Tasty French pastry with junk inside

In France, this particular variety of delicious almond-flour pastry is prepared specially, once a year, for the Epiphany holiday, to celebrate the Feast-Day of the Kings (Adoration of the Magi).

The pastry is cut into slices by an individual selected as the leader of the ceremony (often a child), wearing a cardboard crown, who then offers a particular slice of pastry to each person. In one slice only, a porcelain token (in French, fève) lies hidden. Consequently, children are warned beforehand that they must be careful not to bite into this hard object. Well, customers of certain pastry shops in France phoned up to complain that they were not happy to have found an effigy of the right-wing politician Marine Le Pen in their Epiphany pastries.

As for me, in the fine pastry that my friends Tineke and Serge gave me, I was surprised to come upon an ugly little white and blue cylindrical object that looked like a tortoise. On closer inspection, I concluded that it surely represented a mysterious Star Wars robot, having landed on planet Earth with the intention of breaking human teeth. Maybe, certain innocent pastry-eaters came upon a terrorist...

I regret that we haven't stuck to nice old traditions such as porcelain tokens of the infant Jesus, or maybe a tiny chunk of gold, frankincense or myrrh.

Weird sea creatures

Like all living creatures on the planet Earth, they're our distant cousins. But there's no way in the world that we would invite them home for a cup of tea, because they live in the depths of the oceans. Click here to see a fabulous series of photos from the National Geographic.

Believe in Britain... like you believe in God

That's tough simplistic logic. You should say no to the European union if you believe in Britain (whatever that means... like believing in fairly tales, God and all the rest).

A poll was published in today's newspaper Mail on Sunday, and 53 % preferred a Brexit, against 47 % who wanted Britain to stay in Europe.

Few people consider that the PM David Cameron should resign if Britain were to leave Europe, whereas some say he should be replaced by Boris Johnson.  Recent events that gave many Britons an urge to leave Eueope were the flow of Syrian refugees, the Calais migrant camp, the Greek Euro bailout, the German sex attacks, and the Paris massacre. Some 43 % of people who prefer the Brexit say that they might change their mind before the referendum, whereas the same proportion of their opponents claim that their mind is made up (to stay in Europe). A massive 75 % of people admit that they don’t know whether their heart or their head is affecting their choice.

This latest poll indicates that Britain seems to have become considerably more Brexit-favorable over the last eight months.

Daniel Barenboim

This is an extraordinary performance by Daniel Barenboim who plays the Piano Concerto N° 5 by Beethoven while conducting the orchestra.

Barenboim's exhibition of an incredible degree of musical genius leaves me breathless. To put it bluntly and rather idiotically, I have no idea whatsoever about how he manifests such genius. In fact, if it was easy to understand how he does it, then we might no longer talk of his talent as genius.

Mad primeval scream

More than the Mona Lisa or any other celebrated work of art, The Scream by Edvard Munch was surely the first painting that convinced me instantly and forever that exceptional art could provide us with representations that were infinitely more striking and profound than anything we might see in our everyday existence. It struck me rather as the image of a nightmare. And I would imagine that countless individuals throughout the world have been influenced similarly by this painting... which they've probably seen only as copies in books or magazines.

The mystery remains unsolved: What terrible event has happened, causing the poor wide-eyed fellow to hold his ears, open his mouth and scream ?

Click French video for an excellent French video presentation of this anguishing painting.

Unidentified bombing in Tunisia

A Tunisien website has just revealed that unidentified fighters made devastating air strikes, last night, against coastal sites in Libya in the vicinity of Syrte occupied by Daech. For the moment, no Allied nation has declared itself responsible for these daringly successful attacks. Was it France ? A good question. As some people say at times: No news is good news...

Being offended is a childish game

In France, I've always found that the very British habit of "being offended" is relatively rare. Let's say that taking offence at verbal criticism certainly happens here from time to time, but less so (in my humble opinion) than on the other side of the English Channel. Indeed the following Victorian adage, familiar to all English-speaking children, would not make much sense to French people:

Sticks and stones may break my bones,
but names will never hurt me.

The English intellectual Richard Dawkins is constantly plagued by would-be offended people, particularly when he criticizes religious beliefs. I can understand his reasons for retweeting the following ugly New Year wishes:

At a trivial personal level, I'm bored by nitwits who send me blatant rubbish through the Internet. A few days ago, in the genealogical domain, an Irish fellow tried to tell me that the first Viscount Massereene [1608-1665] had received his lordship because of the assistance he gave to William of Orange [1650-1702] in the Battle of the Boyne [10 July 1690]. I replied politely that Lord Massereene had died a quarter of a century before this battle, whereupon my Irish correspondant apologized curiously for "offending" me. He failed to realize that I wasn't offended at all. I merely found him a boring idiot, incapable of checking dates before sending me rubbish... and this had nothing to do with his strange idea that I might be "offended".

Where’s the stolen gold necklace ?

In India, a lady told policemen that her precious gold necklace had just been stolen by a fellow who was seen running away. When the police caught the alleged culprit, he denied the crime. The victim repeated her accusation so convincingly that the police had the impression that the robber might have swallowed the necklace. So, they took the alleged thief to a nearby hospital, and requested an x-ray of his stomach. Sure enough, the stolen necklace was there! But how coud the police get the necklace out of the fellow's intestines ?

Well, they made him consume an enormous quantity of ripe bananas. A little later, they gave him a powerful laxative, which soon produced the desired result. All they had to do then was to clean up the mess, extract the necklace and wash it with warm water and soap. Later, when the fellow was brought to trial, I would imagine that the sentence included the cost of all those bananas.

Australia, your lamb chops are ready

As Australia Day draws near, and the summer sun parches local brains, my fellow countrymen in the advertising domain are becoming dimmer and duller. In this idiotic video (with a meaningless title), we see Australian defence forces (transported by a single media helicopter) kidnapping Aussies stranded in foreign lands, so that they can be brought back home Down Under for a good Australia Day meal of barbecued lamb chops.

Critics point out that the video contains no images whatsoever of real live lambs grazing on grass in Australian sheep properties.

Ah yes, if only a few genuine baby jumbucks had been thrown into the casting, it's quite possible that this video would have become a cultural and artistic masterpiece. But then again, maybe not...

NOTE: For my final year at high school in Grafton, my grandparents (who were determined that I become a fine student) invited me to reside in their quiet and comfortable house in Robinson Avenue, where I had a tiny study room. Seeing that I was fond of lamb chops, Ma would often ask me to pick up meat from her local butchery. She always insisted that I ask for a packet of "lean, loin, lamb chops". This expression amused me because of the string of L-words. In fact, I never really understood the meaning of the first two unusual adjectives: "lean" and "loin". But I soon realized that the butcher's lamb chops, supposedly "lean" and "loin", were very tasty when Ma cooked them. I would imagine that my grandmother had picked up this expression as a girl in the bush, when she was living on her family's sheep property at Breeza.

Ripples in the fabric of space-time

Albert Einstein predicted that gravitational waves would be produced in extremely violent events, such as collisions between two black holes. As these waves spread out, they compress and stretch space-time, producing ripples, whose presence could be detected by laser beams.

The physicist Lawrence Krauss sent out a tweet yesterday suggesting that the LIGO laboratory in the USA may have finally detected the ripples of gravitational waves.

We'll have to be patient for a while before learning whether or not this gigantic scientific information is true.

Churchill's atrocious Gallipoli campaign

The Englishman Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, was personally responsible for the disastrous decision to start the Gallipoli land campaign against Turkey, involving more than 400,000 British and some 140,000 Commonwealth and Irish servicemen. At dawn on 25 April 1915, an amphibious attack was launched at Gallipoli, on the Dardanelles Straits, the route to the Black Sea and Russia.

The bloodshed was gigantic. My Australian fellow countrymen have always tended to imagine that the Gallipoli tragedy was largely an Anzac affair, but the deaths concerned many victims from several nations.

• On the enemy side, some 87,000 Turks were killed.

• Some 29,500 troops from Britain and Ireland were slaughtered.

• Deaths of troops from France were more than 12,000.

• Deaths of troops from Australia and New Zealand were 11,000.

By the start of 1916, Britain was aware that the Gallipoli campaign had been an atrocious military error, and all remaining Allied troops were withdrawn. To commemorate that sad centenary, the royal family took part in a ceremony yesterday at Sandringham.

David Bowie has finally left us

David Bowie was born in London on 8 January 1947. The public got to know him through Space Oddity in 1969, just before the landing on the moon of Apollo 11. Later, one of his greatest successes was Let's dance in 1983. An 18-month struggle with cancer carried him away this morning, at the age of 69. Here's a photo of David Bowie in New York with his wife Iman, a Somalian top model.

Memorial oak tree planted on the Place de la République

Crowds gathered early at the Place de la République to commemorate the recent victims of barbary in the City of Light.

As the sun went down, candles were lit
all around the statue of the République.

The celebrated motto of Paris
— Fluctuat nec mergitur —
was illuminated once again.

Branches of the memorial oak tree were lit up.

The colossal bronze statue of Marianne, 9.5 metres tall, was erected here on 14 July 1883. It stands on a stone base, 15 metres in height, accompanied by allegories of Liberté, Égalité and Fraternité.

The square was now in darkness.

Meanwhile, the trunk and branches of the oak tree were
shining like the tungsten filament of a lamp.

One Autumn in Paris

This short video presents the singer Louane and the trumpetist Ibrahim Maalouf, who have recorded a powerful memorial song entitled One Autumn in Paris, distributed freely to young students. The poetry comes from the Franco-Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf.

Click the YouTube icon

Cherry time

Extracts from the newspaper Le Rappel, 7 September 1870,

quoting words spoken to the crowd by Victor Hugo.

I've tried to translate Hugo's powerful words:

Saving Paris is more than saving France.
It's saving the world.
Paris is the actual centre of humanity.
Paris is the sacred city.
Those who attack Paris are carrying out
a mass assault upon the entire human race.
Paris is the capital of civilization.
It is neither a kingdom nor an empire.
It symbolizes the entire human race, past and future.
And do you know why Paris is the city of Civilization ?
Because it's the city of Revolution.

Citizens, Paris will triumph,
because she symbolizes the idea of Humanity
and represents the instincts of the People.

Here is a version of a celebrated song,

Le Temps des cerises, written in 1866

by Jean-Baptiste Clément. This popular song has

always been associated in French history and culture

with the Commune de Paris in 1871.

Bushfire in Western Australia eliminates an entire village

Sometimes, when a bushfire is about to attack a small rural village in Australia, the inhabitants are capable (thankfully) of rushing to safety. But their lovable village cannot save itself. And the terrible flames might then reduce it to sad devastation.

Footage from the Channel 7 helicopter shows the small village of Yarloop, 110 km south of Perth (Western Australia), after it was engulfed in a bushfire fanned by strong winds. The town lost nearly a hundred buildings, including precious historical constructions.

Click the YouTube button

The bushfire has just taken the town away...

BREAKING NEWS: Police announced that two bodies were found in burnt-out houses in Yarloop.

They found a rock in the mud of Lake Eyre

In the desert environment of Lake Eyre (South Australia), this muddy guy with a rock in his right hand is overcome with joy.

Phil Bland, a researcher from Curtin University (Perth, Western Australia), accompanied by his colleague Robert Howie, just succeeded in digging up a 4.5-billion-year-old meteorite that fell here a few months ago. Although they were assisted by data from several devices that had followed the falling meteorite, their discovery was nevertheless an amazing needle-in-a-haystack success.

The USA has invested billions of dollars in voyages to the moon, enabling their scientists to obtain precious samples of meteorites that came from far away. In Australia, to obtain such an extraordinary sample, these two fellows simply drove their quads into the parched outback and started digging around in the mud with their hands.

Flying Frenchie has come down to rest in the Drôme

Tancrède Melet, known throughout the world for his spectacular aerial exploits as the « Flying Frenchie », was killed on Tuesday in a trivial accident in the Drôme.

Here's a recent video of a stunt in nearby Saint-Hilaire-du-Touvet.

When the accident occurred, Tancrède was holding down a hot-air balloon, which dragged him over a small cliff, to his death.

In the following video, Tancrède was planning a wing-suit drop down to Chamonix: a journey that would normally, on the ground, take a couple of hours.

Beware of bugs

Back in the days when I earned my living as a computer programmer, we coexisted constantly with bugs. I believe that such tiny evil spirits still exist, even though a lot of publicity talk tries to give the impression that they've been eradicated forever.

Click here to see the presentation of a marvelous little drone, made in China, called the Ehang 184, priced somewhere between US$200,000 to $300,000. It's designed for a personal owner, who isn't necessarily a licensed pilot, who has to get somewhere in a hurry. The above publicity photo seems to suggest that the owner lives in a romantic spot—in the vicinity of trees, statues and rusty old boats—alongside the water.

Charging the drone with electricity takes a few hours. The owner can then press a magic take-off button and set out on a trip that lasts for 23 minutes. The Ehang's automated flight systems will manage tasks such as communication with air traffic control and other aircraft, obstacle avoidance and navigation. In other words, if the drone doesn't collide with a tree (or anything else in the vicinity), that's because it's a smart machine... with no bugs whatsoever. In other words, faultless.

Well, thanks for inviting me to borrow your drone, to drop in at a nearby place. It's nice of you... and you assure me that your aircraft is both simple and perfect. But I prefer to travel romantically, by bicycle.

A year ago today, France became forever Charlie

Click here to access the website of Le Parisien, which commemorates the start of a year of terror in France.