to sea. By the time they realized what had happened to them, they found themselves on a delightful beach in Crete.) It's imaginable that the sailing skills of the archaic Aborigines, which enabled them to reach Australia, were inherited indirectly from these prehuman Cretan seafarers. Maybe these skills were assimilated, much later on, by navigators from Phocea in Asia Minor, enabling them to colonize Marseille. Then a fellow named Pytheas, from that same city, used similar skills to go on a sea excursion up to England, around 325 BC, where he visited Stonehenge as a tourist. As for myself, I'm sure that all these illustrious ancestors and archaic prehuman relatives would have been proud of me when I worked for a month or so, back in 1963—in the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal and the Red Sea—at the helm of a Greek tramp steamer, the Persian Cyrus.

Donkey dinner

When I found a few apples lying in the grass, preserved by the snow, I cut them up and put them on top of the donkeys' daily dose of oats.

I was a little surprised to find that the animals promptly pushed aside the apple fragments so that they could get stuck into the oats.

I had always imagined that the donkeys are immensely fond of apples. Well, they are, I'm sure... but it seems that they're fonder still of oats.

Five minutes later, when I returned to pick up the dishes, both the oats and the apples had disappeared. Maybe it's like children having a meal in such-and-such a celebrated junk-food restaurant. I would imagine that, spontaneously, a normal kid would tackle the hamburger and French fries first, and then move on to the sundae.

The donkeys were standing still at the same spot, above the empty dishes, digesting their dinner.

Judging from the respective positions of their ears, old gray-faced Mandrin is waiting for me to say something (or maybe he's intrigued by the buzz of my Nikon adjusting its focus), whereas young beige-faced Moshé is more interested in keeping an auditive "outlook" on what might be happening behind him: in particular, the presence of Sophia... who learned long ago that it's not wise for a dog to spend too much time behind the powerful rear legs of a donkey.

Sea change

Up until the age of sixteen, I was an adolescent in a dull Australian place named Grafton, where the Good Lord surely intended that nothing unusual should ever happen, not even my birth. In my time, this magnificent landscape had sadly lost its pioneering soul before losing forever its spirit of social evolution and economic development. Today, Grafton is a charming empty carcass, whose sole awareness is the fact that it's a boring old town, with nothing to say nor even hide.

Downstream, at the estuary of the Clarence River, our outlet on the Pacific Ocean was named Yamba. In 1954, surrounded by school friends, I found it an enthralling place.

My most moving recollection of Yamba dates from the summer of 1957. I had returned to Grafton after a year at the University of Sydney, and my parents had decided kindly to take me on an excursion down to Yamba... which I had not visited for quite some time. I remember, as if it were yesterday, that my father Bill Skyvington had parked his LandRover while Kath was buying food down in the new shopping area of Yamba. I was exploding internally with the urge to tell my father that, during my first year in Sydney, I had just encountered a fabulous corpus of knowledge about the nature of the world. I can even recall the slim volume of relativity physics that had engendered my enthusiasm. In a backstreet of Yamba, on that sunny afternoon, I tried naively to transmit an iota of my enthusiasm to my father. He looked at me as if I were a Martian, and informed me abruptly that he had no time for such nonsense... which was vastly less urgent, in his mind, than the question of earning one's living by grazing and slaughtering beef cattle (my father's business). By the time my mother returned from her shopping, I had lost forever all possible intellectual intimacy with my paternal progenitor. In an instant of incomprehension between a father and his son, on that sunny Yamba afternoon, I moved forever away from my ancestral ignorance... into enlightenment.

In my mind, Yamba remained nevertheless a seaside sanctuary, which my children were able to encounter briefly with joy during their teens.

Today, I learn sadly from the Australian media that something seems to have gone wrong at Yamba [display]. Is it just Yamba, I ask innocently, or Australia at large?

Dame République, expecting

Shortly after the French Revolution, a girl named Marianno was the heroine of a revolutionary song in the Occitanian language. The song became popular in October 1792, just after the creation of the French Republic, which adopted Marianne as its allegorical incarnation. She is always represented wearing a pointed bonnet, designated as Phrygian (a legendary people of Asia Minor). After the July Revolution of 1830, the painter Eugène Delacroix showed a bare-breasted Marianne on the barricades, with a tricolor held high, leading the people to liberty.

Since then, there have been countless pictorial and sculptural depictions of Marianne. Whereas the Church has been symbolized by the Virgin Mary, and French royalty by Joan of Arc, Marianne has become the official female symbol of the République. Busts of Marianne adorn town halls, administrative offices and schools from one end of France to the other.

Since the Libération of 1944, among the females who have been chosen as models for Marianne, we find Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve and Laetitia Casta.

Over the last few days, French people have been somewhat surprised to discover Marianne appearing in advertisements for Sarkozy's future state loan:

OK, it's nice to know that France is investing in her future. And we can understand that the République is expecting... massive financial investments. But who in fact got her pregnant? It's rather disturbing to learn that this should happen to a fine young woman whose moral behavior has always been beyond reproach. Most people weren't even aware that she was "frequenting" (as they say in rural France, meaning to go out frequently with a specific male friend). Many folk would be furious to learn that the future father is randy Sarko himself, for example. Maybe one of the old fellows: Giscard, or Chirac...

The most eloquent criticism came from an indignant feminist blogger named Emelire: "The hand of the State should stay away from my uterus, particularly if it's trying to grab some cash!"

European solar-energy project

Last night, on French TV, I saw an amazing reportage concerning a revolutionary project aimed at capturing solar energy through panels attached to a geostationary satellite and then transmitting the energy to Earth by means of an infrared laser beam. Today, I've been trying to obtain more detailed information about this project, described as European, but the web doesn't seem to have anything much to offer in this domain. As soon as I started searching for information, I had the impression that the only people on the planet who are pursuing this research are the Japanese. Maybe the European researchers are deliberately keeping a low public profile because of the complexity of the project, and the fact that it's still at a very early stage of development, since it wouldn't become operational before another decade. Or did I simply imagine that it was a European project?

No, it wasn't an illusion. The project is being carried out well and truly by the European company Astrium, the space subsidiary of EADS (the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company). Click the banner to find out a little bit more about this company.

The TV reportage evoked a question that springs into everybody's mind. Would it be catastrophic if the laser beam were to be slightly displaced so that, instead of reaching its correct target on the ground, it hit a house or a school. Would it fry everything in a split second? Apparently not. The fellow being interviewed treated this as a silly question. The future system will be as harmless as a phone connection, in spite of the fact that it's channeling the energy of the Sun.

In any case, even if it's too early to obtain a significant quantity of serious information concerning this project, it's not too early to meditate upon the idea of a potentially unlimited source of perfectly clean energy. Or am I still dreaming?

POST SCRIPTUM: Although it's not directly related to what I've just been talking about, you might like to listen to Bill Gates presenting his thoughts on energy. Personally, I prefer to hear him rambling on in this field rather than evoking his ugly software products...

"InDNA" Jones in Egypt

In former times, the hero of this tale would have been Tutankhamun himself, of course.

These days, one has the impression that a more powerful Egyptian chief than the New Kingdom pharaoh has arisen, and is stealing the archaeological limelight at times.

The name of the all-powerful boss of Egyptian antiquities is Zahi Hawass. He's the man who's presently blocking (for reasons I fail to grasp) an examination of the interior of the Great Pyramid of Giza that might confirm the extraordinary construction theory put forward by the French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin. On this subject, see my article of 27 November 2008 entitled How did they do it? [display]

Hawass has the look and style (and the hat, too) of the movie archaeologist Indiana Jones. As of a fortnight ago, I think that Hawass deserves a nickname: "InDNA". He revealed, in a press conference, that genetic tests indicate that Tutankhamun was the fruit of an incestuous affair between Akhenaten and his sister. The name of this lady is unknown, but we might suppose that young Tut simply called her Mummy [shameful pun].

Today, everybody knows that it's not a good idea for brothers and sisters to procreate, because human chromosomes can get horribly screwed up in situations of that kind. For example, it appears that Tutankhamun, who died at the age of 19, suffered from malaria, a cleft lip and an inherited bone disease that caused him to have a club foot. As if that weren't enough, he was represented in paintings as an androgynous creature. Of course, you don't notice any of these genetic flaws when you admire the dead pharaoh through his funeral mask and mummy swaddling. But you can't hide anything from DNA tests.

Lenten abstinence Down Under

I would have found it more appropriate if the Australian PM had given up his Mad Minister for Lent... but he at least decided to give up Garrett's botched roof-insulation project.

As for the Mad Monk, he has told us publicly that he's giving up screwing the missus for Lent.

The senate has given up its dignity by allowing Scientologists to record their whingeing officially in Hansard.

Meanwhile, Australia has its first saint. Even if there's no more than a faint chance that Mary MacKillop might be able to bring about miracles, I hope she won't give up trying, because I often feel that Australia needs her divine assistance.

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.