Bush humor when I was a Waterview kid

This is the cover of a famous Australian weekly magazine, Pix, dated 23 September 1946 (the eve of my 6th birthday). The woman is the US actress Rita Hayworth [1918-1987], and we see from a news heading on the cover that she has just started a "new dance craze". I would imagine that they're referring to the jitterbug, which had been spread throughout the planet (including jazz clubs in the Latin Quarter of Paris) by the American GIs. Pix was a popular photo-journalistic magazine with a huge readership: nearly a million Australians.

At home in Waterview, Pix was regular reading for everybody, along with The Daily Examiner and The Women's Weekly. As a child, I probably wasn't particularly excited about Rita Hayworth and the jitterbug. The item that amused me most of all in Pix was the regular cartoon by Eric Jolliffe, whose specialty was Aussie outback humor… or funny bush drawings, as we would have said. The central personage was a rough rural fellow known as Saltbush Bill, who was always attired in a felt hat and black waistcoat.

Saltbush Bill lived with his large family in an environment that might be thought of as harsh and primitive, where he was perpetually faced with typical bush problems.

To a certain extent, we rural folk at Waterview were probably in mild empathy with Saltbush Bill and his caricatural milieu. Snakes in tree stumps, for example, were an everyday affair… like spiders, heat, dust, flies and backyard lavatories, etc. I hasten to point out, however, that we knew nothing whatsoever (for geographical reasons) of a dimension that was constantly present in Saltbush Bill's universe: the Aborigines, inevitably depicted by Jolliffe—in a way that would be ethically unthinkable today—as incredibly primitive. If ever Saltbush Bill appeared in an urban environment, it was usually a matter of finding solutions to his rural problems. Here, for example, he's dropping in on the local blacksmith:

[Click to enlarge slightly]

The caption is typically banal, since words played a relatively minor role in Jolliffe's work. Saltbush Bill informs the blacksmith that the name of his old horse is Flattery, "because it never gets me anywhere".

PARENTHESIS: I'm intrigued by the construction technique for the post-office roof. I don't recall having seen anything like that in Australia. Apparently the external wooden frame is intended to keep the sheets of corrugated iron in place. As a guess, I would imagine that the purpose of this technique was to avoid the use of nails, since there would have been several obvious advantages in not using nails. First, you didn't need to have a system of solid rafters capable of receiving roof nails. Then you didn't have to puncture the corrugated metal, allowing rain to leak in. Finally, you didn't have to go into town and purchase nails. I would imagine that the external framework was tied together with wire or string. And, if the metal sheets got blown off in a storm, it would have been easy to put them back in place.

Now, just to make it clear that my authentic family environment was only remotely associated with that of Saltbush Bill, here's a photo of my grandfather Charles Walker [1882-1937], attired in a fine Sunday suit and shiny shoes, with a watch chain stretched across his waistcoat, and a cigarette in his left hand:

[Click to enlarge slightly]

As they say in the movies: All characters appearing in Jolliffe's work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Pergola roses

Nearly all the so-called "old roses" on my pergola are in full bloom today and, for some of them, this is the first time they've ever been in such a resplendent state.

Same tree, different seasons

Back in January, when the two horses were residing at Gamone, this was a view of the linden tree with the lower paddock in the background:

And here's the same scene this afternoon:

For those who have the good fortune to live in a rural environment, the seasons are present constantly in our existence, in a visceral fashion. An individual's body and mind is metamorphosed, no doubt, in a comparable manner, without our being totally aware of the current situation at any particular moment.

Staircase is still standing

In an article entitled Awards, which I wrote nearly four years ago, I made fun of a dangerous-looking concrete staircase in the village of St-Jean-en-Royans [display]. A few days ago, I took this new photo of the staircase, which is clearly built to last. Maybe it incorporates extraordinary engineering principles that merit study in the great technological universities.

On the other hand, I should point out that, although I've been driving past this place for years, I've never seen anybody actually using this fine staircase… which is no doubt a pity.

Ireland stops the USA

The website where I found this hilarious clip said: "Obama's armored vehicle can protect him from everything except ridicule."

Apparently, embassy personnel made vain attempts to dislodge the vehicle, while leaving the president and his wife inside (for obvious security reasons). Finally, after some three-quarters of an hour (which is a huge delay in the case of a US president), Barack Obama and his wife were obliged to get out of the stuck vehicle and move into a more mobile automobile.

These days, observing happenings such as this ridiculous incident, coming a week after the DSK affair, the academic author Nassim Nicholas Taleb must be applauding with glee. The principles of his famous "black swan events" are outlined in my article of 15 March 2010 entitled Singular happenings [display].

Tree sawed into firewood

In my recent article about cutting down a dead tree at Gamone [display], I should have pointed out that the tree in question is known in French as a Frêne [Fraxinus excelsior]. In English, it's a European Ash. The latter term has nothing to do with the stuff that remains after a fire. It comes from a Saxon word, æsc, which means spear. Ash wood is indeed hard and dense, and I can well imagine it being used for spears.

Now, this is funny, because my surname, Skyvington, is derived from the Saxon expression Sceaftinga tûn, which can be translated as "the place of Sceaft’s people". Used as a noun, sceaft means a shaft or spear, suggesting that the original settlement (in what we now call Leicestershire) was the home of a Saxon warrior who was a reputed spear-thrower. So, the Saxon words sceaft and æsc are surely related.

This afternoon, I finished the job of cutting up the branches with a chainsaw. And it has provided me with a stock of fine dry firewood.

For the thicker parts of the trunk, I used steel wedges and a sledgehammer to split the wood.

Next winter, when I'm warming my toes in front of a log fire, I'll inevitably think back to the ancient Saxon warrior who was at the origin of my family name. He did this in a rather indirect manner, and grudgingly, because his settlement was simply taken over (maybe after a combat) by the companions of William the Conqueror. One of these Norman invaders was my real ancestor, not the celebrated Saxon spear-thrower. Be that as it may, I'm grateful to the Saxon fellow named Sceaft for participating unwittingly, unwillingly, in my personal genealogy by supplying me with my surname… just as I'll be grateful to the dead ash tree for supplying me with warmth.

On the face of it

One of the prominent facial features that I share with my dogs is the presence of a vertical indent between the nose and the upper lip, called the philtrum. Here's a Wikipedia image of this cleft in a dog:

It is a so-called vestigial structure of our anatomy, in the sense that Nature seems to have "left over" our philtrum as a useless relic of something that once existed—maybe as a functioning organ—in the bodies of our remote ancestors. It resembles—you might say—a mound of earth designating the former presence of an ancient castle, now gone. We humans retain a notorious vestigial creature that surely upsets naive folk who persist in believing that God created us in his divine workshop. I'm speaking of our tail bone. In my recent article entitled Ears, donkeys, a dog and birds [display], I spoke of the marvelous capacity of donkeys to orient their ears. In fact, we humans apparently possess vestigial traces of ear muscles. In other words, at one time or another in the very remote past, our ancestors were capable of hearing enemies creeping up on them from behind.

Concerning our curious philtrum, the following video demonstrates that it's simply the place where the two halves of our embryonic face are finally connected in a permanent fashion.



If a face were to be likened to a children's balloon, the philtrum might be thought of as the nozzle that you tie up with a piece of string, to keep the air in.

The philtrum is a bit like the navel of our head.

Action will start in Australia

Here in France, it has just turned midnight. The time in my native land, Australia, is 8 hours in advance of France (since God decided—as explained with mathematical precision in the book of Genesis—that the Sun would rise in the east and set in the west, and that the International Date Line would pass through the middle of the Pacific Ocean). So, at this moment, it's just after 8 o'clock on the final morning: Saturday, May 21, 2001.

My lucky Aussie compatriots will be witnessing the return of King Jesus within roughly 10 hours… but nobody—neither religious leaders, government leaders nor journalists—seems to be in a position to indicate the exact place where the Savior will be making his initial appearance. There's a persistent rumor that this world-shaking event will be taking place in Sydney, maybe on top of the Harbour Bridge, or on the lawns of the Botanic Gardens. But a group of federal politicians has claimed that the only fit site for such a happening would be Canberra, the hub of the nation. Some people are even suggesting that the return of Jesus will be taking place in a country setting, at the easternmost tip of the continent, in the vicinity of Byron Bay.

Whatever the exact site, I'll be tuning into the Internet, first thing tomorrow morning, to dive into Australian media stories concerning the big event. Then we'll spend the day awaiting impatiently the arrival of Jesus in France. Nicolas Sarkozy has already announced that Christ will normally be alighting, as everybody hopes, on the upper platform of the Eiffel Tower, where his arrival will be highlighted by a flyover of air-force jet fighters, followed in the evening by a gigantic fireworks display. But, if ever the wind conditions were excessive, rendering this operation dangerous, it has been suggested that the Rapture will be taking place near the Place de la Concorde, at the lower extremity of the Champs Elysées, at exactly the same place where the final stage of the Tour de France terminates. If this were to be the case, then Jesus would be expected, as usual, to undergo a urine test for doping before being officially welcomed by the president of the République and the mayor of Paris. Accompanied by mounted horsemen of the Garde Républicaine, Jesus would then be driven in a cavalcade up to the Arc de Triomphe, where he would lay a wreath on the tomb of the Unknown Warrior. Finally, if any time remained (a big question mark, to say the least), the Son of God would be invited to a state dinner at the Elysées Palace.

BREAKING NEWS: This extraordinary image by Australian news photographer Mike Angelo reveals the scenes of chaos and panic this afternoon at 6 o'clock at Sydney Airport as heaven-bound Christians collided with tourists and angels in the turmoil of the Rapture.

For the moment, there are no ecclesiastic explanations as to why so many folk are getting around stark naked… which is not particularly pious behavior. Reported sightings of Jesus Christ are being checked by police, air traffic authorities and weather bureau officials.

Ronsard in bloom

I wrote about this rose bush a year ago [display].

Its resurrection is amazing.

Cueillez dès aujourd’hui les roses de la vie

Quand vous serez bien vieille, au soir, à la chandelle,

Assise auprès du feu, dévidant et filant,

Direz, chantant mes vers, en vous émerveillant :

« Ronsard me célébrait du temps que j’étais belle ! »

Lors, vous n’aurez servante oyant telle nouvelle,

Déjà sous le labeur à demi sommeillant,

Qui au bruit de Ronsard ne s’aille réveillant,

Bénissant votre nom de louange immortelle.

Je serai sous la terre, et, fantôme sans os,

Par les ombres myrteux je prendrai mon repos ;

Vous serez au foyer une vieille accroupie,

Regrettant mon amour et votre fier dédain.

Vivez, si m’en croyez, n’attendez à demain :

Cueillez dès aujourd’hui les roses de la vie.

Pierre de Ronsard, Sonnets pour Hélène, 1587

Cherry season

The cherry tree alongside the house is loaded with fruit, but it's located on a steep embankment, which makes cherry-picking difficult.

During this activity, the dogs are alongside me constantly, either at the foot of the ladder, or scrounging in the vicinity of a bowl of fruit, waiting for an inevitable handout. Cherries go down their throats whole, of course, including the stones. Sophia would never steal a cherry from a bowl but, as soon as I place a single cherry alongside the bowl, she understands immediately that it's for her.

While they followed me around, I was able to take a few good portraits.

A few days ago, I was slightly alarmed to discover that Fitzroy had mistakenly identified the clay marbles in a flower pot (supposedly useful for keeping the soil loose) as cherries.

That's to say, I found him crunching away at one of these little red balls. I could clearly hear the sound of the clay being ground to powder by Fitzroy's powerful molars. After swallowing it, he looked up at me with a satisfied expression and wiped his lips with his tongue.

Magic images

When I was a ten-year-old child in South Grafton, an older boy named Ervin McNally, living on a farm on the other side of the road, gave us a demonstration of an amazing device called a magic lantern.

The light source was a small candle burning inside the copper-plated receptacle. Images were painted in transparent colors on glass bars that could be inserted in a slot between the lamp-house and a simple lens. This gave rise to large images projected onto a white sheet tacked to the wall. Since the candle flame flickered constantly, spectators had the impression that the projected images were vaguely animated. To create a show, the projectionist related a story that was illustrated by his stock of painted images. And he could call upon an archaic gramophone to provide background music. It wasn't exactly home cinema. To me, though, a wide-eyed boy of ten, it was marvelous.

Today, the Gallica online service of the national French library offered us a collection of magic-lantern slides created during the 19th century. This one presents the tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem:

Here's a recent unusual image of that same place, produced by means of a fish-eye lens.

At first sight, the following photo evokes a vision of hell. In fact, it's a Greek Easter Sunday view of the annual ritual of the so-called miracle of the Holy Fire, which descends from heaven—with the help of a few ecclesiastic friends—and falls directly onto the tomb of Christ.

Down in the vicinity of the Holy Sepulcher, human forms are floating around in a blaze of flickering candles.

The scene strikes me as the inside of a gigantic magic lantern.

Madeleine and the dogs

Whenever my neighbor Madeleine drops in, it's always a joyous encounter, not only for me, but for our dogs.

My Fitzroy leads a barking Briska in mad pursuits back and forth in front of the house, until they're both totally exhausted. As for Sophia, watching from the sidelines, she has always reacted with joy to the presence of Madeleine. Maybe Sophia recalls the time when Madeleine would arrive at Gamone with edible goodies in plastic bags. In general, I've always felt that Sophia appreciates the gentle caresses of women, so different to my rough hands searching through her fur for ticks. I've tried to tell Sophia that it takes all kinds of people to make a world.

Justices (plural)

This fabulous photo shows the prestigious US lawyer Benjamin Brafman saying "Shut up" to his bowed client, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, one of the planet's most powerful men… and not only in the bedroom.


Much smelly shit is being spread around by the media [sample] concerning this exceptional affair. Meanwhile, here in France, we're confronted with an unexpected but spectacular case study enabling us (forcing us) to compare our culture with that of our friends on the other side of the Atlantic. Has there been a surge, over the last few days, in French applications for Green Cards? I wouldn't think so...

Dirty talk

After my arrival in Paris in 1962, I was exhilarated—among countless other things—by the possibility of purchasing and reading the original editions of various famous banned books such as those of Henry Miller and Lawrence Durrell.

[My copy of the Olympia Press edition of The Black Book,
which I purchased and signed in 1963, is not for sale.]

The literary censorship of the middle of the 20th century is rather has-been. Today, it's the the walls, not books, that talk. Dirty talk. But they don't necessarily need words. Graphic images suffice to get the sexual message across.

I've just encountered, with stupefaction, the supposedly clinical description of the allegedly evil acts of Dominique Strauss-Kahn in the company of a Guinean girl in a room of the Sofitel in New York.

OK. Enough. Let's put all that fucking fuzzy US legal shit between parentheses, for the the moment, and do a bit of simple dirty talk.

It so happens that I've just been reading the most alarmingly explicit document that could possibly exist today on the fucking all-important subject of foul language:

The brilliant Harvard professor Steven Pinker does a splendid job of explaining dirty talk, sex and sundry. And he thrusts vigorously all this lovely dirty stuff, in a manly fashion, into the soft warm global context of the hairy and smelly psychology of sex. Nice, mildly nasty at times, excruciatingly honest, amazingly revealing… essential reading for all us aficionados of dirty talk. Click the above image to access my article of 25 April 2011 entitled Books by Steven Pinker.

In the DSK drama, I smell a rat

We've been shocked, this morning, by videos of Dominique Strauss-Kahn in handcuffs. In France, it would be totally illegal to publish such images, since the individual in question is deemed to remain innocent until proven guilty. For the moment, as I write (at 3 o'clock on Monday afternoon, French time), we've still heard no more from the US authorities than the unilateral version of the alleged victim, but not a single element of DSK's reactions… apart from his plea of innocence. In general, we still know very little about the exact circumstances in which this alleged sexual aggression is supposed to have taken place, just as we know little about the alleged victim. I mention in passing that the people who know DSK well would surely like to see a simple photo of this woman, since an image of the alleged victim could indeed be revealing, in one way or another.

It's reassuring to know that a lot of forensic work is apparently going on behind the scenes, to obtain the objective data, the scientific facts. The time factor, above all, is an essential dimension of this affair, since there are several vital details that simply don't seem to add up. Meanwhile, I have a gut feeling that there might be something wrong about this whole affair. Without being able to say explicitly what it is that bothers me, I certainly smell a rat. Curiously, it's a smell that reminds me a little of the recent stench of the notorious weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Strauss-Kahn affair

Many people in France are in a state of shock after learning today at dawn (French time) that Dominique Strauss-Kahn—the brilliant French economist and politician at the head of the IMF [International Monetary Fund]—has been charged in connection with an alleged sexual assault of a hotel maid in New York.

For several months, in opinion polls concerning candidates in next year's presidential election in France, I've been observing with pleasure the promising scores of DSK (as he's called in France). Hordes of French people have imagined, like me, that DSK, in the wake of his highly successful IMF job, would be an ideal successor to Nicolas Sarkozy. So, if ever DSK were to be found guilty in yesterday's affair, that would throw an enormous spanner into the works of the French Republic. For the moment, in the context of French legal culture, DSK is to be considered innocent, up until such time as he might be proven guilty. While respecting this formal assumption of innocence (which is obligatory here in France), we're forced to admit that the damage to DSK's aspirations seems to have been done already, rapidly and irremediably. It's hard to imagine how he might bounce back into respectability after being charged in such an affair.

Worse, since this morning, French media have been acting as though they had received a green light enabling them to publish gossip on DSK's reputation as a womanizer. The most damning accusations come from a young journalist and novelist named Tristane Banon, who alleges that DSK attempted to rape her in 2002. There's a video on the Internet in which this young woman, in 2007, provided all the details of this incident to a group of Parisian celebrities gathered around the TV journalist Thierry Ardisson. In this video, we hear Tristane Banon describing DSK as behaving like "a sexually-excited chimpanzee". Apparently, the young woman refrained from reporting this incident to the police because her mother, Anne Mansouret, was (and still is) a prominent member of the same political party as DSK. Today, for the first time, Tristane Banon has revealed publicly the details of this alleged rape attempt, in which she names DSK explicitly. So, independently of the US affair, the French authorities are likely to take up tardily this affair of 2002.

Clearly, we need to start thinking about other possible left-wing candidates for next year's presidential election.

BREAKING NEWS: Here in France, the dignity of most commentators concerning the affair has been exemplary. The ugliest exception was Marine Le Pen, of the extreme right-wing Front National, who seems to assume that DSK is guilty. Even political opponents of DSK, such as Nicolas Sarkozy and his supporters, have avoided scrupulously the trap of talking as if DSK were guilty. That's to say, most commentators are respecting assiduously the presumption of DSK's innocence. Moreover, many observers who are familiar with the personality and behavior of DSK express their utter incredulity concerning the Manhattan affair. One doesn't need to be an enthusiast of conspiracy theories to imagine that there might be individuals, out in the wide world, who would like to bring DSK down, as it were. Such people could be motivated by matters at an IMF level, or maybe at a French political level. Even the alleged rape incident that I have mentioned above (concerning Tristane Banon) would need to be examined scrupulously from every angle. So, it's too early to express any kind of negative judgment concerning DSK. Meanwhile, we learn that he has entrusted his defense to two prominent US lawyers: William Taylor and Benjamin Brafman.

State of Gamone garden

Don't imagine for a moment that the present state of my rose pergola and garden at Gamone might be the outcome of my horticultural skills. The causes lie closer to sheer chance than to what I had vaguely in mind when I selected and planted my first rose bushes in the second half of 2009. In any case, the final result, as seen today, pleases me greatly. Here's a view of the pergola from down in the garden:

Here's a top view of the pergola from in front of the house:

It's a subdued and subtle vision of roses. Low-key, you might say, quite the opposite of flashy. The dominant hue is pink, with a touch of bright red.

Elsewhere in the garden, there are several white roses.

The Manou Meilland is one of the more conspicuous roses.

In a far corner, the New Year provides a mixture of several bright hues.

And Paul Bocuse has just appeared timidly on the scene.

From a color viewpoint, peonies steal the show, but they bloom separately, at different times. Let's not blame this spectacular specimen for having a silly name:

I took most of these photos yesterday. Then a violent storm hit Gamone, dropping a huge quantity of much-appreciated water on the slopes. Inevitably, some of the blossoms you see here got damaged by the storm, particularly the peonies. But, as a whole, the garden survived quite well.

Dead tree at Gamone

Normally, dead trees at Gamone don't worry me at all. On the contrary, I see them as attractive havens for wild life, from birds through to insects that thrive on dead wood. The problem with this old fellow—a hundred meters down from my house—was that he might be blown down onto the road, when we were least expecting it, by one of our frequent windstorms.

So, I decided to cut him down. That trivial operation extended over a brief 30 minutes. I climbed up the ladder, positioned my backside firmly against the slopes, and slowly sliced through the dead trunk with my Husqvarna chainsaw. The tree fell across the road, as planned. A few minutes later, my neighbor René Uzel happened to be driving down towards that spot, so he had to halt his four-wheel drive vehicle while I started hacking off the trunk that blocked the road. René noticed that my chainsaw was so blunt that it would have difficulties in slicing through butter. He tapped me on the shoulder, and suggested that I stop sawing. He would simply tow the fallen tree up alongside my house. This he did, in about five minutes. That totally-practical guy, who grew up here at Gamone, has been helping me in similar ways ever since my arrival here in 1993. So, I now have an appreciable stock of firewood just alongside the house.

I had to nudge it around a bit, by means of a chain attached to my Citroën, to remove the risk of a neighbor running into the branches.

Down alongside the road, only the stump now remained.

During these operations, as you can see from the photos, Fitzroy was highly concerned by everything that was taking place. Meanwhile, Sophia simply lounged around in her usual style, waiting for things to calm down. She's Zen, a little like me, and couldn't understand why there was all this noise and agitation at Gamone, because of a dead tree.

Thanks to the chance presence of René, the firewood now awaits my intervention, as soon as my chainsaw is sharpened. I left it with a specialist in St-Marcellin, and I'll have it back next Tuesday.