Family photo

It would be impossible to describe the amazing depth of synchronicity behind this snapshot of Christine and our friend Céline in a tea shop on the Rue St-Honoré:

Back to where it all began

My son took this snapshot as the métro dashed through Rambuteau station, on our way to the Gare de Lyon, for my return trip to the Dauphiné. These three days in Paris were a delightful and fascinating excursion for Christine and me. A meaningful encounter for our children, too, no doubt. A step back in time to where it all began... but, above all, an encounter with the everyday context of Emmanuelle and François. In any case, for those who might have unfounded doubts about the well-being of Paris and citizens such as our children, I believe I can affirm that Fluctuat nec mergitur.

Cooking blunders

The kitchen expression "serve up the leftovers" is even more ugly in French: "accommoder les restes". It sounds like darning an old holey sock. Insofar as I cook for myself, many of my preparations stretch out over two or three meals. Consider the case of roast chicken. Since I purchase sturdy farm poultry, a plump chicken is always a three-mealer. As everybody knows, many dishes are better the second time round, when they've been heated up after a day or so in the refrigerator. That's particularly true in the case of curried turkey, for example.

Often, I set out with the intention of producing such-and-such a dish, but everything goes wrong, and I end up using the ingredients for a quite different purpose. A week ago, for example, I had a sudden urge to prepare Israeli falafels: essentially fried balls of mashed chickpeas and herbs stuffed, along with tomato and lettuce salad, into the circular bread product called pita in Greek. Everything was coming along fine up until I got around to opening up a pita from the local supermarket.

It crumbled into fragments like a fragile piece of cake. Not exactly the same texture and quality as countless falafels that I've munched in Israel. So, I instantly forgot about trying to prepare falafels, and decided to toast the remaining pitas, to make cheese sandwiches with Greek feta. They were excellent.

Long ago, I remember my first unsuccessful attempts at preparing mayonnaise. Christine and I were newly wedded, and we were awaiting a lunch visit from a delightful Breton ecclesiastic, Abbé Chéruel. Failing to produce genuine mayonnaise, I decided to mix the eggy/oily liquid with minced pork, as stuffing for tomatoes to be roasted in the oven. The outcome was delicious. For ages, I used to repeat this dish whenever we had guests. The recipe started out: Screw up an attempt at making mayonnaise...

That anecdote reminds me of the alleged discovery of roast pork. In ancient China, pigs were sacred animals that roamed around farm houses like dogs or donkeys. One day, a house was destroyed by fire, along with the farm animals. The farmer stroked sadly the scorched carcass of one of his dear departed pigs. His fingers were burnt. Automatically, to ease the pain, he put his fingers in his mouth... whereupon he tasted, for the first time ever, an unknown delicacy: roast pork. After that accidental incident, roast pork became an instant craze in China. The recipe started out: Burn down a farm house along with all the domestic animals...

Bicycle thieves

This weekend, I'm looking forward to discovering the celebrated Vélib phenomenon: the free bikes of Paris. It's funny to think that I used to belong to the audacious minority who rode bikes through the dangerous streets of Paris back in the '70s.

Paris has always abounded in bicycle thieves, and the police have a hard job tracking them down and apprehending them.

I've just heard that, during the time since the Vélib system was set up, in July 2007, some 700 bikes have been stolen, and that many offenders have been blacklisted.

In France, a prestigious organization called the Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés [CNIL: National Committee for Computing and Liberty] makes sure constantly that the rights of French citizens are not being attacked or eroded, maybe surreptitiously, through the use of computers. The existence of this committee reflects an excellent French republican idea, and it appears to be effectively operational. For example, I was rather excited about the idea of seeing my name in the Journal Officiel, last month, when I was naturalized. But a polite note appeared on my computer screen stating that the CNIL did not authorize the explicit display of the identity of new citizens. Great stuff, I won't complain about that.

On the other hand, the CNIL has authorized Parisian authorities, not surprisingly, to computerize its blacklist of bicycle thieves, so that the police will find it easier to track them down. Once again, great stuff!

In his tongue-in-cheek Plaidoyer pour un génocide [Plea for a Genocide], my writer friend Jean Sendy [who died back in 1978] surprised us with the following affirmations:

Tout logicien sait qu'un crime parfait est très difficile à réussir, très long à préparer ; un criminel assez intelligent pour ne pas se faire prendre ne met donc pas la société en péril : au pire, il ne recommencera pas de sitôt ; au mieux il sera assez intelligent pour comprendre que ce n'est pas rentable et ne jamais recommencer. En bonne logique, les petits voleurs, les voleurs de bicyclette, doivent au contraire être éliminés aussitôt le délit établi : la médiocrité de leur entreprise les contraint à récidiver sans cesse, et prouve qu'ils sont trop bêtes pour être utiles à la société ; au mieux, on ne peut que les empêcher de nuire, en leur assurant vivre et couvert dans des prisons ruineuses pour le budget. Le seul défaut de ce raisonnement est son indifférence à la morale.

For readers whose French does not allow them to understand Jean Sendy: He says that great criminals don't really hurt society, whereas mediocre bicycle thieves, who annoy us constantly, should maybe be executed immediately... were it not for our moral qualms. Sendy was both a brilliant thinker and a good writer. A great friend, too. I think of him constantly, like Pierre Schaeffer and Albert Richard. Those three men, my cultural forebears, made me wish to become French.

Paris revisited

My daughter Emmanuelle and son François find it hard to understand why I've never returned to Paris for years. This doesn't mean that I've lost interest in the most fascinating and celebrated city on Earth, where I lived for ages, in the Rue Rambuteau.

On the contrary. The truth of the matter is down-to-earth. Here at Gamone, I live with a dog, Sophia, and I can't ask my neighbors to take care of her while I wander off to faraway places. It was only recently, on the occasion of my week or so in hospital, that I got around to discovering the excellent solution of placing Sophia in a top-quality dogs' home just near the TGV station on the outskirts of Valence. Well, I've booked her in there for a few days so that I can finally get around to seeing, not only my children, but their Parisian apartments. And my ex-wife Christine will be leaving her home in Brittany to be there too. In fact, it's an immensely exciting idea for rural folk such as Christine and me to leave our respective villages and dogs for a few days, enabling us to revisit the capital and stay with our children.

I'm a little afraid that sophisticated Parisians might make fun of my rough country appearance and behavior. Maybe I should wear my Akubra hat, carry a camera around my neck, and try to look like an Aussie tourist.

Complete novel now released

I have decided to release all 16 chapters of my novel entitled All the Earth is Mine. Click the following button to access my website:

This website includes a freely-accessible guestbook (still empty) for readers' comments.

Olympic contests

There's no doubt about it: the 2008 Olympic Games have started well and truly, a little earlier than planned, with spectacular events in London and Paris. The IOC [International Olympic Committee] will have to invent a name for this new sport, played simultaneously by individuals and teams.

In Paris, the athletes dressed in navy blue appeared to be the stronger players. However, at the moment I'm writing, the heats are not yet finished, and it's still impossible to predict the winners.

On the French TV midday news, there were confused images of police vehicles and crowds of people in one of the tunnels alongside the Seine. My mind flashed back to the death of Diana. Today, thanks to China's stubborn reluctance to respect human rights, particularly in Tibet, I fear that we're about to witness the death of the ancient Olympic spirit.

European vessel in space

Yesterday's docking of the European space cargo Jules Verne with the ISS [International Space Station], 200 miles above the Atlantic Ocean, performed solely by artificial intelligence, was amazing.

The vessel was launched on March 9 from the Kourou spaceport in French Guinea by an Ariane rocket, and yesterday's automatic docking maneuvers were monitored from Toulouse in southwestern France. In my article of 8 February 2008 entitled Europe in space [display], I described the incorporation in the ISS of Europe’s Columbus science laboratory. The success of the safe arrival of the Jules Verne cargo vessel enhances considerably the presence of Europe in the context of the ISS, which had been largely an American and Russian affair for a long time.

Two heads of state

It's rare to see a photo of an encounter between the respective leaders of France and Australia.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd met up today at the NATO summit talks in Bucharest, Romania. Although Australia is not a member of NATO, the prime minister is attempting to persuade European nations to step up their participation in the conflict with the Taliban in Afghanistan. France was a founding member of NATO, but Charles de Gaulle decided to withdraw from the integrated military structure of the organization in 1966. France has nevertheless remained one of the five nations that finance three-quarters of the NATO budget.

France is, of course, one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. In that domain, Kevin Rudd was pleased to learn, from Sarkozy, that France will support Australia's candidacy for admission as an elected (temporary) member of the Security Council for the two-year period 2013-14. One has the impression that Rudd's Australia intends to play a more active role on the international scene, particularly in a European context.

In Bucharest, the French leader got back in contact with George W Bush. This encounter provided the US president with an opportunity for making yet another of those typically crazy declarations for which he is celebrated. In referring to Sarkozy's trip to America last November, Bush likened the Frenchman to... a reincarnation of Elvis Presley! Somebody should tell Bush that it's not Nicolas who sings, but rather his wife Carla. No, better still: Our French King of Bling should be persuaded into getting all dressed up and recording a karaoke version of one of the great hits of the King of Memphis, such as Love me tender or It's Now or Never. Such a video would make a delightful farewell gift for the US president when he leaves office.

Big booze business

The two major giants in the domain of fine alcoholic beverages have their headquarters in the Old World. The leader, of course, is Britain's Diageo, which owns Guinness, a dozen world-famous brands of whisky (including Johnnie Walker), Gordon's gin, Smirnoff vodka, etc.

Close on the heels of Diageo is France's Pernod Ricard, the famous manufacturer of aniseed-flavored pastis, who announced yesterday their acquisition of the Swedish company that produces Absolut vodka. Besides prestigious whisky brands such as Chivas and Ballantine's, Martell brandy and Mumm champagne, the French company owns Australian wines such as Jacob's Creek.

I used to believe naively that Ricard pastis was the best in the world.

Thanks to my Provençal friends Natacha and Alain, I've had the pleasure and privilege of discovering that the world's finest pastis (gold medal award at the General Agricultural Competition Paris 2008) is the Henri Bardouin brand, produced in the delightful Provençal town of Forcalquier.

All the Earth is Mine — chapter 9

Chapter 9 of my novel has now been released. Click the following button to access the novel's website:

This chapter is entitled Violence. Everybody in Jerusalem is familiar with the vast colorful market named Mahaneh Yehuda, not far from the center of the New City. Lanes between the stalls bear the Hebrew names of fruit, but there are vendors of all kinds of foodstuffs (vegetables, meat, fish and pastry products) and household wares.

On a sunny afternoon, Rachel Kahn had taken the Luria children, David and Lisa, on a bus excursion to the Red Sea, leaving their parents to wander around Jerusalem like carefree honeymooners. Alas, a Palestinian terrorist chose that moment to strike the crowded market.

Destination death

Last Tuesday afternoon, I dropped in at the cemetery of Pont-en-Royans to bid adieu to 46-year-old Muriel Magnat (wife of Jean, the brother of Gérard), who was one of the first neighbors I encountered here at Gamone, fifteen years ago. At one stage, I employed Muriel to clean up my house on a weekly basis, but she used to irritate me, whenever I made any specific request, by replying "Oui, chef", as if I were an army sergeant. So her role as my household employee didn't last for long. But we remained good friends... and I was saddened, over the last couple of years, to see Muriel slipping into a no-man's-land of social withdrawal, maybe exacerbated by alcohol.

The last time I ran into her, a couple of months ago, at the supermarket in Saint-Jean-en-Royans, Muriel looked like a very old woman. She invited me back to her place for a pastis. In the course of our conversation, we got around to envisaging the possibility that I might inherit their cat, because it appeared that her husband Jean hoped to replace this animal by a dog. Retrospectively, I believe that Muriel was in no position to offer the family cat to anybody at all, but she was the kind of woman whose friendly direct speech seemed to announce such possibilities as if they were certainties. That was part of Muriel's charm, you might say. Back at the time she worked for me, Muriel was immensely proud of their ancient house in the Rue du Merle, on the slopes of Pont-en-Royans. But drunken carelessness meant that a good part of the neighborhood disappeared in flames... and Muriel, the likely culprit, disappeared instantly, like the burnt buildings, from the daily village scene.

Muriel Faure was a descendant, through her mother, of the Bonnard family whose prestigious hotel, inaugurated in 1898 (still standing, but converted recently into private premises), used to be a touristic landmark at Pont-en-Royans. Once upon a time, the noble descendants of the ancient Bérenger-Sassenage families used to be lodged there... not to mention the king of Belgium along with countless New World visitors.

On the tombstone above the sepulcher where Muriel was buried, I was intrigued by an engraved name, with no date of death: Tintin Faure. Afterwards, I asked my neighbor Madeleine Repellin (an erudite aficionado—in modern terms, a database—of local births, deaths, marriages, divorces, funerals and sordid stories of all kinds) to tell me the relationship between this mysterious Tintin and the deceased woman who had entered his tombstone universe.

Madeleine: "Tintin—that's to say, the nickname for Augustin—is Muriel's father."

William: "Hang on, Madeleine. The other day, you introduced me to an old man, supposed to be Muriel's father, alongside his daughter's grave. Now you're telling me that it's his name that's inscribed on the tombstone above his daughter's grave."

Madeleine: "Right. Tintin has inscribed his name on his future tomb, without a date of death, but his daughter happened to die before him."

William: "I'm amazed. Is it normal for living people to have their names inscribed on tombstones?" I was suddenly reminded of ferry boats in Sydney Harbor that carry the names of still-living sporting heroes such as Dawn Fraser and Shane Gould.

I sensed that the subject was becoming serious, and that my questions were disturbing. My everyday neighbor Dédé Repellin—Dédé is the nickname for André—intervened in our discussion: "Yes, it's a common habit in this part of the Alps. Inscribing a name on a future tombstone provides us with a precise destination. While still living, we know where we're finally heading."

Talk about serious mountain guides!

When lying becomes a family affair

I don't mind admitting that, once upon a time, when Bill Clinton looked us directly in the eyes and swore that he had never had any kind of sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, I was stupid enough to believe him, because he seemed to be so tremendously sincere. I even remember saying to myself: "What great willpower and strong character Clinton must possess, to be able to refuse the cuddly advances of sexy White House women. And what a pity he has to defend his honor courageously against all those nasty people who are trying to invent false reasons for overthrowing him."

On the other hand, as soon as I heard Hillary Clinton telling us how she scrambled across a tarmac under a shower of sniper bullets, something told me there was something wrong with her story. In particular, I found it weird that she should be smiling while relating this tale, as if her alleged courage were almost a matter-of-fact laughing matter. "You must realize, ladies and gentlemen: I'm so terribly brave in such circumstances that it's almost a joke."



I believe that Hillary Clinton's bid to become the Democratic presidential candidate will suffer irreparably through this silly lie.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, seems to have succeeded elegantly and efficiently in putting his former preacher friend Jeremiah Wright back into the glass museum case from which he should never have been extracted. If Obama himself had ever made any of the kinds of fiery declarations attributed to the pastor, there would certainly be cause for concern. But this is not the case. I don't find it alarming that Obama should count this crazy preacher among his friends. The world would be an impossible stage for aspiring statesmen if they were to be judged by their notorious friends.

Law of motion

The First Law of Motion of Isaac Newton seems to concern moving objects: Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. In fact, it applies perfectly well to an object whose velocity happens to be zero; that's to say, a stationary object. In other words, as long as no external force is applied to a stationary object, it will remain eternally motionless. Now, I often encounter intelligent individuals who seem to be convinced that, if an ancient structure has never yet fallen, in spite of its superficially unstable appearance, then this "proves" that it isn't likely to fall in the foreseeable future. They refuse to imagine that even the legendary butterfly, flapping its wings, could provide an external force capable of making things move.

A decade ago, my English friend Adrian Lyons was leading me on an inspection of a local dilapidated medieval castle, and he tried to reassure me when he saw that I wasn't too keen on crawling over rotted rafters: "This place was built centuries before we were born, and it'll still be standing long after us." Shortly after that outing, daredevil Adrian lost his life in the UK when he crashed his veteran jet aircraft while pulling out of a tight turn too close to the ground.

Here in the Vercors, many folk seem to consider that a precarious rock structure that hasn't yet crumbled and rolled down the slopes will no doubt remain in place forever. So, they don't sense its presence as a constant menace.

I see these cliffs, on the other side of the Bourne, from my bedroom window. In the center of the photo, the detached vertical pillar is most impressive when you look up at it from the Rouillard Bridge, a few hundred meters down from Gamone. It's composed of two sections, separated by a fissure, and the righthand section appears to be leaning down towards the road to Pont-en-Royans. If ever these rocks were to fall, they might not hurt anybody [because the zone is devoid of houses], but they would create a huge mess at the level of the road and the river.

I've often wondered whether specialists inspect such situations, to evaluate possible risks. I don't think so, because I have no idea how such an inspection could be carried out. After all, limestone cliffs of this kind are so crumbly that you wouldn't even find experienced rock climbers in such a place. So, we're left with the subjective appreciations of local folk who, for one reason or another, have their personal ideas about whether such-and-such a site is risky.

My neighbor Gérard Magnat, at Sirouza, lives quite close to this double pillar. From his balcony veranda, you look straight across at Mont Baret, and his house is located at roughly the same altitude as the pillar. When I called in at his place a few days ago, Gérard said to me, spontaneously: "For the last few months, I've had a strange feeling that the fissure between the two vertical sections of the pillar has widened a little. But I can't be certain, and people think I'm crazy..."

Return of the sheep

Prior to leaving for Australia in August 2006, I called upon a local butcher, Patrick Charvet, to spend a morning slaughtering my existing flock of sheep (with my active participation in the events). But we refrained from killing a ewe and three tiny lambs. Shortly before I left for Australia, these remnants of my flock escaped from Gamone, maybe because they smelt blood in the air. In fact, escaping wasn't difficult, since my donkey Moshe (who often shared paddocks with sheep) had the habit of leaning against the fencing, to eat greener grass on the other side, and my once-robust paddocks at Gamone had deteriorated to the point of being like a prison without padlocks.

A few days ago, I was surprised by this scene up behind my house:

The ewe and the three tiny lambs of August 2006 have now evolved into a flock of nine animals. Totally wild.

As I walk slowly towards them, they wander slowly away from me. And they usually disappear over the crest of the hill behind my house, in the direction of their familiar mountainous abode above Pont-en-Royans.

What can you do with such animals? The immediate obvious answer is: Nothing. Let them be! But this is an unsatisfactory answer for two reasons: (a) It's illegal to "own" undeclared wild sheep. (b) These animals could stray onto the road and provoke an accident.

So, I would like to eliminate them. But how? That's a good question. The only solution, I fear, will consist of my asking officially the gendarmerie to authorize the physical elimination of all these wild sheep with the technical assistance of local hunters.

Aussie readers at such-and-such a refined Sydney golf club might make fun of the fact that my handful of sheep could cause problems here in France. I could use a nice word such as Antipodes to designate our respective viewpoints, but the truth of the matter is that we're not really living on the same planet.

La Parisienne

My daughter sent me this photo, taken last year in a Paris courtyard. She was testing her newly-purchased scooter, which she now uses regularly (with a helmet, of course) for getting around in Paris.

All the Earth is Mine — chapter 8

Chapter 8 of my novel has now been released. Click the following button to access the novel's website:

This chapter is entitled Earth. The time has finally come for Jake's first monumental earthmoving operation in the Holy Land: the transformation of the ruins of Herod's Promontory Palace at Caesarea into an artificial floating island.

At the same time that this extraordinary event is taking place, an even more spectacular project is announced, on the Sea of Galilee... where it is alleged that Jesus once walked upon the waters.

Blog comment from Marvin Minsky

For a blog author such as me, fascinated by computers and inspired by the great pioneers in this domain, receiving a comment from MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] Professor Marvin Minsky is like a humble political journalist getting a message from a head of state. Marvin Minsky's interesting comment is attached to my post entitled Death in Sri Lanka of a visionary [display]. It's amusing to think that Minsky, whom we imagine as a specialist in abstract computer-science domains, actually helped to design the arms and hands of the space-pod manipulator in Stanley Kubrick's fabulous film 2001: A Space Odyssey. MIT is truly a melting-pot for eclectic academics with engineering skills.

Minsky's post to my blog includes a copy of his exchange of personal email with Arthur C Clarke, whose reply to Minsky was written on February 2, 2008. In reading these moving words, I have the impression that I'm eavesdropping on a simple conversation between old friends... who happen to be two of the greatest and most exciting thinkers of our times.

Minsky's email to Arthur C Clarke mentions "a big new book". He is referring to The Emotion Machine. I intend to refer in detail to this fascinating AI [artificial intelligence] opus in forthcoming posts.

Meanwhile, I would like to thank Marvin Minsky for his congratulations concerning my recent French naturalization.

Morbid mosaic

The New York Times proposes an impressive compendium of US war casualties, presenting—as they say—"faces of the dead".

This young American happened to die on the same day that I became a citizen of France, which opposed the American intervention in Iraq. So, for what it's worth in symbolic moral terms, I wish to dedicate solemnly my French naturalization to the memory of this slain US soldier.

Nauseating portraits

Opening an album of old family photos, we might feel inclined to alter certain images. It would be nicer if an archaic ancestor were a little more visually attractive, if an aging aunt were a slightly less stern, if an old uncle could be made to appear more intelligent. Alas, the moving finger of photography writes and, having writ, moves on. Only in the virtual spheres of Photoshop can we retouch our visual past, but that would be senseless cheating. Meanwhile, certain family photos reappear with nauseating insistence.

Not only is this dumb bastard reluctant to say he's sorry for his bloody blunders in Iraq; he's proud of them!

This medieval scarecrow should have been removed long ago from the surface of our planet, if only the above-mentioned dumb American had done his job correctly. Instead, he's still there, sending out mindless menaces about how we should view his distorted religious mythology.

Finally, this silly old bugger dressed up like a white pansy continues to preach old-fashioned magic, and pollute the minds of the planet's youth with negative trash.

Ah, it would be nice if the family portraits could be changed. A little less nausea. A little more humanity, dignity and intelligence.