Moving into a troubled city

Last Thursday evening, a fascinating TV program concerning the long and tumultuous career of the former French police chief Maurice Papon [1910-2007] reminded me retrospectively that I was surely a naive and uninformed Antipodean when I first arrived in Paris on Sunday, 4 February 1962. In particular, I was totally unaware that the French nation was in a state of undeclared war with her former colony, Algeria. On Monday, 12 February, a week after my arrival in Paris, I started working as a computer programmer with the European headquarters of IBM. Between these two events in my narrow personal existence, the tragedy of the métro Charonne had unfolded. Papon's police had pushed leftist political demonstrators down the steps towards the underground station (not far from where my daughter now lives), without realizing that the steel grid was closed, resulting in the death of nine individuals.

On that cold day, I was wandering around in the Latin Quarter, searching for an item of clothing that I had never possessed back out in Australia: an overcoat. Since I was incapable of understanding French-language newspapers, and had no access to TV, I was unaware that a tragedy had taken place over on the other side of the Seine. In any case, I was quite unaware of the Algerian conflict in which France had been bogged down for years. Among other things, I had never heard of the bloody events that had occurred in Paris on 17 October of the previous year (at a time when I had just celebrated my 21st birthday, out in Sydney, and was looking forward excitedly to leaving soon for Europe on the Greek vessel Bretagne), when Papon's police simply executed spontaneously and brutally an unknown number (between tens and hundreds) of Algerians who appeared to sympathize with the FLN [National Liberation Front] and tossed their bodies into the Seine.

Within a few days of my settling down in Paris, I was brought face-to-face with the realities of living in a city in which plastic explosives were being detonated by insurrectionists, intending to draw attention to nasty events on the other side of the Mediterranean. One evening, as I opened the door into my tiny hotel room in the Rue des Ecoles (just a few hundred meters away from the Sorbonne), an explosion destroyed a bookshop on the other side of the street. I remember the familiar horn signals of police vehicles against the delicate tinkling (like proverbial Xmas sleigh bells) of glass fragments falling from shattered windows in the vicinity of the targeted bookshop. A few days later, when I arrived at the IBM building in the Cité du Retiro (just near the Elysée Palace), I learned that an explosion had occurred there during the night. A month later, everything calmed down overnight when the president Charles de Gaulle signed a peace agreement with the FLN on 18 March 1962 at Evian-les-Bains, in the French Alps.

Meanwhile, IBM France (whose headquarters were located at the Place Vendôme) had given me an identity card.

By that time, I had moved into a tiny so-called "maid's room" at the top of the Hôtel du Pas de Calais in the Rue des Saints Pères.

An aspect of my professional situation at IBM that amazed me was the effort they were devoting to the challenge of my obtaining a French work permit. The procedure was set in motion by an initial visit to the Préfecture de Police on the Ile de la Cité. This was the headquarters of the domain of de Gaulle's police chief, Maurice Papon: a vast stone building alongside the Seine, just opposite the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, built around a square courtyard.

I was accompanied to the préfecture by a curious Frenchman who was surely being paid by IBM to assist foreigners such as myself. Within the precincts of the police domain, he seemed to be on friendly personal terms with many members of the clerical staff. Consequently, we were never obliged to line up in queues, or even wait to be received by prefectural personnel. I was amused by a trivial gimmick that my guide exploited constantly. In his coat pockets, he seemed to have an ample supply of American filter cigarettes. Whenever he ran into somebody he knew, his initial gesture consisted of offering him/her a cigarette, which was inevitably received with a smile, and immediately lit up. (Office employees all smoked furiously at that time.) Clearly, this gift of a cigarette was some kind of symbolic trick (a code?) intended to indicate that he had a job to do (organize my request for a work permit), and needed help from his friends.

I would not actually receive the desired document for another three months. During that time, IBM arranged a contact for me in London (since only a French consulate in a foreign land could actually instigate the issue of a work permit to a non-French individual), and it was planned that, as soon as this London contact received a consular request demanding my presence for an interview, I was to drop everything I was doing and jump onto an Air France Caravelle bound for London, enabling me to turn up at the consulate as if I had just taken the London Underground to get there. That trick—which necessitated no less than three return trips to London—enabled me to carry on working for IBM in Paris in spite of the fact that I did not yet possess a work permit. Obviously, everybody—both at the Paris prefecture and at the consulate in London—knew that I was playing a silly game, but we were obliged to behave like that in order to obtain the precious document in a manner that was superficially legal… which was finally issued to me on 15 May 1962.

Over the years, since then, I've often thought back to those first three months at IBM in Paris (where I would remain for another four months), and I've always wondered how a US company in Paris might have got around to employing a French fellow such as my guide, whose job consisted of leading me through the curious procedures that would enable me to become a regular employee in France. Well, it was only last Thursday, in the middle of the TV program about Papon, that I finally received a plausible but totally unexpected (and not particularly nice) explanation. At some time after being named Préfet de Police in March 1958, Papon called upon IBM France to develop a modern punched-card system (not yet using a computer, if I understand correctly) to handle the "management" of the tens of thousands of potential FLN activists residing in metropolitan France. In other words, for Charles de Gaulle and the French police hierarchy, IBM may have been considered as more than just an ordinary American business corporation. And there may have been vague reasons of one kind or another for treating foreign IBM personnel as VIP workers.

We must not, however, exaggerate. If the French authorities had really wanted to make it easy for me to work legally in France, they would have simply handed me a work permit, instead of expecting me to wander around in their red-tape world (of the Paris prefecture and the London consulate) for three months before issuing me a lousy temporary work permit. In any case, it's almost certain that many French visionaries (including de Gaulle) sensed that the intriguing computer phenomenon, represented ideally by IBM, would no doubt play a role in the industrial, scientific and economic future of France.

POST SCRIPTUM: It goes without saying that the work for which I was employed by IBM Europe (programming the IBM 1401 computer), from 12 February 1962 up until 28 September 1962, had nothing whatsoever to do with the above-mentioned punched-card project carried out by IBM France with a view to controlling the Algerian population residing in France at that time. IBM was an emanation—as is well known—of the Hollerith punched-card company, whose most celebrated primordial exploit in data processing (as this activity came to be called) entailed the use of punched cards to process the results of the US census of 1890. So, there was nothing particularly exceptional in Papon's use of this same punched-card support, some 70 years later, to store data concerning people in France. As for Maurice Papon, he was finally condemned and jailed for his role in the deportation of Jews from Bordeaux during the Nazi Occupation, and he was also stigmatized (but never actually pursued in a law court) for the murky aspects of his treatment of Algerians. But it would be an absurd deduction to imagine that there might have been anything intrinsically evil, a priori, in the above-mentioned IBM punched-card project. On the other hand, all this precise and well-organized police data concerning FLN suspects, placed conveniently at the fingertips of Papon, would have certainly made it easier for him to perpetrate evil deeds.

Pots and pans

It would be dishonest of me not to admit that, towards the end of winter at Gamone, a certain number of innocent pots and pans tend to pass the final weeks in a state of grubby purgatory, like neglected orphans, awaiting the return of sunny conditions, when the master of the household might at last deign to clean them up and store them away.

For reasons that might have something to do with my childhood out in Australia, I'm particularly fond of being able to leave stuff out in the sun to dry : freshly-washed clothes, above all, and pots and pans. I also get a kick out of sun-drying edible products such as bay leaves and green walnuts (after they've been soaked in brine, with pickling in view).

On the other hand, I've always known that it's not a good idea to envisage leaving myself out in the strong sun for hours on end. I neither bake golden brown nor even dry out. I simply get sunburned. My dear mother would have been enchanted if her son could have been transformed by the rays of the sun into the lovely look of a bronzed Aussie surfer. On one sad occasion, when I was a child, my mother's encouragements at this level led to my ending up in hospital with third-degree burns. She herself belonged to a Down Under generation who apparently admired people with dark brown leathery skins, inevitably crisscrossed by ridges and wrinkles. Maybe my own lifelong fascination for fair girls with a light-olive facial complexion and soft milky skin might be a reaction against my mother's esthetic tastes. In any case, I'm convinced that my personal dermato-genetic inheritance is strictly Scandinavian, probably brought down to Normandy by a fierce red-faced Viking warrior adorned in a broad-rimmed hat, with yucky reindeer fat smeared across his tender nose.

Voltaire never said anything like this

Voltaire [1694-1778] said many marvelous things. But, contrary to what many English-speakers imagine, Voltaire never, in any circumstances, wrote or pronounced words of the following kind:

I wholly disapprove of what you say,
and will defend to the death your right to say it.

This sentence was imagined by the English scholar S G Tallentyre (whose real name was Evelyn Beatrice Hall) in her book entitled The Friends of Voltaire (1906), and later in another book, Voltaire in His Letters (1919). She was merely paraphrasing the attitude of Voltaire in the context of a certain affair, but her publisher erroneously placed the sentence in inverted commas, giving readers the mistaken impression that they are Voltaire's actual words.

I hope that my readers might be able to use this information, one of these days, to win some kind of trivia quiz, or to impress people at a dinner evening. [That last sentence is mine, not Voltaire's.]

Three vague projects

Contrary to what you might imagine, after glancing through my recent blog posts, I've been totally preoccupied, over the last fortnight or so, by no less than three separate projects that I would designate as deep, where this adjective means that they are puzzling challenges that concern me profoundly.

Feudal land registers

Last Monday evening, I was the guest speaker at the monthly meeting of the Royans historical association, for a rapid presentation of my research concerning the six cadastral parchments created here in the Royans during the period 1351-1356. I'm still trying to stir up enthusiasm for these precious documents, in the hope that I might be able to obtain finance enabling us to translate and publish them. On Monday afternoon, I printed out the contents (nine A4 sheets) of a single "page" (the correct term is folio) of one of the registers, and glued them roughly onto a cardboard backing, 60 cm wide and 75 cm tall.

This gives you a rough idea of what the parchments look like. The six registers—for the villages of Pont-en-Royans, Choranche, Châtelus, Rencurel, Echevis and St-Laurent-en-Royans—occupy a total of 59 folios of this size. For the moment, the scanned registers are presented in my French-language website [access], which incorporates password protection. Well, I'm starting to wonder whether it might be a good idea to create an English-language version of my website, in the hope of maybe attracting specialists in medieval Latin in places such as Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, etc. The thing that bothers me concerning these ancient parchments is that their likely contents (I say "likely", because nobody really knows yet exactly what information they contain) are no doubt quite boring, unless you happen to be standing on the actual lands with which they are associated. In other words, if a doctoral scholar were to work on such a register, he or she would normally obtain fulfillment by comparing constantly the text with the actual site. In any case, I'm convinced that it would be extraordinary to be able to read a description of my Gamone property that was penned in the middle of the 14th century.

Collaboration with Pierre Schaeffer

I was contacted recently by a music specialist at ABC radio [Australian Broadcasting Corporation] who would like to interview me on the subject of my collaboration in 1970-1972 with Pierre Schaeffer [1910-1995], inventor of musique concrète (music composed with real-world sounds, including noises).

The problem, in this domain, is that my personal evaluation of the achievements of Schaeffer may not necessarily coincide with those of a musicologist. My experiences at the research service of the ORTF [French Broadcasting System] were a highly significant chapter of my existence in Paris, but it's a subject that I prefer to handle in detail in my autobiographical writing, rather than in an Antipodean radio interview.

Software development

Concerning my intention of developing a Macintosh tool to access the archives of my Antipodes blog, I've truly been running around in circles for the last few weeks, changing constantly from one approach to another. First, I was thinking purely in terms of a Mac application, but I soon realized any such tool must incorporate the blogger's password. So, I would be able to create this tool for the Antipodes blog, and then give copies of the tool to other people. But I would not be able to envisage a tool that would work for other blogs, for which I don't know the passwords. Then I got around to thinking that a better approach would be to build a website, rather than a Mac app, so that any blogger could use it merely by entering his/her own password. More recently still, I've been looking into the idea of using the PHP language to develop a tool that can analyze the so-called Atom feed, which any blogger can download instantly by clicking a button. Today, though, I've got back to my starting point, in considering that a Mac tool is maybe the best approach. The only thing that's certain is the fact that, whichever approach I finally adopt, it's a much more complex affair than what I had initially imagined. We tend to think that a blog is surely just a simple set of text files with an assortment of images and videos. In fact, the structure of a vast system such as Google's Blogger platform is diabolically complicated.

So, that's a summary of questions that have been running through my mind over the last fortnight or so. The common denominator of these three affairs is that each one seems to be complicated, indeed confusing, in its own way.

Maybe I would be better off sitting out in the sun and admiring the clouds, or watching my fig tree grow.

Oh what a beautiful morning!

The air is warm. From her sunny doorstep, Sophia contemplates the beauty of the Cosmos.

She's probably saying to herself: "Why does the Master never stop taking photos?" That's a good question. One would have thought that we've had time enough to record all the images that need to be recorded. Besides, why do people carry on talking to one another over the phone? And sending e-mails? And writing blogs? Haven't they got around to saying everything that needs to be said? Shouldn't the camera and the telephone soon fade into extinction, along with the computer?

Yes, all is well this morning at Gamone. The world is beautiful. And yet, when I observe that world through the Internet, I can't help feeling that it's Vegemite turtle crap all the way down. It takes a lot of imagination to envisage the global landscape in a positive sense, but Gamone provides me constantly with the necessary force. I'm like a monk who wakes up in his lonely cell, somewhat disillusioned, who needs to be impregnated by the Spirit in order to start his day of prayer.

Dog news

Sophia, more beautiful than ever in her slim female elegance, appears to be coming along fine. OK, she's under medication, but it seems to be working positively.

As for Fitzroy, we must understand that this is his very first spring upon the green grass of the planet Earth, with its delicious aromas. So, he's surely favorably biased. And I share his enthusiasm.

This afternoon, we strolled up together, taking our time (as usual), along the slopes of Gamone. At the top of our path, as we were about to turn towards the neighborhood of Les Nugues, we were suddenly welcomed by the soft tones of cattle bells on the opposite slopes, in the vicinity of the farm of the Bourne family: our mayor Bernard and his athletic son Frédéric, who is rapidly becoming our admirable tribal chief of Choranche. It was a moment of magic.

People write blogs about the hundred or so most important things they should do before dying. And why not? Our time is limited, but our imagination is boundless. Let's not forget the simple idea of setting out with a couple of dogs and strolling lazily up the slopes to a magic spot where the lovely dull sounds of remote cow bells ring out across an ancient valley. That's where I live, with my darling dogs.

Tea for two expats

Over the last few days, my compatriot Badger, blogging from his visibly upper-class residence in the heart of Vienna, has produced memorable celebrations of distinguished Australian food products such as Bushells tea, Sao biscuits, the inevitable Vegemite, Cherry Ripe chocolate bars and the industrial biscuit product designated as the Iced Vo Vo. His first article, My tea would kill a brown dog [display], attracted my attention for the simple reason that the expression "Bushells tea" had apparently disappeared from my memory for half a century, up until Badger revived it. On the other hand, another famous Australian brand had never escaped from my memory, maybe because it bore my childhood name.

My nostalgic recollection of Australian tea concerns a bush beverage prepared by my father, brewed over a eucalyptus fire in a so-called billy can or a quart pot (which could be attached to a horse saddle).

Here at Gamone, I've grown accustomed to fine jasmine-flavored Chinese tea. After much searching, I've discovered an excellent organic tea imported by the Fair trade people, which I consider equal to the highly-priced products available in specialized big-city teashops.

Back at Waterview, my dear mother used to make fun of a refined neighbor who dared to say: "Tea tastes so much better in a fine cup." Sadly, Mum understood nothing. You don't have to be a Japanese potter to know that our Waterview neighbor was spot on.

Badger then attacked with an amazing ode to the Sao biscuit [display]. To my mind, his lyric poetry could well replace Dorothea Mackellar's My Country as an authentic but fuzzy Down Under hymn.


Long ago, out in Bangkok visiting my aunt and uncle (residing there on a professional mission), I remember being most amused by a few words of expat wisdom concerning the scruffy dogs you see everywhere in the Thai capital: "When you suddenly feel like approaching a stray dog in Thailand, patting it fondly and saying 'Nice little dog', then it's time to get the hell back to your home country."

I ran into that nice little dog on the beach at Hua-Hin, where my children and I had been staying for a few days. In any case, we were booked to fly out and return to France a few days later.

With that dog-based precept in mind, I thought it well to warn Badger. When a retired Aussie banker—residing with his globe-trotting trophy wife in the fabulous Austrian capital—starts indulging in poetry about Sao biscuits and Bushells tea, then it's surely time for an Exodus.

AFTERTHOUGHT: In the wake of his revelations concerning our celebrated cuppa and tasteless biscuits, I'm awaiting Badger's judgment concerning our famous Aussie remedial dictum, guaranteed to heal almost all ills: "A cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down." In the Aussie ice-cream domain, when I was a kid, there were only two contenders: Peters and McNivens. I disliked the first, preferring the second. God only knows how I became addicted to one rather than the other. Badger might tell us where he stands on the ancient debate between the equally obnoxious powders of Bex and Vincents. Does he know, for example, that the term "addictive" was finally applied to these celebrated Aussie shit products? Today, shouldn't we—unlike Badger—merely stop perpetrating all this ridiculous nationalistic Vegemite and Bushells rubbish? It fails to honor the sacred memory of the land that my ancestors—including, above all (for me), my father—helped to build. But addicts, alas, will be incapable of reacting to my wise suggestion.

Fine food for donkeys

At Gamone (and in most other places in France, I imagine), we're right in the middle of the dandelion season. That's to say, the slopes—including my lawn—are covered in yellow flowers, and they're about to be metamorphosed into spherical seed heads, ready to be blown into every available square centimeter of the neighborhood.

As usual, I've dragged out my electric lawnmower and made a valiant effort to remove the flowers on my lawn. But I can hear the vast hordes of dandelions on the outskirts of my lawn laughing at me cynically, since they'll be taking off shortly, in kamikaze squadrons, to make amends for their fallen brethren.

The green press often warns us that cattle fart noxious methane into the atmosphere, and that humanity would be much better off if we all resorted to eating kangaroo meat, since these Down Under beasts apparently fart more sweetly.

I don't know what my compatriots—not to mention the kangaroos themselves—might think of that great idea. It's a fact that the kangaroo appears on our national coat of arms, which—in the words of a militant vegetarian and nationalistic Aussie—must not be considered as a menu! Meanwhile, when I observe the huge annual stock of dandelions here at Gamone, I say to myself that it's a pity we can't all get around to eating rabbit meat, since everybody knows that they thrive on dandelions. Here's a photo (found on the web) of a champion Flemish Giant specimen, raised in Germany, capable of producing 8 to 10 kg of meat.

Admittedly, there might be an organizational problem in making sure that the herd of meat-producing rabbits settles down in exactly the places where you have a surplus of dandelions. And you would need to slaughter them all as soon as your dandelions run out… by which time the rabbits would have switched to eating the grass of your lawn. So, I'm not sure that my idea's well thought-out. Meanwhile, I've found that mowed dandelions and grass are fine food for donkeys, particularly when it's seasoned by a sprinkling of oats.

Neither Moshé nor Fanette needs such a supplement to their diet, of course, since they're both as plump as baby mammoths.

Maybe I prepared this fodder for the donkeys to symbolize my destruction of the dandelions… which was indeed a purely symbolic destruction.

Rubbish for all tastes, or lack of taste

If you want to give your front lawn a William & Kate look, nothing could be better than these royal gnomes.

Unfortunately, they're likely to get stolen. If there's a bright teenager in your family, he/she should normally be able to call upon knowledgeable friends capable of rigging out these garden gnomes with a detrimental device controlled by a nice little mobile app, GnastyGnome, with a spectacular IgniteGnome button. You've surely heard of this fine demonstration of the way in which modern technology has put an explosive end to the terrible era of garden gnome kidnapping.

For your small kids, a beautiful work of infantile sculpture will provide them with a global picture of the principal actors in the forthcoming Great Events, including the Royal Dog and the Royal Horse.

I'm thinking of ordering one of these sets through the Internet for my dog Fitzroy, who adores colorful objects. What a pity that nobody seems to be offering an edible version in marzipan for adult royalists.

If you're seeking a royal gift for teenage offspring, to put them in a monarchy mood, let me suggest this elegant box of bedroom gear.

Finally, we must not forget rare and maybe precious friends who are totally uninterested in the Windsor wedding, and don't give a fuck about details. For them, an ideal marriage-celebration offering might be this marvelous mug, from a prestigious manufacturer located in one of the former Far-Eastern colonies of the British Empire, which suggests visually that Kate Middleton will actually be getting wedded to William's red-headed kid brother Andrew.

If you're like me, the greatest gift of all—to be shared between yourself and others—remains the freedom to turn off your TV on the morning of the Great Day, thereby asserting your status as a free-thinking non-robotic citizen of the planet Earth.

Spoil sport

In this delightful philosophical cartoon by the Australian comedian Tim Minchin, the heroine is an unknown female compatriot named Storm who has been invited along to a simple dinner evening among a few friends in a north London flat.



For the irritated narrator, Storm's loudspoken but antiquated hippy ideas are like shit thrown into a fan. Personally, I'm sure I've run into women like Storm, but I can't seem to remember when and where.

Swiveling

I've just purchased a fabulous new TopStar swivel chair, made in Germany, for my computer desk. It's a genuine Porsche. I'll have to get used to wearing a crash helmet when I'm blogging.

[Click the image to download the TopStar video on office chairs.]

In a recent e-mail to my Australian expatriate friend Badger in Austria [blog], I informed him that the presence of this new chair in front of the sturdy walnut-and-steel-framed home-designed desk on which my Macintosh resides is likely to bring about spectacular increases in my personal creativity. I told him, too, that my creativity will be enhanced still further by my acquisition of powerful new computer-screen reading glasses of the celebrated Essilor brand, set into my lovely old gold rims.

Dog destiny

On a whim, at the local supermarket, I bought a dog toy: a brightly-colored ball manufactured in one of those hard-to-define former-Communist countries that might appear, on the surface, to be quite qualified for the production of dog balls. Serious Sophia (seen here in a tense posture, because she was barking at an unidentified aroma that had floated up to her from the creek) has never been fond of toys.

But I was right in supposing that Fitzroy would appreciate this colorful soft ball.

His appreciation didn't last for long, though, because of the blatant manufacturing weaknesses (at least in the dog ball domain) of emerging former-Communist nations. Within five minutes, Fitzroy's teeth had punctured the object, and he had started to remove bits of the fluffy colored coating. Maybe I should go out and snatch the remnants from him, otherwise he'll surely devour them before the day is done. [Since writing that last sentence, I've taken the rubbish away from Fitzroy and packaged it up in its pristine wrappings, to be returned to the supermarket, accompanied by an angry letter.]

At a more serious level, I'm perfectly aware that it's going to be terribly heart-breaking for me to to accept the ineluctable decline of my dear dog Sophia. In general, I avoid making a big thing of this issue. In the purely human arena, I've just observed—from afar—the deaths of certain dear individuals, and I'm aware that it would be wrong of me, and unkind to others, to mix together—even within the narrow and inconsequential scope of my blog—the fate of humans with that of other animals. But circumstances have made me become ill-at-ease with that logic, after having lived here at Gamone for years in the unique presence of non-human friends. In fact, I wonder at times if my self-imposed hermitic existence—well outside the realm of everyday friends, and totally removed from the least presence (except through the Internet) of individuals on the same wavelength as me—might be making me, little by little, insensitive to the very idea of human companionship.

Today, Sophia looks great, particularly since I've forced her (through a restricted diet) to lose weight. But this splendid appearance cannot hide what is going on inevitably inside her body. The problem is that we can't really know the exact nature of what is taking place, except through disturbing signs such as her noisy breathing and, these days, a running nostril. The local veterinarian (who's a friend in whom I have the utmost confidence) has told me bluntly that there would be no point in trying to analyze the situation more deeply, since X-rays (necessitating general anesthesia) might not reveal anything of a significant nature. Even if we knew exactly the cause of Sophia's problems (which became apparent last September, at about the same time that we acquired Fitzroy), it would be out of the question to imagine any kind of surgery. For the moment, I'm relieved to learn (from the vet) that Sophia's health problems are not related to a dental infection. So, she's probably not in great pain, even though she might be discomforted from the presence of something, in her upper nasal region, that might be designated (in spite of our total lack of knowledge on its nature) as a tumor. For the moment, in spite of the recent flow of jelly-like mucus from one of her nostrils, there are no indications whatsoever that it might be a malignant tumor. That's to say, it could well be junk tissue that is simply building up and occupying space in her head. In any case, she is now under a shock treatment of antibiotics and cortisone. That will enable me to judge her reactions. But I'm perfectly aware that this treatment must be designated, in all lucidity, by an ugly adjective (which appeared, a week or so ago, in the context of my dear departed neighbor Françoise): palliative.

Meanwhile, as I said a moment ago, Sophia's inevitable decline is something that will be terribly hard to accept. She has become, for me, the spirit of Gamone, and a kind of wise canine alter-ego. Besides, in all of English linguistics, there are few greater marvels (with due respects to William Shakespeare) than the case of those three magic letters DOG which, when spelled backwards, give GOD.

Churchy physicist hits the jackpot

I often use the term "churchiness" (giving rise to the adjective "churchy") to designate a quaint tradition that consists of treasuring various aspects of the established church of a purely cultural non-theological kind. Today, I'm writing about a spectacular case of Anglican churchiness in Britain, but this phenomenon—which might be described as appreciating the religious icing more than the cake itself—can be found in all faith contexts, even in Judaism (where its adepts often describe themselves as "secular Jews").

In my article of 22 May 2008 entitled Coincidences that appear to be amazing [display], I spoke of one of the nicest little science books I've ever come upon: Just Six Numbers by Martin Rees. In that article, I resorted to humorous irony in a feeble attempt to demonstrate that we often tend to get our thoughts backwards, as it were. It would be ridiculous to assert that chance has caused celebrated rivers to flow precisely through the middle of many great cities. It's the other way round. If the Seine flows through the center of Paris, it's because the founders of the future city decided to settle on the banks of that river, at the propitious geographical site that would later be known as Paris. If a great temple existed at Ephesus, once upon a time, it wasn't the goddess herself who erected it at that particular spot, so that her followers would gather there to worship her; Ephesus was a place where many people just happened to be devout followers of Artemis, and it was normal that they should build a great temple that would soon attract hordes of worshipers of the goddess. Likewise, as Rees says, we should not seek fuzzy metaphysical explanations concerning the precise values of six physical constants that have shaped our universe. While certain observers find it nice to conclude that God alone could have dictated those six values in order to enable us mortals to come into existence and to worship Him (that capital "H" is a remnant of my personal churchiness), the obvious objective explanation—designated as the anthropic principle—is that, in the case of all other theoretical values of those six famous numbers, we humans simply wouldn't be here today, on the planet Earth, to talk of shoes and ships, and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings.

Telling tale: The celebrated scientist Martin Rees (Astronomer Royal and former President of the Royal Society) was enamored of traditional British values to the point of getting a kick out of being known officially as Baron Rees of Ludlow. And this self-proclaimed atheist has taken churchiness to its extreme limits by declaring that the Church of England is a "force for good", and that we should preserve the choral traditions and architectural legacy of Anglicanism. That's crazy thinking, but brilliantly British! I would not hesitate in labeling Rees as a charming intellectual eccentric… but I prefer by far the healthy language of an authentic (non-eccentric) British intellectual such as Richard Dawkins, whose profound culture consists of dispensing with all convenient subterfuges such as churchy nostalgia. OK, we can maybe allude to churchiness, for literary reasons (as Dawkins does, when he refers fleetingly to All things bright and beautiful), but we shouldn't actually take it seriously, as something that deserves to be preserved, on a par with the findings of science. Let me say, to clarify my personal feelings, that churchiness is certainly the stuff that should be exhibited in cultural museums (which may, or may not, exist today as such), but its intellectual remnants should never be mistaken for good clear thinking.

Today, we are all alarmed to discover that the good lord (Rees, not the other fellow) has apparently sold his soul to the US spiritual force of the Dollar Deity by accepting the notorious Templeton Prize: over a million and a half lovely little tax-free greenbacks. Churchies of the world, let us arise and praise the Lord! Meanwhile, let me give my guide Dawkins the final lighthearted word: "This will look great on Templeton's CV. Not so good on Martin's."

Looking for laicity

I don't know where exactly in France this splendid doorway exists:

The doors might not appear to be open… but maybe it's winter, and visitors merely have to push on a panel marked Entrée to enter, as in the impressive doorways of countless French churches.

Let's talk about the concept of laïcité, subject of the day examined by collaborators of the political party of Nicolas Sarkozy. Let me ask a simple question: If you happened to bump into a laic in the street, would you recognize him/her as a layperson? That, in a nutshell, is the metaphysical problem that besets Sarko's party.

As somebody pointed out recently, looking for laics is much like trying to draw up a list of individuals whose specialty is that they don't collect stamps. Can people be classified according to what they don't do, or don't believe? Simple question: How do we identify ourselves, we global non-accepters of bullshit of all kinds? Maybe we need a recognizable label... but certainly not a party or a club.

Meanwhile, Sarkozy's great assembly on laïcité fizzled out thankfully into a stupendous and forgettable non-event. Fortunately, at the last moment, Sarko was saved (as always) by a happy coincidence.

At the sacred Panthéon in the heart of the Latin Quarter (just across the road from the Lycée Henri IV, where I worked for three years as an English assistant), the president celebrated the introduction of a memorial for the great African poet and politician Aimé Césaire [1913-2008].

Nominated for dumbest-article-of-the-year awards

I know it's far too early to start suggesting nominations for the prestigious awards highlighting the dumbest press articles published in 2011, but I wanted to get in early with this British gem.

[Click the banner to read the unsigned article.]

The gist of the article is that the happiest families are those that comprise exactly two female offspring. Tough luck for Christine and me. We're divorced since 22 November 1977 (an easy-to-remember date, 221177, which I use as the locking code of an elegant leather attaché case that I purchased in Bangkok many years ago), but I'm now frustrated by the idea that a last-minute sex-change (?) applied to our François might have guaranteed us all perpetual happiness.

The funniest aspect of the article is their ironic choice of a photo: Kate Middleton's future brother-in-law Andrew, his ex-wife Fergy and their two daughters Beatrice and Eugenie.

What a fucking beautiful portrait of eternal family bliss!

We're at war for a while

The "we" is France, and that includes me. I'm proud of the performance of our soldiers, both in Libya and in the Ivory Coast, not to mention Afghanistan. The warfare in which French forces are currently engaged is perfectly real, but I hope it won't last for long.

I'm in no way a supporter of the president Nicolas Sarkozy, for countless negative reasons, and I hope that he'll be defeated by the Socialists in next year's presidential elections. But I'm prepared to acknowledge that Sarko has guided our nation rightly in the two operational theaters I've just mentioned: Libya and the Ivory Coast.

He's a bright and dynamic guy, with the necessary intelligence and know-how to lead France correctly in predicaments of the above-mentioned kind. But the nation needs another more-inspired individual to lead us to the planetary status that modern France merits. And my little finger tells me that the individual in question is waiting patiently in the wings… somewhere in the vicinity of Washington.

Blog views with a difference

The Blogger guys—like their Google guides (one big family, if I understand correctly)—are masters in the art of looking at things, up-closely, differently.

They've provided us—as I said recently [display]—with a choice of five marvelous "windows" for meeting up with a blog such as mine. You may have noticed that I've put a series of five buttons in the right-hand sidebar, enabling you to inspect the archives of the Antipodes blog through these various views.

What effect will this unexpected approach have upon my intentions of developing some kind of tool making it easy to find stuff in my blog archives? Well, we can think of it as an added incentive. The Google/Blogger folk realize that blog readers would like to have nice access interfaces into the blog world. Their approach is primarily visual. My future approach would be concept-based in a textual sense. But it's still too early to say what exactly I hope to produce. In any case, it's perfectly possible that the smart Google/Blogger guys will develop and announce "my" perfect tool just a little bit before me. This, methinks, is highly likely. Should I complain about such a state of affairs? Of course not. I love those guys.

Waiting for Sarko

"Nothing to be done."
- Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot.

The French president Nicolas Sarkozy is backed up by a political party named UMP: Union pour un mouvement populaire. At the present moment, there is indeed movement in this right-wing political union, which might be termed popular in the etymological sense: "from the people". But it's electoral movement in a downwards direction.

Next week, this party will be conducting a momentous debate on a subject that is so absurdly esoteric (like the much-disputed Byzantine question of the sex of angels) that I'm not even sure how to say it in English. In French, the theme to be debated this week is laïcité, which has the same linguistic roots as our English term "layperson", designating an individual who's not a member of the clergy. So, laïcité might be translated as "religious neutrality". In other words, the spirit of the laïcité concept, in the English-speaking world no less than in France, is that citizens should be allowed to believe whatever they feel like believing in the domains of religion, faith, belief or… atheism. In other words, it's a theme that has been integrated for ages into our various constitutions.

So, why the fucking hell is Sarko's political party organizing a ridiculous debate on this issue? There is no obvious answer to that question… apart from the fact that Sarko's disciples are all in a state of frenzy, because recent regional elections, along with voting-intention polls, indicate that these UMP guys are moving rapidly, in the wake of their tribal chief, towards a hole in the ground labeled EXIT.

I predict that France will wake up in a perplexed state, one of these mornings, and ask: What on earth made us choose that crazy guy, once upon a time, as president of our République? And, through that obvious autocritique, wise France will have become wiser still. I'm an optimist!

Google gag

On April 1, I was looking so eagerly for gags of all unexpected kinds (including those that turned out to be perfectly serious stuff) that I misinterpreted lots of things while failing to see the great Google gag, pointed out to me by my Romanian friend Corina.

The Google gag invokes a fabulous woman who's a specialist in motion of all kinds. Click on her image to see the Google gag.

Is Motion Woman a colleague of Corina ? Maybe I shouldn't imagine such things. I'm unskilled in advanced Parisian notions of psychology. It happens that we Google admirers stop and wonder. What I mean to say is that, somewhere between Corina, Google, me, Motion Woman, Lacan, and all the other stuff... maybe Google's alleged gag should be taken seriously. Maybe it's a bit like believing in God.

Goodies for a special dog

In view of today's date, readers might imagine that I'm about to tell them a tall tale. This is not the case. The trivial anecdote I'm about to relate is perfectly authentic.

Normally, I make an effort to enhance each of my blog articles with images of one kind or another (which—as I pointed out in my earlier article this morning—is great for the new view features). I have the impression that my bare words, unaccompanied by any kind of pictorial stuff, would be as boring as a Sunday sermon. Today, however, there will be no photographic evidence to support the main theme of my story, since I decided that such an image would be distasteful. But I've nevertheless inserted a slightly relevant photo later on. Here's the tale.

A few days ago, while walking around alongside the house with the intention of using a trowel to scoop up any of Fitzroy's overnight droppings, I was alarmed to come upon a little pile of spectacular turds. They were speckled with small bright orange blobs about the size of grains of rice. I was alarmed. My first impression was that Fitzroy had found a box of scarlet-colored rice laced with arsenic, designed to kill rats… that's to say, particularly dumb rodents that aren't smart enough to realize—like most self-respecting rats—that this stuff is deadly. I noticed that Fitzroy was just behind me, looking fine, not at all what you would expect for a dog that might have consumed rat poison. In fact, Fitzroy seemed to be intrigued that his master appeared to be so interested in this quite ordinary pile of dog shit. Don't forget that "ordinary" for a dog means "of ordinary odors", not "of ordinary hues". In other words, rainbow-colored turds wouldn't normally impress Fitzroy in one way or another, whereas turds that smelled like freshly-baked meat pie (which was certainly not the case here) would no doubt impress him greatly. Anyway, I soon realized that the considerable quantity of orange grains in the turds were simply fragments of plastic. In an instant, I understood what had happened. Fitzroy had merely made a meal of some of my hose fittings, of the famous Gardenia brand. And no harm was done, as far as I could gather (except, of course, to my hoses), because this stuff seemed to have passed through Fitzroy's digestive organs like lead shot, fired from a hunter's gun, passing through the soft belly of a duck. [I really had to work hard to find that last comparison… which is probably not as good as I thought.]

I carried out a rapid inspection and found that Fitzroy had indeed consumed most of my orange plastic hose connectors. Instead of analyzing this accident any further, I merely went along to a hardware store and purchased replacement articles.

To take the above photo, I brought the stuff out into the sunlight, where Fitzroy was able to gaze upon this basket of enticing goodies. I had the impression that my dear dog was already smacking his lips.

In the human domain, I've always felt that hungry individuals fall into two quite different categories. On the one hand, there are those who savor the taste of what they're offered. (I believe they're referred to as foodies in Australia.) On the other hand, there are those whose primary desire is to get their teeth stuck into something substantial, no matter how dull it tastes: maybe a thick tough steak or a king-sized hamburger drowned in ketchup. Here at Gamone, my dog Sophia belongs clearly to the first category. She would be capable of watching Master Chef on TV, and salivating. As for Fitzroy, he's strictly a fast-food guy. He's perfectly happy to sink his teeth into a whopping big Plastic Mac, gulped down with muddy water.

New ways of looking at Antipodes

WARNING: You'll only be able to appreciate the subject of the present post if you're using a relatively new and powerful browser.

In case you didn't know it already, I must point out that those Google guys (behind the Blogger service, which houses my Antipodes blog) are wizards. Nevertheless, when I started reading the Blogger announcement of this new feature, my initial reaction was that it was surely a nerdy April 1 joke. No, it's all quite real. Enjoy the following different ways of browsing through my blog:

--- http://skyvington.blogspot.com/view/sidebar

--- http://skyvington.blogspot.com/view/flipcard

--- http://skyvington.blogspot.com/view/mosaic

--- http://skyvington.blogspot.com/view/snapshot

--- http://skyvington.blogspot.com/view/timeslide

Amazing, no? Retrospectively, I'm glad I've developed the habit of trying to incorporate at least one image into each of my blog posts.

The next step will normally consist of putting some kind of graphic device in the sidebar of my blog so that readers can always choose one of these interesting new presentations. Maybe the Blogger folk will soon propose such devices.

ADDENDUM: To return to the traditional view, you merely use the back arrow of your browser. Incidentally, if your computer is still equipped with an antiquated browser that won't let you see these new views, then maybe it's time to change, say, to Firefox. In saying this, I'm aware, of course, that it might be your entire computer, not just your web browser, that needs to be renewed. These days, the "greens" talk a lot—and rightly so—about so-called sustainable goods. In my opinion, this concept cannot possibly be applied intelligently to computer hardware and software (except, of course, concerning the special question of avoiding the use of undesirable raw materials in the hardware). Obsolete computers can be terribly frustrating. Unlike good wine, they don't become better with age. They're more like cranky old men (no names, please) who end up being totally cantankerous.

Local cyclist has left us

Françoise was the only daughter of my neighbors Madeleine and Dédé. Married to a fellow-teacher in Strasbourg, she would often return to her birthplace for summer vacations, which enabled her to get back in daily contact with one of her favorite activities: riding a bicycle up and down the slopes of the Vercors. I would also glimpse her regularly with her dog Vriska on the grassy slopes on the far side of the creek at Gamone. A year and a half ago, when nobody could have imagined such a sad fate for this lovely and intelligent young woman, Françoise suddenly discovered that she was the victim of a terrible disease. Treated by specialists at Grenoble, my dear neighbor finally failed to recover from a bone marrow transplant. This morning, I was awakened by a phone call from Madeleine: "Françoise, c'est fini."

In many of its other aspects, the 30th March 2011 was a beautiful sunny day, particularly for cyclists. Soon after crossing over the River Isère on my way towards St-Marcellin, I drove alongside a gray-haired cyclist of roughly my age. Curiously, he was walking alongside his bicycle. I slowed down as I passed, and tried to figure out why he was walking. His machine didn't look as if it were punctured or broken in any way obvious way. Was it rather the gentleman who had run out of steam? I thought to myself that he had quite a long walk in front of him, to reach St-Marcellin. I halted at the next intersection, turned around and drove back towards the man and his bicycle, to see whether I could assist him. He explained that the cog on his rear wheel was defective. A few minutes later, the disabled bicycle was in the boot of my Citroën, and I was driving the cyclist towards his home town, St-Marcellin. During the trip, the gentleman made a point of telling me that he was quite astounded that a driver would intervene to help a stranded cyclist. I told him that I myself had once been a keen cyclist. Besides, I knew from experience that the road to St-Marcellin is not exactly fun for somebody on foot. In any case, it did not occur to me that I was acting in an exceptional manner by giving him a lift. I told him how I used to ride for hours, on my own, between Paris and Brittany. I explained that, since my arrival at Choranche, the slopes of the Vercors had unfortunately dampened my enthusiasm for cycling.

A few hours later, back at Gamone, when I noticed the headlights of a car down in the driveway of the Repellin house, I sensed that a sad event might have just taken place at the hospital in St-Marcellin. And I found myself thinking, once again, of bicycles and cyclists.

Pour ma voisine Françoise. RIP

Successful French imperative

In a world dominated by English, it's rare for a French word to achieve stardom. Funnily enough, it's not even a striking word, merely the 2nd-person imperative of the quite ordinary verb dégager meaning literally "to disengage".

In the above context, placarded in the midst of an anti-Mubarak rally a few weeks ago, this imperative might have been translated into English as Leave! More emphatically, in less-diplomatic language: Fuck off! Personally, I would be incapable of explaining why this particular French word has raised its head and become popular in the context of the on-going Mediterranean upheavals. But local French-speaking folk would surely be able to explain this happening. In any case, maybe, when they've finished exploiting this successful verb in lands such as Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, we might be allowed to draw it back into its original French context. One never knows. One of these days, it might just be useful.

Great Australian pie

My daughter used to refer to this dish as "steak and Sydney pie".

If I tell you that I'm never again likely to cook another steak and kidney pie of this nature, there's nothing poignant in my declaration. My words simply reflect the fact that this pie incorporates the very last packet of Gamone lambs' kidneys that was stored in my deep freezer, and that I have no intention of getting back into the lamb-grazing business.

Naturally, I could start the preparation of another such pie simply by going along to the local butcher's shop to buy lambs' kidneys. But I probably won't do this, since I prefer to stick to the basic Australian meat pie made out of minced steak. Now, I can hear purists complaining that, in daring to even talk at one and the same time about steak and kidney pie and ordinary meat pies, let alone being rash enough to compare them, I reveal my confused notions of Australia's famous dishes. It's a fact, as I've already pointed out in previous articles, that my dishes prepared here in France, using non-Australian ingredients, cannot possibly pretend to be orthodox. Besides, it's such a long time since I moved away from the kitchens of Waterview and Grafton that I've forgotten all my know-how… if ever I had any. Maybe it would be more honest if I were to abandon all references to Australia, and designate these various dishes as pure creations of Gamone.

Bringing up kids Down Under

During a phone conversation with my aunt who lives in Sydney, she reaffirmed her conviction that Australia, in the eyes of the vast majority of local mothers, is "the best place in the world to bring up kids". Obviously, this is a crazy claim. Even if you were to seek an answer to that dumb question by interviewing hordes of local mothers (?), what could they possibly be expected to know about any other places throughout the planet for bringing up kids beyond the precincts of their own suburb (for example, in the upper-class northern sector of Sydney) where they happened to bring up their own kids?

At one stage, I started to have serious doubts about our bringing up Emmanuelle and François in the heart of Paris, which I tended to compare unfavorably with my childhood environment in South Grafton. Needless to say, I was soon happy to discover that their growing up in the high-powered setting of the great French capital made them more wise and worldly, I believe, than if they had been raised on a farm in South Grafton… where they would have nevertheless learned how to help Christine and me in milking the cows. [Having made that last remark, I realize that my children might well have learned that art—without my knowing it—from their mother's friends in rural Brittany. Maybe, therefore, all was not lost.]

It's true that, out in Australia, there are certain interesting environments in which kids have a chance of becoming wise and worldly. Like the Dunheved Campus of Chifley College, for example. Maybe the following video will be censored sooner or later, but you can always find copies on YouTube by using keywords such as "Casey the punisher" (the fat boy).

Overnight, Casey Haynes has become a hero throughout the world, almost on a par (from a moralistic viewpoint) with Julian Assange. The scrawny weasel who did the bullying (whose body makes an astonishing sound when it hits the concrete) has been the object of rehabilitation endeavors through kind interviews, but it's hard to make him look like anything better than a future sleazy crime boss in Sydney.

But don't get me wrong. I have no opinion on the question of whether Australia might or might not be the best place in the world for bringing up a juvenile asshole such as this obnoxious little bully. Besides, is it correct to suppose that he has, in fact, been "brought up"? As for Casey: The whole wide world admires you!

In front of what?

Friends see that I follow current affairs on the web (including events in my native land). Then they hear me raving on about my blogging, my Internet-assisted genealogical research, my use of word processing for creative writing and, now, my intense involvement with the complex domain of Macintosh and iPad programming. Inevitably, they pop the obvious question: How many hours a day do you spend in front of your computer screen? This question annoys me, because I can see their brains ticking over and getting ready to subtract my answer from 24, obtaining X, enabling them to conclude: This poor guy only lives in the real world for X short hours a day!

Their question is indeed poorly worded. No doubt poorly conceived. A more significant question would be: How many hours a day do you spend in front of your brain, your reflexions, your intelligence, your background, your culture, your identity, your ambitions, your creative activities, your intellectual projects, your passions, your destiny, etc…? And my answer would be something in the vicinity of 17 to 18. In other words, I have little spare time to waste, to be bored.

Back in Paris, when I worked as a technical writer in the high-powered ILOG software company (now a part of IBM), my fellow-workers used to laugh about a cleaning lady who, before dusting down a computer screen, would always say to the user, politely: "Excuse me, give me half a minute to clean your telly." Her use of the term "telly" gave us the impression that she looked upon our group of ILOG software engineers (who often worked late into the evening) as a joyous throng of guys and gals who seemed to be paid to spend hours on end watching mysterious TV shows, in languages that they alone could comprehend. Well, she wasn't really wrong. Except that purists would have pointed out that our screens didn't capture and display the heavenly signals designated as TV, but something a little different, emanating from within our "tellies". We were watching and appreciating shows that we ourselves had just produced. But none of us had the courage (nor the desire, for that matter) to attempt to explain that situation to the cleaning lady.

In a similar sense, I wonder if there's any point in trying to explain to friends, today, that the vast time I seem to spend sitting in front of a computer screen is not simply "time spent sitting in front of a computer screen". It's much more than that. As I suggested earlier on, I'm seated, for much of the time, in front of… myself! Introspection, maybe, or even narcissism. I would speak rather of computer-assisted cogitations or meditation. Much more, in any case, than dumb screen-watching.

To my mind, in terms of wasting time, there are worse things than a computer screen to be seated in front of. For example, the steering wheel of an automobile. Or fellow passengers in public transport (trains, buses, trams, etc). Sitting in front of a TV screen in certain English-speaking societies (which I hardly need to name), or their media in general, can be a most effective way of plowing mindlessly through time. Personally, I would not willingly swap the least amount of computer screen-watching for, say, time spent waiting to be served in a dull restaurant offering poor-quality food. But the deal would be off, of course, if I happened to be dining on a warm evening, say, in Arles with a dear Provençal friend [display]. It's not so much a question of where you're sitting, but rather a matter of the quality of the entity in front of which you're seated!

I don't deny that spending hours in front of a computer screen might, in certain circumstances, be thought of as a waste of time. (But who am I to judge?) Maybe that's why I detest all kinds of games (including bridge evenings with suburban neighbors… who don't exist here, fortunately, at Choranche). On my Macintosh, there has never been anything that looks remotely like a video game. I hate all that fake stuff. On the other hand, it's fact that I can "waste" precious time gazing up at the Cournouze, or down into the eyes of my dogs. As I said, it's not so much where you decide to sit down, but rather what you want to watch. And I would be a liar if I were to suggest that I don't like spending a lot of time watching what gives on the screen of my faithful Macintosh. I hasten to add that I'm also very fond of my splendid TV screen, and vaguely concerned (when it's absolutely necessary, which is rare) by the relatively insipid screens of my iPad and iPhone.