Rope net dropped around Sarko

The Bygmalion affair has just been dropped onto Sarko's head. If he can succeed in escaping from that mess between now and the presidential election, he's a Houdini. But the guy is as cunning as an educated ferret. So, he'll possibly succeed...

Cartooning for Peace

A nice tweet from an admirable organization: @CartooningPeace

 

Click to enlarge slightly

For  reasons I don't understand, it took me some messing around to include both the Twitter name of the organization and the cartoon. Everything on the Internet is becoming more and more difficult...

Ancient history of my paternal family

It's a long time since I've mentioned my ancient ancestors in the Leicestershire village of Skeffington. I devoted considerable energy to the publication of my books A Little Bit of Irish and They Sought the Last of Lands. Today, I'm tremendously proud of both books, but I believe that I should no longer remain attached to such subjects. Nevertheless, I remain intrigued by ancient paternal genealogy, particularly since I persist—for reasons of genealogical genetics—in seeing myself as a rare survivor of the earliest imaginable patriarch in Leicester. If I were particularly energetic (which I'm not, particularly since falling down the stairs a year ago), I would pursue an interesting line of my paternal genealogy: namely, research into the identity of the Norman fellow who settled in the English place that came to be known as Skeffington.

When I left this subject, prior to falling down the stairs a year ago, I was particularly intrigued by the case of an ancient Norman family called Verdun, who were closely attached to the village of Skeffington. There's even a chance that my earliest male ancestor in Leicestershire might have been a member of this Verdun family.

So, I am still interested in contacting living descendants of this ancient family, to see if they have any Y-chromosome data they could show me (so I could compare it with mine). But there's a major unexpected hitch. The most prominent living Verdun descendant happens to be the husband of... Christine Dupont de Ligonnès. And I don't intend to start asking those people if they might assist me with DNA research.

Two different young politicians with a similar viewpoint

Click here to see François Baroin talking about Manuel Valls on the subject of Islamic head attire for females. It’s reassuring to find youthful French politicians, on opposite sides of the fence, sharing similar views concerning the challenge of chasing obscurity from modern France.

Just a star away

A stone’s throw ? Not exactly. A little bit more. Aim your stellar pebble in this direction.

Jeanne Moreau sings “Le tourbillon” on March 2, 1969

I don’t know whether this movie clip loads easily. It probably takes time, but it's worth waiting. When Jeanne Moreau recorded this song, my son was still a six-months-old fœtus in his mother’s womb. The man alongside Jeanne was the former journalist Pierre Lazareff, who had become a press baron and producer of variety performers.