STX France to be purchased by the Italian company Fincantieri?

The Saint-Nazaire shipyards are likely to be purchased by an Italian company, Fincantieri, whose headquarters are based in Trieste. The French government, holding 34% of STX France, is relieved to find that no Asian buyer clinched the deal.

Fincantieri, like STX France, handles both civilian and naval contracts. The STX France subsidiary named DCNS, specializing in military contracts, recently sold submarines to Australia.

Homme politique égomaniaque

Un homme politique peut être tellement égomaniaque qu’il imagine automatiquement que tout ami est forcément, non seulement un grand admirateur, mais un collaborateur.

Guy Bedos tient la main d'Arnaud Montebourg,
le 11 décembre 2016, à Alger (Algérie).
(photo RYAD KRAMDI / AFP)

Il a suffi qu’Arnaud Montebourg constate la grande amitié de Guy Bedos pour qu’il annonce publiquement que ce dernier serait l’un des présidents de sont comité de soutien. L’humoriste, voyant cette déclaration, a décliné immédiatement l’offre.

DERNIERES NOUVELLES :  Guy Bedos aurait plus ou moins accepté une partie de l'offre de son ami. On aura sûrement bientôt l'occasion d'observer la profondeur de cette amitié.

Future world of Genetic Inheritance

Let me call it the GI-world. Humanity is leaving an era in which the letters “G.I.” generally evoked soldiers of the United States Army and airmen of the United States Army Air Forces. We are now moving slowly but surely into a new era in which those same two letters are likely to be used to designate Genetic Inheritance: that’s to say, the part of human behavior that is derived more from Nature than from Nurture. The stuff that happened to be written already on the slate when we were born.

Observers often think it would be nice to believe that our slates are blank at the moment of our birth, and that children then meet up with countless real-world experiences enabling them to extend and enrich the writing on their personal slates. This blank-slate vision might be partly valid, but researchers discovered cases of identical twins, brought up in worlds apart, who adopted highly similar behaviors, suggesting that fragments of their DNA code were apparently duplicated.

Commonsense often makes us imagine that such afflictions as alcoholism or insanity might indeed be present “in the family”, meaning that the offspring of afflicted ancestors might indeed have an inherited tendency to fall into drinking or madness. While it’s extremely difficult to prove that this might be true, many observers feel that human behavior can be the outcome of a subtle mixture of Nature and Nurture. It’s possibly what a French humorist referred to as Nightingale Pastry. The stuffing is obtained by mixing together nightingale meat and horse meat in equal proportions: the flesh of one nightingale mixed with the flesh of one horse. In the Nature versus Nurture context, it’s still hard to determine whether the code already present on the slate was a huge horse or rather a tiny nightingale. No doubt a bit of both.

I believe personally that, in the future GI-world, a new class of investigators will examine simultaneously both the horse and the nightingale. For example, if both a mother and her daughter manifest symptoms of the kind designated as bipolar disease, then they might envisage the possibility that the daughter inherited this disorder from her mother. In order to form an opinion on this question, other individuals on the patient’s genealogical tree might be brought into the picture. Have comparable behavioral characteristics been observed at several places on the family tree ?

DNA-based investigations have revolutionized many aspects of our existence. At the modest level of my family-history research, a couple of trivial Y-chromosome tests enabled me to confirm the identity of one of my paternal great-grandfathers: Chromosomes reveal the truth.

Ernest Skyvington [1891-1985] between his parents in London. My grandfather could never tell me what had happened to his father.

Sooner or later, in tomorrow’s GI-world, whenever we’re confronted with striking cases of weird behavior inside the family, observers will not be unduly surprised if observers decide to browse through both genealogical and biological data of all kinds. Pluridisciplinary research of that kid will appear to observers as no less unusual than, say, conventional psychoanalysis or psychotherapeutics.

Pause-pipi long-courrier

Les toilettes d’un avion reliant New York à Paris étaient bloquées, faisant en sorte que les passagers, eux aussi, étaient rapidement bloqués. Un commandant de bord imaginatif aurait pu suggérer que tout passager ayant une envie persistante se munisse, par exemple, de l’équivalent moderne d’un pot de chambre. Par exemple, une bouteille en plastique. Au lieu de ça, l'avion a atterri à Shannon… pour une pause-pipi de luxe qui mérite d’entrer dans le livre des records.

Vol solaire

L’appareil Solar Impulse 2 a achevé son tour du monde
grâce uniquement à l’énergie solaire.
Cette photo de l’avion au-dessus des pyramides
de Gizeh a été prise le 13 juillet 2016.

Planète Mars

Cette photo de la surface de la planète Mars,

aux contreforts du mont Sharp, a été prise par

un robot nommé Curiosity, le 10 septembre 2016.

L'homme de l'année sur vélo

le merveilleux Peter Sagan

Black is black

The US astronomer Vera Rubin [1928-2016], mother of dark matter, died on Xmas Day. In spite of that amazing discovery, Stockholm never thought that this great lady deserved a Nobel.

Prince Charles in uniform

Where’s the war? Apparently he was taking part in training operations for urban conflicts… but I don’t know the identity of the alleged enemies. Maybe, one of these days, Charles will inform us. In any case, it appears—thank God—that His Highness was not wounded.

Sealed and delivered

On Boxing Day, the owner of a Toyota in the Launceston (Tasmania) suburb of Newstead woke up to find a huge fur seal of 200 kg lodged on the bonnet.

Parks and Wildlife staff threw a net over the creature,

and tranquillized it by means of a veterinary product.

The seal slipped quickly into DreamLand.

Traces of the seal’s visit remained visible on the automobile.

The creature was finally placed on a trailer.

The seal was then driven to a beach and released.
All's well that ends well.
Bravo to the seal-handlers !

Autour du monde en moins de 50 jours

Le navigateur Thomas Coville vient de gagner , à bord du trimaran Sodebo Ultim’, la course en solitaire autour du monde.

   Voici la biographie hallucinante de Coville :

                         • 7 tours du monde dont 3 en solitaire
                         • 9 passages du Cap Horn et plus de 15 transatlantiques
                         • 7 records en solitaire et 4 en équipage.
                         • 4 Route du Rhum dont 1 victoire en monocoque (1998)
                         • 2 Route du Rhum podiums en trimaran (2006 et 2010)
                         • Détenteur du record des 24 heures en juin 2016
                         • Vainqueur de la Volvo Ocean Race 2011-2012
                         • Détenteur du Trophée Jules Vernes 1997 et 2010
                         • Deuxième de La Transat Anglaise 2004
                         • Vainqueur de la Transat Jacques Vabre 1998
                         • Deuxième de la Mini Transat 1997

Besoin d’un nouvel appareil ancien

Il y a quelques semaines, si l’on m’avait demandé de quoi j’avais besoin, j’aurais dit immédiatement « De rien du tout ! », ni de gadget ni de quoi que ce soit. J’étais un homme comblé. Un point, c’est tout. Eh bien non. Il me manquait une nouvelle version d’un appareil aussi ancien que les voyages du XVIIIe siècle aux Antipodes. J’ai besoin d’un baromètre.

Et pourquoi donc ? Aurais-je décidé de décorer Gamone pour donner l'impression que je navigue sur un grand bateau comme l'Exodus de mon roman All the Earth is Mine ? Non, la réponse ne concerne que mon humble maison choranchoise. Plus précisément, de mon poêle fonte de chauffage Invicta Bradford qui brûle du bois.

Hélas, avant-hier, rien à faire : j'étais incapable d'allumer ce poêle. Je ne comprenais pas du tout quel était le problème, car mon bois était sec et j'avais tout ce qu'il fallait pour faire l'allumage. Finalement, je me suis dit que j'allais le laisser tomber. Il y avait sûrement un blocage dans la sortie de fumée. Je me suis donc tournée vers mon système de secours : l'ancienne chéminée dont je me servais pour faire des flambées avant mon installation du poêle. J'ai pu donc passer une soirée agréable en regardant la télévision, juste à côté de la chéminée.

Puis, Tineke m'a dit au téléphone : « Tu sais, William, l'autre jour nous avons aperçu un ciel lugubre bizarre au-dessus de Pont-en-Royans. On s'est dit qu'il y avait certainement une énorme zone de basse pression sur Gamone. »

Voilà donc l'explication. Et voilà pourquoi j'ai besoin d'un baromètre à Gamone, pour mieux comprendre le temps qu'il fait.

Naming individuals can be stupid

In my land of birth, Australia, an incredible problem has always existed. People often don't have the courage to use officially-given names. They replace them by shortened versions or colloquial names. And this trivial refusal to use correct names has ended up undermining whatever's left of everyday culture Down Under. I imagine that most outsiders are unaware of this ridiculous problem, which has attained astronomical proportions. Many silly terms substituted for given names are absurd, and have weak linguistic links to the original names, or maybe none at all. Here are several examples:

William > "Bill"

Margaret > "Peggy"

Richard > "Dick"

Susan > "Sue"

James > "Jim"

Catherine > "Kitty"

Robert > "Bob"

Dorothy > "Dot"

Thomas > "Tom"

Michael > "Mick"

This Aussie naming phenomenon has little to do with endearment or brevity. It's simply a silly habit that can neither be explained nor shaken off. I'm unaware of any academic thesis in Australian sociology that has traced the history and consequences of this ridiculous phenomenon. Australians themselves are generally so accustomed to this national absurdity that they rarely even think of it. It's what being an Aussie is all about. You either like it, ignore it or you leave.

This ridiculous habit in Australian society has annoying consequences. For example, some former friends in Australia get annoyed when I tell them that my official name has always been William Skyvington. They're so accustomed to antiquated nicknames from my school years that, when I point out that they should cease to call me "Bill" or "Billy", they see me as a snob. Some even get upset, and go out of their way to tell me that I'm an asshole. The most amazingly ridiculous case took place a few days ago, quite by chance. I had been in constant contact for many months with an Australian female school-friend named "Jan" (no doubt an abbreviation for Janet). At one stage, I happened to be repeating my negative opinions about the weak state of Australian journalism. My quite objective statements surely offended the lady, and she wanted to let me know that I'd hurt her. And how did she get her message across to me? Believe it or not, she suddenly decided spontaneously—for the first time since the start of our e-mail communications, many months ago—to drop my William name and address me as... "Bill". Who was the true dumb asshole? Me or her? I'll let you decide.

George Michael has let the Sun go down on Xmas Day

Γεώργιος Κυριάκος Παναγιώτου

1963-2016

famous duo with Elton John

Fox went out on a chilly Chernobyl night

@AP_Images Deserted town of Pripyat,

some 3 kilometers from the Chernobyl nuclear plant

in #Ukraine, 22 December 2016.

Irish child sings a moving Hallelujah

Leonard Cohen's celebrated hymn gets better and better.
The singer is Kayla Rogers, 10, of Donaghadee (Northern Ireland).

 Kayla's interpretation [HERE] is simply breathtaking.

Her school, Killard House [HERE], is for children with deficiencies.
Kayla has run into problems of concentration on her work, and
her concert performance was intended as a therapeutic activity.

Man of the Year — my vote

Trop de mythes

Des parents intelligents éviteraient de raconter des conneries sur le Père Noël.

Ils ne diraient pas non plus des mensonges sur Dieu, Jésus et Compagnie. La Terre n’arrêterait pas pour autant de tourner…

Vaccin contre Ebola

L’Organisation mondial de la santé (OMS) vient d’annoncer la création d’un vaccin « jusqu’à 100 % efficace » contre Ebola : un virus qui, depuis 1976, a un taux de mortalité chez l'humain de 25 % à 90 %. Le nom du vaccin : rVSV-ZEBOV.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, “radical” was a lovely word

Up until I left Australia at the age of 21, “radical” was in my mind an objective term designating some kind of root, widely employed in pure mathematics, chemistry, music, grammar, political science and the philosophy of empiricism.

Bertrand Russell

• [mathematics] Of the root of a number or quantity.

• [chemistry] Group of atoms behaving as a unit in compounds.

• [music] Belonging to the root of a chord.

• [grammar] Root or base form of a word.

• [politics] Advocate of thorough or total political or social reform; a member of a political party or part of a party pursuing such aims.

• [empiricism] Theory that ultimate reality consists of pure experience.

These days, I'm sickened whenever I hear philistines linking this lovely word to barbarian hatred and crime.