Extraordinary TV evening on the ancient Aborigines

I've just spent the evening watching two amazing documentaries on the ancient prehistory of the Australian Aborigines. Never before have I been treated to such a fabulous Aboriginal cultural description.

I'll be intrigued to learn whether my fellow citizens in Australia are aware of the existence of these documentaries.

Exotic Aussie road vehicle

Although I was born in Australia, and spent quite a few years there, I have to admit that I've never witnessed our most spectacular road vehicle: the Esky... which is actually used, at times, on public highways.

Its design is fairly straightforward. It's basically a matter of taking a traditional Esky container, as used to keep bottled beer cool, and fixing it on a set of wheels. All that then remains to be done is to motorize your new vehicle. And why would any Aussie guy want to build himself such a vehicle? The answer is obvious. Australia is a hot country, and Aussies need to take steps to avoid dying of thirst. There's no better solution than a low-cost light-weight vehicle that enables you to go out to a liquor shop, to purchase new supplies of thirst-quenching beer.

BREAKING NEWS: Wanneroo Police charged a 30-year-old man for allegedly driving a motorised esky while drunk.

Standing up in the night

The title of this blog post is an attempted translation of #nuitdebout which is a popular nocturnal movement in Paris.

The assemblies are spontaneous, peaceful and devoid of appointed chiefs. People "vote", as it were, by using hand signs. Personally, through TV reports, I find these nocturnal assemblies particularly spirited and moving, suggesting the birth of a new youth movement.

Dumpers of shit

Several associates of the French right-wing party Front national have found their names appearing in articles about the Panama Papers. The party chief Marine Le Pen has reacted to all this negative publicity.

She has referred to the big pile of offensive press articles as “tombereaux d’excréments” (dumpers of shit).

That's her way of taking out a shovel. Dig, Marine, dig!

Belgian terrorist with a hat

Click here to see the latest images of the infamous Brussels terrorist with a hat. Once upon a time, I was led to believe that we knew his identity, but I'm no longer certain. In any case, this guy troubles me. I have a weird impression that this mysterious intruder has been wandering around stealthily on my computer screen, non-stop, for several weeks, and resisting all police attempts to capture him...

BREAKING NEWS: No sooner had I finished this blog post than I received a further flash concerning the man with a hat. He has just been designated as a Belgian-Moroccan named Mohamed Abrini. We have a new photo of the fellow, whom I've renamed:

"Hatless Houdini"

And above all, we are told that he has just been arrested. Can I really believe that the ubiquitous terrorist with/without his famous hat has finally been captured? Or will he still be running around on my computer screen, once again, tomorrow?

It appears that our Hatless Houdini is 31 years old, and was arrested today in Anderlecht (Belgium).

If ever "Houdini" turned out to be registered as a theatrical performer (maybe with a bank account in Panama), he deserves to pick up a fortune in fees for his Internet performances. The poor bugger must be exhausted after all his non-stop walking around Belgium.

BREAKING NEWS: At the end of the day, Belgian authorities confirmed that they had indeed captured a terrorist named Mohamed Abrini, but they still don't know if he's the same fellow who was filmed with a hat. So, my choice of the name Hatless Houdini is fine.

Childhood culture

Years ago, when I was starting to collaborate regularly with French software engineers, I discovered that so-called "Anglo-Saxon" culture is not universal. As a typical young Australian, I wrongly assumed that my French colleagues would have a similar everyday culture to me. One day, in the IBM office in Paris, I said: "That reminds me of the story about George Washington and his father's cherry tree." My colleagues told me immediately that they'd never heard this tale, so they asked me to tell them the story. I explained: "Mindlessly, young George grabbed an axe and chopped down his father's cherry tree. That evening, the father was most unhappy, because he had loved the young tree, and he asked his children to tell him who had committed the silly act. Young George, ashamed of his stupidity, and aware that he deserved punishment, made a solemn declaration: Father, I cannot tell a lie; it was I who cut down your cherry tree."

Now, it's possible that American kids, hearing this tale, break down in tears. The reaction of my French IBM colleagues was different, totally down to earth: "So what the hell?" I realized instantly that my alleged story about little George Washington and his father's cherry tree was a total flop. For them, it wasn't really a genuine story.