Wine of a kind

In my post of October 2010 entitled History of wine at Choranche [display], I explained that I was working on an updated version of my article in French concerning the former vineyards of Choranche. An anecdote that I related in this article concerns my discovery, a few years ago, of a row of grapevines on the slopes just up behind my house. I collected leaves from one of the vines, and set about trying to determine the name of the grape variety.

My Macaire neighbors told me that my reemergent vines were surely a row of Herbemont planted over half-a-century ago by Hippolyte Gerin, seen here—with a nephew (wearing a cap) and a farm hand—in front of the house.

Now, Herbemont is a hybrid of the American species Vitis bourquiniana or maybe Vitis aestivalis (as opposed to authentic European wine-making grapes of the Vitis vinifera species), and it is one of the phylloxera-resistant plants imported into France from the USA towards the end of the 19th century as a means of recreating the devastated vineyards. The other varieties of American "grape weeds" (as I call them disparagingly) were Noah, Othello, Isabelle, Jacquez and Clinton. Well, a week or so ago, I received an email from a major French agricultural organization in charge of grape varieties, saying that they needed information about the Herbemont variety for their database. I had no idea that this variety had become rare in France. I was embarrassed to have to admit that all I could offer them, for the moment, were my samples of dried Herbemont leaves and my notes concerning this variety. As I explained, the Herbemont vines at Gamone are located in my donkey paddock, and I have every reason to suppose that the animals, in spring, appreciate fresh grapevines emerging from the soil. In any case, I promised the fellow who contacted me that I would erect a fence around the row of Herbemont vines, to protect them from the donkeys. So, he plans to get back in contact with me next summer, in the hope that there'll be some actual specimens of grapes.

As I explain in my article on the vineyards of Choranche, the six above-mentioned varieties of American "grape weeds" (Vitis americana as I call them) were meant to be used in France as phylloxera-resistant rootstocks for the grafting of the vulnerable European grape varieties. In Choranche, alas, some farmers didn't bother grafting anything whatsoever onto the Vitis americana plants. They simply picked the American grapes and made wine with them! Somebody once said, about the beverage called Canada Dry: "It looks like whiskey, and it tastes like whiskey… but it just ain't whiskey." One could make a similar criticism about wine made from the six US varieties of Vitis. But the peasants whose lives had been ruined by the phylloxera pandemic were content to discover that this easily-made liquor inebriated them to such an extent that they tended to forget their misery.

I should point out that, today, all the six above-mentioned varieties of the notorious American "grape weeds" are strictly banned by European wine authorities, and apparently banned also, now, even in Texas, where a few quaint old-style vineyards were experimenting with them a few years ago. It's not merely a matter of their giving rise to poor-quality wine. The particular kinds of alcohol produced by pressing and fermenting Vitis americana grapes are toxic.

Following my email correspondence with the fellow who was interested in Herbemont, I dropped in on a retired farmer and amateur wine-producer on the edge of the nearby village of St-Jean-en-Royans, to see if he was aware that living specimens of the old American "grape weeds" had apparently become collectors' items. We got involved in an interesting discussion on this theme. Basically, he claimed that the European wine authorities have surely made a mistake in denigrating the wine produced from Vitis americana. If it really poisoned drinkers, and damaged their brains, then how come that most of the local farmers seem to have survived? It goes without saying that I wouldn't dare attempt to answer such a question…

One thing led to another, and my farmer friend said: "It so happens that I've got a small stock of rich-red Clinton that I produced a month or so ago. Would you like to taste it?" I could hardly chicken out, as if I were a scared chemist working for the European Union. In view of its young age, the fruity product could have been confused with Beaujolais Nouveau. I limited myself to a single glass, and I seem to have survived with most of my brain and senses intact.

There's a funny twist to this whole story about the wine of Choranche and the neighboring region. The authentic old wine that existed up until the phylloxera invasion had an excellent reputation, particularly since it was used as the standard house wine in all the French pilgrim taverns (equivalent to our modern hotels) operated by the Chartreux monks. Today, it is impossible to say whether this Choranche wine was really as good as it was made out to be, because so many factors have changed completely in the wine industry since that epoch. Maybe people said it was excellent wine merely because they'd never had many opportunities of comparing it with other French wines. The toxic beverages produced more recently from the Vitis americana rootstocks have also acquired a good reputation among local farmers, and I'm starting to understand why. Essentially, it's because the local toxic "wine" doesn't taste like any other genuine wine you've ever encountered (for the simple reason that it isn't really wine), and it no doubt puts the drinker into a rather special state. So, why wouldn't the local farmers have spread the rumor that the wines of Choranche are extraordinary? But the local people also state naively that the Noah variety "sends you mad". And so it probably does, in a clinical sense. So, as I say in my title, the Choranche product is best thought of as "wine of a kind".

Never been hugged

OK, I'm a frustrated outsider. How can I possibly lead a happy life when I've never been hugged by 57-year-old Mata Amritanandamayi, aka Amma, the Mahatma (honorific title once applied to Ghandi)?

[Click the photo to access a Wiki article.]

She was in France for a week in October, and it's said that she hugged 38,000 individuals. That's a massive amount of cuddling, and one hopes that the results justified such a mammoth grizzly act. And what exactly is the fallout that Amma seeks to produce by means of her powerful arms? Somebody said that she's a saint who's capable of fending off evil. That suits me fine as an explanation, because me, too, I've never liked evil, and anybody who's good at fending it off will get my votes all the time. But an underlying question remains to be answered. Is this lady truly good at fending off evil with her hugs?

In my article of 4 March 2010 entitled Autosuggestion [display], I spoke of the necessity of using a well-organized double-blind trial to settle questions of this nature. We would only need to gather together a few hundred subjects who feel that they're beset by some kind of evil. These days, that shouldn't be too hard, particularly since the global financial crisis. As I explained in the above-mentioned article, they would be split into an experimental group, who would be hugged by the authentic Mahatma, and a control group, who would be hugged by a plausible but inauthentic Indian guru of the following kind:

We must, of course, anticipate the possibility that various hot-blooded male subjects might be exhilarated by the placebo effect of being cuddled by the fake guru. These deluded individuals might be led to believe momentarily that the Devil had indeed abandoned them. But a statistical analysis would soon reveal where truth lies, and the outcome of this trial would surely cast light upon Amma's marvelous powers.

Amazing bicycle artist

The Scotsman Danny MacAskill looks like any ordinary cyclist... but, in fact, he's a quite extraordinary man on a bike.

He succeeds in riding his bike along unexpected trails that were surely never intended for cycling.



Sorry, kids, if your parents have just watched this video, and they now refuse to buy you a bike for your forthcoming holiday in Scotland.

Victims of bad water and sanitation

At a first rapid glance, this spectacular photo seems to depict a military cemetery, but it's probably simply a manufacturer's storage yard.

I found this image on the following website:

Now, it's my sister Anne who might not feel happy about the choice of this date, because it's her birthday. Be that as it may, the organizers of this celebration (?) have chosen the above photo to highlight the fact that—as they point out on their website—"the water and sanitation crisis has claimed more lives than all the wars of the 20th century". And this is no laughing matter… although they might have invented a more solemn name for their day. On the other hand, their chosen name and their photo certainly attract attention.

Hedgehog talk

I've always admired the cat of English animator Simon Tofield. I just came across this brilliant little specimen of hedgehog talk.



I love the way the cautious cat uses a single leaf to test the possibility that it could stick to a bristle on a hedgehog's back. The test is positive. So the cat performs a full-size operation. I have the impression that Simon's cat doesn't really respect that serious and talkative hedgehog.

Cinderella

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings."

— Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

In past ages, man and society needed gods and kings to put order into their existence. Then the 19th and 20th centuries gave us the illusion that these bastions of belief might be replaced effectively by warfare and capitalism. Today, objective and intelligent observers know (or should know) that it's time for all the antiquated stuff to give way to science and a healthy dose of socialism.

Suppose that it's true (as The Telegraph suggests) that the impending royal marriage will possibly cheer up the British people. Does a nation need to distribute that kind of expensive opium? Is it the purpose of a modern kingdom to offer its citizens fairy-tale illusions of what life might be like if they were princes and princesses? The case of a commoner such as Kate shocks me in that she's inevitably imagined as the lucky young lady who has won the super lottery. So, there's a constant hint of a dream that could come true. If Kate has managed to get the guy, then maybe there's a similar chance for ordinary folk such as yourselves. In donkey terms, it's a social carrot.

Prayers are needed urgently

In the context that concerns me, the US TV competition Dancing with the Stars, several individuals need, if not deserve, our prayers. This creates a problem. I'm not sure where we should start our praying.

Personally, I decided to get into action this morning by starting to pray energetically and intensely for Bristol Palin, because logically she's the person who probably needs our prayers most of all. There she is, competing in a great nation-wide dancing competition, and she dances—as somebody said—like a dog. [I shouldn't repeat that, because my dogs Sophia and Fitzroy would surely be offended if they got around to reading my blog, since they dance quite expertly. They've never seen my blog up until now, but I must be careful. Somebody might give them an iPhone.]

I also intend to exploit at least 20 percent of my stock of prayers for Bristol's mother, Sarah Palin. She is surely devoting a huge proportion of her limited resources to the promotion of her daughter's dancing career. So, with assistance from Jesus, I feel we should all dig in to help Sarah. This brave little God-fearing woman is doing a great job to keep her lovely child dancing with the stars. And her actions are going to pay off one day when the Almighty finally decides that her time has come... to sit on the Savior's right hand as his personal US delegate on the planet Earth.

I now learn that there's another individual who needs our prayers urgently. I'm talking of a 67-year-old Wisconsin gentleman named Steven Cowan who apparently took out a shotgun and blasted his TV set as soon as Bristol Palin appeared on the dancing stage. My personal theory is that this passionate fan of Bristol was so emotionally aroused (maybe sexually stimulated) when he caught sight of his darling dancer that he immediately called upon the only tangible means at hand to vent his hot blood: his shotgun.

Lastly, if you happen to have a few prayers left over, you might use them for the dumb US viewers who apparently watch this shit.

Royal rubbish

William is a docile blob, like his father. I find this photo hideous:

What a witch! That Kate Middleton commoner (I love to have an opportunity of slinging around that shitty term) is straight out of a Harry Potter remake. Her regard is no less topsy-turvy than her crazy hat. When I observe the physical features of this potential future queen, I fear that the kingdom is in danger. But what can you expect from the mad Windsors? I find it terribly sad that many of my Anglo-Saxon brethren still seem to take this royal farce seriously. What a fucking ridiculous phenomenon. It's high time that the British people as a (w)hole—I resisted the temptation of saying asshole—pulled its finger out. Why must this royal comedy endure?

Sadly, there are many ready answers to that rhetorical question:

• Hordes of dumb English-speaking folk, from one end of the planet to the other (including my native land), seem to get a kick out of watching the antics of these so-called Royals, as if they were exotic animals in a zoo (which they are, in fact).

• In a sociopolitical context, certain serious specialists would argue—for obscure obsolete reasons—that royalty is the best, if not ideal, solution to the challenge of national guidance.

• Many lazy apathetic bastards say: Why change something that has been working for ages?

• Certain powerful individuals say to detractors (well, they don't actually say it explicitly, but rather make it known): Hey, fuck off, old chap! The existence of royalty guarantees me my privileges.

• Countless individuals don't give a fuck.

Do you want to know what I think? Well, I reckon that the antiquated phenomenon of British royalty will soon fizzle out for reasons that are not evoked, in any way whatsoever, in the above arguments. They will disappear suddenly and mysteriously, almost overnight, like the dinosaurs many eons ago, or like the Soviet Union in 1991.

We should not waste our time and energy running in circles, screaming and shouting about the absurdity of British royalty. Things will change inevitably, no matter how much or how often we scream and shout. We should give Time its due time. And that limited time is written already in the ugly face of "Queen Kate".

Magic musical moment of torrid romance

On 19 November 2010, I changed slightly the content of this post so that it points to an operational copy of the video. The initial YouTube presentation of this masterpiece disappeared overnight.

Warning: If you have any underage children looking over your shoulder, shoo them away before playing the following sexy French video entitled Je t'aime, which can be translated into the language of Shakespeare as "I love you".

Maybe I should have warned you to turn down the volume before blasting your neighbors with that powerful suburban disco stuff.

These young artists apparently refer to themselves as Darkan and Demeter. These were the names, respectively, of a Celtic rock group and a Greek goddess. A French journalist referred to them by a quaint expression: a pair of gherkins.

Rich role

At first sight, this sounds a bit like a joke. A rich joke. In a future movie, the role of the aging French female billionaire Liliane Bettencourt would be played by the great male actor Jean Rochefort.

Superficially, I can't see how this could be done convincingly, since Madame Bettencourt has a protruding broad and short lower face like a Cro-Magnon, whereas Rochefort looks like a lean-faced British lord. But makeup (with Oréal products, of course) might do the trick in creating an illusion of similarity. Ever since James Cameron's Avatar, we know that anything is possible.

BREAKING NEWS: The French legal system has just announced that it intends to examine a request by Françoise Meyers-Bettencourt to have her mother placed in the care and supervision of a guardian. Jeez, I wish I had so much money that my daughter would seek to take out a court order preventing me from spending it on wine, women and song… or rather—as they say nowadays—on beer and sex and drugs and rock-and-roll. No, I'm joking. I prefer by far being penniless yet sufficiently lucid to have found a nasty way of describing (above) the lovely face of that nice old lady. It goes without saying that, if the future caretaker of Madame Oréal were to ask me to remove my Cro-Magnon remark, I would gladly do so immediately... without even insisting upon a small cash fee (which could be paid into my account out in Australia).

Eureka

Living all alone here at Gamone, I'm obviously concerned by the risk of stepping out of my shower and slipping like an idiot. So, I use a pile of bath mats. Besides, I refrain systematically from removing light bulbs by perching myself upon a swivel chair (like my dear departed grandfather Ernest, at the age of 93). I hardly need to add that, when I have great ideas (an almost daily occurrence), I never dart out of my non-existent bathtub shouting Eurêka like an idiot.

Really, you would have to be as dumb as an Ancient Greek to behave like that. Instead, dry as a bone, I pen calmly a blog post…

In a recent post [display], I complained about the fact that it's annoying to hear people claiming that their minds boggle when it's merely a matter of evoking phenomena that can be explained explicitly by science. But I added that I'm still awed by aspects of our real world, which I evoke from time to time in my Antipodes blog. To replace the worn-out boggle, I needed a verb capable of designating my regular blog-oriented attempts at evoking the awe of existence. The needed verb is bloggle. From now on, whenever you find me calling upon the writings of Richard Dawkins and his ilk (not elk) to clarify and celebrate our earthly existence, you'll understand that William's mind is simply bloggling.

French food

It's funny but understandable (indeed predictable) that Unesco should choose to honor French cooking by considering it as part of the cultural heritage of humanity. This morning, downing my humble breakfast (South American coffee, English muffins and French butter and jam), I felt as if I were eating inside a great museum. But I wonder why France was chosen… rather than, say, England.

I've always been impressed by Hogarth's depiction of a grossly overweight monk caressing simultaneously the hunk of beef and his own fat tummy, while salivating around his protruding tongue. Meanwhile, behind him, a priest is officiating at a burial: maybe (we wonder) that of an underfed laborer or child. Besides, the lean man clothed in white (like the priest at the burial), carrying the weighty beef, could surely do with a decent feed. Clearly, between the corpse being buried and the carcass being carried, the fat monk has made his spiritual choice.

Yesterday afternoon, I phoned Madeleine (as I often do) to inquire about a former inhabitant of Pont-en-Royans whose name had just been revealed to me, by chance, in the course of my conversation with another old-timer in a neighboring village. The man about whom I sought information had been a grocer in Pont-en-Royans, like Madeleine herself, for many years. So I figured that she would surely be able to supply me with some interesting facts. (Readers will have gathered, quite correctly, that my dear neighbor Madeleine is my living encyclopedia concerning the people of Pont-en-Royans.) Well, that's where my trivial anecdote takes on, as it were, a universal dimension. In a nutshell: How does somebody (like Madeleine) suddenly describe, in a few spontaneous words, a personage from the past who had probably almost disappeared from her everyday memory? Isn't this the ultimate challenge of human Memory (with a capital M)? What in fact do we recall immediately about an ordinary individual who was once alongside us, in flesh and blood? Personally, when I meditate upon this rhetorical question, I find myself in the same kind of situation as all those zealous well-intentioned Mormon researchers who seek data about ancient births, marriages and deaths in order to attribute entry passes to the Kingdom of Heaven. Except that there's nothing abstract in my operations, since I'm talking with real folk such as Madeleine and the above-mentioned old-timer, who were once in contact with the ghost.

Madeleine talked to me about food. French food. About a certain craving for good old-fashioned French food. Madeleine's grocer colleague was a certain Lucien. He was excessively fat, which was not necessarily an obstacle for a grocer. Madeleine, on the other hand, has always been rather slim. Well, Lucien and his wife Lucette happened to be strolling around in Pont-en-Royans on a Sunday afternoon when they decided to drop in on Madeleine, at home, just to say hello. A sort of contact between business colleagues, you might say. Now, it so happened that Madeleine had spent the morning cooking a delicious regional delicacy called bugnes (pronounced boon-yeuh), which earn the cook cholesterol-based Brownie points in Heaven.

You make a mixture of flour, yeast, eggs and sugar. Then you spread it out thin, cut it up into moon-shaped slices, and fry them in oil. Getting back to Madeleine, and the Sunday-afternoon visit of Lucien and Lucette, the bugnes were accompanied by hot chocolate, in fine cups.

The fat grocer Lucien devoured those bugnes with hot chocolate as if his survival as a mortal on the planet Earth might depend upon this subsistence. The summit of Madeleine's recollection of this Sunday-afternoon encounter was the moment of their separation.

LUCETTE: We really must get going, Madeleine. Thanks so much for those bugnes and the hot chocolate. Lucien and I hadn't intended to disturb you this afternoon.

LUCIEN: Yes, Lucette has to prepare dinner. Then the gluttonous grocer turned towards his wife Lucette. What do think, my dear, about a dish of fried sardines and turnips?

After all those bugnes and hot chocolate on a sunny Sunday afternoon at Pont-en-Royans, and the gastronomical promise of an evening meal of sardines and turnips for Lucien, Madeleine has remained a little disgusted (maybe a milder word would be appropriate) for the last half-century. Meanwhile, we are the champions of the world of food.

Shit will fly in France

One has the impression that shit is about to fly in France because of a pharmaceutical product with a nice reassuring name, Mediator… which evokes the wise gentleman who steps in between citizens and the state in the case of conflicts.

Over the last three or so decades, this product appears to have stepped into the lives and deaths of many individuals in France, where it has been used among overweight individuals—up until last year—as a device to cut the craving for food. Unfortunately, this product has turned out to have certain mortal effects… which are explained at length, technically, on the web. Apparently the product was banned in France much later than elsewhere. So, we can be sure that shit will soon start to fly in the arena of justice. Sadly, shit has already flown, with mortal consequences, for some 500 French victims. Affair to be followed…

Old paintings

Did I ever tell you that some of my ancestors down in south-west France were keen on painting? Although I'm not a competent critic in this domain, I have the impression that these old folk were bloody great artists. On the other hand, their range of subjects was somewhat limited: mainly rural landscapes with animals. Sadly, I don't have any trustworthy genealogical data about these ancestors, neither family Bibles nor even parish records. So I don't whether they managed to work professionally in this field and actually earn a decent living as artists. I would imagine that they scraped through. It's a fact, though, that you won't find any of their stuff in the major galleries such as the Louvre and the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris. In those days, alas, they knew little about the international art business. And I would imagine that their marketing agents were clueless.

This splendid website has been set up by the French ministry of culture.

Mind boggles

Curiously, it was only relatively late in life that I discovered the verb "boggle", generally applied to minds, and I imagined immediately that it was some kind of American neologism. Today, I learn that it is an old term, probably derived from "bogey" (scarecrow). So, the mind boggles when we encounter something that awes us greatly, to the point of causing us to lose our everyday grip on reality.

As a child, I knew the word "woggle" (ring used to fasten the scarf of a Wolf Cub). Later, in computing, I discovered the word "toggle" (two-state switch that goes from zero to one, or back, every time it is hit). But only later did I learn how to say that I was so overwhelmed that I didn't know what to say. Meanwhile, my mind had been constantly boggling, every now and again, for ages…

One should not, however, exaggerate. Simply being impressed is not sufficient for boggling to occur. When you come upon a trivial political statement, say, with which you disagree, you're not going to claim seriously that the opinion of that individual makes your mind boggle! It's like the adjective "awesome". When a lady blogger describes the insipid website of such-and-such a friendly hockey mom as "awesome", this is simply a nonsensical abuse of language. This happens all the time, of course. In French, a few decades ago, the powerful adjective "formidable" came to be used as a synonym for weak words such as "good", "pleasant", "nice" and "attractive". If we don't force ourselves systematically to tone down our use of superlative language, and refrain from using excessive terms to designate mediocre situations and happenings, then we're in danger of running out of appropriate words when they're really needed.

When I was a youth, the things that made my mind boggle most were the concepts of eternity and infinity. Trying to contemplate these disturbing notions made me nauseous, and I quickly had to force myself to think of something else, otherwise I felt that I might be physically sick, or go crazy. Curiously, I had two sure-fire techniques for getting back to normal, even when my mind started to boggle in the darkness and solitude of the night. More precisely, I had a pair of marvelous images stored away in a readily-accessible corner of mind, and I only had to fetch one or other of these two images, or both (in the same way that a computer programmer might link to an error-handling subroutine), in order to halt the boggling, and cause the nausea to disappear. You might say that those two images were unexpected. Even today, I don't know where they came from. I still don't understand why these images used to "work" (I gave up using them when I became a science student) in the sense of attenuating my anguish. In any case, the first image was that of a campfire with children.

Was this some kind of romantic allusion to the Wolf Cub paradigm, which had stirred my imagination for as long as I could remember?

The second image, totally unrelated to the first, was that of a giant ocean liner about to set sail for the other side of the globe. Incidentally, my choice of the image on the left is anachronistic, since the original Queen Mary (of which I had seen images when I was a child) was a far more modest vessel than her recently-built young sister (shown here). But the curves of a massive dark hull were part of my childhood vision. As things turned out, this image of a giant vessel presaged my real future. On the final day of the year in which I turned 21, I stepped aboard a Greek ocean liner with a French name, the Bretagne (built in 1951 at St-Nazaire with a sister ship, the Provence, for a Marseille-based shipping company), which took me to the Old World of my dreams.

A few months later, in May 1962, the Chandris shipping company decided to change the name of their liner to Brittany. Greek observers might claim retrospectively that this was an omen of bad luck. Be that as it may, the vessel was destroyed by fire in Piraeus less than a year later, in April 1963. As for me, after an exceptionally harsh winter holed up in London (and working for IBM, Wigmore Street), I arrived at the East London docks on 28 August 1963 to meet up with a Greek cargo vessel, the Persian Cyrus, on which I was to be employed as a deck boy. I've still got the UK immigration officer's document that authorized me to board the old tramp steamer.

For the first week or so, I greased steel cables, painted anything and everything that could be painted, and helped the cook to prepare and serve meals. After leaving Marseille, the first officer (learning that I had studied mathematics) invited me to take the helm. This was an utterly fabulous activity. Acting upon navigational orders expressed in Modern Greek, I edged the vessel manually through rough seas between Corsica and Sardinia, then around the west coast of Sicily and into the eastern waters of the Mediterranean. A day or so later, commanded by an Egyptian pilot, I steered the ship cautiously through the Suez Canal. Then we entered the Red Sea, with its hordes of dolphins and flying fish. By that time, the giant steel carcass had become my toy. Learning how to turn the wheel in order to change course by a precise number of degrees was quite an art. If you simply tried to aim the vessel in the desired direction, its huge momentum, combined with the effects of the swells and the wind, would cause you to overshoot the mark. Fortunately, I soon developed tricks that enabled me to perform this task optimally. Basically, the general idea was to aim the ship in such a way that it would rapidly overshoot the mark by a few degrees, while attempting to dip the bow into a big swell that would twist the ship abruptly back into the right direction. It's easier said than done… but it was an immense physical pleasure to master this technique. Finally, I left the Persian Cyrus in Kuwait, because it was bound for India, whereas I was keen to get back to France. Here's my pay slip (which you can click to enlarge a little):

I don't know much about the state of the Kuwaiti economy today, but you couldn't get far on ten quid back in those days. Fortunately, I was able to camp in the port zone of Mina-al-Ahmadi for three or four days before getting hired on a British Petroleum tanker, the British Glory, that enabled me to reach Rotterdam three weeks later.

By that time, I no longer needed to calm down my metaphysical anguishes by imagining stirring images of campfires and big ships, because I had discovered, in the interim, that scientific awareness was a far more efficient solution for boggled minds. The campfire is probably still burning, but I no longer need to sit down there. The big ships are still sailing, but I'm no longer obsessed with the idea of boarding them.

For years now, I've found myself face-to-face with visions of amazing entities such as quantum theory, modern cosmology and genetics. Certainly, there are many awesome phenomena that we cannot really comprehend in the same way that I mastered the task of pointing the big ship in the right direction. The truth of the matter is that our human brains, senses and muscles are fairly good for challenges such as getting a machine—such as a vessel or an automobile or a bicycle—to move from one place to another. But we're unfortunately not very good at all, in fact utterly lousy, at trying to get a gut feeling for stuff such as quantum events, the space/time scales of cosmology and the tricks played by DNA in the course of a few billion years. But we succeed in giving ourselves the impression that we understand such things by making an effort to assimilate their scientific explanations.

Little or nothing anguishes me any more, and yet everything amazes me, and commands my respect. I'm enraptured with Nature, which I imagine as an eternally youthful nymph, who seduces me constantly and endlessly. Now that my mind has ceased boggling, I need a new word to designate the rapture in my regard when I look upon the existence of life in the Cosmos.

Autumn dawn

A quarter of an hour ago, viewed from my bathroom window, the Cournouze looked this:

Within five minutes, the cloud layer was starting to reflect the pale light of the rising sun upon the trees on the slopes of the valley of the Bourne.

Five minutes later, the Technicolor show was over. One has to act rapidly to obtain images such as these. Often I say to myself that my Antipodes blog has started to instill in me something akin to the reflexes (but not, alas, the skills) of a photographer.

Master mushroom chef

This morning, while out walking with the dogs, I came upon half-a-dozen sturdy Coprinus comatus mushrooms. Apparently they exist too in Australia, since they figure on this 1981 postage stamp. Often described as shaggy, because of the tufts on its surface, this mushroom was first described in Europe at about the time that Australia was settled. Maybe it was transported to Australia in soil attached to the hoofs of animals. On the other hand, it could well be a variety that has existed right throughout the world, ever since the Gondwana era. That's an intriguing question… about which I know nothing.

I sliced each shaggy in two, lengthwise. Then I cooked them gently in butter, on both sides, in a non-stick frying pan.

I took them off the stove as soon as they started to brown, sprinkled them abundantly with coarsely ground pepper and added a spoonful of olive oil. I ate them with a thick slice of toasted homemade walnut bread and butter. Smooth texture, which reminded me of cooked bananas. Subtle creamy/fruity flavor. Absolutely delicious.

Dog worlds

When I look down on Fitzroy from my bathroom window of a morning, here's a typical vision of the dog and his context:

As you can see, he has gathered around him, on the lawn, a little world of random objects: a length of garden hose, half a doormat, rags (in fact, fragments of the geotextile fabric, dug up by Fitzroy, on which I had laid marble chips beneath my rose pergola), an assortment of interesting sticks, etc. There's no point in my removing this mess, because Fitzroy would simply reconstitute it within a short lapse of time. Besides, they're not exactly random objects, and they're not really a mess, because they've been selected by Fitzroy for reasons that only he appreciates. Here's another photo of the same scene, ten minutes later:

Here, we can start to understand the subtle symbolism of the situation. Don't tell me that loops in hoses merely come about by chance, and that a spiritual dog is going to lie down in any old random position. Clearly, Fitzroy is reinvigorating himself with the flux of energy in the vortex of the loop, in much the same way that a New Age adept might seek resources inside a pyramid, or meditate while moving through a labyrinth. [Click here to visit my website in the latter domain.]

Yesterday afternoon, I left Fitzroy at home and I took Sophia to her annual vaccination visit in St-Jean-en-Royans. French veterinarians are well organized, and they mail you a reminder for such an appointment. In the waiting room, I discovered that it seemed to be cat day, since Sophia and I were soon surrounded by plastic crates emitting meows. This didn't worry Sophia, who seemed to like the idea of being the only dog in the room. At one stage, a flustered plump young lady sat down opposite us. I had learned from her conversation with the receptionist that she had come along here to pick up her sister's cat, which had apparently undergone a minor surgical intervention. One thing was certain: the young lady wanted it to be known that this wasn't her correct environment. She was strictly a dog person, and she was only here on cat business because her sister had asked her to help out. So, it was normal that the young lady, visibly upset by the feline majority, should turn towards Sophia and me, to get her point across.

LADY: "I've got a magnificent dog waiting for me at home. I'm not at all fond of cats, but my sister was busy this afternoon, and she asked me to collect her cat."

I rapidly sensed that the only way of calming down the young lady was to ask her to talk to me about her dog.

LADY: "He's the most beautiful dog you can possibly imagine. An Australian Shepherd. I'm a school teacher, and my husband and I have a rural house with land down near Crest. So the dog spends all his time outdoors."

At that stage, I made an enormous blunder, through a mixture of inadvertence and ignorance. You see, there were no sheep whatsoever in the coastal region of Australia where I grew up, only dairy and beef cattle. So, I knew nothing at all about Australian Shepherd dogs. Worse still, when I heard the word "Australian", I imagined immediately that her adorable animal was surely some kind of rough-and-ready Aussie cattle dog. But I was rapidly corrected.

LADY: "His features are similar to those of a Border Collie. On his face, he's got red streaks here, then blacks streaks alongside. And, further down, it's white and gray, then it turns to brownish yellow and fawn." I imagined some kind of Technicolor dog.

ME: "I suppose he combines a little bit of several varieties." That was my polite way of suggesting that she probably had a mongrel dog.

The lady was horrified, but in a friendly way. She had no reason to imagine that I was Australian, and she no doubt found it normal that a guy such as me in a veterinarian's waiting room in France, accompanied by a Labrador, would be totally ignorant in the domain of Australian Shepherd dogs. And she was right. Later, back home, I looked up this subject on Google, where I found this splendid photo. Meanwhile, in the waiting room, I listened attentively to the school teacher.

LADY: "He's a pure pedigree animal, with a distinguished genealogy. My husband and all our friends got together with my teacher colleagues to find this dog for me. It's the most magnificent Australian Shepherd dog that you can possibly imagine."

ME: "Does he have any opportunities of working with animals?"

LADY: "Not really… and that's a big problem for the moment, because he's crazy about herding up all the animals he sees. My husband brought him along to school one day. The children had often heard me describing my dog, and they wanted to meet up with him. Everything was going along fine, out in the playground. Then my dog suddenly decided that it was time to round up all these kids. He soon got around to herding them all into a group in a corner of the playground."

Now, there's an unexpected theme of collaboration between our two nations. Australia could supply France with smart cattle and sheep dogs to handle unruly kids in some of the suburban problem schools.

The herding instinct in dogs is wonderful and spectacular. My Fitzroy obviously has it in his genes. Like all the dogs of this kind, he has the habit of suddenly flattening himself on the ground, and waiting for the others to do something. This was how he reacted, for example, when I returned with Sophia from the visit to the veterinarian. Fitzroy was there to meet us, flat on his belly, waiting for us to get out of the car. He seemed to be wondering how he should handle Sophia and me, as soon as we started to move towards the house.

In one of his books, Richard Dawkins explains that this canine herding instinct was acquired by their ancestral wolves back at the time they worked as packs, stalking large prey. The obvious purpose of this stalking was to isolate an ideal victim for the kill. Maybe this is not a good story for the school teacher's kids. Cats, of course, are no more peace-and-love than dogs, even though they neither herd nor allow themselves to be herded. Have you never contemplated the sinister stare of a cute little pussy, and wondered where this regard might have come from? The problem with all these delightful pets is that they've seen through us humans, ages ago. They know we're basically meat.

Head needs to be screwed on

My native land, Australia, wasn't settled by European colonists before the end of the 18th century. So, Down Under, you won't find any ancient Gothic cathedrals, or stuff like that. But we've got a lot of Big Things.

[Click the big fish to see a Wikipedia article on Australia's Big Things.]

One of my favorites was the Big Banana in Coffs Harbour, which existed already when I was a youth in nearby Grafton.

There's no doubt some kind of deep psychological reason why Aussies have thought it worthwhile, if not necessary, to create this set of ugly objects. Maybe, one day, somebody will produce a doctoral thesis in this domain. Meanwhile, it's amazing—a minor Aussie miracle—that no enterprising outback township has got around to making a name for itself by erecting the Big Prick. Talking of miracles, I trust that devout Catholics are already working on a project for a Big Mary. [If one or other of the above-mentioned projects were to become a reality, I would surely deserve some kind of royalties.]

In the small Polish town of Świebodzin, the citizens have donated a lot of cash to build the Big Jesus. They've done this for two main reasons. On the one hand, they love Jesus. On the other hand, they reckon that this 35-meter high monstrosity—the Biggest Jesus in the World—could create touristic revenues for the township. When I observe this marvelous photo of the Lord's head being lifted into position, ready to be screwed on, I'm ashamed of myself for having sinful thoughts. I can't help imagining a nightmare scenario in which opponents of the giant statue (if indeed such insensitive individuals did in fact exist) would use their imagination to organize an apocalyptic explosion to remove this eyesore from the rural landscape. Naturally, I can't really imagine why terrorists of any faith (or, worse still, atheists) would go to the trouble of attacking this splendid work of art and civil engineering. But one never knows. Sadly, the world is full of crazy individuals…

Talking of crazy individuals who need to get their head screwed on right, here's a fabulous case study from the inspired world of US politics. I'll let you find out for yourselves who he is, where he comes from, what he does for a living, and what he's on about.



This guy impresses and inspires me. I know it's irrational, but I imagine him taking advantage of his political connections and his spiritual convictions to set up a vast US-based multinational named BTC: the Big Things Corporation. It would offer a broad range of expert construction projects ranging from giant statues of saints and gurus through to fake Gothic cathedrals for banana republics, without forgetting mammoth objects of all kinds for the prosperous Australian market. I'm assuming that, if only it were screwed on right, this fellow would have a head for Big Business.

POST-SCRIPTUM: This is a good context in which to include this charming image of a Big Bum: a statue in the nearby city of Romans.

A friend explained to me recently that this personage is called Fanny, and she belongs to the traditions of the French game of bowls in this region. If I understand correctly (which I probably don't), the captain of the winning team has to go forward ceremoniously and kiss tenderly this inviting arse.

Pastel valley

This morning, the valley of the Bourne was shrouded in floating mists, while the sunny sky was pale blue and studded with cumulus clouds.

On autumn mornings like this, my son and I used to have mock-serious conversations in which we would reminisce about the precise exotic regions of faraway China that were most evoked by the misty mountains of Choranche and Châtelus.

I would air my erudition: "Choranche has always reminded me of the upper regions of Fu-Ching, in the vicinity of the great Wong."

François would beg to disagree: "No, not at all; your judgment and visual memories are flawed. The Bourne provides us with exactly the same kind of splendid vision that I recall during my extensive journeys through the Min-Yang, on horseback, in early October."

At other times, I would show the above photo to friends and ask them what they thought of this image of the Bourne in the vicinity of Gamone. Let me cease my trivial joking. It's an old photo of the Clarence River at Jackadgery, not far from where I grew up in Australia.

Meditation

Long ago in Paris, I used to eat often in a small Arab restaurant in the rue des Archives, just up from the town hall, which served an excellent couscous. I was charmed by a mural picture-story, composed of illustrations as in a comic book, which started in a corner of the restaurant and stretched all the way around three walls. The simple drawings, without words, told the story of a wise man who went out into the wilderness to meditate, seated on the sandy slopes.

His meditation session lasted for a long time. For years. Maybe for decades. At the outset, he is all alone: a solitary hermit lost in his profound thoughts. Then a few nomads stop at the oasis at the foot of the mountains, and pitch their tent. Soon, they are joined by other desert wanderers, with herds of goats, and the oasis is transformed into a tiny village of tent-dwellers. Unperturbed, the wise man continues to meditate.

Further settlers arrive, and they build huts on the slopes around the oasis. Alongside these huts, sheds start to spring up, where craftsmen appear to be working. Trenches are dug so that water can be pumped up to these people living and working on the slopes. The wise man, oblivious to this activity, carries on meditating.

Little by little, the slopes around the oasis are covered in dwellings of many kinds. Streets start to appear, with donkey-drawn vehicles moving through the settlement. Some of the settlers get around on small motor-cycles. Later, the first trucks and automobiles appear on the scene. The wise man pays no attention to the changing environment. He is too busy meditating.

Electricity is introduced into the township, and the streets are paved. Smoking factories appear on the outskirts of the town. New houses, built of bricks and stone, are erected. Children play in green parks. Cafés and restaurants have come into existence in the vicinity of the oasis. There is even a cinema and a municipal swimming pool. The wise man, still meditating, is unaffected by this large-scale arrival of civilization.

It is no longer a simple township, but a busy city. Few traces of the desert environment remain visible. It could be a typical small metropolis located anywhere on the globe. Only one small detail makes it different to most other cities. There is a strange individual in the middle of this vast urban environment, and he seems to be meditating.

Suddenly, in several corners of the metropolis, the first signs of decadence have started to appear. A few factories have closed. In several neighborhoods, empty dwellings are falling into ruin. The wise man is not at all worried by this state of affairs, because he is concerned solely by his meditations.

Little by little, the urban environment is rotting away, and citizens are leaving for greener pastures. Everywhere, there are signs of decay, destruction and decrepitude. The sands of the desert have started to cover, not only the former parks, but even various deserted neighborhoods. The wise man is still engaged in his thoughts.

Within a short time, it is becoming more and more difficult to imagine that there was once a thriving city at this spot. Sand, by now, covers almost the entire site. Finally, there are no longer any visible traces whatsoever of the former presence of humans. The place has reverted to its initial state, which corresponds to what the wise man saw when he chose this spot, long ago, for a session of meditation.

Suddenly, he awakes from his meditation. He is surrounded by the silent desert, with a green oasis down at the foot of the slopes. He stands up, yawns, and stretches his arms and legs. He has a contented smile on his face. He looks up towards the heavens, as if he were about to address himself to a divinity. He exclaims with enthusiasm: "Wow, what an extraordinary meditation session!"

Gamone evolution

My article of October 27, 2019 entitled Donkey expedition day [display] described the long walk of Sylvie Rozand and me, leading three donkeys, from Presles to Gamone. Yesterday afternoon, Sylvie returned here, with a friend from Presles, to retrieve her two adult donkeys Nina and Margot. The operation went off with no problems whatsoever. We had nevertheless had certain apprehensions: How would Fanette react to the sight of her mother Nina being led away? How would Nina feel about leaving her 6-months-old daughter behind? Would Sylvie run into problems in trying to coax her two donkeys through the road tunnel up towards the plateau at Presles? Back here at Gamone, how would my Moshé and his new friend Fanette get along together on their own?

As of yesterday evening, I was delighted to realize that not a single one of those problems had arisen. In other words, everything went off like a charm. Fanette didn't appear to be concerned by the departure of her mother and the other adult donkey. When she returned to Gamone late in the afternoon to pick up her car, Sylvie told me that Nina and Margot had strolled eagerly back up to Presles, and that they didn't seem to be bothered by the idea that little Fanette had remained with Moshé at Gamone. This morning, I took this photo of the donkeys and Fitzroy:

As usual, my two dogs get on marvelously well together. Their relationship remains asymmetrical. As I've pointed out already, Sophia spends most of her time lounging in her big wicker basket on the kitchen floor, whereas Fitzroy is a strictly outside dog, now completely accustomed to the idea of getting into his kennel from time to time.

Preventing Fitzroy from moving inside the house is not even a personal choice of mine. It's rather a survival issue, in the sense that many objects inside the house (furniture, books, clothes, tools, etc) probably wouldn't survive for long if Fitzroy were to get in physical contact with them. Fitzroy's genes are such that he likes to be bossy with recalcitrant beasts such as cattle, sheep and donkeys. So, why would he be unduly worried about tackling a lounge chair, say? Out on the lawn, Fitzroy is fascinated by a permanently running hose from the Gamone spring. He drags it all over the lawn, meaning that puddles spring up every now and again in unexpected corners. He has trouble understanding why he can't simply pick up the water jet in his mouth, as if it were a stick, and dash around with it clenched between his teeth. In attempting to fathom this philosophical mystery, Fitzroy often gets soaked… and he then moves onto the straw in his kennel to dry himself out.

The other evening, on French TV, I watched a fascinating US program on the subject of our prehistoric ancestors. Directed by Graham Townsley, its English title is Becoming Human, and it was made last year. The fact that such a show can be seen in prime time on a Saturday evening (dubbed in French) is yet another tribute to the excellence of French TV. Here's the opening episode:



Well, one of the recurrent themes in this series of documentaries was well expressed in the latest book by Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth. Here are his words:

We've been land animals for about 400 million years, and we've walked on our hind legs for only the last 1 per cent of that time. For 99 per cent of our time on land, we've had a more-or-less horizontal backbone and walked on four legs. We don't know for certain what selective advantages accrued to the individuals who first rose up and walked on their hind legs…

Not so long ago, people used to explain that bipedalism came about because we needed to get up on our hind legs so that we could use our hands for carrying things… but that's surely a case of putting the cart before the horse. We still don't know the complete answer to that question, although both Dawkins (in The Ancestor's Tale) and the Townsley documentaries propose various speculations on this subject. Getting back to my dog Fitzroy, I often have the impression that he might already be working hard, with the help of his mentor Sophia, at evolving into bipedalism.

In this tandem position, when Sophia decides to move forward, Fitzroy is perfectly capable of following her on his hind legs, like a ballet artist. I'm convinced that, soon, he won't need to lean on Sophia's back any longer. He'll simply raise his front paws in the air, as if he were praising the Almighty for the gift of bipedalism, and he'll wander off in an easy upright gait. Maybe I should get in contact with Dawkins and Townsley, to see if they're interested in writing a book or making a movie about Fitzroy. In fact, I suspected, right from the start, that Fitzroy (who'll be 4 months old next Wednesday) was a wonder dog. Maybe I should look into the idea of teaching him to read...

Sarko's fireworks show

French people used to say: We don't produce oil, but we've got ideas. These days, France has been making a great effort to secure Chinese business contracts. So, during the visit to Paris of the Chinese president Hu Jintao and his wife, it was normal to organize a glitzy dinner evening at the Elysées Palace. The following video (with spoof voice-overs from comedians playing the roles of Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni) shows the arrival of various members of the French government:



An observer has the impression that female dinner guests were expected to turn up in glamorous gear. This was what happened… with the exception of the wives of the Chinese and French presidents. In any case, nobody complained about putting a few French female specimens on show to celebrate the signing of some 20 contracts for a sum of 16 billion euros. As Mao stated in his Little Red Book: France doesn't produce oil, but they've got sexy women.

Vatican fashions

An excellent article by Diane La Phung in the French Internet daily Rue 89 examines a fascinating subject: the new style of papal wear introduced by Joseph Ratzinger.

The journalist draws our attention to something we might not have noticed, particularly those of us who don't necessarily devote much time to the adoration of Ratzi's image and the scrutiny of his sartorial habits. Fashions have changed at the Vatican since the death of John-Paul II. Like his thinking, the dress style of Benedict XVI is resolutely turned towards the past. His appearance is reactionary, in harmony with his theology and his worldview. Consider, for example, this golden image of Ratzi wrapped up like a chocolate. The author of the article goes so far as to suggest that Benedict XVI is reintroducing archaic papal fashions that were cast into Purgatory after Vatican II.

Right down to the level of his splendid crimson leather slippers, Ratzi is bedecked in exotic gear that seems to date from the epoch of the Teddy Boy culture, Mods and Rockers, or Greaser culture in the US.

John-Paul II had more rustic tastes in clothing, such as this hand-embroidered chasuble. Today, many of the elegant old-fashioned items of apparel being brought back into fashion by Benedict XVI have simply been taken out of mothballs in the vast Vatican wardrobes. Sometimes this leads to Ratzi wearing stuff that is no longer tolerated by environmentally-aware youth: for example, borders of natural fur, and collars in swan down.

In general, as a good catholic, Benny is fond of the color of blood. My favorite image is that of the pope pulling a dainty red bonnet called the Camauro down over his ears [photo Alessia Pierdomenico/Reuters].

One imagines Ratzi, dressed up like this, jumping into his popemobile and going out to deliver Christmas gifts to the children of Rome.