Believe in Britain... like you believe in God

That's tough simplistic logic. You should say no to the European union if you believe in Britain (whatever that means... like believing in fairly tales, God and all the rest).

A poll was published in today's newspaper Mail on Sunday, and 53 % preferred a Brexit, against 47 % who wanted Britain to stay in Europe.

Few people consider that the PM David Cameron should resign if Britain were to leave Europe, whereas some say he should be replaced by Boris Johnson.  Recent events that gave many Britons an urge to leave Eueope were the flow of Syrian refugees, the Calais migrant camp, the Greek Euro bailout, the German sex attacks, and the Paris massacre. Some 43 % of people who prefer the Brexit say that they might change their mind before the referendum, whereas the same proportion of their opponents claim that their mind is made up (to stay in Europe). A massive 75 % of people admit that they don’t know whether their heart or their head is affecting their choice.

This latest poll indicates that Britain seems to have become considerably more Brexit-favorable over the last eight months.

Daniel Barenboim

This is an extraordinary performance by Daniel Barenboim who plays the Piano Concerto N° 5 by Beethoven while conducting the orchestra.

Barenboim's exhibition of an incredible degree of musical genius leaves me breathless. To put it bluntly and rather idiotically, I have no idea whatsoever about how he manifests such genius. In fact, if it was easy to understand how he does it, then we might no longer talk of his talent as genius.

Mad primeval scream

More than the Mona Lisa or any other celebrated work of art, The Scream by Edvard Munch was surely the first painting that convinced me instantly and forever that exceptional art could provide us with representations that were infinitely more striking and profound than anything we might see in our everyday existence. It struck me rather as the image of a nightmare. And I would imagine that countless individuals throughout the world have been influenced similarly by this painting... which they've probably seen only as copies in books or magazines.

The mystery remains unsolved: What terrible event has happened, causing the poor wide-eyed fellow to hold his ears, open his mouth and scream ?

Click French video for an excellent French video presentation of this anguishing painting.

Unidentified bombing in Tunisia

A Tunisien website has just revealed that unidentified fighters made devastating air strikes, last night, against coastal sites in Libya in the vicinity of Syrte occupied by Daech. For the moment, no Allied nation has declared itself responsible for these daringly successful attacks. Was it France ? A good question. As some people say at times: No news is good news...

Being offended is a childish game

In France, I've always found that the very British habit of "being offended" is relatively rare. Let's say that taking offence at verbal criticism certainly happens here from time to time, but less so (in my humble opinion) than on the other side of the English Channel. Indeed the following Victorian adage, familiar to all English-speaking children, would not make much sense to French people:

Sticks and stones may break my bones,
but names will never hurt me.

The English intellectual Richard Dawkins is constantly plagued by would-be offended people, particularly when he criticizes religious beliefs. I can understand his reasons for retweeting the following ugly New Year wishes:

At a trivial personal level, I'm bored by nitwits who send me blatant rubbish through the Internet. A few days ago, in the genealogical domain, an Irish fellow tried to tell me that the first Viscount Massereene [1608-1665] had received his lordship because of the assistance he gave to William of Orange [1650-1702] in the Battle of the Boyne [10 July 1690]. I replied politely that Lord Massereene had died a quarter of a century before this battle, whereupon my Irish correspondant apologized curiously for "offending" me. He failed to realize that I wasn't offended at all. I merely found him a boring idiot, incapable of checking dates before sending me rubbish... and this had nothing to do with his strange idea that I might be "offended".

Where’s the stolen gold necklace ?

In India, a lady told policemen that her precious gold necklace had just been stolen by a fellow who was seen running away. When the police caught the alleged culprit, he denied the crime. The victim repeated her accusation so convincingly that the police had the impression that the robber might have swallowed the necklace. So, they took the alleged thief to a nearby hospital, and requested an x-ray of his stomach. Sure enough, the stolen necklace was there! But how coud the police get the necklace out of the fellow's intestines ?

Well, they made him consume an enormous quantity of ripe bananas. A little later, they gave him a powerful laxative, which soon produced the desired result. All they had to do then was to clean up the mess, extract the necklace and wash it with warm water and soap. Later, when the fellow was brought to trial, I would imagine that the sentence included the cost of all those bananas.

Australia, your lamb chops are ready

As Australia Day draws near, and the summer sun parches local brains, my fellow countrymen in the advertising domain are becoming dimmer and duller. In this idiotic video (with a meaningless title), we see Australian defence forces (transported by a single media helicopter) kidnapping Aussies stranded in foreign lands, so that they can be brought back home Down Under for a good Australia Day meal of barbecued lamb chops.

Critics point out that the video contains no images whatsoever of real live lambs grazing on grass in Australian sheep properties.

Ah yes, if only a few genuine baby jumbucks had been thrown into the casting, it's quite possible that this video would have become a cultural and artistic masterpiece. But then again, maybe not...

NOTE: For my final year at high school in Grafton, my grandparents (who were determined that I become a fine student) invited me to reside in their quiet and comfortable house in Robinson Avenue, where I had a tiny study room. Seeing that I was fond of lamb chops, Ma would often ask me to pick up meat from her local butchery. She always insisted that I ask for a packet of "lean, loin, lamb chops". This expression amused me because of the string of L-words. In fact, I never really understood the meaning of the first two unusual adjectives: "lean" and "loin". But I soon realized that the butcher's lamb chops, supposedly "lean" and "loin", were very tasty when Ma cooked them. I would imagine that my grandmother had picked up this expression as a girl in the bush, when she was living on her family's sheep property at Breeza.

Ripples in the fabric of space-time

Albert Einstein predicted that gravitational waves would be produced in extremely violent events, such as collisions between two black holes. As these waves spread out, they compress and stretch space-time, producing ripples, whose presence could be detected by laser beams.

The physicist Lawrence Krauss sent out a tweet yesterday suggesting that the LIGO laboratory in the USA may have finally detected the ripples of gravitational waves.

We'll have to be patient for a while before learning whether or not this gigantic scientific information is true.

Churchill's atrocious Gallipoli campaign

The Englishman Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, was personally responsible for the disastrous decision to start the Gallipoli land campaign against Turkey, involving more than 400,000 British and some 140,000 Commonwealth and Irish servicemen. At dawn on 25 April 1915, an amphibious attack was launched at Gallipoli, on the Dardanelles Straits, the route to the Black Sea and Russia.

The bloodshed was gigantic. My Australian fellow countrymen have always tended to imagine that the Gallipoli tragedy was largely an Anzac affair, but the deaths concerned many victims from several nations.

• On the enemy side, some 87,000 Turks were killed.

• Some 29,500 troops from Britain and Ireland were slaughtered.

• Deaths of troops from France were more than 12,000.

• Deaths of troops from Australia and New Zealand were 11,000.

By the start of 1916, Britain was aware that the Gallipoli campaign had been an atrocious military error, and all remaining Allied troops were withdrawn. To commemorate that sad centenary, the royal family took part in a ceremony yesterday at Sandringham.

David Bowie has finally left us

David Bowie was born in London on 8 January 1947. The public got to know him through Space Oddity in 1969, just before the landing on the moon of Apollo 11. Later, one of his greatest successes was Let's dance in 1983. An 18-month struggle with cancer carried him away this morning, at the age of 69. Here's a photo of David Bowie in New York with his wife Iman, a Somalian top model.

Memorial oak tree planted on the Place de la République

Crowds gathered early at the Place de la République to commemorate the recent victims of barbary in the City of Light.

As the sun went down, candles were lit
all around the statue of the République.

The celebrated motto of Paris
— Fluctuat nec mergitur —
was illuminated once again.

Branches of the memorial oak tree were lit up.

The colossal bronze statue of Marianne, 9.5 metres tall, was erected here on 14 July 1883. It stands on a stone base, 15 metres in height, accompanied by allegories of Liberté, Égalité and Fraternité.

The square was now in darkness.

Meanwhile, the trunk and branches of the oak tree were
shining like the tungsten filament of a lamp.

One Autumn in Paris

This short video presents the singer Louane and the trumpetist Ibrahim Maalouf, who have recorded a powerful memorial song entitled One Autumn in Paris, distributed freely to young students. The poetry comes from the Franco-Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf.

Click the YouTube icon

Cherry time

Extracts from the newspaper Le Rappel, 7 September 1870,

quoting words spoken to the crowd by Victor Hugo.

I've tried to translate Hugo's powerful words:

Saving Paris is more than saving France.
It's saving the world.
Paris is the actual centre of humanity.
Paris is the sacred city.
Those who attack Paris are carrying out
a mass assault upon the entire human race.
Paris is the capital of civilization.
It is neither a kingdom nor an empire.
It symbolizes the entire human race, past and future.
And do you know why Paris is the city of Civilization ?
Because it's the city of Revolution.

Citizens, Paris will triumph,
because she symbolizes the idea of Humanity
and represents the instincts of the People.

Here is a version of a celebrated song,

Le Temps des cerises, written in 1866

by Jean-Baptiste Clément. This popular song has

always been associated in French history and culture

with the Commune de Paris in 1871.

Bushfire in Western Australia eliminates an entire village

Sometimes, when a bushfire is about to attack a small rural village in Australia, the inhabitants are capable (thankfully) of rushing to safety. But their lovable village cannot save itself. And the terrible flames might then reduce it to sad devastation.

Footage from the Channel 7 helicopter shows the small village of Yarloop, 110 km south of Perth (Western Australia), after it was engulfed in a bushfire fanned by strong winds. The town lost nearly a hundred buildings, including precious historical constructions.

Click the YouTube button

The bushfire has just taken the town away...

BREAKING NEWS: Police announced that two bodies were found in burnt-out houses in Yarloop.

They found a rock in the mud of Lake Eyre

In the desert environment of Lake Eyre (South Australia), this muddy guy with a rock in his right hand is overcome with joy.

Phil Bland, a researcher from Curtin University (Perth, Western Australia), accompanied by his colleague Robert Howie, just succeeded in digging up a 4.5-billion-year-old meteorite that fell here a few months ago. Although they were assisted by data from several devices that had followed the falling meteorite, their discovery was nevertheless an amazing needle-in-a-haystack success.

The USA has invested billions of dollars in voyages to the moon, enabling their scientists to obtain precious samples of meteorites that came from far away. In Australia, to obtain such an extraordinary sample, these two fellows simply drove their quads into the parched outback and started digging around in the mud with their hands.

Flying Frenchie has come down to rest in the Drôme

Tancrède Melet, known throughout the world for his spectacular aerial exploits as the « Flying Frenchie », was killed on Tuesday in a trivial accident in the Drôme.

Here's a recent video of a stunt in nearby Saint-Hilaire-du-Touvet.

When the accident occurred, Tancrède was holding down a hot-air balloon, which dragged him over a small cliff, to his death.

In the following video, Tancrède was planning a wing-suit drop down to Chamonix: a journey that would normally, on the ground, take a couple of hours.

Beware of bugs

Back in the days when I earned my living as a computer programmer, we coexisted constantly with bugs. I believe that such tiny evil spirits still exist, even though a lot of publicity talk tries to give the impression that they've been eradicated forever.

Click here to see the presentation of a marvelous little drone, made in China, called the Ehang 184, priced somewhere between US$200,000 to $300,000. It's designed for a personal owner, who isn't necessarily a licensed pilot, who has to get somewhere in a hurry. The above publicity photo seems to suggest that the owner lives in a romantic spot—in the vicinity of trees, statues and rusty old boats—alongside the water.

Charging the drone with electricity takes a few hours. The owner can then press a magic take-off button and set out on a trip that lasts for 23 minutes. The Ehang's automated flight systems will manage tasks such as communication with air traffic control and other aircraft, obstacle avoidance and navigation. In other words, if the drone doesn't collide with a tree (or anything else in the vicinity), that's because it's a smart machine... with no bugs whatsoever. In other words, faultless.

Well, thanks for inviting me to borrow your drone, to drop in at a nearby place. It's nice of you... and you assure me that your aircraft is both simple and perfect. But I prefer to travel romantically, by bicycle.

A year ago today, France became forever Charlie

Click here to access the website of Le Parisien, which commemorates the start of a year of terror in France.

Can we "enhance" humans by means of customized genes ?

I've preferred to leave the verb "enhance" in inverted commas, because geneticists are frankly playing at behaving as a divinity, and nobody knows with certainty yet whether these scientists are God or the Devil. Or maybe a bit of both. Consequently, many observers consider that it's still too early to say whether or not we have the right to perform so-called human gene editing.

A conference on these questions took place in Washington on December 1–3, sponsored by Britain’s Royal Society, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the US National Academies. Click here for a Scientific American website on this subject.

In my recent blog post about the French scientist Emmanuelle Charpentier [display], I mentioned a celebrated method known as the CRISPR–Cas9 system, for which she was a contributor. This technology has made DNA modification so simple that amateur biologists working in home laboratories are starting to fiddle with it, and to "hack genomes". Not surprisingly, the CRISPR-Cas9 method appears to have played a central role in the Washington conference.

Cameron and his team are as wet and warm as a cup of tea

David Cameron has just told his ministers that they're all free, individually, to adopt whatever attitude they like to the forthcoming referendum about whether Britain should or should not remain in Europe. In other words, with respect to this all-important question, Cameron and his team have no common policy. As on a sinking ship, it's every man for himself. What weird behavior for an alleged government! To my mind, with this lukewarm approach to decision-making, the UK is moving closer and closer to Brexit.

Click here for a BBC video : "UK and the EU — How to make a Brexit" which mentions the exit of Greenland after a referendum in 1982. Here is their conclusion : "Divorce can sometimes be painful [...] but it did not have to be messy. The secret to breaking up is the same for states as for people — good planning, good sense and an ability to learn how to live and trade together in a shrinking world."

My Internet provider wants to become a banker

This is amazing news. My French Internet provider, named Orange, is about to buy a bank, which will make it possible to carry out all the ordinary financial transactions that an Internet provider might wish to perform. At the same time that Orange is looking into the idea of acquiring a bank, they're also talking about purchasing one of their Internet rivals (Bouygues).

Culture is what remains once you’ve forgotten everything else

My 2000th  tweet. Culture is what remains once you’ve forgotten everything else. I’ve always imagined that this excellent saying was French, maybe from Ernest Renan: "La culture est ce qui reste quand on a tout oublié."

Michel Galabru has finally left us

Michel Galabru, died during his sleep this morning.

Could God be looked upon as a dangerous assassin ?

To commemorate the terrible slaughter on 7 January 2015 at Charlie Hebdo, the resuscitated weekly will be using the following cover:

It reads: "A year later, the assassin is still on the run." And we see a blood-stained God Almighty with a Kalashnikov strapped to his back, racing madly away. The message is clear. Behind the human assassins who perpetrated the slaughter at Charlie Hebdo, the ghastly cause was absurdly fanatical religious belief.

Is the assassin really still on the run? Yes, and this will remain true for as long as religious fanaticism infiltrates our societies. And that's surely for a long, long time. As we used to say in my childhood Australia: Up until the cows come home...

High-tech loo

For the first decade of my existence, I lived in a rural house in South Grafton (Australia) that did not have a so-called WC (water closet). This dull aspect of my early life has often appeared to me as exceptional: an extraordinary caveman anecdote that I'm including proudly in an autobiographical book on which I'm working. Like many lucky people, I tend to forget that, today, over two billion citizens of the planet Earth have no access to satisfactory toilets.

Click here to examine a project for a low-priced high-tech loo known as the Nano Membrane Toilet, invented at Cranfield University in England, to be put on trial soon, probably in Ghana.

For more information, click on the following video:

French pharmaceutical company Sanofi is authorized to combat dengue fever in three countries

The Aedes Aegypti mosquito, distributed in tropical zones throughout the world, is the main vector of both dengue and yellow fever viruses. When the female mosquito sups human blood, it often deposits the virus that causes dengue, and this can bring about some 400 million infections a year worldwide. Among children, in particular, this painful, flu-like disease can be fatal. And, up until recently, no truly effective prevention had existed.

This situation is changing, because the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi is now distributing its genetically-engineered Dengvaxia vaccine throughout three major dengue-infection zones: Mexico, the Philippines and Brazil.

The new headquarters of this prestigious company are located in the small suburb of Gentilly, to the south of Paris, where I worked for several years in a high-tech computing company.

Michel Delpech has finally left us

Michel Delpech, died today, aged 69

Thinking rationally about terror

Here's a brilliant short New Yorker article on the subject of urban terrorism by the exceptional US physicist Lawrence Krauss.

His conclusion is sobering but appeasing:

... a mass killing like that which occurred in Paris would not significantly affect the death toll from guns in the US

I take this opportunity of reminding my Antipodes readers that Krauss is the author of a momentous book on physics and philosophy: A Universe from Nothing. It reflects upon humanity's biggest question (which has often driven me crazy... at least for a moment or so): Why is there something rather than nothing at all?

Champion Frenchman at the wheel

This 41-year-old Frenchman, Sébastien Loeb, is the most successful automobile driver in the history of the World Rally Championship (WRC), having won it nine times in a row.

Having retired from WRC competitions, Loeb has decided to compete in this year's Dakar trial, which starts today from Buenos Aires. At the wheel of a Peugeot, he is accompanied by his faithful co-driver Daniel Elena. He should find the local road familiar, since Loeb happens to have won the Argentina rally eight times in a row!

I once spent twenty minutes or so watching a video created from inside Loeb's vehicle, along a quite ordinary mountain road. I soon had the distinct impression that Sébastien Loeb is infinitely more than a normal human animal like you or me. His visual system is surely some kind of extraordinary space computer coupled to his brain.

Manchester moments

This fascinating news photo has stunned the Internet world:

It looks like a staged image with actors, maybe a sequence from a movie in the making. In fact, it's simply a photo of an ordinary alcoholic scene of Manchester by night. Click on the word series to access photos of an interesting kind in the website of the Manchester Evening News. Scroll to the second gallery in this website, which is quite funny.

I've never set foot in that big British city, but I have the impression that it's not the kind of place where I would like to settle down.

Let's start the year at the Moulin Rouge

On French TV during this festive season of the year, we can see a lot of French cancan, often with dancers from the Moulin Rouge in Paris.

Click here if you feel like watching a 6-minute presentation of a couple of authentic and delightful cancan girls from the famous "red windmill" going through their steps.

Trivial little places like that seem to have acquired a more intense and wonderful meaning since our discovery of the mad mob of terrorists who would surely wish to destroy all that. On the contrary, we'll destroy all those Islamic arseholes before they let themselves loose in France for another tragic operation.

Wishes from the French president

Click here to access the New Year 2016 speech from the French president François Hollande.

"My first duty is to protect you. I am proud of you. In spite of the drama, France has not given in. In spite of the tears, she remained upright. Faced with hatred, she revealed the force of her values, those of the République. I owe you the truth. We have not reached the end of terrorism. The threat is still present, at the same level."

The president made his speech from the Napoléon III Room of the Elysées Palace. This was the same place from which he had spoken last January, after the attack against Charlie Hebdo, then in the middle of November, when a wave of terrorist crimes killed 130 people in Paris and Saint-Denis.

Antipodes blog: French woman of the year 2015

Emmanuelle Charpentier, born in 1968, is a French microbiologist, geneticist and biochemist.

Emmanuelle started her studies at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, then she acquired her doctorate at the Pasteur Institute. She worked for five years as a researcher in several US universities and hospitals, then pursued her activities in Europe, in Vienna, Sweden and Germany. Earlier this year, she accepted a post as director of the new Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin.

This 47-year-old lady is best known in the scientific world for her role in deciphering the molecular mechanisms of the bacterial CRISPR-Cas9 immune system, and her methods are now used as a tool for editing the DNA sequences of plants and animals.

She has just been named as one of ten winners of the prestigious Leibniz Prize in Germany. Included too by Time magazine in the list of the 100 most influential people in the world, Emmanuelle Charpentier will not be surprised or offended (I hope) if I name her in my humble Antipodes blog as French woman of the year 2015.

Philipino church should rent this fellow out, to earn money for the poor

Click here to see a spectacular priest who has the makings of what might be designated as an ecclesiastical sandwich board. The Church might look into the possibility of getting him canonized (in the future, of course, after he leaves his earthly skating rink) as Saint Hoverboard. Maybe his miracles can't cure cancer, but I'm convinced they can patch up broken bones.

Rétrospective 2015

Presentation by French TV of the year 2015 that was. Between the atrocities of Charlie and those of the Bataclan, it was indeed a grim year for France. But the nation and the French people have survived magnificently, stronger than ever. And that's what makes me so happy and proud to be here, a naturalized French citizen in France.

My children's ancestors, the Gauls

French school-children have always heard the expression "our ancestors, the Gauls"... without knowing too much about that civilization, wiped out by Julius Caesar in 52 BC. Everybody is aware of the existence of a prestigious Gallic leader named Vercingétorix, who led the Gallic tribes in their final disastrous battle against the Romans, in Alésia.

We're all aware that this courageous warrior, when he realized that he had been defeated, threw his arms at the feet of Caesar.

But most people's ideas about the Gallic society are vague, because much of their history seems to have disappeared. And many of our ideas about the Gauls are derived from the Astérix comic-books.

So, last night's excellent animation film on the defeat of the Gauls filled in a lot of holes.

In particular, I was greatly impressed by the technological imagination and inventiveness of the creators of this astounding animation film. It's understandable that the team members who performed this amazing work are not going to reveal all the production secrets they've invented and tested, because they'll be using them now to make similar movies, and earn tons of Caesar's coins.

End of our Gallipoli centenary year

This year, my native land celebrated the centenary of the fateful Australian landing at Gallipoli (in modern Turkey) that started on 25 April 1915. Over 8 thousand Australians died there. In Australia and New Zealand, we have always thought of this disastrous battle as our initial military engagement.

Click here to listen to Lemmy Kilmister, of the Motörhead rock group, who died yesterday, singing about young soldiers in that horrible war.

Few folk are interested in science

The US writer-director Matthew Chapman is the co-founder and president of ScienceDebate.org, an organization trying to get the American presidential candidates to hold a debate on science. He has just published an interesting blogpost on this theme through the Huffington Post.

In the USA, presidential candidates have brought up many important kinds of current-affairs subjects, but they never attempt to talk about science, and rarely about technology. Few Americans appear to be convinced that science and technology will have a greater impact upon future society than most traditional political themes. Recently, the Paris conference COP21 on global warming put certain branches of science and technology in the limelight, but world leaders still do not talk regularly about such subjects.

In France, the situation is similar. I wrote a blog post recently [here] about a distinguished French thinker who believes that mathematics is not being considered with the attention it deserves. Science in general receives no more popular attention, here in France, than mathematics. I must admit however that the state-owned TV channels in France often provide us with excellent shows concerning, or based upon, science/technology methods. This was the case last night, when we were offered an amazing animated movie concerning the final years of the Gauls, before their definitive annihilation by the forces of Rome.

An Oxford lady named Sarah Outen

In the website of Richard Dawkins, there's a charming presentation of a smart and adventurous young Oxford lady, a graduate in biology, named Sarah Outen [click here].

In July 2009, while rowing across the Indian Ocean, she sent Dawkins an email, indicating that she liked to listen (when her solar-powered batteries were operational) to the professor and his wife reading The God Delusion. Dawkins thanked her with a poem:

I’ve received a splendid email

From a most courageous female.

Battling onward to Mauritius,

Lone among the flying fishes,

Albatrosses, giant whales,

Turning turtle in the gales.

To hell with Health and Safety rules,

She’s in tune with tuna schools.

She’ll dance, while others dance in bars,

With pilot fish and Pilot Stars.

I have not the faintest notion

How to brave the Indian Ocean

In anything that keeps afloat,

Let alone a rowing boat.

But Sarah takes it in her stride,

And going with her, for the ride,

A book, or audio CD

Read by Lalla and by me.

To speed her trip to its conclusion

We’re reading her The God Delusion!

All godly tripe and tosh she’s doubtin’

So raise your glass to Sarah Outen.

I find these communications between Oxfordians most pleasant and stylish.

French president's determined attempt to legislate on the possible annulation of citizenship for terrorists

In a recent blog post [here], I expressed my shock at finding out that François Hollande imagines seriously that terrorists with dual nationality should be deprived of their French citizenship. This idea seems to go against the grain of the nation's sacred motto:

Liberté, égalité, fraternité.

But on second thoughts, the president's unexpected suggestion is nowhere near as bat-shit crazy as I first imagined. In a nutshell, it's surely Hollande's intricate plan to achieve three goals simultaneously:

1 — Make it clear to everybody (including terrorists) that France's Left will go to all imaginable ends to destroy our enemies, including methods that were recently unthinkable.

2 — Invent a trick to annihilate the Extreme Right of Marine Le Pen.

3 — Use that same trick to enable François Hollande to return to power.

When Hollande and his prime minister Manuel Vals first announced the déchéance theme (removal of citizenship), most people were caught unawares, because we weren't quite sure what it was all about. We now realize that this kind of action has already been used, on rare occasions, in French history... with no lasting negative effect upon the moral principles of the nation. We shall see exactly what the president has to say in the context of his televised New Year's speech. The chances are, I think, that he'll throw in a powerful formula, to justify his idea of déchéance :

« A situation exceptionnelle, mesures exceptionnelles »

(when faced with an exceptional situation, adopt an exceptional solution)

Why not? We all recall the terrible terrorists acts of last November, which shocked everybody immensely and meant that nothing would ever be quite the same again. We saw European citizens, some of whom were born in France, taking out weapons to kill young French citizens. And there are no limits to what we must do to combat this exceptional kind of evil.

Back to the future shopping hoverboard

Here's exactly what I need to do my shopping:

It appears to be safer than a cute two-wheeled gadget that caused a pile of accidents over the Christmas season, when it was given as a gift [see here]. This powerful vehicle is the ArcaBoard, presented here.

From an esthetic viewpoint, the device could be improved to look more like a curved surfing toy than a floating tombstone. I'll publish an appraisal as soon as I return from my first shopping excursion.