More snow at Gamone

The nasty stuff called global warming doesn't seem to have hit Gamone yet. This was the view, at midday, from in front of my log fire.

Sophia's Labrador genes take her outside regularly, for short inspections, just to make sure that we're not about to be attacked by polar bears, wild Eskimos or woolly mammoths.

Most of the time, though, she dozes in her basket on the electrically-warmed kitchen tiles.

Notice Emmanuelle's fine idea of giving our dog a pillow. I'm ashamed to realize that I never imagined that Sophia would appreciate such an object, let alone need it to support her heavy head.

Incongruous conflict

The ongoing conflict is Gaza is weird in many ways. First, there's the obvious question of why the Hamas suddenly decided, on December 19, to end their truce with Israel, and revert to their annoying habit of firing rockets at their neighbors. There are two plausible explanations, both related to elections. There will be a major election in Israel in February, and it's possible that Hamas leaders imagined naively that Israel wouldn't wish to get involved in military operations before then. Then there's the US situation, where Bush is about to leave, and Obama about to arrive. Maybe Hamas imagined that they could take advantage of a narrow "window" (to use space jargon) during which they could get away with mischief, with no threat of backlash.

A French military expert provided a quite different speculation for the Hamas decision. Everybody knows that defense research and development are leaping ahead in Israel, and that they'll soon have a sophisticated protective system capable of detecting and destroying the relatively primitive rockets that are being fired from Gaza. So, this might be a kind of last offensive fling for Hamas.

One has the impression that, if the Hamas really wished to end the beating that Gaza has been receiving from Tsahal, the obvious simple solution would consist of ceasing to fire any more rockets. But Hamas is basically a terrorist organization, and it simply doesn't reason this way. In a pure terrorist style, they're firing their rockets at civilian targets in Israel, and they're using their own Palestinian civilians as protective "padding" around their launchers.

In angering and provoking the military might of Israel, could it be said that the Hamas is behaving in a suicidal fashion? No, not really. Insofar as the Fatah and the West Bank "nation" have ceased to be credible, the Hamas has nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Besides, we must never forget that they were elected by Palestinians to play exactly the kind of role that they're playing at present. It might be madness, but there's method in it.

Then, there's the unexpected mission of Nicolas Sarkozy, which started today. Like many people, I was surprised to see the Israeli minister of Foreign Affairs, Tzipi Livni, dropping in on the French president in Paris on New Year's Day... an hour or so after Israel's refusal to accept a cease-fire with Hamas.

It was barely a day earlier that an unofficial announcement on the Israeli radio revealed that the French president would be setting out, during the first week of the new year (that's to say, as of today, January 5), upon an in-depth peace-seeking trip through the Middle East. It was as if Tzipi Livni jumped the starting block, the following day, in deciding to visit Sarkozy in Paris. Does Livni really imagine that Sarkozy's rapid trip around the Middle East (including a visit to Syria) might bring peace to Gaza? Does Sarkozy himself imagine such a possibility? The answer to each of these questions is a resounding no. All this rushing around is merely a way of spending time and putting on a show while the dirty work of eradicating the Hamas is conducted in an orderly and systematic fashion, taking all the time that's required.

A terribly incongruous aspect of this conflict is the fact that the Hamas still refuses to recognize the existence of Israel... which is beating the hell out of Gaza. That's not merely an incongruous situation; it's frankly surrealist.

With the arrival of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the international diplomatic scene, are we likely to witness, at last, the creation of an authentic Palestinian nation in the foreseeable future? I don't think so. Little by little, that grand idea is being transformed into an impossible dream, a permanent legend.

Last but not least, the most incongruous thing of all is the fact that, in spite of Israel's understandable irritation about all those small rockets fired from Gaza, it would be absurd to suggest that Israel is genuinely upset in any serious way by the antagonistic behavior of Palestinians in general, and the Hamas in particular. Think of what's happening today in Gaza rather as a kind of training session or warm-up for the real action, which will come later on, against an authentic heavyweight enemy. I'm referring, of course, to Israel's determination to knock out, sooner or later (and probably sooner rather than later), the nuclear capacity of Iran.

Do-it-yourself posterity

In one of my favorite newspapers, The New York Times, an article by Frank Rich entitled A President Forgotten but Not Gone [display] sketches a brilliantly cruel portrait of George W Bush on the way out.

The time has come for Bush to start thinking about how he might be judged by posterity. Now, there's a French saying: You can never get better service than from yourself. In this spirit, the departing president has thought it appropriate and useful to publish a 52-page guide book on his legacy: a sort of How to Love and Admire Me in Ten Easy Steps.

[Click the photo to download the Bush legacy booklet.]

It's free, and it makes for pleasant reading. There are lots of illustrations, and I advise you to print it out on paper. Australian readers might take this piece of literature to the beach, and share it with friends. Here in chilly France, the best way of reading it, of course, is snuggled up in front of a log fire... but people will surely be disappointed to learn that there's no French translation of this opus.

Memorable French quotes of 2008

The excellent French weekly L'Express has assembled a list of the best French quotes of 2008 [display]. Not all of them can be translated meaningfully into English, while other quotes were pronounced by individuals who remain unknown in the world outside France. Now, since France has been my marvelous homeland for the last 45 years, I dare to imagine myself capable of evaluating the pertinence of these quotes. [I hope I donned enough safety gloves in that last sentence.] Here are my seven selections and French/English translations:







That sums up, more or less, this annus horribilis of 2008. Non-Latinists might consider that we're talking of an arsehole year.

Hilton sisters boost Aussie economy

The silly verb "to party", popular in The Sydney Morning Herald, might have been invented for Paris Hilton. Partying seems to be her principal vocation in life. But let's not criticize this filthy rich dumb doll. Her partying contributes economic aid to struggling nations... such as Australia. This photo of the Hilton sisters is charming:

Their look and style remind me of countless rough females I've glimpsed, over the years, on various well-known streets in certain big French cities: Paris, Lyon, Marseille... These days, if I understand correctly, the Internet is revolutionizing this ancient profession... but I can vouch for the observed fact that certain determined craftswomen still operate from automobiles parked alongside the road between Grenoble and Valence.

That photo of Paris and her sister led me astray. Let me return to the economic actions of Paris and her sister Nicky... who apparently pocketed about $100,000 to lure guests to a New Year's Eve party at Sydney's Piano Room. Last Monday, Paris established a shopping record of the Sarah Palin kind when she took less than an hour to spend $5560 in Melbourne boutiques. This feat was praised by no less a commentator than Australia's acting prime minister, Julia Gillard: "I think that Miss Hilton is onto something very important, which is: Whether or not you want to have a holiday that's about fashion or a big night out, Australia's a great place to do it." Paris, thrilled, reacted instantly and spontaneously to Gillard's words: "I thought that was very sweet and it's true. I'm in Australia. I think it's important to help out, you know, the economy out here, everywhere in the world. And what's wrong with a doing a little shopping? It's New Year's. I need a New Year's dress."

No doubt about it: As long as Australia can count upon friends such as Paris Hilton, the alleged economic crisis is as dead as a stale Vegemite sandwich.

Post scriptum thought. That insanely large handout investment of $100,000 to entice Paris and Nicky Hilton to a social event in Sydney symbolizes a belief I've often expressed. There's tons of money Down Under. But much of this surplus cash gets funneled into the greedy clutches of foreign billionaires instead of being used to build roads, railways, bridges and a decent defense system.

Big movie mess

My 93-year-old uncle Isaac Kennedy Walker—a former dairy farmer from my birthplace at Waterview, near Grafton—has been living for the last ten or so years in the Australian seaside city of Coffs Harbour. At that place, in the midst of the sunny slopes dedicated to banana production, a local guesthouse operator decided to erect a tourist gimmick, made of painted plaster, that soon became famous: the Big Banana.

This banana was in fact the first of a long series of Aussie big things, described on Wikipedia [display].

In France, most ugly monstrosities of this kind feature the Virgin Mary. You find big virgins from one end of France to the other, often at prominent spots in the landscape where everybody is obliged to observe these hunks of stone and concrete. Hopefully, future communities will surely dynamite them and use the rubble to build roads...


In the domain of big things, totalitarian states inspired by a personality cult have invented a spectacular gadget that has rarely been exploited in our so-called free democracies. This is the idea of erecting a Big Me.

In France, not so long ago, a guy was sly enough to take this interesting idea to its logical conclusions. An adept of yoga named Gilbert Bourdin [1923-1998], from the French Caribbean island of Martinique, founded a weird sect known as Mandarom. He settled in the superb Provençal landscape of Castellane and erected various pseudo-Tibetan statues including a gigantic representation of himself that could be seen for miles around. Finally, in 2001, after tedious legal wrangling, the French army dynamited this eyesore.

In France, the term "turnip" is used (God knows why) to designate bad movies, and everybody understands this curious metaphor.

In my humble view, the award for the Big Turnip goes surely to the film Australia by Baz Luhrmann, which has just opened in France.

On Boxing Day, I drove up to Grenoble, with my daughter, to see the English-language version of this movie. Frankly, I find it a bloody catastrophe, from every point of view. I have no positive evaluations whatsoever concerning this bundle of clichés tied up with pink ribbons. Above all, the entire final part of Luhrmann's overblown product, presenting a make-believe World War II conflict in Darwin, is technically appalling from a movie viewpoint. You can't believe an instant of it...

Someone said that the cinematographic encounter between the pale giant Nicole Kidman (former wife of Tom Cruise) and Hugh Jackman (the alleged sexiest man on the planet) has the sensual intensity of a Vegemite sandwich. Although I've never tried to eat this Aussie shit, that sounds like a pretty good comparison. The film is so ridiculous that I have nothing more to say about it...

Divine job

One of the most amusing, if not fulfilling, jobs I can imagine would be speechwriter for the pope. Let me explain. No matter what a run-of-the-mill author writes, his/her words will be appreciated (in the best of cases) by a handful of readers and denigrated by others. Concerning words to be pronounced by a pope, on the other hand, the writer can be certain beforehand that millions of listeners and readers will love the stuff, absolutely, because they consider it, a priori, as inspired and infallible words straight from the mouth of the Creator's personal representative on the planet Earth. His director of communications.

Talking of absolutely divine documents, let me display the latest specimen. It's an English translation of a fragment of the pope's Xmas address to the Roman curia gathered in the Sala Clementina on 22 December 2008:

Because faith in the Creator is an essential part of the Christian creed, the Church cannot and must not limit itself to transmitting to its faithful the message of salvation alone. It has a responsibility toward creation, and must exercise this responsibility in public as well. And in doing so, it must defend not only the earth, water, and air as gifts of creation belonging to all. It must also protect man against his own destruction. Something like an ecology of man is needed, understood in the proper sense. It is not an outdated metaphysics if the Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman, and asks that this order of creation be respected. In fact, this is a matter of faith in the Creator and of listening to the language of creation, disdain toward which would be the self-destruction of man, and therefore the destruction of the very work of God. What is often expressed and understood by the term "gender" is ultimately resolved in the self-emancipation of man from creation and from the Creator. Man wants to create himself, and to arrange always and exclusively that which concerns him. But this means living contrary to the truth, living contrary to the creator Spirit. Yes, the rainforests deserve our protection, but man deserves it no less, as a creature in whom a message is inscribed that does not mean the contradiction of our freedom, but its precondition.

This is excellent prose, of a journalistic kind, and I can imagine the pride of the holy ghostwriter seeing the pope's face light up when His Holiness discovered the slick but sloppy sentence: Something like an ecology of man is needed... With a tiny bit of rewriting, that sentence might have been elevated to a memorable quotation that would go down in literary history. First, I would have used the term spiritual ecology, which sounds much better, frankly awesome. Second, I would have written Man with a capital letter, in italics, to give it a scientific biological flavor.

Talking about capitals, notice the subtle way in which the rewriter jumps back and forth between the terms creation and Creator. I'll let you guess which noun refers to a familiar day-to-day process described by scientists, and which one designates the pope's special pal. Personally, I've always been so utterly awed by the amazing complexities of the archaic process that I like to spell Creation with a capital... but I now realize that this is a dangerous habit, since there are a lot of crazy folk out there who've succeeded in monopolizing the expressions Creationism and Intelligent Design to designate the accomplishments of the pope's much-celebrated magical Creator: the big old guy with a white beard up in the sky.

It's the latter part of this extract of the pope's Sala Clementina address that has stirred up shit, over the last few days, in the international gay and lesbian worlds. Read it carefully, to see what the anonymous speechwriter of His Holiness is actually saying. Here's the keystone of the literary lobbyist's subtle art:

What is often expressed and understood by the term "gender" is ultimately resolved in the self-emancipation of man from creation and from the Creator.

The euphemism "self-emancipation" means, of course, assuming one's true sexuality. So, to call a spade a spade, the pope's Xmas speech turns out to be a blatant diatribe against homosexuality. Meanwhile, I reacted spontaneously: What the bloody hell is this word "gender" doing here? Gender, as we all know, is an ancient linguistic concept concerning nouns, which are often separated into formal groups designated as either masculine, feminine or neuter. Recently, it has become fashionable to apply the term "gender" to cultural differences between creatures of the opposite sex. For example, if a little boy likes to wear his sister's clothes, you might say (if you were incapable of finding a better way of putting it) that his behavior is of a female gender. But it's totally ridiculous to fall back upon the fuzzy gender concept, in human beings, as a criterion for distinguishing between those who have a penis and those who have a vagina. That difference (both the pope and his speechwriter should know by now) is called sex, and it's all a matter of so-called X and Y chromosomes... not to mention precise differences in the form of genital organs, which even the virginal pope, with a little bit of prompting, should be able to recognize.

I wondered whether the silly intrusion of this gender term might be a translator's error. Then I made an amazing discovery. The gender word has been included, in inverted commas, in the original Italian!

Ciò che spesso viene espresso ed inteso con il termine "gender", si risolve in definitiva nella autoemancipazione dell’uomo dal creato e dal Creatore.

The plot thickens! For me, it's clear. The pope's speechwriter is almost certainly an English-speaking priest, of Italian origins, who happens to be an inhibited homosexual. He can't bring himself round to talking of sex, so he prefers to say gender... even in the middle of a papal address in Italian! There's no other way in the world to explain the sudden production of so much pontifical rubbish. There's another clue as to the identity of the pope's speechwriter. He's clearly well-informed about ecological issues in Australia, because he refers both to the pope's recent visit and to the question of saving rain forests. So, maybe he's a homosexual Tasmanian priest of Italian origins.

Now, why am I so motivated by the idea of unveiling the identity of the speechwriter responsible for the pope's spectacular gender stuff? Well, ideally, if he were unmasked, he might get sacked for professional faults... such as throwing the word gender into a pontifical address. In that case, I might then be in a position to apply for this fabulous job. Meanwhile, I love this image of our electric pope, a real man's man:

I imagine Benny's bolts of blue lightning penetrating painfully the sin-stained backsides of gender miscreants...

Two virginity jokes

The first joke is factual. It concerns a delightful adolescent habit in the USA that consists of wearing a so-called purity ring and making a pledge of sexual abstinence up until one's marriage.

A survey has just revealed that serious young folk who have decided to make such a pledge and wear such a ring end up having premarital sex just as readily as everybody else. In other words, the purity rings and pledges are mere symbols of wishful thinking. But here's the joke... which would be funny, were it not distressing for those concerned. Whenever young people in this virginal category happen to fall into the screwing trap, they're likely to be confronted with more sexual problems than the others, simply because—like bad boy scouts who haven't respected their Be Prepared motto—they're overwhelmed by the consequences of sudden unexpected passion. They've never envisaged using condoms, which makes them perfect candidates for unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

My second joke is a nice little Xmas tale.

A young girl has just been examined by her doctor (or physician, as they say in the States).

DOCTOR: Well, young lady, I have good news for you and your male companion. In about eight months' time, you'll be the parents of...

GIRL: Excuse me for interrupting, Doctor, but I don't have a male companion.

DOCTOR: Let me put it another way. You'll be able to inform your most recent male partner that you're now...

GIRL: I'm sorry to correct you, Doctor, but I've never been involved with a male partner. I've never had any kind of relationship whatsoever with males.

DOCTOR: Then you've surely been receiving treatment in artificial insemination from a gynecologist...

GIRL: I'm sorry, Doctor, but I have no idea what you're talking about.

The doctor walks to the window, opens it and starts staring silently up at the sky.

DOCTOR: The first and last time this happened, long ago, a fabulous star appeared in the sky. This time, I don't want to miss it.

Day of death in the Holy Land

It's absurd to apply the expression "Holy Land" to the tiny segment of hell on Earth named Gaza, where dozens have been dying in the wake of the alleged anniversary of the birth of a man of peace and love. In this bloody conflict, Palestinians in Gaza have been dying under Israeli missiles: some 200 according to this afternoon's count.

BREAKING NEWS, MONDAY MORNING: The Israeli blitz has so far killed over 310 Palestinians, including 51 confirmed civilian casualties, including women and children. There are more than 1400 wounded.

Here's a horrible haphazard video, with a taste of death:



For ages, people have been tiring themselves talking about what might be done to put an end to the terrible conflict between Israel and Palestine. Should there be two autonomous nations? Should a corner of Jerusalem be set aside as the capital of a future Muslim nation named Palestine? Should Israelis cool down a little about their alleged biblical rights to the land of milk and honey? Should Palestinians relinquish their matter-of-fact birth rights? What can be done to make these people, if not love one another, at least cease to hate themselves mortally? Is there any solution?

A first step in the direction of seeking a solution to all this hatred and bloodshed would consist of eliminating ancient religious antagonism. The planet Earth would need to have the political power to urge citizens of the world to wake up to life. Would this be possible? Sadly, I don't think so. Humanity is a tragedy.

Dog's Xmas

Whenever Emmanuelle drops down to Gamone for a few days, as is often the case, she looks after, not only her father (who takes pleasure in cooking for his epicurean daughter), but our dog too. Yesterday, I was attempting to save my virtual yacht in the Vendée Globe regatta from running into a calm zone... unsuccessfully. Meanwhile, Manya took Sophia out for a long walk on the slopes. And I used a long-focal lens to take a photo of them from my bathroom window.

OK, I agree. That's a terribly lazy approach to taking photos of your daughter and your dog. Quick, I need to throw in a few plausible excuses! As everybody knows, I'm getting on in years, and I can no longer step out boldly in the Xmas weather and wander around on the slopes. Besides, that silly computerized regatta is truly exciting but demanding. Ask my son François... who seems to have suddenly decided to pull out of the rat race and visit New Zealand.

For Sophia, apart from strolling around on the slopes of Gamone with Manya, it might be said that happiness is a sunny morning.

Emmanuelle is constantly aware that our dog, like all of us, appreciates acts of kindness... such as a Xmas gift of a soft pillow.

One of the nicest images in the Cosmos is that of a yawning dog leaning on a fat, soft, warm pillow on a sunny morning.

It's the canine equivalent of pulling out of the rat race, and indulging in lazy delicious sleep.

With lessons from my children and my dog (and Christine, too), it's not impossible that I'm slowly acquiring wisdom.

BREAKING NEWS: Over the last twelve hours or so, I've been receiving messages from alarmed observers, virtual skippers in the Vendée Globe regatta, who can't understand the circumstances in which my son suddenly turned his vessel in a northerly direction. Has he gone mad? Did he fall overboard, leaving a phantom vessel with nobody aboard? Is this some kind of a subtle navigational strategy aimed at getting back into the race? To say the least, the behavior of François was disturbing... and many of his fellow navigators have been worried, if not anguished. You know how it is. We round-the-globe sailors are a tightly-knit bunch. Many of us have left our wives, family and friends back in Brittany while we brave the oceans of the world on our computer screens... and we naturally get worried as soon as one of our kin gives the impression that something might have gone wrong. OK, we can always call upon the friendly Royal Australian Navy to intervene, if the worst comes to the worst, to get us out of trouble. But we don't necessarily wish to upset Aussie taxpayers. In any case, the good news is that my son François, on Kerouziel, is back in the race. The bad news is that he's going to miss out on an excellent opportunity of visiting New Zealand. In case readers don't know, that's the land where his paternal ancestor William Pickering [1843-1914], after whom I was named, did the basic surveying for the future city of Auckland. In that same land, more recently, a certain French secret-service agent named Alain Mafart, who happens to be a relative of my son's mother, Christine Mafart, organized the destruction of the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior. As they say in the land of Confucius: That's the way the cookie crumbles. In any case, it's a fact that we navigators live in a crazy world where all kinds of exceptional events can happen... including encounters with vast zones where the wind no longer blows. That's sailing. That's life.

Hey! I'm wondering. Are Vendée Globe skippers allowed to sail with a dog aboard?

Laptops selling better than desktops

This charming photo (copyright Sipa) accompanies an article in the website of the Nouvel Observateur weekly [display] revealing that sales of laptop computers are now beating those of desktops.

Personally, I went to a lot of trouble to design a heavy steel-framed walnut-wood desk for my computer. I've had the same ideal office chair for some thirty years, along with optimal lighting. I envy the girl in the photo, who can apparently work efficiently while seated in the open air, on what looks like a wharf, with her laptop between her knees. Whenever I try to use my MacBook outside, the sunlight prevents me from seeing anything on the screen. And I would be incapable of typing if the machine were balanced on my legs. There must be some trick I've never learned. Or maybe it's a marketing trick.

Oysters for Jesus

As far as I know, oysters were not a biblical foodstuff. As members of the shellfish category, oysters are not, of course, kosher. But I don't think anybody in the early Christian world used to eat them. It wasn't until Roman times in France (Cancale in Brittany) and Britain (Whitstable in Kent) that humans got around to consuming this weird creature. Why is it, then, that people here in France have the habit of gobbling down huge quantities of oysters at Xmas celebrations?

On Xmas eve, for example, friends dropped in for a drink... with a bag of oysters, which I promptly opened. This morning, for Manya and me, I opened another couple of dozen oysters.

There are other traditional Xmas foodstuffs in France, such as chapon (castrated rooster) and foie gras, but I've always had the impression that the true gastronomic spirit for end-of-year festivities involves oysters. Why is this so? Is there some special reason why French oyster farmers have decided to concentrate upon this particular time of the year to bring their produce to market?

Oysters have always had a reputation, rightly or wrongly, as an aphrodisiac product. That might be the reason why they're associated with this festival that celebrates the birth of a child. But this explanation has two obvious weaknesses. First, the season of lovemaking would have been nine months earlier on. Second, in the case of the offspring named Jesus, we're told that there wasn't any lovemaking at all. So, my theory's not very good. Maybe somebody has a better explanation for all these Xmas oysters...

Smoking gun

I recall a Dilbert story in which the pointy-haired boss got caught in heavy rain in the parking lot and turned up soaked at the office. Dilbert and his fellow workers convinced their boss that he should strip down to his underwear and put his suit in a microwave oven to dry in a few minutes. It sounded like a good idea. However, when the steaming suit was extracted from the oven, it had shrunk several sizes, and the boss looked even more bulky than usual for the rest of the day.

Thankfully, in France, most gendarmes are smarter than Dilbert's boss. There are exceptions, of course, such as these movie specimens in the fashionable Mediterranean port of Saint-Tropez:

Recently in eastern France, we heard of a real-world gendarme who would probably be ill-advised to tackle studies in rocket science. The young man was annoyed to discover that his Sig Sauer SP 2202 firearm had got damp while he was walking in the rain.

Back at the barracks, the gendarme put his gun in an oven, hoping that some warm air would dry it out.

Sadly, the elegant German-made semi-automatic firearm, composed to a large extent of synthetic polymers, melted into an ugly unusable mess.

An observer pointed out that certain gendarmes are accompanied by dogs. Maybe the authorities in charge of gendarmes should issue explicit warnings concerning actions that are strictly prohibited in the case of police dogs and their masters who've been caught out in the rain...

Australian liberator vessel

This evening on French TV, along with countless other followers of the Vendée Globe around-the-world yacht race, I was overjoyed to see an Australian warship from Fremantle, the HMAS Arunta, in the Indian Ocean down near Antarctica, moving towards the yacht of the Breton skipper Yann Eliès, who broke his leg on Thursday.

Click the image to see a short video taken by another skipper, Marc Guillemot, who had spent the last 48 hours hovering alongside the yacht of his stricken friend, but unable to assist him physically. As a privileged spectator of the rescue operations, Marc Guillemot was thrilled to receive a Xmas gift from the Australian marines in their dinghy: bread, fruit and a bottle of wine! Overcome with emotion, Guillemot explained that dozens of dolphins surrounded the yachts at the instant the Australian navy dinghy arrived on the scene. He added that, although he's not in any way superstitious, he looked upon the gathering of these dolphins as an extraordinary happening.

After the rapid and expertly-executed intervention of the Australian vessel and her crew of a hundred marines, the French prime minister François Fillon sent an appreciative message to his Australian counterpart, Kevin Rudd.

This is a photo of the injured skipper, Yann Eliès, in the hands of his Australian rescuers:

Here he is in the dinghy, just before boarding the Australian frigate:

Yann Eliès comes from a Breton city, Saint-Brieuc, which I happen to know quite well. Christine grew up there, and our son was born there.

Trade shows v. Apple stores

For the last twenty-four hours, the international computer world has been thrown into a feverish state of agitation following a couple of negative but innocuous announcements from Apple:

-- First, the company will no longer be participating in the traditional Macworld Expo in San Francisco, 5-9 January 2009.

-- Second, Apple's CEO Steve Jobs will not be delivering his usual keynote address at that trade show.

Many observers jumped immediately to the conclusion that Jobs must have a major health problem, in the wake of his bout with pancreatic cancer. It's true that, on recent occasions, he has had a lean and hungry look, but that's surely because (as Shakespeare put it) he thinks too much. Me too, if I were Jobs, I wouldn't bother too much about trivial stuff such as shaving, eating and sleeping. If I were Jobs, I reckon that I probably wouldn't even try to win friends and influence certain kinds of people. But I would surely be intent, like him, upon pushing forward the limits of the personal computing revolution. Readers will have understood: Steve Jobs is my personal Che Guevara!

The official Apple explanation of this doubly-negative announcement is that the company is less attracted, these days, by old-fashioned trade shows, because they've been developing bigger and better marketing vectors, notably in the form of so-called Apple stores, which are sprouting up like golden mushrooms in various high-profile places.

While I understand that people might be nostalgic about the glamorous ambience of mega-sized trade shows, and the excitement of listening to a charismatic Steve Jobs preaching from such pulpits, I don't feel that this has much to do with the joyful efficiency of working/playing with Apple's superb products.

It's sad to say so: The people who get the most upset about unexpected news from Apple are rich shareholders, who often know fuck all about computing and don't necessarily give a shit about this phenomenon (except to calculate their dividends). Do they really care a great deal about the health of the man in charge of ideas, apart from the fact that it would be annoying to have to replace him if he were no longer able to work? That's not personal computing. That's personal greed.

Ancient house for sale

In the region where I live, one of the most interesting places is the charming medieval village of Saint-Antoine l'Abbaye.

In the Middle Ages, a knight returned here with a treasure from Constantinople: the relics of the 4th-century Egyptian hermit Saint Anthony, who is generally considered as the inventor of monasticism. The bones of a major saint, in those days, were immensely valuable, since their presence in a place could attract hordes of pilgrims: a permanent source of prosperity. In the village that now bears the saint's name, a great church was erected to house the relics.

Recently, I was contacted by a female friend of a friend who asked me whether I would be prepared to build a website aimed at selling her ancient house in this village, whose façade is seen here:

I believe that the kind of individuals interested in purchasing such an exceptional place (maybe from outside France) would necessarily be enthusiasts of history and ancient buildings. So, I put a certain accent on that aspect of the situation in the website that I've just completed... which you can visit by clicking on the above image.

Dubya is departing

Certain individuals leave the scene rapidly, at the speed of gravity.

Others take their time, leaving wearily in dribs and drabs, with their tail between their legs like a scolded dog.

It must be strange for George W Bush to find so many nice folk—often former friends—having trouble hiding their joy abut his imminent departure. Yesterday, at the climate talks in Poland, Brice Lalonde of France told a joke:

A man drops in at the White House and asks to see Bush. "He doesn't live here any more," says the doorman. The next day, and the day after, the fellow returns to the White House and asks the same question, receiving the same answer. On the fourth day, the exasperated doorman says: "I've told you several times already. President Bush is no longer here." The visitor flashes a contented grin. "I know he has gone. But it makes me so happy to hear you say that."

BREAKING NEWS: In Baghdad, Bush got booted. In a surprisingly expert style, the president ducked two leather projectiles launched, one after the other, in an equally sporting fashion, by a 28-year-old Iraqi journalist named Muntader al-Zaidi.

Verbal message (in Arabic) accompanying the first shoe: "This is a gift from the Iraqis. This is the farewell kiss, you dog!"

Verbal message accompanying the second shoe: "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!"

Rats

Here at Gamone, I'm accustomed to the usual presence of a few rodents of a rural kind, which I hardly ever see. They've never disturbed me greatly, although I often hear noise from a creature in the attic who seems to be playing around with a walnut, no doubt trying to figure out how to hold it still while he gnaws into it. Naturally, on the rare occasions that a mouse decides imprudently to step inside the house, it doesn't survive for long, because I leave a few traps in strategic passage ways. To rid the attic of rodents, I once used to encourage the presence here of feral cats, but they're unfriendly animals and they don't necessarily spend much time in the vicinity of the house. Besides, they can breed exponentially, and the odor of cat piss in the attic is worse than the presence of rodents.

Paris, like all big cities, is a different kettle of fish. You often see black rats scampering around in train stations.

A few weeks ago, there was even a scary story in the press about a railway employee at the big Saint-Lazare station in the heart of Paris who was infected by the bacterial disease of leptospirosis (not lethal, if treated in time), maybe transmitted to him by the huge colony of rats that inhabit every nook and cranny of this station.

By chance, at about the same time that this incident was reported in the French press, I came across a news story about a fascinating experiment in the Sydney suburb of Mosman, on the shores of the harbor, where the splendid Taronga Zoo is located. The star of the project is an indigenous Aussie animal known as the bush rat.

These bush rats don't normally behave in the nasty manner of Sydney's black rats, which first reached Australia on European sailing ships. That's to say, bush rats don't transmit diseases, they don't gnaw the plastic shielding of cables, they don't venture into houses and they don't even climb trees to devour birds' eggs. All in all, they're charming creatures who behave themselves, most of the time, in a quiet and unassuming manner, with shyness. If I understand correctly, the only way in which Australians could hope to get in contact with bush rats would be to invite them along for an outdoor barbecue alongside the swimming pool... but it's not sure they would turn up.

The general idea of the project, to be carried out under the supervision of Grainne Cleary from the Taronga Zoo, is that bush rats will be released in the Mosman area in the hope that these local fellows will get involved instantly in terrible brawls with the alien black rats. Yes, I should have pointed out that the only thing that annoys a bush rat, driving him crazily aggressive, is to run into a black urban rat. In such circumstances, the bush rat abandons his normally calm behavior and attacks the intruder. And black rats, apparently, aren't nearly as tough as they're made out to be. So, the Aussie rats should normally thrash the foreigners and finally chase them out of town. That, in any case, is what should theoretically happen...

I sent off an email in the hope of obtaining more detailed information from the Taronga Zoo. I was wondering, of course, whether bush rats from Down Under could be imported one day into Paris train stations. If so, would the Antipodean rats become homesick? Would these Aussie exratriates succumb hedonistically to the joys of living in gay Paris? Or might they in fact, ideally, chase all the nasty black rats out of Paris? The zoo wrote back with a promise to keep my suggestion in mind, and concluded their email with a battle cry followed by a smiley:

Today Mosman, tomorrow the rest of the world ;)

Imagine me trying to import Australian bush rats into Paris. I would surely need to get an authorization from Nicolas Sarkozy himself. I'm trying to think up the best way of starting my letter. Maybe it would be preferable to adopt a direct approach, right from the start:

Dear Monsieur le Président:
Do you want me to implement a miracle solution to the rat problem in Paris train stations? All you need to do is to let me import a few thousand Australian bush rats into the great capital of France...

The idea of a miracle solution to the problem of rats brings to mind a poem that thrilled me immensely when I first heard it, as a child: The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Although this legend was originally Germanic, and transmitted by the Brothers Grimm, we English-speaking children discovered the tale through the lilting words of the Victorian poet Robert Browning [1812-1889]. The first few lines of the story are as peaceful as a romantic fairytale, but we are rapidly plunged into rodent horror.

Hamelin Town's in Brunswick,
By famous Hanover city;
The river Weser, deep and wide,
Washes its wall on the southern side;
A pleasanter spot you never spied;
But, when begins my ditty,
Almost five hundred years ago,
To see the townsfolk suffer so
From vermin, was a pity.

Rats!
They fought the dogs and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats.
And licked the soup from the cook's own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women's chats,
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.

As children, listening to our teacher's recitation of the start of this familiar poem, we would await the moment in line 10 where the vermin is about to be named for the first time. The teacher would halt deliberately for a moment, and look up at us, expecting an answer. We kids would then shout out excitedly in unison: Rats!

After Hamelin's aldermen refused to pay the piper, he charmed all the children of the town with his pipe, and abducted them. Today, if a filmmaker were to invent such a sordid tale about a disgruntled rat-catcher who meted out his money-oriented revenge by kidnapping a throng of innocent juveniles, his movie would surely be censored.

Dog dances to Grease music

Corina sent me a link to this delightful video:



Besides the fine footwork, sense of rhythm and choreography, I love the dog's enraptured gaze, staring up constantly at his mistress.

Stratospheric golf

My aunt Nancy Smith in Sydney reads this blog, and she's a keen golfer, like her husband Peter. (The adjective "keen" is a pale approximation for the word I really want: something more like "addicted" or "religious". Maybe Nancy herself will tell me the right word.) Now, I know that the stratospheric privilege for a golfer is to play at Saint Andrews in Scotland, where the game was invented. It's a truly fabulous place: a kind of earthly paradise for golfers... but also a splendid university city, which charmed me immensely back in the 1970s when I was writing my guidebook on Britain.

Getting back to Nancy and her favorite sport, I'm aware that she goes on regular excursions with her husband and friends to exotic faraway golfing places. Well, I've found them a fabulous place for their next outing, in South America, at an altitude of 3,292 meters.

Knowing the physical form of Nancy (an Irish Walker/Kennedy descendant, like me), I reckon she would thrash these Bolivian ladies.

It's marvelously funny (or maybe funnily marvelous) that the universe is full of so many injustices that deserve to be bashed, thrashed and hit on their silly heads by powerful clubs... and yet we prefer to mete out this punishment to poor innocent golf balls. I retain in mind the surrealist image (fuzzy anecdote related to me by my cousin Peter Hakewill) of my dear mother Kath Walker once driving into a cane toad with a wedgie...