Picture says more than words

This website—Why Doctor?—deserves a prize for its choice of a good picture to illustrate their news article on an epidemic that has just hit France. The picture hints at the nature of the epidemic.

Tour de France 2017

Whatever happened to Brittany ? Northern France ? Grenoble ?
On the other hand, it's nice to see the Tour starting in Germany.
As for aircraft, they deserve to be given a jersey with a number.

Click map to enlarge it a little

Death is said to be just around the corner

I'll put the older fellow first.

And ask you to guess what they have in common.

Leonard Cohen, 82, is a famous Canadian singer.

Clive James, 77, is a well-known Australian writer. 

And what do they have in common ?

Well, they both see themselves permanently on the verge of death.

And they seem to take pleasure in describing this situation

and telling us complacently about all its subtleties.

I'm a little fed up with their imminent departures,

which end up boring me....

even more than Dylan's Nobel Prize.
But don't misunderstand me. I truly hope they both stay with us
until the proverbial cows come home.

Australian obliged to consult a psychologist

There are some strange brains Down Under. The Australian tennisman Nick Kyrgios, 21, has been suspended from competitions in principle until 15 January 2017 because of his unsportsmanlike behavior. If he wishes to return to the courts before then, Kyrgios is obliged to consult a psychologist. It’s a tough mission for a professional person. I’m talking, of course, of the psychologist. He or she had better be careful. If Kyrgios didn’t like what he heard, the psychologist might receive a direct smash.

Washington Post announces start of Mosul assault

Un article dans le Washington Post, aux alentours de 00.30 [heure de Paris], annonce que l’attaque contre Mossoul vient d’être lancée par les forces d’Iraq. Le journal français Le Monde confirme vers 1 h 20 : Le premier ministre irakien, Haïdar Al-Abadi, a annoncé le début de l’offensive dans la nuit de dimanche à lundi.

An article in the Washington Post, half an hour ago, announced that Iraqi forces were beginning their assault on Mosul.

Latest Brice de Nice is out

 

Is the title pronounced like the English words "ice" and "nice" ?

Or rather like the final syllable of "police" ?

Well, both pronunciations are possible and acceptable.

The correct pronunciation depends entirely on one thing only :

How you prefer to pronounce his name?

Peter Sagan world road champion

The Slovakian cyclist Peter Sagan, world road champion last year, has just defended his title in Qatar, beating Britain’s Mark Cavendish and Belgium’s Tom Boonen. Click here to see the finish. In France, we all love this fellow, both for his friendly personality and for his bike stunts… not to mention his great cycling achievements.

English female Mozart

Alma Deutscher, 11, has composed an opera, Cinderella, which will be presented at Vienna on 29 December. Here’s an early chamber version of the first act.

French balcony-builder will have some explaining to do

Last night at 11 o’clock, in the centre of the city of Angers, a third-floor balcony suddenly tore itself free and slid towards the ground, killing four students who had been calmly standing on it, celebrating the recent renting of the flat by friends. On its way down, the balcony tore away two lower balconies. The mayor announced that an inquiry will be held with the aim of detecting construction flaws. Click here for a video.

Our brains believe whatever they see

I imagine an experiment in which viewers are presented with a pair of twins, both of whom have an unidentified substance in their mouth. Viewers are told that one of the twins has a chunk of chewing gum, whereas the other has been tricked into chewing a poisonous substance that will inevitably end up killing her. Viewers are asked to study carefully the two chewing twins, for exactly a minute, and try to determine which one is soon to be poisoned.

The experiment works better if viewers are encouraged to use the major half of their brain : either the left hemisphere, or the right hemisphere. If viewers happen to be puzzled by this advice, they can be told that their brains will solve that problem automatically.

Obama informed on artificial intelligence

A French journalist at Libération was surprised by the fact that Barack Obama is sufficiently aware of artificial intelligence to be able to talk about this subject in an expert context, here.

                [Christopher Anderson/Magnum Photos]

Would French politicians be capable of behaving in the same way? The answer, I fear, is negative. I’ve always had the impression that many people in France feel they know what the expression “intelligence artificielle” signifies, more-or-less, but in fact their knowledge is quite superficial... mainly because they've never bothered to examine this subject. In totally different domains, the same kind of imaginary awareness exists in France for subjects such as the historicity of Jesus and the bible, and the principles of Darwinian evolution. People like to think they're cultivated in such fields, but they know next to nothing... even though they talk as if they did. That's France!

Salamanders smarter than God

I disagree with Sam Harris when he says that he finds it interesting that

people of faith only tend to pray for
conditions that are self-limiting.

Personally, I don't find that information in the least bit "interesting".

Sexually speaking, Australia is an advanced nation

Our ambassador in France is Stephen Brady. You see him in the following snapshot (baldish) alongside his friend Peter Stephens (drinking milk).

Click here to read an article from The Sydney Morning Herald about a minor diplomatic incident that took place in Paris on 25 April 2015 (Anzac Day).

There are holes in the Great Pyramid of Giza

Well, fix them, dear Lisa, dear Lisa, dear Lisa.

If you want to see what made me say those words, look at the following delightful video:

Let’s get back to Giza. An article in Le Figaro says that new results obtained by infrared detectors, muon tomography and 3D modeling have just been published. Above all, two previously-unknown cavities have been discovered in this 4500-year-old construction.

Robert De Niro on Trump [repeat post]

My post of a week ago presented this video. I like it so much, and I hate Trump so much, that I’m putting it up once again.

Obama speaks out: “Come on, man”

Click here to see Barack Obama talking to
America's greatest pile of elephant shit.

Click here to listen to Michelle Obama talking
about an ugly sexual predator.

The USA will surely need a lot of time to erase memories of Trump.
For many years, a stinking trail will be left behind him.

French clown leaves the circus

Pierre Etaix, 87, died this morning.

He worked with Jacques Tati [1907-1982]
and was married to Annie Fratellini [1932-1997],
famous for her role in Zazie in the métro.

Independence referendum in Scotland

At the opening of the Scottish National Party in Glasgow, Nicola Sturgeon, prime minister of Scotland, announced her intention to present a new project, next week, for an independence referendum.

Fake healers

Answer is blowin' in the wind

Bob Dylan, 75, has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Born Robert Allen Zimmerman in 1941, Dylan started his musical career in 1959 in Minnesota cafés. He received the prize "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition".

Archangel’s new skin

The monastery of the Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy is topped by a statue of an archangel whose English name would be Michael. Yesterday evening, a wonderful TV documentary showed the steps involved, on earth, in replacing the archangel’s golden skin.

We then saw him being carried back up by helicopter to his home in the sky. Click here for a newspaper article on this operation, which includes a short video. The same Normandy-based show presented the elegant tomb in Caen of a distant ancestor who interests me greatly: William the Conqueror.

 

My chart on this link [click to enlarge] goes back through

my paternal grandmother Kathleen Pickering [1889-1964]:

Lad on a bike

This courageous Scotsman, Danny MacAskill, is never afraid of falling off his bike. You have to wait until the end of the documentary to discover that falls occur regularly.

This fellow is no longer a friend of France

Vladimir Putin is persevering in bombardments of Aleppo. The president of France, François Hollande, made it obvious to Putin that he was no longer welcome in France unless he talked solely about putting an end to the slaughter of civilians in Syria. France is surely not alone in looking upon Putin as a blood-thirsty criminal and an obstacle to peace in the Middle East.

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)