Hacking

Back in the days when I was working in the professional software domain, the term "hacking" was employed regularly in a perfectly respectable context. This metaphor evoked an axe.

Anybody who has tried to remove shrubbery, say, by hacking away at it by means of a small axe such as this knows that it can be a messy and strenuous operation, particularly if you're intent upon getting rid of the roots. In the software domain, the term "hacking" designates a trial-and-error approach to a fuzzy problem or challenge.

One of my earliest hacking tasks was carried out back in the early '80s for the French company that was starting to market Apple computers. I was given an Apple II floppy disk containing a demonstration of Microsoft's Multiplan spreadsheet application, and my task consisted of trying to transform it, as far as possible, into a French-language version. I was not provided with any explicit technical information concerning the way in which this demo disk might have been created, and how its data was structured. So, I had to work out from scratch what it was all about, and invent ways of substituting French terms for the English. It was as if I were a Sherlock Holmes investigating a crime committed in England, with the ultimate responsibility of telling French authorities what had apparently happened.

A hacking context is quite different to the standard environment in which professionals develop software. Compared with hackers, the latter folk are armed with chainsaws, which are designed to slice effortlessly through every obstacle they encounter. The gist of what I'm trying to say is that, once upon a time, the term "hacker" was used to designate a particularly bright and imaginative computer-language expert. Today, this is surely still true in the case of an exceptionally gifted guy such as Julian Assange.

And what about the individuals who operate clandestinely in the context of mysterious associations such as Anonymous and Lulzsec (which are said to be collaborating)?

Are they too exceptional individuals… in spite of their being branded as irresponsible delinquents? Personally, I have every reason to believe that they are indeed smart folk, who are perfectly aware of what they're doing, and why they're doing it. I don't believe that they're simply a bunch of dumb assholes intent upon stirring up shit. As Shakespeare put it, there's method in their madness. They're not merely breaking rules for the fun of it. They're attempting to invent new rules for societies that have discovered the immense power of computers and communication networks. For the moment, though, they are generally misunderstood by their elders, who are often still surviving in an era of antediluvian moral principles and political thinking.

Click the following photo to access an informative interview aired by ZDF Mediathek concerning the birth of political awareness back in Assange's adventurous hacking days:

Helicopter territory

All morning, a red and yellow helicopter has been hovering spasmodically in the vicinity of the Tina Dalle cliffs, above Choranche, which are a popular site for novice climbers.

Finally, I grabbed my camera and drove up there, to see what might be happening. Reaching Presles, I found the helicopter parked in an open field, while its uniformed occupants were seated out on the grass, engaged in serious discussions, with lots of gesticulations. They appear to be carrying out training exercises for pilots. Then they jumped in and took off towards the south, no doubt to refuel, since they reappeared in the skies of Choranche and Presles some ten minutes later.

Although the landscape was hazy, I took advantage of my excursion to take a few photos.

Seen from up there, my familiar and fabulous Cournouze [see the red-sunlit splash image at the top of this Antipodes blog] looks like a mediocre hunk of rock on top of a wooded cone.

All the topological details that are so familiar when seen my house at Gamone are reduced to tiny blobs, not easy to identify.

This sign, halfway down the slopes, designates crossroads where all the surrounding directions ("toutes aures") are visible.

On one side of this spot, the road between Choranche and Presles forms a hairpin bend.

The plateau of Presles is still far above us.

From this place, you have a splendid view of two mountains that are my close neighbors down in the valley. In the narrow gap between the Baret (left) and the Trois-Châteaux (right), just a few hundred meters away from Gamone, the Bourne flows down from Choranche to Pont-en-Royans. And the road, too, goes through that gap.

CORRECTION: The mayor of Choranche, Bernard Bourne, dropped in at Gamone yesterday afternoon to ask for my opinion concerning an ancient public pathway up on the crest above my house. He wanted to know, in particular, if I would be happy if the municipality were to privatize that old pathway (apparently this is a feasible operation), giving me half of the privatized surface above my property, and attributing the other half to my neighbor Gérard Magnat. In a forthcoming blog post, I'll explain why I prefer by far (not surprisingly) that this wonderful pathway remains part of the public heritage of Choranche.

Towards the end of my friendly discussion with Bernard, I happened to mention the noisy helicopter that had been hovering for hours, throughout the morning, around the magnificent Tina Dalle site. In his capacity as mayor, Bernard was able to tell me exactly what it was all about. The evening before yesterday, residents of that cliff-side zone of Presles had noticed an apparently-abandoned vehicle, and informed the gendarmes, who promptly called in the red-and-yellow mountain-security helicopter. They discovered the body of a 56-year-old guy at the bottom of the cliffs, on the territory of Choranche (vertical cliffs often serve as municipal boundaries), and the gendarmes soon concluded that they were faced with a suicide case. [Weirdly, this happened at almost the same time that other gendarmes and another helicopter crew were discovering the remains of a murdered 17-year-old jogger in the Ardèche town of Tournon, opposite the famous vineyards of Tain-l'Hermitage, less than an hour's drive from here.] Yesterday, above the vertiginous Tina Dalle boundary between Presles and Choranche, the helicopter was no doubt searching for evidential items that might have been discarded by the fellow or torn from his clothes during his rocky descent to death.

Are certain babies born to be criminals?

I was interested to come across an article in the New York Times [display] entitled Genetic Basis for Crime: A New Look, related to a US conference in Arlington that is opening this morning with a forum on "creating databases for information about DNA and new genetic markers that forensic scientists are discovering".

For many decades, we've all known that, when talking about the fuzzy but touchy subject of crime, it has been politically incorrect to evoke an alleged role of genes. Besides, we're more convinced than ever that, today, the only admissible direct answer to the question in my title—Are certain babies born to be criminals?—is no. But much has been evolving recently concerning our appreciation and evaluation of the undeniable influences of people's genes concerning their future behavior in society. And my question needs to be answered in a far more subtle manner than by a simple yes or no. As soon as I started to read the NYTimes article, I said to myself that the journalist surely couldn't carry on discussing a "new look" at arguments about a genetic basis for crime without mentioning the work of Steven Pinker, as evoked in my blog post of 24 February 2011 entitled I think, therefore I am… misguided [display].

Not surprisingly, the journalist soon got around to quoting Pinker, and even mentioned his latest book—The Better Angels of Our Nature, Why Violence has Declined—which is already announced by Amazon and receiving advanced comments… even though it won't be published until next October!

In The Blank Slate, Pinker started out by evoking the most outspoken observer of Man's propensity to violence: the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes.

Here is the text of Hobbes's "life of man" statement, which so alarmed his fellow citizens that the great thinker's brutal analysis was basically ignored for some three centuries… up until recent times.

Hereby it is manifest that, during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

To handle the state of Wild West lawlessness that he depicted as the normal destiny of humans in their natural state, Hobbes suggested that society might install a monstrous all-powerful sheriff, the Leviathan, inspired by ancient Judaic mythology.

But this "solution" was both unpleasant and unconvincing. So, ever since that catastrophic vision of humanity penned by Hobbes, countless critics have been trying to prove, simply, that he was totally wrong.

A few decades ago, many Americans tried to believe that even the worst criminals could be coaxed back into the folds of society by a process designated as rehabilitation. In 1970, a young Texan law professor and former US attorney-general, Ramsey Clark, with an unbounded belief in peace, wrote a book entitled Crime in America in which he sought to promote this wishful thinking.

Here are excerpts from Ramsey Clark on the rehabilitation theme:

Rehabilitation must be the goal of modern corrections. Every other consideration should be subordinate to it. To rehabilitate is to give health, freedom from drugs and alcohol, to provide education, vocational training, understanding and the ability to contribute to society. […]

Rehabilitated, an individual will not have the capacity—cannot bring himself—to injure another or take or destroy property. […]

The end sought by rehabilitation is a stable individual returned to community life, capable of constructive participation and incapable of crime. From the very beginning, the direction of the correctional process must be back toward the community. It is in the community that crime will be committed or a useful life lived.

Today, individuals such as Pinker, convinced that genes influence greatly an individual's propensity to commit crimes, are starting to debunk the "moralistic fallacy" (as he puts it) of rehabilitation. The challenge they face consists of explaining to concerned citizens that emphasizing the primeval causal role of genes in criminality is not at all equivalent to imagining the existence of a single binary-valued "crime gene", which is either turned on in the case of wrongdoers, or off in the case of decent citizens. That is not at all what is meant by a genetic dimension to criminality. It's far more subtle and complex than that. Besides, individuals are not generally condemned to a life of crime by the mere presence of "risky genes". Such a presence would simply indicate that there is probably an accrued risk that such individuals would fall into crime more readily than those who have no such genes. Genes, even when present, can be flipped on and off by environmental factors, and that is what gives us hope as far as combating violence and crime is concerned.

Today, as the article on the Arlington conference points out, the tide is turning in the sense that biology and genetics are no longer dirty words in the arena of research on violence and crime. But it would be naive to imagine that the ideas of an evolutionary psychologist such as Pinker are about to be welcomed wholeheartedly by the entire criminological establishment. In any case, the Hobbesian vision of humanity was surely closer to reality than the "blank slate" thinking of idealists such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Ramsey Clark.

Prehistoric cave paintings

It's reassuring to know that the extraordinary Chauvet site of prehistoric cave paintings, in the nearby Ardèche département, will be protected permanently from noxious tourism.

I've just been reading news reports in the French media concerning work in progress aimed at creating, for visitors, an artificial copy of the cave and its marvelous paintings.

The cave is located not far from the splendid Berty rose gardens in Largentière, where I purchased the six old rose bushes that grow on my pergola. So, I like to imagine that my roses came into existence in that same landscape where artists, 30 millennia ago, created amazing images of the beasts of their epoch.

The idea of preventing people from visiting the real cave means that this site will only ever be revealed to us in a kind of virtual sense, as if it were a modern computerized artifact. There is already a website that offers an elementary virtual visit.

I was amused to discover that the topographic map for the virtual visit is signed by Guy Perazio: a young surveyor who has his offices down in Pont-en-Royans. This suggests that Guy was one of the privileged few who've been allowed into the site. When I next run into him in the village, I'll ask him for his impressions. I notice too that the distinguished Australian rock-art specialist George Chaloupka has visited the site and commented upon this exceptional experience.

Atheism in Australia

Here's some sound advice concerning the forthcoming census in Australia:
Through their numbers and their well-organized stance, Australian atheists are making a fine name for themselves on the international scene. Needless to say, that situation makes me happy.

Happiness is a great science book

In the humble and peaceful existence that I lead at Gamone, it's a fact that one of my greatest pleasures consists of having the privilege of getting stuck into various exceptional books. Some of them have become regular companions, which I've reread several times over. For example: The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker, and The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch. Over the last decade, various new book-reading elements have been falling into place, making it easier for a science aficionado such as me to get deeply involved in this activity. I'm thinking primarily of the Internet, which enables us to learn of interesting new publications, and to obtain in-depth background information concerning, not only the authors and their books, but also—and above all—the scientific domains to which the books refer. This is particularly true of the various life sciences that interest me—biology, genetics, psychology, human paleontology—but it is also the case for websites about physics and cosmology. All that you then need is time and solitude to carry out your reading. This is ideally the case for me at Gamone, where my only annoying distractions are the present blog (which nevertheless has a few meaningful justifications) and a little too much TV (generally high-quality) at times.

I'm perfectly aware that this kind of totally-introspective almost "absolutist" lifestyle is not helping me to become a well-behaved member of any kind of "society", be it my daily real-life environment at Choranche, or the less-tangible community of individuals with whom I enter in contact through the telephone and the Internet. But I don't look upon my personality, character and behavioral faults as things that need to be modified or "improved". I'm too old for that, and I'm really irreparably obsessed and dominated by my passion for a scientific understanding of my existence.

Today, happiness is not simply a great science book. It's rather a monumental document: The Hidden Reality, the third element of Brian Greene's trilogy that started with The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos.

I've just received it, hot off the press, and I'm taking my time to get stuck into it. I'm like my dog Fitzroy sniffing around a new food delicacy, posing it on the lawn, and trying to figure out the best angle of attack.

The subject of Greene's new book is really powerful stuff: the fascinating mind-boggling mysteries of parallel universes, or so-called multiverses, whose "existence" is strongly suggested these days by quantum mathematics and string theory (Greene's ongoing preoccupation).

I've always looked upon the respective domains of Richard Dawkins and Brian Greene as perfectly complementary quests. Dawkins is telling us what has been happening for a while on this precious little green and blue bubble named Earth, whereas Greene is concerned by a much bigger picture: the Cosmos. If I may push my favorite metaphor to its dizzy limits, the Earth and the Cosmos appear to me as Antipodean partners. For as long as we remain preoccupied by our familiar home planet, even to the extent of examining the unbelievably small and strange entities known as viruses, the Cosmos is a weird otherworldly phenomenon where common sense appears to be walking on its head. But, as soon as we turn to the Cosmos, it's suddenly the gene-based world of Dawkins that seems to be unimaginable, walking on its head, since it contains that extraordinary "thing" called consciousness. Dawkins and Greene are two sides of a single coin. Today, what is utterly amazing is that, through a certain number of great books, we can take hold of that coin and turn it over between our fingers.

Amazing and frightening virus world

I've just finished reading this splendid 100-page specimen of science writing from the US academic Carl Zimmer, who writes regularly in the New York Times and Scientific American.

Not so long ago, I would never have imagined myself buying a book on viruses, or even being capable of reading such a book, since I've never done any formal studies in biology, let alone human viral pathologies. But this subject has been constantly in the news for many years, and I consider it worthwhile to make an effort to understand what it's all about. In any case, Zimmer's immense talents as a writer (he lectures on science writing at Yale) enable the layman to read his fascinating virus tales as if they were stories in a popular magazine. So, I strongly recommend this little book to people who are interested in topics such as infamous everyday viruses (common cold, influenza), horrors from history (smallpox), current challenges (HIV, West Nile virus, Ebola) and the astonishing case of bacteria-eating viruses (phages).

One of the mysterious themes handled brilliantly by Zimmer is summed up in a simple question: Is a virus a true living thing—like animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, etc? Normally, we would imagine that the answer is no, since the defining aspect of a virus is that it can only "be fruitful and multiply" when it has teamed up with a living host. But, insofar as a virus carries around a specific cargo of exotic genes (quite unlike those of humans), we would be narrowing down absurdly the scope of viral studies if they were to be regarded essentially as lifeless piles of chemical substances. They are better looked upon as "almost-living" entities, which often have terrifying surprises up their sleeves. Some dog-owners say, of their dear pet: "The only thing he lacks is the power of speech." In the case of viruses, the only thing that prevents them from being looked upon as "true" living creatures is their inability to reproduce themselves autonomously in an ordinary DNA style.

Incidentally, one of Zimmer's chapters has a particularly ominous title: Predicting the next plague.

VIDEO: For obvious reasons, viruses in humans have a bad reputation. But this is a narrow vision of the relationships that exist between humans and these mysterious microscopic entities, who have provided us with certain vital genes. Zimmer talks here about archaic life-sustaining viruses in humans:

Never realized I was so pretty

I learned that it was Father's Day when my daughter phoned me this morning. Then Google's banner confirmed that this was the case:

A little later on, I discovered that Google has made an amazing announcement, at the level of their image search device.

You can actually initiate a search by dropping an image into the search box. I tested this new gadget with one of my avatars:

Sure enough, it had no trouble in locating half-a-dozen places on the web where I've used this avatar. Then I noticed that Google dares to propose a set of similar faces to mine:

[Click to enlarge]

God only knows how they obtained this assortment of male and female faces. In any case, I'm rather flattered to learn that Google finds me as pretty as those doll-faced females with pouting lips!

Meanwhile, I tried another tiny self-portrait that I also use as an avatar. Once again, Google found a few web references where this image appears. But the set of similar faces was much less flattering, and contained mug shots of a few criminals. And, funnily enough, Google didn't seem to want to link my two different portraits.

This is an amazing tool when you happen to have an image that you wish to identify. For example, I recently saved this image of a stray sheep, but I had lost the link to the story behind the photo:

Initially, Google was led astray by the red rug, and couldn't quite make out what the image represented. I gave it a one-word hint: "sheep". And Google immediately located the news article in question. Very spectacular!

Down under danger

Up until today, I had never heard of this maritime creature, the cone snail. Maybe I resided too far below the tropical zone (in northern New South Wales) to meet up with this fellow.

This video surprises me. Are they exaggerating in suggesting that you might encounter such a nasty creature while paddling around in shallow rock pools on the edge of the water? When I was a kid at the beach (mainly at Yamba or Woolgoolga), nobody ever warned me about the possible dangers of picking up pretty seashells. The only notorious enemy that frightened everybody was the shark. I never saw too many sharks, but I often got stung by creatures we referred to as jellyfish.

Rose that glows gold

I've owned a Blue Ray machine for almost a year, but I hadn't got around to turning it on, in spite of the ten or so DVDs I'd purchased during my visits to the Fnac store in Valence. I'm rarely in a receptive mood for sitting down and watching video stuff. But this was a special evening, in that I'd invited along my marvelous Choranche friends Tineke Bot and her husband Serge Bellier for a dinner of spare ribs (soy sauce and red beans) followed by a screening of Avatar. Normally, I don't cut the flowers in my rose garden, but this was a special event, so I sacrificed a magnificent Gold Glow specimen.

[Click to enlarge]

The following morning, I was overjoyed to receive a phone call from François Skyvington informing me that he has received promises of a wonderful TV career in prime time on a national channel. Details will emerge, as usual, at the desired rhythm of my son.

It was also a fine day to say that "enough's enough" to certain would-be international Internet friends whose pretentious dullness was starting to bore me. They may not have understood what I was trying to say (they certainly don't), but I feel liberated.

Honey tree at Gamone

One of the linden trees at Gamone blooms about a fortnight later than the others, no doubt because it's a different variety.

Flowers started to appear abundantly a few days ago.

Yesterday, I noticed that a swarm of bees had discovered the tree.

They probably come from hives that a local beekeeper installed, a year or so ago, on the other side of the hill in front of Gamone. As you might guess from reading my recent blog post entitled Basic beverages [display], I've always been so fond of fine tea and coffee that I rarely get around to brewing tisanes, which means that I don't call upon the huge potential supply of flowers from my linden trees. So, I'm happy that the bees take advantage of these flowers.

Old photos of Australian offenders

Click the banner to find some interesting portraits of Australians who had dealings of one kind or another with the police and justice system of New South Wales during the two decades from 1920 to 1940. Apparently the archives contain some 130,000 photographic negatives of individuals convicted during this period. And it would seem that these images are now being made public, whence the presentation of Down Under delinquents in the pages of a flashy French magazine.

This public display of named portraits of offenders surprises me somewhat, although I wouldn't go so far as to say that I disapprove of it. After all, a researcher in family history can't even access dull census data that's as recent as 1920 to 1940. I can't even request a copy of my birth certificate dated 1940, whereas the authorities are quite happy to release this photo of a guy named Jack Keane, a bookmaker who was shot dead at Mascot in 1933.

Some of the individuals (with hats off) appear to be nice smart guys.

Others (with hats on) seem to be less friendly. In any case, I wouldn't feel like buying a used automobile from such fellows.

There's a spooky-looking female murderer, Dorothy Mort.

A frail fellow named Sydney Skukerman has a regard that doesn't inspire confidence, but he was actually a rather minor wrongdoer. He merely stole stuff in warehouses... which, in later years, became a regular unpunished pastime—so I was told, back in the '50s in Sydney—of many waterside workers in Australian port cities.

Others look like nice blokes who wouldn't hurt a fly.

Our Australian delinquents of that epoch were probably no different to those of any other modern nation. On the other hand, I believe we've had good police photographers, and excellent archivists.

Starting to blush and ramble

Up until recently, I was starting to imagine that my Blush Rambler bush, on the pergola, was simply a vigorously-branching late-flowering small white rose. That, in any case, was my judgment after its first flowering, one year ago. Not so long ago, in my blog post of 23 May 2011 entitled Pergola roses [display], I did not mention the Blush Rambler, because it was the only one of the six varieties of old roses on my pergola that had not started to bloom abundantly. Well, things have certainly changed by now. I've finally discovered that the charming blush of this rose is due to the presence of pastel pink petals.

There are even small dark pink spots on many of the white leaves, as if the flower can't quite decide whether it wishes to remain white or rather start to blush.

As for its rambling, I've discovered that branches and blooms of the Blush Rambler have now spread into (I was going to say "invaded") every corner of the upper region (or "roof") of the pergola.

This is not at all a problem. On the contrary, only the red Chevy Chase is still blooming, so an observer has the impression that all the bushes and foliage are Blush Rambler. This latest photo, which I took a few hours ago, indicates well what I'm trying to say.

In another corner of my garden, there's an impressive bed of mint.

Chinese tea flavored with mint leaves is delicious. The tea I most appreciate, though (and by far), is perfumed with jasmine. Yesterday, when I was buying coffee beans in Valence, I also purchased a packet of their Chung Hao leaves. Once reserved for the Imperial Court, Chung Hao is reputed to be one of the finest reasonably-priced jasmine teas produced today in China. I happen to be drinking this fine tea now, at the same time that I'm blogging, and it's truly superb.

Basic beverages

That bit in the Bible about man not living by bread alone is fair enough, although it denigrates indirectly, to my mind, the fabulous qualities of good bread, evoked recently in my article entitled Our daily bread [display]. Besides, I've always been a little surprised that the Bible didn't get around to stating firmly that man cannot live by water alone... which would have been a friendly gesture from the Almighty in favor of marvelous beverages of all kinds.

If God were to put me back on Earth for a second existence (one never knows what might take place in the wake of the much talked-about Rapture… which unfortunately never seems to take place at all), I would hope to be able to retain my hard-earned French passport, because I've grown accustomed to Europe, and I wouldn't be too keen about returning to the relatively impoverished cultural and societal infrastructure of Australia. In other words, I would gladly spend my second life right here in God's own Mediterranean country, France, but maybe a little further south than Choranche, in a landscape where my old roses (which seem to be quite happy in my care at Gamone) would be accompanied by olive trees and prolific grape vines. I've often said that, in this second life, I would be tempted to work professionally in genetics, since I persist in believing that it's one of the most exciting sciences that exist. But I would still like to remain well-versed in computing, and I would continue to purchase from Amazon (whose business model extends up towards eternity) all the latest books on cosmology and quantum physics.

The basic beverages referred to in my title are tea, coffee, wine and beer. I would never think of claiming, of course, that this list of beverages is in any way universal. There are individuals who would replace tea by whisky or brandy, and many Americans would no doubt prefer to include Coke or Pepsi rather than wine. As for our gracious queen (who has just turned 85), she apparently prefers gin to Guinness.

I already have professional plans for my second life (over and above my research work in genetics and my constant activities in computing). I would like to set up a pub brewery in southwest France, in a fairytale place such as Carcassonne where the men play rugby and the women cook cassoulet: one of my favorite dishes [display].

This idea of making small quantities of beer in a so-called microbrewery first attracted me in 1987 when I was living out in Fremantle, where there's a nice pub brewery called the Sail and Anchor. In Sydney, there's a celebrated microbrewery at the Lord Nelson, which is said to be the oldest pub in the land. The metal equipment (mixture of copper and stainless steel) is beautiful, the aroma of brewing beer is fabulous, and I've always imagined that the very idea of transforming water and malt into beer is magic. (There used to be a great brewery in my home town of Grafton.)


The idea came back to me a fortnight ago at the People bistrot in St-Jean-en-Royans, at the regular Tuesday afternoon get-together of a small group of British expatriates who mingle there with French friends who want to brush up their English. There was an Australian visitor who told me that his job consisted of distributing German equipment to microbreweries throughout Australia.

Now, maybe you shouldn't take me too seriously when I talk about brewing beer in a medieval city of rugby and cassoulet, because strange ideas creep up on me constantly. Christine could tell you, for example, that I once suggested, during a visit to the Flemish city of Bruges, that it would be lovely if our daughter (who was then a baby) might have an opportunity of learning how to make lace. I hasten to add that Emmanuelle has never pursued this fine idea, nor has she ever thought about becoming a nun (as my mother-in-law once suggested, jokingly, to tease me).

Meanwhile, I decided to improve my production of another of the basic beverages: coffee. As a change from consuming standard supermarket stuff, I finally decided to look around for a place where they roast top-quality coffee beans. In fact, if you want a certain choice of beans that have been roasted only a few weeks prior to your purchase, well there aren't too many such places around. The Internet pointed me to an industrial site named Pivard, to the south of Valence. When I got there, I discovered a vast factory with chimneys belching marvelously-aromatic fumes. Fortunately, they have a delightful boutique in the heart of Valence, with a wide choice of the world's best beans. I purchased a packet of freshly-roasted beans of one of the most illustrious coffees in the world: Ethiopian Yrgacheffe. Back home, I used the ultra-fine setting on my KitchenAid burr grinder, to obtain espresso-grade ground coffee.


This morning, I took advantage of the sunny weather to take my DeLonghi machine outside and give it a thorough cleaning, both inside and outside.

Then I brewed my first Yrgacheffe.

The lady at the Pivard boutique in Valence had told me: "If your grinding and brewing are in perfect harmony, the surface of your espresso must be covered in froth. If there's no froth, then something's wrong. Then, of course, you'll judge the result by tasting it." As you can see, there was lots of froth. And I assure you that the taste was great. My Yrgacheffe espresso was absolutely perfect.

Quiche du roi soleil

I've already mentioned the French tart known as a quiche lorraine [display]. Well, I've just invented this variation on the quiche theme, to be known as the quiche du roi soleil [Sun King Quiche].

That's a reference, of course, to Louis XIV [1643-1715]. You may recall that I spoke of this great French monarch in an earlier blog entitled King's anus [display]. In this new quiche, the spokes of the wheel (which might be imagined as rays of the Sun) are composed of midget asparagus shoots.