On the second day of our Provençal excursion, Christine and I drove through the Camargue region of the Rhône delta, then visited several sites, to the west of Aix-en-Provence, associated with her maternal grandparents: the charming little hilltop village of Miramas-le-Vieux, the former military explosives factory of Saint-Chamas (where Christine's grandfather was an engineer) and the village of Ventabren (where the grandparents' splendid old stone roadside house still exists, transformed into a gift boutique).
After succeeding in driving through Aix-en-Provence without getting lost, we headed in a north-east direction to a delightful rural gite located near the Verdon.
The following morning, we left early and headed north through Digne-les-Bains and Embrun. We finally reached the ski resort of Risoul 1850, located not far from the celebrated mountain fortress of Vauban [1633-1707] called Mont Dauphin. We were picked up by the Welsh stockman William (the companion of Sylvie) who drove us up a further hundred or so meters (in altitude), in his four-wheel drive vehicle, to his mountain cabin.
There, we were delighted to meet up with Cheng Tsi, a former aeronautical engineer, now engaged professionally in herbal medicine, who had been staying with William for the last few days in order to collect large quantities of various wild Alpine berries, which he'll be drying (on the floor of William's stables) and taking back to his patients in Marseille. We also encountered William's Border Collies in their everyday mountain environment.
We had imagined that it might be difficult to kidnap Fitzroy from his family circle and bring him back to Gamone. On the contrary, it was a pure poem. Christine nursed him while I drove up along the fabulous mountain roads—past Briançon, over the Col du Lautaret, between Bourg d'Oisans and the Alpe d'Huez—to Grenoble. Early in the evening, we reached Gamone, and promptly installed Fitzroy in the kitchen… where he spent his first night here, not surprisingly, complaining bitterly. The next morning, things quietened down to a calm rhythm.
The first thing I did was to take Fitzroy to the veterinary for his vaccination. I came away with a big bag of top-quality pup's food.
At the start of the afternoon, we drove up to Presles to pick up Sophia, who had apparently been a perfect guest at Sylvie's place during our absence. Back at Gamone, the two dogs seemed to deliberately avoid one another. Meanwhile, Christine and I got to work arranging ideally the comfort of Fitzroy.
We've been impressed by the little dog's intensely serious regard.
Within a day of bringing Sophia and Fitzroy into contact, they suddenly took the first big step of playing together. And they've now become perfect companions. There'll be future photos in my blog on this theme.
Christine arrived at Gamone a week ago. On Wednesday, we set out in the car for a short excursion to Provence, leaving Sophia in the capable hands of Sylvie in Presles: the girl I mentioned in my article entitled Moshé's future companion[display]. After a delightful drive down along the right bank of the Rhône (on the Ardèche side), we dropped in at Avignon just long enough to discover that they still haven't rebuilt the missing arch in the bridge.
It's a dangerous situation, because it's said that people dance there. Apparently they dance there, all in a circle, and it would be so easy for a dancer to fall into the Rhône. At the top of a stone staircase at one end of the esplanade in the center of the city, we discovered a gigantic elephant doing a remarkable balancing act.
Although it's obvious to me, I'm not sure that many folk are aware of the existence of an elephant in the Palace of Popes.
We stopped for the first night in Arles… or, more precisely, in the right-bank neighborhood of Trinquetaille, where Christine's grandfather Paul Marteau [1896-1976] was born. We had dinner in the middle of the Place du Forum, on the patio of the Café van Gogh.
Of an evening, the yellow façade is lit up in such a way that it looks much like it probably did on a summer evening in 1888, when painted by Vincent van Gogh [1853-1890].
Wherever you go in Arles, you're never too far away from sunlit scenes that evoke the great painter.
On the façade of the Museum of Arles, the wistful image of an Arlésienne in traditional costume, wearing a construction worker's hat, informed us that the place was closed for restoration until 2014.
Nearby, the façades of stately old buildings were in serious need of restoration, but their owners probably don't have the necessary finance to tackle such work.
Admiring the Rhône from the bridge that links Trinquetaille to the main city, Christine was able to understand clearly why her grandfather always evoked the great river as if it were an ancient divinity.
On Paul Marteau's birth certificate, we noticed that the family's address designated a rural zone on the outskirts of Trinquetaille, and mentioned the word for "gardens". We were thrilled to succeed in locating this neighborhood.
Personally, this new contact with Arles confirmed my long-held opinion that it's the most splendid little city I've ever encountered.
A month or so ago, I was thrilled, as usual, by the brilliant analyses of Laurent Fignon in his role as a TV journalist covering the Tour de France. He knew what he was talking about, for he had won the great race twice, in 1983 and 1984. Today, I'm stunned to hear that cancer has taken him away. Death is a weird phenomenon when it strikes a great sporting hero. Not so long ago, his body was a biological engine of perfection. Today, it's an empty shell. But the world remains filled with memory waves that evoke the dead champion.
Australia is a big country, and all kinds of things can go wrong.
My problem, on the contrary, is that my boomerangs keep coming back. I can hear fellow Aussies saying: "That's the whole idea, you silly bugger!" Maybe, but the boomerangs I'm talking about are my emails, sent from France to Australia. Often, some of my emails get bounced by the Antipodes for mysterious reasons (or rather, for no apparent reason whatsoever), and they're sent all the way back here to Gamone, unread by the Australians for whom they were intended.
I first ran into this problem back in 2006, when I was making plans for a visit to Australia. Suddenly, I was alarmed to discover that my emails to my aunt Nancy in Sydney were being rejected by her ISP [Internet service provider] called Big Pond. Fortunately, I had other email contacts with Australia, not to mention the telephone. So, this curious behavior of my aunt's email account didn't cause any serious problems.
Towards the end of that year, however this communication obstacle still existed, which meant that I could no longer send emails at all to my aunt. At my end of the line, I couldn't do anything to correct this anomaly. Big Pond, out in Australia, persisted in believing that I was a spammer, intent upon annoying innocent Aussies such as my aunt. Naturally, I suggested to my aunt that she should simply explain to Big Pond that her nephew in France was not a delinquent spammer. Or, if this failed, she should simply change ISPs. Unfortunately, from a problem-solving viewpoint, giving that sort of advice to my aunt was no more effective than reciting prayers to the Great Internet God.
In those circumstances, I decided to create this blog, which would enable the news from Gamone to get through to my Australian relatives impeccably, in rain, hail or snow. Meanwhile, I discovered that the email account of my sister Susan often behaved in rejection mode.
Today, almost four years later, the problem still exists. If anything, it has worsened. Over the last few days, emails to my cousin Mitchell and my schoolmate Ron have bounced, on totally different servers. I'm starting to think that this rejection of French email by Australian servers is becoming viral…
The funny thing is that this situation doesn't appear to worry people unduly in Australia. My sister Anne informed our friend Ron that the problem existed, but she prefaced my forwarded email with a rhetorical question: Conspiracy theory...? As for Ron, he assured us that it was probably just a matter of his mail box overflowing.
The writing however is clearly on the wall, even if Aussies don't understand it. Terse messages attached to my various emails that have been bounced by Australian ISPs always contain a three-letter acronym: RBL. This is short for Realtime Blackhole List: a list of IP addresses whose owners supposedly fail to stop the proliferation of spam. Really, the term "blackhole" is most appropriate and eloquent, although "Bermuda Triangle" would have been just as good.
Whenever the letters RBL are associated with the refusal to deliver an email, there's no point in talking about William's conspiracy theory, or overflowing mailboxes. These letters merely mean that a brain-damaged Aussie ISP has asked a big faceless firm (either Japanese or American in the cases I've examined) to filter out spammers. And for those firms—Do their employees understand French, enabling them to recognize spam?—almost everything that comes out of France seems to be classified as spam… even when it's sent by the state-owned telecom organization, Orange.
Part of the "blackhole" problem is that Australians are not particularly inclined to complain spontaneously about emails that they haven't received! They imagine that it's my problem, not theirs. (On the other hand, they would certainly be annoyed if their own emails failed to reach me in France… which has surely never been the case.) Besides, when Anne informs Mitchell or Ron that this "blackhole" problem has arisen, she also forwards them a copy of my bounced email. Consequently, it's as if there had never been any problem! So, they're not particularly motivated to do anything at their end of the line… especially if they're influenced by Anne's suggestion that this might be a simple case of paranoia, or by the theme of an overflowing mailbox.
OK, let me now point out a rather obvious way in which this idiotic "blackhole" situation could be causing enormous damage to Australia. First, read the following excellent article, entitled Carrying the torch, concerning the dearth of expected touristic business in the wake of the Olympic Games:
You can probably guess where I'm heading. Over the last four years, my main email contacts in Australia have concerned about ten individuals. And, of them, four have been corrupted by the "blackhole" thing. I remember thinking, at the time of the rugby world cup in France: What would happen if a French tour operator was unable to warn an Australian customer that there were modifications to their booking? Today, it's a fact that countless people plan their vacations through the Internet. Imagine potential French tourists who start sending emails to Australia in the hope of obtaining touristic information, only to find that their requests bounce because of the "blackhole" bug. At a rough guess, I would say that, over the last few years, tens of thousands of touristic requests emailed from France to Australia have probably disappeared forever in this absurd manner. So, it's time that Australians got their act together and made sure that this idiotic "blackhole" obstacle is eradicated. But this probably won't happen. After all, it's Down Under...
BREAKING NEWS: Following my complaint to Trend Micro for "blackholing" an email I sent to my friend Ron in Australia a few days ago [see my comment addressed to Bruce], I received a reply from a member of their Spam Investigations Team. Concerning my current IP, this lady says:
[…] we have seen recent spam activity from it. The first time we saw spam in this IP was in May 2007.
In May 2007, my ISP was Free. I changed to my present ISP, Orange, over a year ago. The Trend Micro reply continues:
Please investigate your network for spamming activity and then fix the issues. When you have done this, contact us again and provide the following information:
1. What caused the problem that allowed spam to come from this machine/server? 2. What did you do to fix the problem? 3. What are you doing to prevent it from happening again?
We need this information to make sure that the problem has been resolved prior to removing the IP.
It's a delightful example of a question of the variety: "Have you stopped beating your wife?" In any case, I don't intend to pursue this ridiculous and time-wasting subject. It's high time for Aussie ISPs and their clients to assume their responsibilities. These ISPs should explain to their clients, first and foremost, why they've relegated the task of spam detection and filtering to a foreign firm based in Tokyo. Is this task beyond the technical expertise of Australian engineers?
I've just been reading these two books, which tackle a fascinating subject: the genetic origins of the peoples of the British Isles.
Written by English authors—Stephen Oppenheimer and Bryan Sykes—both books were published in 2006. Curiously, each of the two authors gives the impression that he ignores the work of the other… even though they are both associated with the University of Oxford. They use both maternal (mitochondrial DNA) and paternal (Y-chromosome) data to reach their conclusions, which are rather similar. Basically, the people of Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) and Ireland are the descendants of settlers from the Iberian Peninsula (today's Spain and Portugal) who migrated up to the British Isles at the end of the Ice Age, some 15 millennia ago. In other words, our most ancient ancestors were the indigenous Cro-Magnons, rather than relatively recent colonists from the east. Among other things, this means that our indigenous European ancestors evolved spontaneously from being hunters and food-gatherers into the state of graziers and farmers. They were not simply replaced by eastern invaders who brought this know-how with them. As for legendary cultural phenomena such as the Celticism of the Gaelic-speaking lands, and the alleged Anglo-Saxon roots of the English, these must be thought of, genetically, as relatively-recent minor modifications, imported into the British Isles from the European continent, and limited largely to language.
I regret that both authors have resorted to nicknames for the various mtDNA and Y-chromosome haplogroups at the base of their vast research. For example, my personal DNA testing has placed me in a precise paternal haplogroup designated as R1b1b2a1b5. For Oppenheimer, on the other hand, I'm a member of the Ruisko tribe, which Sykes prefers to label the Oisin tribe. For serious adepts of DNA testing, the official haplogroup terminology is both necessary and sufficient, and the silly nicknames introduced by Oppenheimer and Sykes serve no useful purpose.
The existence of interesting in-depth studies such as those of Oppenheimer and Sykes evokes a common criticism that is often raised by people who are wary of the validity of all kinds of genealogical research, be it strictly personal (as when I explain with pride that my Skyvington patriarch in England came over with William the Conqueror, or that I've established another ancestral line running back up to this same Norman invader) or applied to the peoples of vast regions such as the British Isles. To get the gist of this criticism, look at the following pedigree chart (so-called because all the T-shaped signs can be imagined as goose tracks), in which my paternal ancestors are designated by blue dots, and my maternal ancestors by pink dots:
Now, it's all very well to determine the paternal tribe of the most ancient blue dot in our pedigree, and the maternal tribe of the earliest pink dot. But what about the respective tribes of the "infinite" (well, almost) horde of ancestors who aren't even apparent in my pedigree, let alone designated by any kind of dot? Surely, it's a grotesque over-simplification to allege that I belong to the Ruisko/Oisin tribe merely because of the blue dots in my pedigree. For example, let's imagine that one of my female ancestors happened to be a daughter of Boadicea, or that another had married Attila the Hun. Wouldn't perfectly-plausible family-history events such as these put a few gigantic flies in the ointment associated with the tidy little system of blue and pink dots? To put things in a more recent context, if I were suddenly to discover that one of my ancestors was a hitherto-unidentified offspring of Jack the Ripper, then my personal genetic package would owe no less to Jack and his clan than to any other distinguished tribe of Prehistory or Antiquity, and my inherited characteristics would certainly be more closely linked to those of the Ripper than to those of the Conqueror. Now, every serious researcher in genealogy should be perfectly aware of this common-sense situation. We describe the rare ancestral lines that we've been able to unearth, whereas we have nothing whatsoever to say (at least for the moment) about the vast network of untraced lines up into the mysterious past.
Getting back to the kind of research conducted by Oppenheimer and Sykes, isn't it a huge weakness to draw conclusions based merely upon the Y-chromosome and mtDNA profiles of present-day residents of the British Isles? If they had tested, say, a (fictive) London chap named George Skyvington and found that he (like me) was a descendant of the Ruisko/Oisin tribe, wouldn't they be drawing hasty and unsound conclusions by ignoring, as it were, that George might have had lots of other ancestors from quite remote tribes: Eskimos, American Red Indians, Chinese, Pacific Islanders, Tasmanian Aborigines, etc? Doesn't the absence of such perfectly-real ancestors cast a dark cloud of incompleteness or imperfection upon the global outcome of the research carried out by Oppenheimer and Sykes?
No, not at all. Don't forget that these researchers have been performing DNA tests upon large groups of people living in the British Isles. Consequently, if indeed our George Skyvington had ancestors belonging to "tribes" such as Eskimos, American Red Indians, etc, then it's possible that the existence of these ancestors will show up in the Y-chromosome and mtDNA data obtained from some of George's "genetic cousins"… about whom he probably knows nothing (and never will). Statistically, if the tested population is large enough (a criterion that can be determined mathematically), everything should come out in the wash, as it were. George's Eskimo and Red Indian ancestors won't be totally forgotten. They'll merely be associated with other tested individuals. And George won't even be tempted to complain about "his" ancestors being associated with total strangers, because he simply won't know that this has happened. Maybe George might even look at research results and say to himself: "My God, to think that, here in my native England, I'm living alongside descendants of Eskimos, American Red Indians, Chinese, Pacific Islanders, Tasmanian Aborigines, etc!"
To make this insanely-great apple pie, you need to have an apple tree. It doesn't have to be the finest apple tree in the Newtonian universe. An ordinary one, such as this apple tree at Gamone, will be quite sufficient.
Here at Gamone, the fruit never get a chance of attaining perfect ripeness, because wasps and other insects are intent upon gorging themselves. I generally have to cut away the part of each apple that has been attacked. Sometimes I wonder if the insect presence hasn't permeated faintly even the unblemished part of each apple, giving it an undefinable exotic savor. If that were indeed the case, then the recipe for Gamone apple pie becomes slightly more complicated, since you would need to find an apple tree whose fruit have been attacked by wasps and other unidentified insects of the varieties found in the Vercors. But let's not make things difficult. If you have a problem finding the right apples, the best solution is to drop in here at Gamone, where you can collect a bagful. The other ingredients are sultanas, poppy seeds, desiccated cocoanut, ground cinnamon and sugar. And they are laid out on simple home-made pastry.
The ideal place to make this apple pie is in France, because you can then devour a generous slice of it with a big blob of the inimitable thick cream from Isigny in Normandy.
Normally, the Smashwords aggregator will be shipping my novel All the Earth is Mine to iBooks tomorrow, and it'll take a week for it to appear in Apple's catalog. So, it should be displayed around the first weekend of September.
Since I live in France, where I don't have access to the US iBooks catalog, I would be happy if an American friend were to let me know if and when my novel is listed.
Hey, this photo suggests that part of Julia Gillard's house uses the same kind of carpentry materials and technique—knotty pine slabs and nails—as the interior of the dog kennel I've been building during the final days of the electoral campaign.
It's a trivial but homely observation. In any case, it makes me even prouder still to be an Aussie!
With the election over, and an era of political instability lying ahead, let me get back to my regular observations about the rickety infrastructure of a nation with enough mineral wealth in its subsoil to be able to pay cash for the entire French Riviera (if ever it were for sale).
In an electoral cartoon by Bill Leak in The Australian, an amusing background detail caught my attention.
That structure is not much better than my donkey's dilapidated shelter, shown in my previous post. On the left of the fragment, there's a sign marked Polling Booths. A big panel on the right bears the government's arms. The small text is blurry, but clear enough to be read:
A Nation-Building Project Economic Stimulus Plan
So, the ramshackle shed is in fact an official government building. The cartoonist seems to taking a stab at the way in which Australia's "nation-building" funding has often produced pitiful results. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that Australia would be wiser to look into the idea of buying pieces of the French Riviera. Normally, well-built polling booths would be an excellent idea. And, if indeed such solid booths existed, it would be even better still if citizens were able to use them to vote for potential statesmen and stateswomen, rather than for political lightweights such as Abbott and Gillard.
In my recent article entitled Construction of a kennel[display], I explained that I've started to build a kennel for Sophia's future companion Fitzroy, who'll be moving into Gamone next month. Here's another photo of my ongoing work:
That's in fact the base of the kennel. I've fixed a bit of roofing metal there so that the fragile pine wood won't be in direct contact with the damp earth, thereby reducing the risk of it rotting.
Yesterday, I shifted my operations up to Moshé's old shelter, on the slopes, a hundred meters south of the house.
This was one of my first constructions at Gamone, back in 1994, and it's starting to become rather ramshackle. However there are still a few solidly-placed poles, so I'll try to patch up this shelter, as far as possible, before the arrival of Moshé's future friend Fanette.
Moshé has always appreciated this shady spot during the warm season (and old Mandrin, too). In any case, Moshé and Fanette will be able to use the sheep shed, which is in good shape, down alongside the creek. While nosing around in the vicinity of the old shelter, I came upon a baby green whip snake (aggressive but harmless).
Since August is their breeding season, this fellow was probably just a week or so old. His gray body was as thick as a pencil, about 25 cm long, and his head was crowned by a bright yellow and black mosaic. He didn't seem to like being disturbed, and snapped viciously at a stick when I tried to coax him outside the cement block, for a better photo. I could imagine the poor little bugger grumbling to itself: "Jeez, I've only been on Earth for a few days, and already there's a big rough guy poking a bloody stick in my face." So, I left him alone. Meanwhile, here's an image of Moshé (far too fat), near his derelict shelter, acting like a silly rock 'n' roll donkey:
A panel forming the rear wall of the shelter had become detached, so I dragged it out into the open, sliced up the boards, stacked them on my Honda petrol-powered "wheelbarrow" (with rubber treads) and brought them back down to the house.
These planks were rapidly integrated into my kennel construction. Although the roof is not yet fixed solidly in place, the kennel is starting to look like a genuine abode for a dog.
Stuffed between the inner walls and the external planks, there's a layer of thermal insulation material.
Once again, Sophia did a rapid site test, and indicated her approval.
Incidentally, please admire Sophia's new line, since I've started giving her exactly the right daily ration of food, with never a surplus gram.
DOG WORSHIP: Talking about dogs, a funny thing happened to me on my way to the blog this morning. I dropped in, as I often do, on the Pharyngula blog [display], which provided me with an unexpected opportunity of listening to a charming but most unusual Christian song of joy. Not exactly a hymn. More like a nursery rhyme for brainwashed kids in a hospital run by a born-again sect. While forcing myself to listen assiduously to this stuff, right through to the end, I was beset by weird urges, of a kind that had never before overcome me. I'm most embarrassed and ashamed to describe my uncouth compulsions. I wanted desperately to raise a leg and piss all over the singer. Worse, I imagined that I was circling the guitarist, while sniffing the ground all around him, with my arse at the level of his instrument. In an ugly nightmare, I was arching my backside, and I finally dropped a few massive smelly turds into the hole in his guitar, which somewhat dampened his ode of joy. Since I'm not normally scatological, I don't know what came over me. In any case, listen to this delightful song, and see if it produces weird reactions in you too.
Did you succeed in surviving to the end of the song?
Back in the distant past when I used to ride my red racing bike to Brittany in summer, I would cover the distance of some 500 kilometers in two days. This meant that I would average about 25 km/hour, and simply stay on the bike for a total of ten hours a day. I would stay overnight in a hotel. I carried almost nothing with me on the bike, apart from a bit of food. So, this excursion was only possible when I could join up with Christine in Brittany, where I could wash my sweaty clothes and find replacement clothes for wandering around the Rufflet property for a few days before heading back to Paris.
The only danger, in the context of this excursion, would have been rain… but I don't recall ever encountering this problem. In those days, there was a set of pleasant country roads between Paris and St-Brieuc… but they seem to have disappeared mysteriously since then. I don't have the facts on hand, and I don't claim to understand what exactly has happened, but the roads between Paris and Brittany appear to have become packed with speeding automobiles, which would make such an excursion unthinkable today.
I remember that the most difficult part of the excursion was getting back onto the bike on the second morning. It's amazing that such a machine can bring about a sore bum in such a stealthy but total fashion. You don't feel the soreness creeping up on you during the first day. It's a binary phenomenon, which simply switches on overnight. And the funny thing is that, on the second morning, the soreness quickly disappears. I don't know whether researchers have written doctoral theses on this subject, but it's really quite intriguing.
These memories reoccurred to me when I came upon this photo of a so-called recumbent bicycle, designed in Japan:
[Click the photo to see other images.]
Maybe this is the ultimate solution to the sore-bum problem that besets casual cyclists. But I can't help wondering what the rider's abdominal region would feel like after a day on such a machine. Is there a risk of falling asleep when gliding freely down the slopes? Besides, I have a gut feeling (no pun intended) that a cyclist can only use his legs efficiently if he's in a seated position on his bicycle. But I'm prepared to agree that this feeling could well be false.
Unfortunately, since the beginning of my rural life at Gamone, I've never really got involved in cycling. The basic problem, here, is that there are simply too many slopes.
ADDENDUM: I've just come upon an intriguing article entitled Apple Patents the iBike[display], suggesting that "our favorite Cupertino company could be getting into the bike business — thesmart bike business".
When I was young, the first blunder indicating that something might be rotten in my native land was the Orr case, in 1955. In an atmosphere evoking the trial of Socrates for moral misconduct, a professor of philosophy in Tasmania, Sydney Sparkes Orr [1914-1966], was castigated on the grounds that he had been involved in an intimate relationship with one of his female students, named Susan Kemp. At that time, I was convinced that a professorship of philosophy was surely the most noble calling that could possibly be imagined in Tasmania or the civilized world at large, and that such an academic incumbent should certainly have the right, in certain circumstances, to screw his permissive libertarian students. Retrospectively, I don't deny that I probably imagined myself already as a future teacher of philosophy, in exciting Tasmania, initiating a harem of splendid young virgins (all of whom were taking notes conscientiously) into the subtle sins of sex. Alas, I never made it to Tasmania…
Starting in 1980, my compatriots have perpetrated a vastly greater blunder: the case of Azaria Chamberlain.
For ages, it was called Ayer's Rock. Then somebody in a government administration, bowing down to the sentiments of the survivors of an indigenous people that had once been slaughtered, said it should be known henceforth as Uluru. Why not? For me (who's never set foot there), it's Dingo Rock.
The amazing details of the many ways in which Anglo-Saxon fuckwits screwed up this investigation and legal case can be found on the web. To my mind, it is a harsh indictment of almost everything about naive and uninformed Australian attitudes towards crime, law, guilt and innocence. The notorious legal pursuit of Azaria's mother, Lindy Chamberlain, was a case study of Down Under ignorance, stupidity and injustice.
Today, those of us Australians who respect historical evidence and arguments must visit the following excellent website, and read Lindy Chamberlain's 30th anniversary "letter to open-minded Australians":
I ask the following rhetorical question: Are we Australians in fact sufficiently open-minded to hear Cindy Chamberlain's plea for justice?
No, globally, many things make me fear that we Aussies are still too astronomically stupid…
I seem to be moving towards the completion of the adventure of having my novel All the Earth is Mine published as an electronic book. I first tackled this question on June 2 by placing the following request in the Apple discussions forum concerning the Pages word-processing software tool:
Please point me to explanations concerning the transformation of a Pages document (a novel) into ePub format for the iPad.
Even though the two elements of my naive request (Pages and iPad) were located in pure Apple territory, the few replies were wishy-washy, as if nobody knew exactly how to advise me. Most likely, there were people who did in fact know the Pages/iBooks situation perfectly well, but they refrained deliberately from trying to guide me. In any case, I had the impression (and still do) that I was setting foot in a constantly-emerging domain, where little is hard and fast yet.
Since iBooks use the open ePub format, I started to examine its technical specifications, and investigate the tools and resources that might enable me to implement an iPad version of my novel. At that stage (middle of June), I didn't yet own an iPad, but I downloaded a free tool named Adobe Digital Editions that lets you read ePub documents on your everyday computer.
For a few days, I experimented with the idea of using the iPad as a platform for genealogical documents such as They Sought the Last of Lands, but I soon discovered that things get messy when you try to display densely-structured genealogical documents on anything other than a nice big computer screen, so I abandoned that idea.
On the other hand, I soon created an acceptable ePub version of All the Earth is Mine running on the above-mentioned Adobe emulator. Mastering the ePub format turned out to be much easier than what I might have imagined. Still, this experimenting didn't bring me any closer to the underlying pragmatic question of how I might get my novel accepted by Apple as a genuine iBooks publication.
A breakthrough took place when I struck up a relationship with a much talked-about Californian aggregator (intermediary between authors and the various eBook platforms) named Smashwords, run by a friendly and helpful guy named Mark Coker. I decided to collaborate with this firm. Now, there are three basic facts that a Smashwords author needs to know:
1 — An author doesn't pay Smashwords explicitly, but the company takes a cut of actual book sales.
2 — Smashwords uses a robotic converter tool named Meatgrinder, which produces output in several formats, for Apple's iPad, Amazon's Kindle, etc.
3 — The input supplied to Smashwords by a would-be author must be presented in the form of a technically-impeccable Microsoft Word file.
At the start of of my relationship with Smashwords, the third point almost floored me. Really, for an author like me who masters the ePub format (not to mention many elegant word-processing systems), must I really get back to using that archaic gas plant called Word? I was a hair's breadth away from telling Smashwords that I thought they were joking, and that I would look for a more sophisticated aggregator. But, since I didn't wish to be thought of as snobbish or bigoted, I went along with Mark Coker's suggestion of shelling out a hundred bucks to obtain a nice new copy of Word. [That was the first time in my life I've ever paid a cent to Microsoft. Several decades ago, when I used to do freelance journalistic assignments, it was rather the marketing folk of Microsoft who invited me on a helicopter ride to a luncheon in a fabulous castle in the Parisian region. But times have changed.]
Today, I understand that, if Smashwords demands an impeccable Word document as their launch platform for publishing, it's for two reasons:
1 — Word is indeed a high-quality word-processing tool, used universally, and
2 — Smashwords produces several different electronic varieties of each book they process, which means that they require a firm starting-point.
As of today, I can read a Smashwords version of the novel on my iPad:
A Smashwords version of the novel looks fine on my Amazon Kindle:
Apparently, there's another version that works on the Sony device. So, as an author, I can't complain about the ubiquity of the Smashwords approach towards electronic publishing. Let's see, now, what happens from a marketing and sales viewpoint…
In my article of 9 August 2010 entitled Sophia's future companion at Gamone[display], I presented Fitzroy and his family. Although he won't be arriving at Gamone before the middle of September, I've already started to build him a kennel, because I want him to feel at home as soon as he moves in. I've designed the future kennel for an adult dog, even though Fitzroy is still, of course, a tiny pup. As a basis for the dimensions, I've used Sophia's big wicker basket.
As you can see in this photo, the interior walls will be pine panels (as used for cladding), while the exterior of the cubic frame will be covered in rough slabs of Douglas-fir. The space between the two walls will be stuffed with glass wool, since Fitzroy will be spending his winter nights out in the kennel. The flat roof (removable for cleaning, but sufficiently heavy to stay in place in strong winds) will be of ridged metal.
Sophia is testing the entrance for size. The kennel might appear to be rather tall, but you mustn't forget that the floor will be padded with a thick layer of straw. When it's raining or snowing outside, a Border Collie likes to dry itself by rolling in straw, and this is how it keeps its fur clean and glossy.
In a setting such as Gamone, constructing a kennel is a pleasant summer activity. It's not so much the actual woodwork that gives me pleasure (although I do indeed like to fiddle around with saws, hammers and nails), but rather the idea of building a sturdy home for a future friend.
In May 2012, France will be holding its five-yearly presidential election. For the moment, we don't know whether or not Nicolas Sarkozy will be a candidate. In any case, I think it would be nice if people were to start thinking about the kind of gift we could offer the president to celebrate the end of his first five years in office. In fact, if I've brought this subject up today, it's because I've just had a good idea for a great gift, which wouldn't even be all that expensive, if we were all to chip in.
A month before the election, on 10 April 2012, the world will be commemorating the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic, just four days into her maiden voyage, after she hit an iceberg.
I've just heard that a British cruise ship, the Balmoral, will be leaving Southampton on 8 April 2012 with the aim of following the itinerary of the Titanic, all the way to New York. The vessel will be carrying living descendants of victims and survivors of the disaster, and it will be halting for a while at the very spot where the great ship went down.
Now, Nicolas Sarkozy has always expressed his admiration for the New World, and even takes pleasure (so it's said) in being designated as "Sarko, the American". The Balmoral will be dropping in at Cherbourg (France) before setting out across the Atlantic. And this will be happening just a month before the end of Nicolas Sarkozy's presidency. I simply suggest that we all get together and raise enough cash to offer Sarko a ticket on this voyage. If all goes well, and there are no mishaps during the trip (one never knows…), he would have ample time to get back to France before the election. In that case, the very idea of his having survived a reenactment (as it were) of the voyage of the Titanic would have a precious impact upon the president's future image and heritage.
After succeeding in driving through Aix-en-Provence without getting lost, we headed in a north-east direction to a delightful rural gite located near the Verdon.
The following morning, we left early and headed north through Digne-les-Bains and Embrun. We finally reached the ski resort of Risoul 1850, located not far from the celebrated mountain fortress of Vauban [1633-1707] called Mont Dauphin. We were picked up by the Welsh stockman William (the companion of Sylvie) who drove us up a further hundred or so meters (in altitude), in his four-wheel drive vehicle, to his mountain cabin.
There, we were delighted to meet up with Cheng Tsi, a former aeronautical engineer, now engaged professionally in herbal medicine, who had been staying with William for the last few days in order to collect large quantities of various wild Alpine berries, which he'll be drying (on the floor of William's stables) and taking back to his patients in Marseille. We also encountered William's Border Collies in their everyday mountain environment.
We had imagined that it might be difficult to kidnap Fitzroy from his family circle and bring him back to Gamone. On the contrary, it was a pure poem. Christine nursed him while I drove up along the fabulous mountain roads—past Briançon, over the Col du Lautaret, between Bourg d'Oisans and the Alpe d'Huez—to Grenoble. Early in the evening, we reached Gamone, and promptly installed Fitzroy in the kitchen… where he spent his first night here, not surprisingly, complaining bitterly. The next morning, things quietened down to a calm rhythm.
The first thing I did was to take Fitzroy to the veterinary for his vaccination. I came away with a big bag of top-quality pup's food.
At the start of the afternoon, we drove up to Presles to pick up Sophia, who had apparently been a perfect guest at Sylvie's place during our absence. Back at Gamone, the two dogs seemed to deliberately avoid one another. Meanwhile, Christine and I got to work arranging ideally the comfort of Fitzroy.
We've been impressed by the little dog's intensely serious regard.
Within a day of bringing Sophia and Fitzroy into contact, they suddenly took the first big step of playing together. And they've now become perfect companions. There'll be future photos in my blog on this theme.
