Master mushroom chef

This morning, while out walking with the dogs, I came upon half-a-dozen sturdy Coprinus comatus mushrooms. Apparently they exist too in Australia, since they figure on this 1981 postage stamp. Often described as shaggy, because of the tufts on its surface, this mushroom was first described in Europe at about the time that Australia was settled. Maybe it was transported to Australia in soil attached to the hoofs of animals. On the other hand, it could well be a variety that has existed right throughout the world, ever since the Gondwana era. That's an intriguing question… about which I know nothing.

I sliced each shaggy in two, lengthwise. Then I cooked them gently in butter, on both sides, in a non-stick frying pan.

I took them off the stove as soon as they started to brown, sprinkled them abundantly with coarsely ground pepper and added a spoonful of olive oil. I ate them with a thick slice of toasted homemade walnut bread and butter. Smooth texture, which reminded me of cooked bananas. Subtle creamy/fruity flavor. Absolutely delicious.

Dog worlds

When I look down on Fitzroy from my bathroom window of a morning, here's a typical vision of the dog and his context:

As you can see, he has gathered around him, on the lawn, a little world of random objects: a length of garden hose, half a doormat, rags (in fact, fragments of the geotextile fabric, dug up by Fitzroy, on which I had laid marble chips beneath my rose pergola), an assortment of interesting sticks, etc. There's no point in my removing this mess, because Fitzroy would simply reconstitute it within a short lapse of time. Besides, they're not exactly random objects, and they're not really a mess, because they've been selected by Fitzroy for reasons that only he appreciates. Here's another photo of the same scene, ten minutes later:

Here, we can start to understand the subtle symbolism of the situation. Don't tell me that loops in hoses merely come about by chance, and that a spiritual dog is going to lie down in any old random position. Clearly, Fitzroy is reinvigorating himself with the flux of energy in the vortex of the loop, in much the same way that a New Age adept might seek resources inside a pyramid, or meditate while moving through a labyrinth. [Click here to visit my website in the latter domain.]

Yesterday afternoon, I left Fitzroy at home and I took Sophia to her annual vaccination visit in St-Jean-en-Royans. French veterinarians are well organized, and they mail you a reminder for such an appointment. In the waiting room, I discovered that it seemed to be cat day, since Sophia and I were soon surrounded by plastic crates emitting meows. This didn't worry Sophia, who seemed to like the idea of being the only dog in the room. At one stage, a flustered plump young lady sat down opposite us. I had learned from her conversation with the receptionist that she had come along here to pick up her sister's cat, which had apparently undergone a minor surgical intervention. One thing was certain: the young lady wanted it to be known that this wasn't her correct environment. She was strictly a dog person, and she was only here on cat business because her sister had asked her to help out. So, it was normal that the young lady, visibly upset by the feline majority, should turn towards Sophia and me, to get her point across.

LADY: "I've got a magnificent dog waiting for me at home. I'm not at all fond of cats, but my sister was busy this afternoon, and she asked me to collect her cat."

I rapidly sensed that the only way of calming down the young lady was to ask her to talk to me about her dog.

LADY: "He's the most beautiful dog you can possibly imagine. An Australian Shepherd. I'm a school teacher, and my husband and I have a rural house with land down near Crest. So the dog spends all his time outdoors."

At that stage, I made an enormous blunder, through a mixture of inadvertence and ignorance. You see, there were no sheep whatsoever in the coastal region of Australia where I grew up, only dairy and beef cattle. So, I knew nothing at all about Australian Shepherd dogs. Worse still, when I heard the word "Australian", I imagined immediately that her adorable animal was surely some kind of rough-and-ready Aussie cattle dog. But I was rapidly corrected.

LADY: "His features are similar to those of a Border Collie. On his face, he's got red streaks here, then blacks streaks alongside. And, further down, it's white and gray, then it turns to brownish yellow and fawn." I imagined some kind of Technicolor dog.

ME: "I suppose he combines a little bit of several varieties." That was my polite way of suggesting that she probably had a mongrel dog.

The lady was horrified, but in a friendly way. She had no reason to imagine that I was Australian, and she no doubt found it normal that a guy such as me in a veterinarian's waiting room in France, accompanied by a Labrador, would be totally ignorant in the domain of Australian Shepherd dogs. And she was right. Later, back home, I looked up this subject on Google, where I found this splendid photo. Meanwhile, in the waiting room, I listened attentively to the school teacher.

LADY: "He's a pure pedigree animal, with a distinguished genealogy. My husband and all our friends got together with my teacher colleagues to find this dog for me. It's the most magnificent Australian Shepherd dog that you can possibly imagine."

ME: "Does he have any opportunities of working with animals?"

LADY: "Not really… and that's a big problem for the moment, because he's crazy about herding up all the animals he sees. My husband brought him along to school one day. The children had often heard me describing my dog, and they wanted to meet up with him. Everything was going along fine, out in the playground. Then my dog suddenly decided that it was time to round up all these kids. He soon got around to herding them all into a group in a corner of the playground."

Now, there's an unexpected theme of collaboration between our two nations. Australia could supply France with smart cattle and sheep dogs to handle unruly kids in some of the suburban problem schools.

The herding instinct in dogs is wonderful and spectacular. My Fitzroy obviously has it in his genes. Like all the dogs of this kind, he has the habit of suddenly flattening himself on the ground, and waiting for the others to do something. This was how he reacted, for example, when I returned with Sophia from the visit to the veterinarian. Fitzroy was there to meet us, flat on his belly, waiting for us to get out of the car. He seemed to be wondering how he should handle Sophia and me, as soon as we started to move towards the house.

In one of his books, Richard Dawkins explains that this canine herding instinct was acquired by their ancestral wolves back at the time they worked as packs, stalking large prey. The obvious purpose of this stalking was to isolate an ideal victim for the kill. Maybe this is not a good story for the school teacher's kids. Cats, of course, are no more peace-and-love than dogs, even though they neither herd nor allow themselves to be herded. Have you never contemplated the sinister stare of a cute little pussy, and wondered where this regard might have come from? The problem with all these delightful pets is that they've seen through us humans, ages ago. They know we're basically meat.

Head needs to be screwed on

My native land, Australia, wasn't settled by European colonists before the end of the 18th century. So, Down Under, you won't find any ancient Gothic cathedrals, or stuff like that. But we've got a lot of Big Things.

[Click the big fish to see a Wikipedia article on Australia's Big Things.]

One of my favorites was the Big Banana in Coffs Harbour, which existed already when I was a youth in nearby Grafton.

There's no doubt some kind of deep psychological reason why Aussies have thought it worthwhile, if not necessary, to create this set of ugly objects. Maybe, one day, somebody will produce a doctoral thesis in this domain. Meanwhile, it's amazing—a minor Aussie miracle—that no enterprising outback township has got around to making a name for itself by erecting the Big Prick. Talking of miracles, I trust that devout Catholics are already working on a project for a Big Mary. [If one or other of the above-mentioned projects were to become a reality, I would surely deserve some kind of royalties.]

In the small Polish town of Świebodzin, the citizens have donated a lot of cash to build the Big Jesus. They've done this for two main reasons. On the one hand, they love Jesus. On the other hand, they reckon that this 35-meter high monstrosity—the Biggest Jesus in the World—could create touristic revenues for the township. When I observe this marvelous photo of the Lord's head being lifted into position, ready to be screwed on, I'm ashamed of myself for having sinful thoughts. I can't help imagining a nightmare scenario in which opponents of the giant statue (if indeed such insensitive individuals did in fact exist) would use their imagination to organize an apocalyptic explosion to remove this eyesore from the rural landscape. Naturally, I can't really imagine why terrorists of any faith (or, worse still, atheists) would go to the trouble of attacking this splendid work of art and civil engineering. But one never knows. Sadly, the world is full of crazy individuals…

Talking of crazy individuals who need to get their head screwed on right, here's a fabulous case study from the inspired world of US politics. I'll let you find out for yourselves who he is, where he comes from, what he does for a living, and what he's on about.



This guy impresses and inspires me. I know it's irrational, but I imagine him taking advantage of his political connections and his spiritual convictions to set up a vast US-based multinational named BTC: the Big Things Corporation. It would offer a broad range of expert construction projects ranging from giant statues of saints and gurus through to fake Gothic cathedrals for banana republics, without forgetting mammoth objects of all kinds for the prosperous Australian market. I'm assuming that, if only it were screwed on right, this fellow would have a head for Big Business.

POST-SCRIPTUM: This is a good context in which to include this charming image of a Big Bum: a statue in the nearby city of Romans.

A friend explained to me recently that this personage is called Fanny, and she belongs to the traditions of the French game of bowls in this region. If I understand correctly (which I probably don't), the captain of the winning team has to go forward ceremoniously and kiss tenderly this inviting arse.

Pastel valley

This morning, the valley of the Bourne was shrouded in floating mists, while the sunny sky was pale blue and studded with cumulus clouds.

On autumn mornings like this, my son and I used to have mock-serious conversations in which we would reminisce about the precise exotic regions of faraway China that were most evoked by the misty mountains of Choranche and Châtelus.

I would air my erudition: "Choranche has always reminded me of the upper regions of Fu-Ching, in the vicinity of the great Wong."

François would beg to disagree: "No, not at all; your judgment and visual memories are flawed. The Bourne provides us with exactly the same kind of splendid vision that I recall during my extensive journeys through the Min-Yang, on horseback, in early October."

At other times, I would show the above photo to friends and ask them what they thought of this image of the Bourne in the vicinity of Gamone. Let me cease my trivial joking. It's an old photo of the Clarence River at Jackadgery, not far from where I grew up in Australia.

Meditation

Long ago in Paris, I used to eat often in a small Arab restaurant in the rue des Archives, just up from the town hall, which served an excellent couscous. I was charmed by a mural picture-story, composed of illustrations as in a comic book, which started in a corner of the restaurant and stretched all the way around three walls. The simple drawings, without words, told the story of a wise man who went out into the wilderness to meditate, seated on the sandy slopes.

His meditation session lasted for a long time. For years. Maybe for decades. At the outset, he is all alone: a solitary hermit lost in his profound thoughts. Then a few nomads stop at the oasis at the foot of the mountains, and pitch their tent. Soon, they are joined by other desert wanderers, with herds of goats, and the oasis is transformed into a tiny village of tent-dwellers. Unperturbed, the wise man continues to meditate.

Further settlers arrive, and they build huts on the slopes around the oasis. Alongside these huts, sheds start to spring up, where craftsmen appear to be working. Trenches are dug so that water can be pumped up to these people living and working on the slopes. The wise man, oblivious to this activity, carries on meditating.

Little by little, the slopes around the oasis are covered in dwellings of many kinds. Streets start to appear, with donkey-drawn vehicles moving through the settlement. Some of the settlers get around on small motor-cycles. Later, the first trucks and automobiles appear on the scene. The wise man pays no attention to the changing environment. He is too busy meditating.

Electricity is introduced into the township, and the streets are paved. Smoking factories appear on the outskirts of the town. New houses, built of bricks and stone, are erected. Children play in green parks. Cafés and restaurants have come into existence in the vicinity of the oasis. There is even a cinema and a municipal swimming pool. The wise man, still meditating, is unaffected by this large-scale arrival of civilization.

It is no longer a simple township, but a busy city. Few traces of the desert environment remain visible. It could be a typical small metropolis located anywhere on the globe. Only one small detail makes it different to most other cities. There is a strange individual in the middle of this vast urban environment, and he seems to be meditating.

Suddenly, in several corners of the metropolis, the first signs of decadence have started to appear. A few factories have closed. In several neighborhoods, empty dwellings are falling into ruin. The wise man is not at all worried by this state of affairs, because he is concerned solely by his meditations.

Little by little, the urban environment is rotting away, and citizens are leaving for greener pastures. Everywhere, there are signs of decay, destruction and decrepitude. The sands of the desert have started to cover, not only the former parks, but even various deserted neighborhoods. The wise man is still engaged in his thoughts.

Within a short time, it is becoming more and more difficult to imagine that there was once a thriving city at this spot. Sand, by now, covers almost the entire site. Finally, there are no longer any visible traces whatsoever of the former presence of humans. The place has reverted to its initial state, which corresponds to what the wise man saw when he chose this spot, long ago, for a session of meditation.

Suddenly, he awakes from his meditation. He is surrounded by the silent desert, with a green oasis down at the foot of the slopes. He stands up, yawns, and stretches his arms and legs. He has a contented smile on his face. He looks up towards the heavens, as if he were about to address himself to a divinity. He exclaims with enthusiasm: "Wow, what an extraordinary meditation session!"

Gamone evolution

My article of October 27, 2019 entitled Donkey expedition day [display] described the long walk of Sylvie Rozand and me, leading three donkeys, from Presles to Gamone. Yesterday afternoon, Sylvie returned here, with a friend from Presles, to retrieve her two adult donkeys Nina and Margot. The operation went off with no problems whatsoever. We had nevertheless had certain apprehensions: How would Fanette react to the sight of her mother Nina being led away? How would Nina feel about leaving her 6-months-old daughter behind? Would Sylvie run into problems in trying to coax her two donkeys through the road tunnel up towards the plateau at Presles? Back here at Gamone, how would my Moshé and his new friend Fanette get along together on their own?

As of yesterday evening, I was delighted to realize that not a single one of those problems had arisen. In other words, everything went off like a charm. Fanette didn't appear to be concerned by the departure of her mother and the other adult donkey. When she returned to Gamone late in the afternoon to pick up her car, Sylvie told me that Nina and Margot had strolled eagerly back up to Presles, and that they didn't seem to be bothered by the idea that little Fanette had remained with Moshé at Gamone. This morning, I took this photo of the donkeys and Fitzroy:

As usual, my two dogs get on marvelously well together. Their relationship remains asymmetrical. As I've pointed out already, Sophia spends most of her time lounging in her big wicker basket on the kitchen floor, whereas Fitzroy is a strictly outside dog, now completely accustomed to the idea of getting into his kennel from time to time.

Preventing Fitzroy from moving inside the house is not even a personal choice of mine. It's rather a survival issue, in the sense that many objects inside the house (furniture, books, clothes, tools, etc) probably wouldn't survive for long if Fitzroy were to get in physical contact with them. Fitzroy's genes are such that he likes to be bossy with recalcitrant beasts such as cattle, sheep and donkeys. So, why would he be unduly worried about tackling a lounge chair, say? Out on the lawn, Fitzroy is fascinated by a permanently running hose from the Gamone spring. He drags it all over the lawn, meaning that puddles spring up every now and again in unexpected corners. He has trouble understanding why he can't simply pick up the water jet in his mouth, as if it were a stick, and dash around with it clenched between his teeth. In attempting to fathom this philosophical mystery, Fitzroy often gets soaked… and he then moves onto the straw in his kennel to dry himself out.

The other evening, on French TV, I watched a fascinating US program on the subject of our prehistoric ancestors. Directed by Graham Townsley, its English title is Becoming Human, and it was made last year. The fact that such a show can be seen in prime time on a Saturday evening (dubbed in French) is yet another tribute to the excellence of French TV. Here's the opening episode:



Well, one of the recurrent themes in this series of documentaries was well expressed in the latest book by Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth. Here are his words:

We've been land animals for about 400 million years, and we've walked on our hind legs for only the last 1 per cent of that time. For 99 per cent of our time on land, we've had a more-or-less horizontal backbone and walked on four legs. We don't know for certain what selective advantages accrued to the individuals who first rose up and walked on their hind legs…

Not so long ago, people used to explain that bipedalism came about because we needed to get up on our hind legs so that we could use our hands for carrying things… but that's surely a case of putting the cart before the horse. We still don't know the complete answer to that question, although both Dawkins (in The Ancestor's Tale) and the Townsley documentaries propose various speculations on this subject. Getting back to my dog Fitzroy, I often have the impression that he might already be working hard, with the help of his mentor Sophia, at evolving into bipedalism.

In this tandem position, when Sophia decides to move forward, Fitzroy is perfectly capable of following her on his hind legs, like a ballet artist. I'm convinced that, soon, he won't need to lean on Sophia's back any longer. He'll simply raise his front paws in the air, as if he were praising the Almighty for the gift of bipedalism, and he'll wander off in an easy upright gait. Maybe I should get in contact with Dawkins and Townsley, to see if they're interested in writing a book or making a movie about Fitzroy. In fact, I suspected, right from the start, that Fitzroy (who'll be 4 months old next Wednesday) was a wonder dog. Maybe I should look into the idea of teaching him to read...

Sarko's fireworks show

French people used to say: We don't produce oil, but we've got ideas. These days, France has been making a great effort to secure Chinese business contracts. So, during the visit to Paris of the Chinese president Hu Jintao and his wife, it was normal to organize a glitzy dinner evening at the Elysées Palace. The following video (with spoof voice-overs from comedians playing the roles of Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni) shows the arrival of various members of the French government:



An observer has the impression that female dinner guests were expected to turn up in glamorous gear. This was what happened… with the exception of the wives of the Chinese and French presidents. In any case, nobody complained about putting a few French female specimens on show to celebrate the signing of some 20 contracts for a sum of 16 billion euros. As Mao stated in his Little Red Book: France doesn't produce oil, but they've got sexy women.

Vatican fashions

An excellent article by Diane La Phung in the French Internet daily Rue 89 examines a fascinating subject: the new style of papal wear introduced by Joseph Ratzinger.

The journalist draws our attention to something we might not have noticed, particularly those of us who don't necessarily devote much time to the adoration of Ratzi's image and the scrutiny of his sartorial habits. Fashions have changed at the Vatican since the death of John-Paul II. Like his thinking, the dress style of Benedict XVI is resolutely turned towards the past. His appearance is reactionary, in harmony with his theology and his worldview. Consider, for example, this golden image of Ratzi wrapped up like a chocolate. The author of the article goes so far as to suggest that Benedict XVI is reintroducing archaic papal fashions that were cast into Purgatory after Vatican II.

Right down to the level of his splendid crimson leather slippers, Ratzi is bedecked in exotic gear that seems to date from the epoch of the Teddy Boy culture, Mods and Rockers, or Greaser culture in the US.

John-Paul II had more rustic tastes in clothing, such as this hand-embroidered chasuble. Today, many of the elegant old-fashioned items of apparel being brought back into fashion by Benedict XVI have simply been taken out of mothballs in the vast Vatican wardrobes. Sometimes this leads to Ratzi wearing stuff that is no longer tolerated by environmentally-aware youth: for example, borders of natural fur, and collars in swan down.

In general, as a good catholic, Benny is fond of the color of blood. My favorite image is that of the pope pulling a dainty red bonnet called the Camauro down over his ears [photo Alessia Pierdomenico/Reuters].

One imagines Ratzi, dressed up like this, jumping into his popemobile and going out to deliver Christmas gifts to the children of Rome.

Wrong words that sound write

An urban child, strolling along a rural road with his parents, came upon a carpet of acorns beneath an oak tree, and he asked his parents what these fruit were called. He picked up a few specimens and put them in his pocket. The next day, at school, he showed one of them to his teacher, and told her that it was an "eggcorn".

This anecdote has given rise to a database of amusing eggcorn examples. Click the above photo to visit this database.

Two lovely specimens were created through confusion between the terms "ilk" and "elk" (British word for moose). Palin and her elk are running everyone else out of the Republican Party. I would rather be in hell than have anything to do with Christians like Sarah Palin and her elk.

Later on in the database, we hear that: The word "sheila" is an Aussie youthamism.

My post entitled Quackery [display] included a well-known eggcorn: The equator is an imaginary lion running around the Earth.

Eggcorns can arise in terms borrowed from foreign languages. For example: My boss asked me to bring two on-trays to our christmas party, but I honestly don’t know what to put on the trays.

My cousins Peter and Mitchell unearthed a delightful French eggcorn. Having learned that the French word for a backyard swimming pool is piscine, they promptly got around to referring to their family pool in Sydney as a "piss-in".

Here are dragons

In the New York Public Library, there's a copper globe of the world, made in France around 1510. One might have chosen between countless possible names—equally marvelous and authentic—for this precious object, but it remains known sadly as the Hunt-Lenox globe, in honor of the two New Yorkers who had succeeded in grabbing this Old World treasure. (The stupidity of this name is rivaled only by that of the so-called Elgin Marbles.)

A cultivated French friend (Jean-Claude Pagès, a former professor of medicine at the Sorbonne), familiar with the Latin expressions found on this medieval globe, once suggested that some of the map-maker's terms surely described my native land: Terra incognita — Hic sunt dracones. [Unknown land — Here are dragons.]

I've always been particularly fond of the "Here are dragons" thing. If only the Aussie tourist authorities had been smart enough to hitch a ride on this medieval bandwagon, they might have used this as a slogan designating the chunk of archaic Gondwana that would later be known as Australia.

The above image is designated by its creators as a global paleo-geographic reconstruction of the Earth in the late Triassic period, 220 million years ago. In simpler terms, I prefer to think of it as "I still call Gondwana home". I'm amused by the idea of a medieval cartographer, having completed the graphic work on all his fabulous coastlines, who resorted to the formula "Here are dragons" as a way of saying politely: "In fact, concerning this territory, we know fuck all."

Black labrador

I've acquired the latest version of Photoshop Elements. Bewildered by its amazing visual gimmicks, I'll need to get used to employing this tool in place of my archaic existing software. Here's a start.

The dog comes through quite clearly, in spite of my massive filtering. A splendid black labrador with a red collar. His owner in pink and white was another affair. Did I take this photo because I was charmed by the dog, or rather by his lovely mistress? Or maybe both? The Bourne at Pont-en-Royans has always been Sophia's summer Riviera.

Sophia discovered the black dog, and they frolicked around in the water. Then the mistress (whom I had not noticed) emerged slowly from the river, like Ondine, nymph of the waters. She didn't seem to see me. She gazed solely upon the black labrador. This was normal. She had no reason to acknowledge my presence, whereas the black labrador was her dog. This lady was superbly beautiful in her aquatic pink and white simplicity, with her feet lost in the stony sands of the shallow Bourne.

I recalled this kind of shock, many moons ago, in a similar setting, on the banks of the Dordogne, in the region of our Cro-Magnon ancestors. Having arrived in France a few months previously, I was on my first hitchhiking excursion. And a juvenile Ondine emerged from the ancient river—like all self-respecting water nymphs—when I was least expecting a vision. In fact, I wasn't expecting anything much at all, since I had just sat down in the hot air to gnawl at a sandwich.

Nymphean visions are rare and precious, as Vladimir Nabokov explains elegantly in his Lolita. These days, unfortunately, sentiments of this kind tend to get churned up crudely in the meat-mincer labeled pedophilia… particularly in my native Australia, where they don't refrain (until the censor moves in) from exhibiting stupid little bum-twitching girls on TV variety shows.

Personally, my life has been dominated (the word is not too strong) by a nymphean vision that overcame me when I was an 11-year-old boy in South Grafton. Half a century later, when I was revisiting my home town, I hastened to take a photo of all that remained: the pair of quaint houses in Spring Street, just opposite the Catholic school, where I had once glimpsed, for a few minutes, the girl in the fawn dress.

I've never known anything about her beyond the fact that her uniform identified her as a pupil at the Catholic school. In my eyes, she was divinely glorious, for reasons I never understood… and still don't. In a way, she was a sunburnt version of the lady in blue seen at Lourdes by Bernadette Soubirous. Visions are visions, and we can't hope to analyze them. Nymphs are nymphs.

The black labrador in the Bourne at Pont-en-Royans would understand me. His mistress stared at him, motionlessly. Her simple presence demanded obedience. Her boyish haircut evoked Joan of Arc… but the only flames were in my feverish regard. She was so lovely, staring at her dog (with never a glace at me, the photographer), that I felt like a voyeur… which I certainly was. But that mild sentiment of shame didn't prevent me from adjusting the frame and pressing the button of my Nikon. Her small breasts were held tight by a cross-over garment that rose behind her slender neck. She was wearing white cotton thigh-length trousers that accentuated her Venus-like thighs. Above all, her simple pose was strangely passive, as if she were awaiting a reaction from the black labrador. She was the dog's mistress, certainly, but it was the black labrador who would dictate her next move. Against the green background of the Bourne, it was a poem in black, white and pink, built upon a dog and a water nymph.

Party games

Really, I can't understand why journalists have been making such a fuss about an innocent party game that Silvio Berlusconi apparently plays with distinguished young guests who've had the honor of being invited along to one of his elegant dinner evenings. To my mind, after serious and lengthy dining-table discussions about current affairs, culture and so forth, there could be no more friendly way of relaxing than a joyous 60-minute session of Bonga bonga. And I'm not at all surprised that this kind of light-hearted pastime would greatly amuse an intelligent young student such as Ruby, the lovely niece of a statesman from the southern shores of the Mediterranean.

Curiously, journalists have made no attempt to describe this party game… either because they think it's of no importance, or (more likely) because they're clueless in this domain. As a youth in a rural city in Australia, I was invited along to countless charming dinner evenings that ended inevitably in a bit of Bonga bonga… which had rapidly replaced Bridge as the most fashionable game among the refined bourgeoisie of that sophisticated city. It was such a simple fun-filled game, with few rules, that everybody loved playing it. In a dimmed room, a female guest would kneel down on the floor, with her face blindfolded and buried in the cushions of a lounge chair, so that she couldn't see the individuals who were approaching her from behind. One by one, the gentlemen would move behind her with an outstretched finger. The young lady could reach around behind her and grab the finger, but she couldn't actually see whose finger it was. The aim of the game was to guess which man had the longest finger. While fondling the finger, the young lady would chant rhythmically:

Binga binga. Here's a finger.
Bonga bonga. Is it longer?

Then she would give us her estimate of the length of the finger, in inches and fractions of an inch. (We hadn't yet got around to using the metric system.) And this estimated length would be noted down on paper. When all the gentlemen had participated in the game, the girl's blindfold would be removed, and she would get up and read out her estimates, one by one, with the identity of each man now revealed. As you can imagine, this gave rise to much mirth, because often the girl would make a mistake, and say that such-and-such a man with a small finger seemed to have a very long one, or vice versa, and so on.

Somebody made the intriguing suggestion that the Italian president first encountered this parlor game in the Bedouin tent of the great leader of Libya. Now, I'm wondering if maybe there's some kind of gigantic confusion here, between two rather different games. Back in the Antipodes, there was another amusing game with a slightly different name: Bugga bugga. It was played, not with young women, but with sheep, and the nature of the game was quite different to Bonga bonga. Maybe, on the shores of the Mediterranean, it has been played with goats. I simply don't know. But it would be a dreadful shame if ignorant journalists were in fact confusing Bonga bonga with Bugga bugga…

First, find an old Mac

As a schoolboy in Grafton, I was greatly amused by a well-known English essay that we were studying: A Dissertation upon Roast Pig by Charles Lamb [1775-1834]. The author explains that, in ancient China, the meat of pigs was eaten raw, simply because the advantages of cooking had not yet been discovered. Be that as it may (I suspect that Lamb was exaggerating, for the sake of his tale), the taste of roast pork became known for the first time ever when a farm house was destroyed by an accidental fire, along with the family's pigs.

[Click the engraving to access a copy of this short essay.]

As an outcome of this accident, people throughout the region learned that roast pork was delicious food. In their minds, the recipe for roast pork started as follows: Acquire a farm property with a pigpen, and set fire to it. It took them a while to discover that you could in fact obtain roast pork without seeing your entire farm property go up in flames.

I've often encountered situations of that kind. Shortly after our marriage in 1965, Christine and I invited a Breton priest, Abbé Chéruel, to lunch. Proud of my recently-acquired knowledge of the procedure for making genuine French mayonnaise, I got into action… but all my energetic manual mixing was to no avail: my mayonnaise mixture remained in a liquid state. Making an effort to remain cool and act efficiently, I decided to transform my planned tomato salad into something entirely different. I hollowed out the tomatoes, mixed the seeds with my failed mayonnaise mixture, added herbs, stuffed this into the tomatoes and put them in the oven to cook. The result was excellent. For years afterward, my personal recipe for eggy stuffed tomatoes started out as follows: Screw up your preparation of mayonnaise…

These days, my "recipe" for using a pair of sophisticated software products—Flash and FreeHand, both originally manufactured by Macromedia—starts out as follows: First, find an old Mac… What I mean by this is that my aging copies of these two tools won't work on my new iMac with an Intel chip, whereas they continue to work perfectly on an older iMac sitting on an adjacent desk.

Concerning the first product, Flash, the latest version is far too sophisticated and expensive for my needs. I only had to drop in electronically (so to speak) at Adobe's recent grand mass called Max, in Los Angeles, to confirm that Flash has become a gigantic web-development tool, particularly in the corporate world. The fact that Steve Jobs doesn't want his iPhone and iPad to be polluted by the presence of Flash-based stuff is neither here nor there. In the vast world of desktop computers (such as iMacs, for example, as distinct from mobile gadgets), Flash doesn't look as if it's about to disappear. On the contrary. As for me personally, in my modest computing world, I carry on using my antiquated version of Flash, on my older iMac, for many different tasks. For example, I've used Flash to build and update websites that enable me to distribute downloadable chapters of my genealogical monographs.

As for second product, FreeHand, Adobe considers that their customers should switch to Illustrator, which is almost certainly a more modern and powerful software tool. In fact, Adobe announced explicitly on May 15, 2007 that it would discontinue development and support of FreeHand. Now, this annoyed me considerably, because I've been using FreeHand for years for all my genealogical charts, and it turns out to be quite a messy affair to convert them into Illustrator format. Here's a typical example of such a chart, produced using FreeHand:

Since FreeHand was still running perfectly on my older iMac, I've got into the habit of producing genealogical charts on my second machine, and then using an external storage device (a USB key) to load the finished charts onto my new Intel-based iMac.

BREAKING NEWS: Half an hour ago, while writing the present post, I wanted to check the exact spelling of FreeHand (with an uppercase H). I opened by chance the Wikipedia article on this product. I noticed a paragraph about users who were disgruntled because the FreeHand tool refused to work on the latest iMac running Snow Leopard. And lo and behold, I stumbled upon a reference to an Adobe patch that fixed this problem. Five minutes later, I had FreeHand running perfectly on my new iMac! There's a moral in this story. Blogging is good for you. It can even give rise to therapeutic benefits at the level of the blogger. If I hadn't set out to describe my woes concerning these tools that were implemented solely on my old iMac, then it's quite possible that I would never have heard about that great FreeHand patch. The phenomenon of a chance discovery, while seeking something else, is referred to as serendipity [Wiki]. So, both my invention of a recipe for stuffed tomatoes and my discovery of the FreeHand patch were serendipitous.

Autumn weather and colors

It's cold and damp at Gamone, and the sky is gray. During the night, France will be changing to daylight saving time. The view of the slopes on the far side of Gamone Creek is (to employ an unusual but lovely English adjective) autumnal.

The donkeys are getting along fine together. Sylvie phoned, and we agreed that they should remain at Gamone for another week.

Besides, Fitzroy seems to be getting bored with barking at them, because he realizes that the donkeys are taking no notice of him whatsoever… which must be demoralizing for a little Border Collie whose mother plays a professional role in the midst of cattle and sheep.

I glimpsed Moshé seated on his backside with the females standing on either side, as if they were posing for a group photo. By the time I got my camera out, they had ceased posing.

There's a log fire blazing in my living room. This evening, exceptionally, the TV programs are all uninteresting. So, I think I'll simply curl up in front of the fire with my iPad, in the semi-darkness, to start reading (at last) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams... who was one of the greatest friends of Richard Dawkins.

Eye for an eye

An eclectic choice of some of the world's finest news photos is displayed regularly on the website of Le Figaro.

I've clipped grossly this photo of two cheetahs, so that the facial details remain visible:

The photographer Luis Casiano has taken this remarkable shot at the exact instant when the eyes of the two animals were aligned. This makes it hard to determine, at a glance, which cheetah owns the visible eye. The reclining mother or her cub?

No longer with it

In my post of August 18, 2010 entitled Electronic versions of my novel [display], I explained that, in order to get my novel All the Earth is Mine published electronically by Smashwords, I was obliged to purchase a copy of the legacy product Word, bundled with lots of other stuff that didn't interest me at all. I started out by registering the product with Microsoft. [I seem to recall that I was obliged to do so, to get it working.] After my initial shock to find that there's apparently no such thing as user documentation for Word, I soon got used to playing around with this dull old dinosaur… which apparently remains, for many folk, a synonym of word processing.

A few days ago, Microsoft sent me an email informing me that I could update free-of-charge to the latest version of their product. Now, Microsoft's update procedures involved entering three 25-character codes (transcribed manually from stickers on a piece of cardboard) and forwarding them an image of the sales invoice from the online Apple store. They were by far the most complicated operations I've ever been expected to perform in order to obtain the latest version of a software product. And I'm not even certain that these nitpickers are really going to give me an update. For the moment, they've merely stated that they intend to "review" my submission.

I've had professional contacts with Microsoft for a long time. In the early '80s, in Paris, I collaborated in the production of an Apple II demo disk for the Multiplan spreadsheet, which was an ancestor of Excel. A few years later, another project led to my meeting up personally with Bill Gates at a reception in a Paris hotel. Then, on April 2, 1991, as a freelance journalist, I was invited to Microsoft's marketing meeting in the Château d'Esclimont, located between Versailles and Chartres.

[Click to access the website of this luxurious establishment.]

Today, when I discover antiquated manual procedures of the kind proposed for an update of Word, my little finger tells me that an imminent destiny of decrepitude is surely looming over the head of this once-famous software corporation.

Fitzroyal happenings

The other day, when Sylvie and I arrived at Gamone with the three donkeys, I noticed the carcass of a pheasant alongside the road, just twenty meters from my house. Most of its feathers had been plucked, and its flesh had been ripped apart a little, but apparently not yet eaten. I said to Sylvie that it looked like the work of a roaming fox. Later on in the day, I was puzzled to find that my dog Fitzroy had not touched the food I had served him. Besides, from time to time, he would disappear from the yard for ten minutes or so. By the end of the day, it had dawned on me that the "fox" behind the dead pheasant was almost certainly Fitzroy. After all, these birds are raised on farms for the hunting season, and they're probably accustomed to docile farmyard dogs. So, Fitzroy could have easily pounced on the poor bird. When I checked the spot the next morning, only feathers remained… but Fitzroy was still searching around among the feathers for any remaining scraps of pheasant flesh. Sophia, too, joined in this frantic hunt for tidbits (molecules) that might still be hanging around in the mass of feathers.

On Monday, during our long walk down from Presles to Gamone with the donkeys, Sylvie had given me an interesting item of news. Back on September 3, before Christine and I "dognapped" Fitzroy from his birthplace up in the Alpine commune of Risoul 1850, I had taken several photos in which we see his twin brother. In the following photo, our Fitzroy is staring at the photographer (me), while his brother seems to be poking his tongue out:

Here's a nice portrait of the brother:

The following photo evokes the end of an amusing incident:

The two brothers had decided to stalk this hen. For five minutes, the little dogs had been simply strolling along just behind the hen, at the same pace, following her wherever she went, in whichever direction she turned. The hen got quite upset, because she probably imagined that the pups were about to pounce on her. Finally, the dogs' mother intervened and made it clear to her pups (in canine language) that they should cease their stalking... and the frightened hen fled to safety. Meanwhile, that was surely great training for later encounters with, say, pheasants...

Well, Sylvie informed me that Fitzroy's brother now lives with a young family not far from her flat in Presles. The dog's name is Eole (a French variation on Aeolos, the Greco-Roman wind god). So, Sylvie took Fitzroy on her knees and we drove back up to Presles for a surprise call on Eole and his new family. Now, at this point in my story, I'm obliged to admit that all my preconceived anthropomorphic visions of canine behavior simply fell apart. I had imagined vaguely that the two brothers would look at each other in stunned amazement, as if to say: "What the hell are you doing here? What's happened in your life since we were last together up in the Alps?" Not at all. They attacked each other (or so it seemed), as if they had just been brought face-to-face with a mortal enemy! It was all I could do to grab Fitzroy in my arms to prevent him from getting into a terrible brawl with his brother. Meanwhile, the young lady of the house came out onto her snow-covered front yard, intrigued by all the noise, and she prevented Eole from trying to jump up at Fitzroy. I think it was Sylvie who finally decided that, since the two males were of equivalent physical capacities, they couldn't really harm each other. So, we decided to let them confront each other on the ground. And the friendly miracle took place instantly. The two little animals raced around crazily like a pair of long-lost brothers. At times, their contacts were highly excited and physical, with lots of barking and snarling and rolling around in clinches on the ground... just short of a fight. So, five minutes later, we all decided that the encounter had lasted long enough. In the heat of this get-together, I was constantly trying to avoid slipping on the icy road in front of the house, and I didn't have an opportunity of taking photos. But there'll surely be other opportunities of us all getting together again in the future. Meanwhile, I like this idea of the two brothers living within a stone's throw of each other.

This morning, I removed the roof of Fitzroy's kennel, in order to modify slightly its form (making it more sloped). This operation enabled me to look down into Fitzroy's cozy little straw cocoon, with the bowl shape left by his curled-up body in the upper left-hand corner.

I took advantage of the fact that the roof was removed to add another thick layer of straw. Jean Magnat and his son then came along in a truck with the firewood I had ordered last week from my neighbor Gérard Magnat. In this photo, Fitzroy seems to be inspecting the quality of the yellowish acacia wood:

Later on in the day, I introduced Fitzroy to the pleasure of cleaning up my pressure cooker, while Sophia, confined to my kitchen (as is often the case since the arrival of Fitzroy), no doubt sensed with envy what was happening.

Having made that remark, I hasten to point out that Sophia is treated by me—from both a food and a tenderness viewpoint—like the grand old queen of Gamone that she is. I'm happy to find that her diet, over the last couple of months, has resulted in a significant weight loss.

In the evening, Sylvie phoned—in the style of a mother who had left her kids with a neighbor—to ask if the donkeys were OK. I was happy to reassure her that everything was calm at Gamone.

Devil in the clubhouse

A few years ago, I was saddened to hear that one of my favorite singers, the Canadian poet Leonard Cohen, had apparently been fleeced financially by a female associate while he was playing around at being a Buddhist monk in a California retreat. [I say "apparently", and I refrain from quoting names, because there still seems to be some wrangling going on in this sordid domain.] For me, it's difficult to imagine that anyone would set out deliberately to injure, by betrayal, such a fine individual. But I guess I'm naive. Maybe Cohen, too.

I have similar sad feelings when I learn that the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is suing an employee named Josh Timonen for reasons that include fraud and embezzlement.

Click the photo to access a website that provides details on this affair.

The main reason I mention this unexpected matter is to explain why I decided to remove the red A (for atheism) banner from my blog. Apart from displaying that A banner, I've never had any contacts with the foundation or the people who appear to gravitate around Richard Dawkins. I'm in no way a member of the Dawkins "club". Personally, I would be far happier if my scientific hero were a more reserved and inconspicuous individual, avoiding the limelight. In my humble opinion, he should limit himself to what he's really good at: writing or maybe documentary movies. I can't understand why he wanted to start his foundation, create a website, get into public debates with idiots, etc. I have the impression that it's through this flamboyant worldly dimension of his existence that Dawkins has ended up getting screwed, apparently, by one of his closest friends: in fact, a highly-paid collaborator.