Bright French girl

Admirers call her Christine, but her real name is Héloïse Letissier.

Click here to access an article on this extraordinary young lady. She sings. She dances. And she talks beautifully. She's the top.

Once upon a time, I saw a drone

Click here to see my one and only encounter with a hobby drone at Gamone. These days, on the web, I discover more and more presentations of amazing new models. I've even heard a rumor that the Apple company might be about to hit the market with a sort of Macintosh iDrone... but don't quote me on that. When you think about it, it was inevitable that the people who dream about manufacturing hobby drones would finally get their act together. It seems that the moment has arrived...

A common feature of the new models that I've discovered is the elegant quality of the navigational device held in the hands of the pilot. I still have the impression that I live in the middle of a top-quality drone territory. There's a vast area of mountainous slopes beneath a gigantic volume of airspace. And no human beings who might get upset. There are, however, a few minor problems. Quite often, a helicopter appears in the sky above Choranche. Sometimes, towards the top of the valley, there are base-jumpers. And often we receive the visit of a couple of Mirage jets. Apart from those disturbances, it's mostly totally calm here.

Black dog and foam mattress

This story will not be accompanied by any photos, in spite of the fact that I spent about an hour this morning out on the front lawn alongside Fitzroy, and I would have had more than enough time to take photos...  not only of my dog but, above all, of the foam mattress that he had methodically and expertly destroyed in the early hours of the morning.

Up until this morning, I had never imagine that Fitzroy would be determined to perform such a spectacular demolition job. It was carried out with precision, like a great surgical operation. Big chunks of foam were broken into smaller fragments and these were then separated into even smaller fragments, and so on. And all this confetti was spread out over a large area... with the help of morning breezes.

I was totally stunned. I tried to ask my dog a question: "Fitzroy, why did you do that?" But my dog was so exhausted (a consequence of his nocturnal activities) that he didn't have enough energy to provide me with an explanation. So, the mystery remains...

This is not misanthropy

Since returning to Gamone towards the end of 2015, I’ve often imagined the idea of searching for a female companion. I’ve imagined—to take the most obvious example—that I might find her through the Internet, in much the same way that some of my best friends have done so. Of course it wouldn’t be easy. In fact it might even be damn near impossible, for many reasons. Would it be worth a try? Well, my final answer is negative. Even were I to succeed ideally in unearthing such an improbable companion, I’m not at all convinced that it might be a good idea to terminate my solitude. But I repeat the title of my post : This is not a case of misanthropy. Well then, what is it?

The relationship between two individuals in love changes significantly when they move away from their youthful era and into old age. I’m not suggesting that it’s better during the primary phase and worse during the secondary. There’s quite possibly the same degree of intensity and happiness. But the relationship is profoundly different, because it changes mathematically with advancing age. In the beginning, the two individuals probably imagined procreation as a fundamental goal… and they may or may not have succeeded in that ambition. They probably envisaged common ambitions such as acquiring a home, and establishing a family foyer.

With advancing age, people think differently. Inevitably, they are reminded periodically that one of them might soon disappear. If it were I who disappeared, then my companion would surely be sad. And if it were she who disappeared, then I would be sad. To call a spade a spade, our relationship would give rise to two possible cases of sadness. To avoid that outcome, I find it preferable to abandon the idea of seeking a female companion. So, I shall remain a solitary individual. Now, is my conclusion a demonstration of misanthropy?

I thought he belonged to the past

Often, since my arrival in France, Ive heard of a distinguished composer named Vladimir Cosma, born in Romania.

Although we have practically the same age, 76, I had soon imagined that this famous musician belonged to a distant past. Maybe this silly belief might have been enhanced by the fact that Cosma celebrities—Teodor and Edgar—formed a distinguished musical family in Romania. Vladmir Cosma composed the following well-known melodies:

Click image to enlarge and link to YouTube

Maybe you didn't recognize that final example.

Here's a more memorable version:

Click image to enlarge and link to YouTube

And here's another example of both melodies:

 

Click image to enlarge and link to YouTube

Utter secrecy is a necessity

I spoke here about a special new French police record identified by the letter S. For obvious reasons, mayors of French municipalities might like to be informed about the presence of citizens with S records.

 

Click here to access an article in which the minister of the Interior Bernard Cazeneuve repeats that such information will never be divulged. The general idea is that the police need to follow such individuals, to find out whether they're a security risk. Such police pursuits would be hindered by the public disclosure of S records.

Will Jeanne be a champion forever?

The French lady Jeanne Calment [1875-1997], who lived in Arles, holds the current world record for longevity : 122 years. But old age records are not exactly rocket science, and older contenders may have existed, or continue to exist, for this record.

Jean-Louis Serre, a French professor of genetics, wonders here whether it might be impossible for humans to live any longer than that.

Past can be better than future

                         [photo THOMAS SAMSON / AFP]

In an interview yesterday, Alain Juppé said that, in the legal domain, it can be preferable to have a past rather than a future. What a superb summary! When asked whether he might be thinking of anybody in particular, the candidate replied: “No, it’s a general remark.” That’s tact… but I’m still convinced Juppé was thinking of his principal right-wing opponent.

BREAKING NEWS: This morning, the candidate Bruno Le Maire thought he might be smart in jumping onto the bandwaggon. « C'est encore mieux de n'avoir ni passé ni avenir judiciaire. » (It's better still to have neither a judiciary past nor future.) Dull Bruno's remark reminded me of words from Forrest Gump. Of course, you silly bugger, we all know that it's better to have no problems whatsoever with the law. Le Maire was simply demonstrating (unnecessarily) that he doesn't cogitate as brilliantly as Juppé. His brain operates at least a notch or two below that of Juppé, both in speed and in intelligence.

International New-York Times leaving Paris

The international version of the great US newspaper settled in Paris 129 years ago. It has decided to leave. The paper-based product will move to Hong Kong; the web-based, to London.

In the early ‘60s, in Paris, Jean Seberg’s innocent question was a milestone in my understanding of colloquial French.

Click to enlarge and link to YouTube

Qu’est-ce que c’est : dégueulasse ? Before dying, her Paris friend (played by Jean-Paul Belmondo) didn’t have time to tell her that it means “disgusting”.

Last love of a French president

Most people thought that all the words of François Mitterrand [1916-1996] had in fact been published. They failed to imagine his words of love. His beloved Anne (mother of Mazarine) has never forgotten two texts that will be published next Thursday.

 Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, François Mitterrand and Anne Pingeot

(in red) at the opening of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris,

December 1, 1986. [DERRICK CEYRAC / AFP]

Addressing his lover, François Mitterrand seemed
to have borrowed the words of Roland Barthes :

Je n'ai rien à te dire, sinon que ce rien,
c'est à toi que je le dis.
 
[I have nothing to say to you.
But that nothing is meant solely for you.]

Omar to kill me

 

The sentence “Omar m’a tuer” is unintelligible French, as if it had been written by an illiterate person. At first sight, Mme Ghislaine Marchal—the author of those words in blood—seems to be saying that she had been killed by Omar in her villa at Mougins (Alpes-Maritimes). But why would that dying French lady have used such poor grammar?

On that flimsy evidence, in 1991, the Moroccan gardener Omar Raddad was condemned and jailed. But he persisted non-stop upon his innocence. In 1998, he was liberated, and now lives in Morocco.

A recent analysis of DNA specimens from the scene of the crime provides new facts. Four males, none of whom was Omar Raddad, have left traces of their presence. Will the real murderer be identified at last?

Once they were friends

Click here to see how one of these two former friends seems to be moving away clearly from the other. I don't want to mention names, for fear my readers might imagine that I'm behaving unfairly. All I have to say is: Continue to move in that direction!

PS As you can see, there's no way in the world that I would ever allow myself to be as outspoken as Robert De Niro. Besides, that would be needless overkill. Even the worst politicians in France are angelic when compared with the vulgar Trump "punk".

Robert De Niro on Trump

For "Monsieur Cinéma", it's The End

Pierre Tchernia, 88, has died.

French passporters not allowed to say cheese

A French civil servant was upset when local authorities refused to renew his passport because he had submitted an identity photo in which he was smiling. He even took the affair to court, without success.

In France, smiling photos are illegal on documents such as passports.

Vast offensive being planned to take Mosul

In Iraq, military elements are being assembled for a gigantic attack upon Mosul. Let us hope that this onslaught takes place rapidly, and that it succeeds.

Nobel Prize for Peace awarded to Colombian president

Juan Manuel Santos has done an admirable job in persuading the Farc guérilleros to throw away their arms.

Weird and nasty accident Down Under

An out-of-control car slammed into a Queensland house where mourners were gathering for a funeral. One of the mourners was killed, while a dozen others were seriously injured. Some were transported by Australia's celebrated Royal Flying Doctor Service. They may have been terrified to find themselves being placed aboard a small aircraft...

France can produce both very good political TV and very bad political TV

Last night’s L’Emission politique was a calamity. My personal opinion is that both journalists—David Pujadas and Léa Salamé—should be invited to take a break of a month or so, giving France 2 the possibility of halting this show and replacing it, if possible, by something more coherent, more friendly and peaceful. The current style has simply veered into nasty absurdity. Last night, to greet a smart French statesman, Alain Juppé, who'll probably become president of France, that pair of tired little nincompoops decided to hurl at him two fellows who seemed to emerge from a low-quality movie. One was a dubious specimen from the field of finance. The other, a brain-damaged extremist-right-wing politician. I was so disgusted that I almost turned off the TV… but I persevered in order to appreciate the skill with which the candidate might succeed (he did) in trudging through all the smelly slime thrown in his face.

Australian sporting journalist leaves the field

The popular journalist Rebecca Wilson, 54, has lost her battle against breast cancer. This loss must be unbearable, not only for her husband and two boys, but for countless Down Under followers of TV sporting events. At times, all too often, the premature departure of a seemingly energetic and youthful individual seems to be simply wrong. A kind of monstrous mistake.

Juppé to be interviewed on TV

This evening, presidential candidate Alain Juppé will be interviewed on France 2 by David Pujadas and Léa Salamé.

It should be an important encounter, because this is the major political talk show. If everything were to go over well, as it should, then Juppé would be closer than ever to his goal of becoming the next president of France. The only thing that surprises me is Juppé's claim to have never watched one of the previous interviews between the Pujadas/Salamé journalists and a presidential candidate. In other words, he should be perfectly spontaneous. A lot will depend, too, on the emotional state of the female journalist. Will Léa snarl at Juppé (as with Sarkozy) or will she smile (as with Montbourg)?

Hurricane Matthew about to hammer Florida

Since its initial publication,

this blog post has been updated several times,

making it a little incoherent.

In Haïti, Hurricane Matthew has caused at least 400 deaths [latest news : Friday, 20 h 45 in France].

On Thursday 6 October, 1.5 million inhabitants were asked by the State Governor of Florida to abandon the coastal region.





Click a chart to enlarge it

Click a chart to enlarge it





Click a chart to enlarge it



Click here to access the bulletin from which
the above charts were extracted.

French factories and businesses often have to move from one place to another

People in France have been following the case of the Alstom organization in Belfort, which was about to be either closed down or relocated in another place. The French government finally intervened, and made it possible for the manufacturer to remain in Belfort. To do so, the SNCF (state-owned French railroad system) agreed to order a huge volume of rolling stock from Alstom. But do they really need all this new equipment? The cartoonist Xavier Gorce imagines that French bakeries might take the hint.

Unpleasant aspect of a top job

An observer might imagine that a prime minister spends most of his time prancing around in nice places. Manuel Vals has been obliged to face up to the poor state of French prisons. The situation has become all the more urgent in that France is starting to imprison, not only authentic terrorists, but also (as little as possible, of course) mere suspects of terrorism. The PM announced today that, during the next decade, over 30 new penitentiary establishments are to be built.

Le Premier ministre Manuel Valls et

le ministre de la Justice Jean-Jacques Urvoas
visitent une prison à Caen (Calvados), le 13 juin 2016.
(CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP)

South-western USA threatened with megadroughts throughout this century

 

                                                                      [photo David McNew AFP]

Click here to see the US magazine Science Advances. Click here to access the full article that warns Americans of the risk of prolonged droughts throughout this century.

No happy marriage in Melbourne

Kylie Minogue and her British fiancé Joshua Sasse have decided not to get married in Melbourne. They are protesting against Australia’s refusal to marry homosexual couples.

Come on, Australia, take Kylie's advice.

Get your country up to date with the world!

Paris Agreement on climate change

The Kyoto Protocol, adopted in December 1997, only went into force 7 years later. Things have been far more rapid for the Paris Agreement, adopted in December 2015. It will go into action in a month.

For the ratification of the Paris Agreement, December 2015 :
Jean-Claude Junker, Ségolène Royal, Ban Ki-Moon and Martin Schulz
[left to right, photo Jean-Francois Badias/AP/SIPA]

Winter vaccination in France

The annual flu vaccination campaign will be starting in France next Friday, and will concern 10 million patients. The health system spotted me well in advance. For the last month or so, I’ve been carrying around the pharmacy paper that I received.

Blasphemy is good for you

Abolish Blasphemy Laws

Aussie speech going uphill

Most often, I believe that Australian news is going downhill, in the sense that nothing much is ever happening in that remote country, and the outside world rarely receives news from Australia about anything at all. On the other hand, whenever I succeed in hearing Australian voices, generally about totally uninteresting subjects, I’m amazed to see that they’ve totally adopted an unpleasant new vocal accent. The end of every sentence soars upwards into the sky, as if they were asking lots of big questions. Even a run-of-the-mill policeman seems to be asking you questions all the time. Click here to listen to a good demonstration of this ascending intonation in a short and boring news video from South Grafton, my home town.

Trump stands a chance of winning a Nobel

Click here to see some of the 376 candidacies for the Nobel Prize for Peace. I would be thrilled if Donald Trump were to win. This victory would have no effect whatsoever on peace and war in the world, but it might blow up Trump’s head to such a point that it would burst. That explosion would keep him out of the forthcoming presidential election. I hope the members of the Swedish Academy read my blog.

Three Europeans win the chemistry Nobel

In the domain of molecular machines, the Nobel Prize for chemistry was awarded to Jean-Pierre Sauvage (University of Strasbourg, France), J Fraser Stoddart (an Englishman working at Northwestern University, Evanston, USA) and Bernard Feringa (University of Groningen, the Netherlands).

Time to leave

Diane James has nothing to say, and she knows it. She has no authority, and she can’t count upon the esteem of her colleagues. So, after merely 18 days in charge of Britain’s xenophobic Ukip party, Diane James has bowed out. The English call such a departure “taking French leave”. The French say “filer à l’anglaise”.

Amazing documentary on Australia

This evening, France 2 showed an amazing documentary, shot in Australia, on the subject of animal intelligence. We saw baby kangaroos being reared in a clinic, a female crocodile examined by echography, clouds of fruit bats in the sky (a familiar scene in Grafton, my place of birth), horses that communicate with humans through emotions, a huge snake being captured in a suburban house, the glorious movements of dolphins, giant turtles and rays, a presentation of the extraordinary cuttlefish...

This was one of the most intelligent and exhilarating documentaries from Australia that I've ever seen, totally different to the general touristic rubbish that emerges regularly from Down Under. There wasn't a single shot of koalas, Aborigines,  opal mines or Uluru. We didn't even get a glimpse of the Harbour Bridge or the Opera House. Not even Taronga Park. And no surfers or lifesavers. Viewers were simply presented with a land whose animal diversity surpasses that of all other places on the planet. Australia has 378 species of mammals, 828 bird species, 4,000 fish species, 300 lizard species, 140 snake species and 2 species of crocodiles. 80 % of these creatures are endemic, which means that they don't exist anywhere else in the world.

This documentary, created by a team of friendly and intelligent French people, was the 13th in a series designated as The Extraordinary Powers of the Human Body, directed by Michel Cymès and Adriana Karembeu.

 

Michel Cymès et Adriana Karembeu (Crédit photo : Philippe Doignon / FTV)

Don't get screwed!

This message is powerful.
It's from an American talking
to young Americans about America.
He tells them to vote, and to vote for Clinton.
But the message can be understood by
young people throughout the world.

I hope that young Brits listen.

The young generation of the UK know now

that the Brexit was a gigantic mistake.

A blunder made by oldies for oldies.

The mistake cannot be corrected,

but it might be attenuated.

No such mistake should

ever be made again.

Pope Francis seems to think the French are idiots

Somebody apparently told Pope Francis that the French have crazy ideas about the differences between boys and girls. One of his mates (?) told him a funny story, along the following lines:

          QUESTION : What do you want to be when you grow up?

          LITTLE BOY : I want to be a little girl.

Pope Francis seems to think that we really teach young French kids to behave like that.

Personally, I think that Pope Francis needs to get his papal head read.

Nobel Prize for Physics

Three British scientists: David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz. They "revealed the secrets of exotic matter". The biggest surprise of the announcement was that it didn't go to the team behind the discovery of gravitational waves.

Augmenting intelligence

To augment your intelligence, you need to be stimulated, indeed shocked. Your brain needs to receive a burst of energy that makes it cogitate. A bolt of cerebral lightning. If that doesn’t happen, then you’ll finish the day no more intelligent than when you woke up. In certain places, at certain times, there might be so few flashes of cerebral lightning that your brain might even go into hibernation. This happens, I believe, in binary situations where crowds are watching win/lose happenings such as sporting competitions. The brain is not really being stimulated in a cognitive manner. It is simply being turned on to applaud in joy, or turned off to weep in despair. People in such situations are being manipulated like pigeons in a Skinner box, designated technically as an operant conditioning chamber.

The ancient Romans believed in a protective spirit of a place, known as a genius loci. In certain wonderlands, the spirit of place can operate in a way that makes passers-by more intelligent. It all depends on what’s available in the way of cerebral surprises. The other evening, I watched a TV documentary about the huge sewage canals beneath Paris. Crowds of onlookers in the street were behaving feverishly because workers digging up the street had asked them to step back a little… to make way for an emerging boat. When people are told that a boat is about to appear from beneath the street pavement, their brains are indeed capable of going into overdrive. First, you imagine that somebody is cracking a joke, and making fun of you. When you do indeed grasp the image of a big flat-bottomed vessel being hauled up from the bowels of the City of Light, your neurons go wild, and start to chatter like a Geiger counter in a nuclear fallout zone. I should explain that the above vessel is simply used in Paris sewage canals to pick up solid rubbish. It needs to be taken out of the water from time to time and brought up onto dry land, to be cleaned and repaired.

For understandable local reasons, often historical or purely incidental, there are more chances of a spirit of place becoming excited in the streets of Paris than in a dull Antipodean neighborhood, regardless of the sunny weather. The sewage canals are more ancient and complex.

It's all a fraud

Don't waste time comparing one fraud with another. One book of lies is no better than another book of lies. They're all shit. Lies are lies are lies. Only truth counts.

Incidentally, the organization that created the following pleasant poster is Catholic.

So, don't fall into the trap of imagining that they know what they're talking about. Catholics simply cannot ever really understand all that they're talking about. Those folk talk with God and angels, and they believe in magic. They got themselves brain-damaged long ago, and they've never really succeeded in escaping from that accident, which they like to call Original Sin. They might appear to be nice folk, but they're merely a mob of nutty fruit-cakes. Shit, they "pray"... Do you see what I'm saying? Catholics actually believe that they can chat away with a guy who lives up in the sky, who once built the universe. As I said, they're totally crazy. Raving lunatics. Mad as cut snakes.

Probably our next president

The candidate is Alain Juppé, currently mayor of Bordeaux : our likely future president.

Click here for a short announcement of a TV documentary by FOG (Franz-Olivier Giesbert), which France will we watching this evening. If I wanted to be "sarkastic", I would say that Juppé’s major merit is that he’ll save us from Sarkozy.

Eternal silence

Frequently on French TV, several times a week, exceptional movies describe the universe, just above the horizon. Without such splendid reminders, I would surely shrink up and die.

Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie.
— Blaise Pascal

Children speak the language of Pascal, but differently.

And a tweet from Bold Atheism transmits that language.
Through the Cosmos ? Yes, forever.

Getting their act together

The slogan alongside Theresa May is curious. Who exactly is included in the "everyone" for whom Brexit Britain is working? Why is Britain working for her citizens? Wouldn't it be more logical, inversely, if her citizens worked for Britain? Is the country really working for the huge proportion of citizens who didn't want the Brexit at all? How exactly is this "work" being conducted? The formula is fuzzy.

This morning, on the BBC and in the Sunday Times, Theresa May reassured the world that the UK plans to activate article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon, to obtain a divorce settlement with the European Union, before March 2017. In that case, the UK would normally be able to leave Europe around the start of 2019. Not too soon...

This afternoon, she'll open the congress of the Conservative Party in Birmingham.

Blog gem : If it be Your will

Browsing through old blog posts, I often come upon an unexpected gem. It’s a post entitled Freedom of speech, published on May 10, 2011. It contains a link to an article by a great man, Christopher Hitchens, still alive at that time. (He died seven months later.)

Then Hitchens pointed us to another great man: Leonard Cohen. Click here for the post.

Nobody owns me

Since yesterday, the administration of web names, carried out by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), is no longer under the control of the US Department of Commerce. Icaan is henceforth in the hands of a private non-profit organization (NPO). In spite of its name, an NPO is not obliged to avoid making profits. It’s simply an organization with no owners. Wikipedia informs us: A nonprofit organization uses its surplus revenues to further achieve its purpose or mission, rather than distributing such money to shareholders as profit or dividends.

Have you understood? Will this change affect ordinary web-users like me, for example? Decide for yourselves. For me, this change might be superficial, but I find it fine. I never like to be owned. Particularly by the US Department of Commerce.

Sale of French submarines to Australia

The French press has just spoken briefly about the contract with Australia for the sale of submarines. Click here to access an article (in French) published by the Mer et Marine news organization.