Pirates

Today, the term "pirates" is often applied (both in English and French) to software thieves... who are more like the members of an elite international club, rather than old-time bandits.

The pirates who captured the French vessel Ponant were neither software nor Hollywood. They were pure specimens of the ancient international art of the Jolly Roger.

Fortunately, French military services were able to intervene efficiently. Some of the Somalian delinquents are likely to spend the rest of their lives in prison, and we might expect that others will be hunted down and eliminated in one way or another. Meanwhile, steps will surely be taken to eradicate this infamous phenomenon of ruthless bygone ages.

Rough riding

I've always had a soft spot for Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, the 34-year-old State Secretary in charge of Ecology, referred to by friends as NKM, mentioned already in my article entitled Same name as Australian mountain [display]. In spite of being a member of Sarkozy's cabinet, she's nice and she's ecological.

NKM had to apologize for rude remarks about her fellow-ministers, in the context of the all-important debate about genetically-modified crops. Otherwise she would have been sacked. I hope she survives in Sarkozia.

Two Paris restaurants

On Sunday, we had lunch at the charming Café Louis Philippe on the Right Bank, just a hundred meters east of the Hôtel de Ville, opposite the Ile St Louis.

It's a delightful setting, with interior decor dating from 1810. The food is traditional, so Christine and I chose a dish that we would not normally cook at home: veal blanquette.

On Monday, just before leaving Paris, we had lunch in a quite different but equally charming place: the restaurant Le Bourgogne, near the St-Martin canal.

François and his friend Stéphane often go there, and it's a great address. As its name suggests, if it weren't located in the heart of Paris, you might refer to it as a typical provincial restaurant.

Tourists in Paris

It was rather unusual, for Christine and me, to wander around Paris as tourists. Naturally, we did the sort of things that tourists do, such as crossing the St-Martin canal on one of the old arched bridges.

I was happy to see that the Rue Rambuteau had not changed considerably. Christine and François sat down at the old café on the corner, which has always been an ideal observation point for watching everybody in the street.

Meanwhile, I started to take the kind of photos that tourists take.

Outside the Palais-Royal, we admired our reflections in this big pile of chromium-plated balls:

In general, we were both favorably suprised by the quality of Parisian gardens, which seem to be designed differently, with more imagination, than when we lived here.

Christine had never strolled around the Place Vendôme before.

I was keen to visit the place where I had started work with IBM in 1962: a private street named Cité du Retiro. Today, the inner sanctum has been acquired by Cartier and transformed into a vast citadel of glass and shiny steel.

Finally, if I were asked to indicate the change that impressed me most in my rapid vision of Paris during the weekend, I would not hesitate in replying: the huge quantity of scooters parked everywhere.

Christine's colorful admirer

On a sunny Sunday afternoon in the City of Light, Christine introduced me to one of her old-time admirers from the world of books.

This colorful gentleman, named Pascal, started his professional activities by pushing a trolley around the Latin Quarter and collecting unwanted books from shops. Then he would sell them to tourists. Today, he's a celebrated merchant with an outdoor stall on the Right Bank of the Seine. And filmmakers hire him regularly for small roles in movies about Paris.

Pascal owns a house in Normandy where he grows roses. He even told us his secret for the rapid creation of vast rose gardens. You simply push freshly-cut rose twigs into the earth, and about twenty percent of them finally grow into bushes with flowers. Besides roses, Pascal has lots of apple trees, and he transforms the fruit into a Normandy specialty: strong Calvados spirits, which is just the stuff you need to keep yourself warm when you're standing outside all day selling books.

From what I gather, Pascal decided long ago that his colleague Christine (who once had a bookshop in the Latin Quarter) would be the ideal woman in his life... but his dreams have not yet come to fruition. As a token of his constant affection, he presented Christine with a precious gift: a wine bottle full of his genuine homemade Calvados. Inside his stall, Pascal appeared to have a certain supply of warming beverages, which could be accessed by moving aside a few books. In the course of a normal working day, I suspect that Pascal probably moves those books aside quite a few times. To be honest, I should explain that, when we met up with him, at about two o'clock in the afternoon, Pascal had almost certainly not yet touched a drop of the strong stuff from Normandy. A glass beneath his shelves of old books revealed that he was still at the red wine stage.

Pedestrian minister

It's only a short walk between the ministry of the Interior and the presidential palace, but it's nice to have a couple of guys to carry your dossiers and an umbrella. On her way, Michèle Alliot-Marie halted to shake hands and chat briefly with each of the police officers she encountered. Not surprising; she's their big boss.

A minute later, François Fillon dashed past us in a motorcade comprising motor cyclists with sirens and a mysterious vehicle that looked like an ambulance. Great stuff for provincial tourists such as Christine and me. We concluded that Nicolas Sarkozy had organized a meeting at his place down the road.

Brilliant photographer

Alongside Christine and our son François, the fellow with the white shoes is Stéphane Gautronneau: a professional photographer who knows how to handle motor bikes and other interesting subjects. Click the following photo to visit his splendid website:

Family photo

It would be impossible to describe the amazing depth of synchronicity behind this snapshot of Christine and our friend Céline in a tea shop on the Rue St-Honoré:

Back to where it all began

My son took this snapshot as the métro dashed through Rambuteau station, on our way to the Gare de Lyon, for my return trip to the Dauphiné. These three days in Paris were a delightful and fascinating excursion for Christine and me. A meaningful encounter for our children, too, no doubt. A step back in time to where it all began... but, above all, an encounter with the everyday context of Emmanuelle and François. In any case, for those who might have unfounded doubts about the well-being of Paris and citizens such as our children, I believe I can affirm that Fluctuat nec mergitur.

Cooking blunders

The kitchen expression "serve up the leftovers" is even more ugly in French: "accommoder les restes". It sounds like darning an old holey sock. Insofar as I cook for myself, many of my preparations stretch out over two or three meals. Consider the case of roast chicken. Since I purchase sturdy farm poultry, a plump chicken is always a three-mealer. As everybody knows, many dishes are better the second time round, when they've been heated up after a day or so in the refrigerator. That's particularly true in the case of curried turkey, for example.

Often, I set out with the intention of producing such-and-such a dish, but everything goes wrong, and I end up using the ingredients for a quite different purpose. A week ago, for example, I had a sudden urge to prepare Israeli falafels: essentially fried balls of mashed chickpeas and herbs stuffed, along with tomato and lettuce salad, into the circular bread product called pita in Greek. Everything was coming along fine up until I got around to opening up a pita from the local supermarket.

It crumbled into fragments like a fragile piece of cake. Not exactly the same texture and quality as countless falafels that I've munched in Israel. So, I instantly forgot about trying to prepare falafels, and decided to toast the remaining pitas, to make cheese sandwiches with Greek feta. They were excellent.

Long ago, I remember my first unsuccessful attempts at preparing mayonnaise. Christine and I were newly wedded, and we were awaiting a lunch visit from a delightful Breton ecclesiastic, Abbé Chéruel. Failing to produce genuine mayonnaise, I decided to mix the eggy/oily liquid with minced pork, as stuffing for tomatoes to be roasted in the oven. The outcome was delicious. For ages, I used to repeat this dish whenever we had guests. The recipe started out: Screw up an attempt at making mayonnaise...

That anecdote reminds me of the alleged discovery of roast pork. In ancient China, pigs were sacred animals that roamed around farm houses like dogs or donkeys. One day, a house was destroyed by fire, along with the farm animals. The farmer stroked sadly the scorched carcass of one of his dear departed pigs. His fingers were burnt. Automatically, to ease the pain, he put his fingers in his mouth... whereupon he tasted, for the first time ever, an unknown delicacy: roast pork. After that accidental incident, roast pork became an instant craze in China. The recipe started out: Burn down a farm house along with all the domestic animals...

Bicycle thieves

This weekend, I'm looking forward to discovering the celebrated Vélib phenomenon: the free bikes of Paris. It's funny to think that I used to belong to the audacious minority who rode bikes through the dangerous streets of Paris back in the '70s.

Paris has always abounded in bicycle thieves, and the police have a hard job tracking them down and apprehending them.

I've just heard that, during the time since the Vélib system was set up, in July 2007, some 700 bikes have been stolen, and that many offenders have been blacklisted.

In France, a prestigious organization called the Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés [CNIL: National Committee for Computing and Liberty] makes sure constantly that the rights of French citizens are not being attacked or eroded, maybe surreptitiously, through the use of computers. The existence of this committee reflects an excellent French republican idea, and it appears to be effectively operational. For example, I was rather excited about the idea of seeing my name in the Journal Officiel, last month, when I was naturalized. But a polite note appeared on my computer screen stating that the CNIL did not authorize the explicit display of the identity of new citizens. Great stuff, I won't complain about that.

On the other hand, the CNIL has authorized Parisian authorities, not surprisingly, to computerize its blacklist of bicycle thieves, so that the police will find it easier to track them down. Once again, great stuff!

In his tongue-in-cheek Plaidoyer pour un génocide [Plea for a Genocide], my writer friend Jean Sendy [who died back in 1978] surprised us with the following affirmations:

Tout logicien sait qu'un crime parfait est très difficile à réussir, très long à préparer ; un criminel assez intelligent pour ne pas se faire prendre ne met donc pas la société en péril : au pire, il ne recommencera pas de sitôt ; au mieux il sera assez intelligent pour comprendre que ce n'est pas rentable et ne jamais recommencer. En bonne logique, les petits voleurs, les voleurs de bicyclette, doivent au contraire être éliminés aussitôt le délit établi : la médiocrité de leur entreprise les contraint à récidiver sans cesse, et prouve qu'ils sont trop bêtes pour être utiles à la société ; au mieux, on ne peut que les empêcher de nuire, en leur assurant vivre et couvert dans des prisons ruineuses pour le budget. Le seul défaut de ce raisonnement est son indifférence à la morale.

For readers whose French does not allow them to understand Jean Sendy: He says that great criminals don't really hurt society, whereas mediocre bicycle thieves, who annoy us constantly, should maybe be executed immediately... were it not for our moral qualms. Sendy was both a brilliant thinker and a good writer. A great friend, too. I think of him constantly, like Pierre Schaeffer and Albert Richard. Those three men, my cultural forebears, made me wish to become French.

Paris revisited

My daughter Emmanuelle and son François find it hard to understand why I've never returned to Paris for years. This doesn't mean that I've lost interest in the most fascinating and celebrated city on Earth, where I lived for ages, in the Rue Rambuteau.

On the contrary. The truth of the matter is down-to-earth. Here at Gamone, I live with a dog, Sophia, and I can't ask my neighbors to take care of her while I wander off to faraway places. It was only recently, on the occasion of my week or so in hospital, that I got around to discovering the excellent solution of placing Sophia in a top-quality dogs' home just near the TGV station on the outskirts of Valence. Well, I've booked her in there for a few days so that I can finally get around to seeing, not only my children, but their Parisian apartments. And my ex-wife Christine will be leaving her home in Brittany to be there too. In fact, it's an immensely exciting idea for rural folk such as Christine and me to leave our respective villages and dogs for a few days, enabling us to revisit the capital and stay with our children.

I'm a little afraid that sophisticated Parisians might make fun of my rough country appearance and behavior. Maybe I should wear my Akubra hat, carry a camera around my neck, and try to look like an Aussie tourist.

Complete novel now released

I have decided to release all 16 chapters of my novel entitled All the Earth is Mine. Click the following button to access my website:

This website includes a freely-accessible guestbook (still empty) for readers' comments.

Olympic contests

There's no doubt about it: the 2008 Olympic Games have started well and truly, a little earlier than planned, with spectacular events in London and Paris. The IOC [International Olympic Committee] will have to invent a name for this new sport, played simultaneously by individuals and teams.

In Paris, the athletes dressed in navy blue appeared to be the stronger players. However, at the moment I'm writing, the heats are not yet finished, and it's still impossible to predict the winners.

On the French TV midday news, there were confused images of police vehicles and crowds of people in one of the tunnels alongside the Seine. My mind flashed back to the death of Diana. Today, thanks to China's stubborn reluctance to respect human rights, particularly in Tibet, I fear that we're about to witness the death of the ancient Olympic spirit.

European vessel in space

Yesterday's docking of the European space cargo Jules Verne with the ISS [International Space Station], 200 miles above the Atlantic Ocean, performed solely by artificial intelligence, was amazing.

The vessel was launched on March 9 from the Kourou spaceport in French Guinea by an Ariane rocket, and yesterday's automatic docking maneuvers were monitored from Toulouse in southwestern France. In my article of 8 February 2008 entitled Europe in space [display], I described the incorporation in the ISS of Europe’s Columbus science laboratory. The success of the safe arrival of the Jules Verne cargo vessel enhances considerably the presence of Europe in the context of the ISS, which had been largely an American and Russian affair for a long time.

Two heads of state

It's rare to see a photo of an encounter between the respective leaders of France and Australia.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd met up today at the NATO summit talks in Bucharest, Romania. Although Australia is not a member of NATO, the prime minister is attempting to persuade European nations to step up their participation in the conflict with the Taliban in Afghanistan. France was a founding member of NATO, but Charles de Gaulle decided to withdraw from the integrated military structure of the organization in 1966. France has nevertheless remained one of the five nations that finance three-quarters of the NATO budget.

France is, of course, one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. In that domain, Kevin Rudd was pleased to learn, from Sarkozy, that France will support Australia's candidacy for admission as an elected (temporary) member of the Security Council for the two-year period 2013-14. One has the impression that Rudd's Australia intends to play a more active role on the international scene, particularly in a European context.

In Bucharest, the French leader got back in contact with George W Bush. This encounter provided the US president with an opportunity for making yet another of those typically crazy declarations for which he is celebrated. In referring to Sarkozy's trip to America last November, Bush likened the Frenchman to... a reincarnation of Elvis Presley! Somebody should tell Bush that it's not Nicolas who sings, but rather his wife Carla. No, better still: Our French King of Bling should be persuaded into getting all dressed up and recording a karaoke version of one of the great hits of the King of Memphis, such as Love me tender or It's Now or Never. Such a video would make a delightful farewell gift for the US president when he leaves office.

Big booze business

The two major giants in the domain of fine alcoholic beverages have their headquarters in the Old World. The leader, of course, is Britain's Diageo, which owns Guinness, a dozen world-famous brands of whisky (including Johnnie Walker), Gordon's gin, Smirnoff vodka, etc.

Close on the heels of Diageo is France's Pernod Ricard, the famous manufacturer of aniseed-flavored pastis, who announced yesterday their acquisition of the Swedish company that produces Absolut vodka. Besides prestigious whisky brands such as Chivas and Ballantine's, Martell brandy and Mumm champagne, the French company owns Australian wines such as Jacob's Creek.

I used to believe naively that Ricard pastis was the best in the world.

Thanks to my Provençal friends Natacha and Alain, I've had the pleasure and privilege of discovering that the world's finest pastis (gold medal award at the General Agricultural Competition Paris 2008) is the Henri Bardouin brand, produced in the delightful Provençal town of Forcalquier.

All the Earth is Mine — chapter 9

Chapter 9 of my novel has now been released. Click the following button to access the novel's website:

This chapter is entitled Violence. Everybody in Jerusalem is familiar with the vast colorful market named Mahaneh Yehuda, not far from the center of the New City. Lanes between the stalls bear the Hebrew names of fruit, but there are vendors of all kinds of foodstuffs (vegetables, meat, fish and pastry products) and household wares.

On a sunny afternoon, Rachel Kahn had taken the Luria children, David and Lisa, on a bus excursion to the Red Sea, leaving their parents to wander around Jerusalem like carefree honeymooners. Alas, a Palestinian terrorist chose that moment to strike the crowded market.

Destination death

Last Tuesday afternoon, I dropped in at the cemetery of Pont-en-Royans to bid adieu to 46-year-old Muriel Magnat (wife of Jean, the brother of Gérard), who was one of the first neighbors I encountered here at Gamone, fifteen years ago. At one stage, I employed Muriel to clean up my house on a weekly basis, but she used to irritate me, whenever I made any specific request, by replying "Oui, chef", as if I were an army sergeant. So her role as my household employee didn't last for long. But we remained good friends... and I was saddened, over the last couple of years, to see Muriel slipping into a no-man's-land of social withdrawal, maybe exacerbated by alcohol.

The last time I ran into her, a couple of months ago, at the supermarket in Saint-Jean-en-Royans, Muriel looked like a very old woman. She invited me back to her place for a pastis. In the course of our conversation, we got around to envisaging the possibility that I might inherit their cat, because it appeared that her husband Jean hoped to replace this animal by a dog. Retrospectively, I believe that Muriel was in no position to offer the family cat to anybody at all, but she was the kind of woman whose friendly direct speech seemed to announce such possibilities as if they were certainties. That was part of Muriel's charm, you might say. Back at the time she worked for me, Muriel was immensely proud of their ancient house in the Rue du Merle, on the slopes of Pont-en-Royans. But drunken carelessness meant that a good part of the neighborhood disappeared in flames... and Muriel, the likely culprit, disappeared instantly, like the burnt buildings, from the daily village scene.

Muriel Faure was a descendant, through her mother, of the Bonnard family whose prestigious hotel, inaugurated in 1898 (still standing, but converted recently into private premises), used to be a touristic landmark at Pont-en-Royans. Once upon a time, the noble descendants of the ancient Bérenger-Sassenage families used to be lodged there... not to mention the king of Belgium along with countless New World visitors.

On the tombstone above the sepulcher where Muriel was buried, I was intrigued by an engraved name, with no date of death: Tintin Faure. Afterwards, I asked my neighbor Madeleine Repellin (an erudite aficionado—in modern terms, a database—of local births, deaths, marriages, divorces, funerals and sordid stories of all kinds) to tell me the relationship between this mysterious Tintin and the deceased woman who had entered his tombstone universe.

Madeleine: "Tintin—that's to say, the nickname for Augustin—is Muriel's father."

William: "Hang on, Madeleine. The other day, you introduced me to an old man, supposed to be Muriel's father, alongside his daughter's grave. Now you're telling me that it's his name that's inscribed on the tombstone above his daughter's grave."

Madeleine: "Right. Tintin has inscribed his name on his future tomb, without a date of death, but his daughter happened to die before him."

William: "I'm amazed. Is it normal for living people to have their names inscribed on tombstones?" I was suddenly reminded of ferry boats in Sydney Harbor that carry the names of still-living sporting heroes such as Dawn Fraser and Shane Gould.

I sensed that the subject was becoming serious, and that my questions were disturbing. My everyday neighbor Dédé Repellin—Dédé is the nickname for André—intervened in our discussion: "Yes, it's a common habit in this part of the Alps. Inscribing a name on a future tombstone provides us with a precise destination. While still living, we know where we're finally heading."

Talk about serious mountain guides!

When lying becomes a family affair

I don't mind admitting that, once upon a time, when Bill Clinton looked us directly in the eyes and swore that he had never had any kind of sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, I was stupid enough to believe him, because he seemed to be so tremendously sincere. I even remember saying to myself: "What great willpower and strong character Clinton must possess, to be able to refuse the cuddly advances of sexy White House women. And what a pity he has to defend his honor courageously against all those nasty people who are trying to invent false reasons for overthrowing him."

On the other hand, as soon as I heard Hillary Clinton telling us how she scrambled across a tarmac under a shower of sniper bullets, something told me there was something wrong with her story. In particular, I found it weird that she should be smiling while relating this tale, as if her alleged courage were almost a matter-of-fact laughing matter. "You must realize, ladies and gentlemen: I'm so terribly brave in such circumstances that it's almost a joke."



I believe that Hillary Clinton's bid to become the Democratic presidential candidate will suffer irreparably through this silly lie.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, seems to have succeeded elegantly and efficiently in putting his former preacher friend Jeremiah Wright back into the glass museum case from which he should never have been extracted. If Obama himself had ever made any of the kinds of fiery declarations attributed to the pastor, there would certainly be cause for concern. But this is not the case. I don't find it alarming that Obama should count this crazy preacher among his friends. The world would be an impossible stage for aspiring statesmen if they were to be judged by their notorious friends.