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was aware that the Gallipoli campaign had been an atrocious military error, and all remaining Allied troops were withdrawn.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.

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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.

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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.