Natural catastrophes over the last year

A few days ago, Channel 2 of the national French TV system aired an awesome program on natural catastrophes that have taken place all over the planet during the last twelve months. The splendid documentary by David Korn-Brzoza was based upon a simple but brilliant idea. He presented with few comments, month by month, the most spectacular and deadly catastrophes of the year 2010.

In some cases, such as the earthquake in Haïti, we remember above all the huge death toll.

In other cases, such as the Icelandic volcano whose smoke blocked international air traffic, we recall extraordinary images and an exotic geographical name that few people could pronounce.

In one case—the fires in Russia—the catastrophe concerned such a vast territory that nobody knew how to handle it. The same could be said in the case of the explosion of an oil platform off the US coast. If the year had not ended already, the great flooding in Queensland would have surely deserved a spot in this tragic documentary.

In the context of this kind of movie, scriptwriters are wont to get carried away with the poetic theme of the colossal inhuman forces wielded by our planet Earth, in the face of which we remain almost powerless. In the Korn-Brzoza documentary, fortunately, there was no insipid poetry, but rather a constant series of questions concerning the alarming hypothesis that global warming caused by human activities might be largely responsible for much of this suffering and terror. I find it appalling that certain bone-headed observers (often calling themselves "professors" of this or that) persist in rejecting this hypothesis.

Learning a thing or two about horses

Yesterday morning, as planned, my Welsh neighbor Will Walters came down here from Presles and we spent a good part of the day enlarging the electrified paddock for my donkeys and his horses. While awaiting his arrival, I distributed fragments of stale bread to the animals. While doing so, I became alarmed by the behavior of the black horse, which appeared to be exceptionally lethargic. To my inexperienced eye, the animal was drowsy. Instead of eating bread, it simply rolled over onto its side as if it were weak and sick. I was most alarmed, because I had the sudden impression that the horse might be agonizing… maybe poisoned by toxic weeds, or something like that. I put a bucket of water in front of its nose, but the animal continued to drowse, as if in a troubled coma. I tried several times to phone Will, urgently, to inform him of what was happening. Thankfully, he arrived soon after in his big 4x4 vehicle, with his three dogs (Fitzroy's family). I yelled out to him to come quickly, because I was persuaded that his beautiful black horse was on the verge of death.

"Let me look into his eyes," said Will, calmly, "and I'll tell you whether there's anything wrong." He did so, promptly, and the horse even got up onto its four legs. Will is one of those rare individuals who knows how to whisper into the ears of horses, and see what's in their eyes. He started to laugh. "William, the horse was simply sleeping. Deeply and serenely, in a state of bliss." When I pressed him to explain, Will adopted the stance of a professor of veterinary science… then his clear and concise explanations enabled me to learn a thing or two about these animals. "Horses have always belonged to the category of prey rather than predators. So, they sleep standing up, while locking their knee bones so that they won't fall over. In that way, if a predator such as a saber-toothed tiger were to arrive on the scene, the horse would wake up instantly and gallop away to save its skin." For the moment, I couldn't quite see what Will was trying to tell me, because I had been convinced that his glorious black horse had been in a state of somnolence, on the verge of death. Will carried on his explanations. "On rare occasions, a horse can find itself in an exceptionally positive and totally comfortable frame of mind. This can happen when it has eaten to its heart's content, and when it's located in a totally friendly and reassuring atmosphere, surrounded by familiar entities. In such an exceptional situation, instead of dozing while remaining upright, the horse is capable of suddenly lying down on its side and falling into a joyful state of sleep… which is exactly what just happened to the black animal. In other words, William, the horse was simply expressing its joy at being here in the friendly surroundings of Gamone."

This morning, observing the black horse grazing contentedly in a sea of apples, I thought about Will's wise words. Later on in the day, the two horses stood calmly upon the slopes of Gamone and gazed down at me as if this were their new home… as it is, for the moment.

I'm looking forward to the next time one of these huge beasts rolls over onto its side and falls asleep.

Shot stupidly for truffles

Rural people in the nearby Drôme region are upset by a regrettable incident that occurred recently on the property of a producer of truffles… which, as everybody knows, are a variety of underground fungus, used in fine cooking, which can be sold for a high price. On the other hand, a producer of truffles doesn't necessarily become a millionaire, because these fungi remain rare and hard to find.

A local 32-year-old producer, fed up with repeated thefts of his precious truffles, went out in the night, armed with a pump-action shotgun, to make sure there were no intruders. Suddenly, in the shadows, he saw an individual who appeared to be wielding some kind of weapon. So, he fired twice in the direction of the shadowy form. Alas, he soon realized that he had just killed an intruder who was wielding nothing more dangerous than a small trowel used to unearth truffles. In other words, he had in fact come face-to-face with a truffle-thief, but the killing of this defenseless intruder with two cartridges fired from a pump-action shotgun amounted to premeditated murder. At that moment, the killer made a second stupid mistake. He asked his father to hide the pump-action weapon, and to replace it by an ordinary hunting shotgun. When the gendarmes arrived on the scene, they lost no time in concluding that the killing had been carried out by means of a pump-action gun, rather than the standard gun that the alleged murderer was holding. Furthermore, tests are being performed to ascertain that traces of the victim's DNA can be found on the trowel, to make sure that this tool wasn't simply placed subsequently alongside the corpse of the victim. So, the accused man will be tried for murder, while his father will be charged with deliberate modification of a crime scene. Insofar as the 43-year-old victim was reputed to be a regular truffle thief, all the local folk are on the side of the producer, as is usual in this kind of rural affair.

I've been using the French-language pages of Wikipedia to examine the precise legislation concerning the ownership and use of a pump-action shotgun. In this context, I was intrigued to come upon this photo of a US soldier in Iraq in 2004 armed with a variant of the famous pump-action Mossberg 500 shotgun, manufactured in Connecticut.

Today, I don't have details on the kind of weapon used by the truffles producer in France, but it may well have been a less expensive 12-gauge arm, based upon the soldier's weapon (and superficially identical to a casual observer), known as the Mossberg Maverick 88. This easy-to-use pump-action shotgun (which I know quite well), manufactured in Texas and popular in France, is blue-finished, with a synthetic stock (rather than wood) and a cross-bolt safety lock. Ownership of this self-protection arm (which can be loaded with rubber-ball cartridges, nevertheless lethal at close range) is legal in France, but it goes without saying that you don't go out parading at night with such a device… and you don't point it and fire at anything that moves in the dark.

Once the barking of dogs indicates the presence of intruders, the general idea (which I've rehearsed mentally on countless occasions) is that you immediately phone the gendarmes by means of your mobile, while using an upper-floor lamp to cast light upon the visitors. Then, after a brief but all-important act known as a verbal injunction (sommation in French), you can start firing rubber balls, noisily but calmly, with both your bedside pistol and pump-action shotgun, above the heads of the supposed intruders. Here at Gamone, for example, that would be quite fun. (I'm joking, of course. I don't wish to find myself in a shoot-out reminiscent of the Clarke brothers in Braidwood.) But you must never aim to kill. Elementary, my dear Skyvington...

In a totally different context, over the last few days, a delightfully-crazy second-rate French comedian named Michaël Youn has been on the front pages of French news media because his Parisian apartment was robbed recently, and even his cherished Hummer was included in the stolen objects. It appears that this guy talked so much on the social media (Twitter and Facebook) about himself and his Parisian residence that it was almost inevitable that thieves might decide to pay him a visit. What is far more surprising (indeed almost unbelievable) is that the comedian used these same social media to ask the thieves to kindly return all his personal stuff, including the Hummer… and they did! For the moment, I'm not at all sure that I should believe this tale, which sounds like a publicity stunt. On the other hand, in the case of anybody who has got into the habit of talking a lot about himself on the Internet, I think it's vital to weigh one's words, and to transmit significant messages... which is what I've tried to do, between the lines, in the present blog post.

Efficient fake

I like this trivial news item, which provides us with a fine demonstration of innovative imagination and private enterprise. Down in the city of Fréjus on the French Riviera, a retired gentleman was fed up with motorists disregarding the speed limit on the bend in the road where his house is located. There's a sign stating that the limit is 30 km/hour, but most drivers dash around the corner at more than twice that speed. And there are never any gendarmes at this spot to catch speeders. So, the guy decided to take the matter into his own hands. He did this by building an empty wooden box that he set up on his front fence.

At a glance, it looks a little like the familiar radar machines installed on the edge of highways.

But the rectangular openings are quite different, and the black-and-yellow stripes around the edge of the empty box are not slanted. The fake radar nevertheless had the desired effect. Vehicles now rounded the corner at 20 km/hour. The local gendarmes were impressed by the efficiency of this device, but they could hardly be expected to condone its use, particularly since many tourists were now stopping their cars on the corner to take photos of the fake radar. So, they asked the fellow to remove it.

Meanwhile, the authorities have promised to ask the gendarmes to increase their checks for speeding offenders at this spot. And there's already talk about placing a genuine radar machine on this corner.

What keeps me at Gamone

It's dark and damp here, but the daylight arrives daily. I persist in loving Gamone because of the persistent abstract force of this property, which you might like to designate as "energy".

I worship the great goddess Gamone—day in, day out—just as I celebrate constantly the Cournouze. Don't bore me with stupid questions in this domain. If you must know: Gamone is indeed divine, and the Cournouze (like the Holy Ghost) is her messenger, her spirit.

Watery but stony memories

Yesterday, exceptionally (largely by personal inadvertence), I happened to be invited to two fine dinners: first, at noon, by Will Walters and Sylvie Rozans at Presles.

Then, in the evening, I was invited by Serge Bellier and Tineke Bot at Choranche. In fact, it turned out to be too much… and I was ashamed to admit gastronomic defeat before Tineke's fabulous truffle-based dishes. The most marvelous aspect of the first rendezvous, in the frighteningly Siberian conditions of Presles, was the encounter of Fitzroy's family of Border Collies.

Returning home in the damp dark, I tried to unfathom sympathetic but disappearing Internet transmissions from my sister Anne Skyvington in Australia… who finally explained this mess, curiously, by saying that she hoped for a "spiritual awakening" on my my part. As if this were not enough, a friendly fellow took offense at my blog article in which I referred to the alleged Shroud of Turin as bullshit… which remains, of course, my (perfectly uninteresting) opinion.

In the midst of all this, there were nice friends who happened to express their agreement with the most fabulous "scientific" imposture of recent times in France: the suggestion by Jacques Benveniste that water might retain some kind of "memory". This notion is so empty and totally crazy—and rejected by the entire scientific community in France and elsewhere— that I don't wish to waste time talking about it.

I dare not mention what my former God-fearing friend Natacha (with whom I no longer have any significant communications) might or might believe about all these hallucinations. To reply to all these apparent friends who surround me, I would need to get down on my knees and crawl up the stony parched track to Lourdes. I wonder at times whether they might be bearing water or rather whips…

Meanwhile, moved and immensely motivated by this strangely huge wall of misunderstanding (which could well mean, sadly, that I have fuck-all to do with the idea—in permanent question—of residing here in the wilderness of Gamone), I'm suddenly and intensely motivated by the idea of getting stuck into (at last) my autobiography: Digital Me.

What can we talk about in 2011?

Critics might say that my last blog post, entitled Highway called Pacific [display], concerning an ordinary road accident in Australia, belongs to the category of things we write about when we're not smart enough to imagine any better subjects. Maybe that criticism is justified… although I hasten to reassure my readers that I never feel as if I'm running out of stuff to talk about in my Antipodes blog. On the contrary, the constant problem consists of determining to what extent my readers will, or will not, be interested by my reflections on the various domains that concern me: life at Gamone, computing (my life-long profession), the Richard Dawkins world-view, genealogy, creative writing, etc.

In France, journalism on a par with my blog article about the tanker accident on the Pacific Highway, is designated as "crushed dog" reporting. Young journalists, upon joining a rural newspaper, are asked to cover events such as dogs that got run over on the local roads… and, by extension, all sorts of local accidents. I hasten to add that my Pacific Highway article deals with the spectacular death, not of an animal, but of an anonymous truck-driver. And, when his identity emerges, I would like to mention it on an updated version of my blog post. His accident affects me in that he died, at the commands of his B-double monster, on a rural road—described stupidly as a "highway"—that is strictly fit (by today's safety standards) for bikes only.

Meanwhile, there's another animal that often jumps onto the pages of newspapers at this season every year, when most honest Christian citizens are gorging themselves with exotic foodstuffs and getting drunk. The animal in question is the Loch Ness Monster.

This fabulous beast spends most of its prehistoric time down at the bottom of the dark waters, but it emerges during periods of media inactivity at the surface of Loch Ness. In other words, if you see an article about the Loch Ness Monster, chances are that there's fuck-all to talk about in the media.

During the present days of journalistic lassitude, another terrifying monster has emerged in the French press: the Shroud of Turin, alleged to have been wrapped around the sacred body of Jesus.

Serious historians have known for ages that this medieval cloth, with its curious symmetrical stains, is no doubt a clever piece of skulduggery that could have been produced by myriad techniques, known and unknown. Meanwhile, it's utterly ridiculous to imagine that this cloth might have received some kind of photographic imprint of the crucified body of a certain Jesus of Nazareth. One would have to be crazy to accept such tripe. But there exist indeed hordes of crazy individuals—known as Roman Catholics—who are prepared to believe in such bullshit. And lazy journalists, in this empty season, can easily tune in to such folk to create superficial media buzz.

Highway called Pacific

In Australia, the major coastal route between Sydney and Brisbane has always been known as the Pacific Highway. As a youth, I used to ride my bicycle along this highway in the vicinity of Grafton. Maybe, these days, it should be nicknamed the RIP (Rest-in-Pacific) Highway, because the antiquated state of this old road has transformed it into a killing field.

Seated comfortably and safely in front of my computer screen in my bedroom at Gamone, I can call upon the amazing Google Maps tool to give me a realistic idea of what it must feel like to be driving along this so-called "highway" in the vicinity, say, of Tintenbar, near Ballina.

In Australia, people drive, of course (because our dominant forefathers were English), on the left-hand side of the road. The typical section of the road seen in the photo is pleasant enough, but it's a bit frightening to see that there's a single lane on that curved descent, and that the road is only visible for a couple of hundred meters.

Let's imagine that the vehicle you're driving looks like this:

That's what they refer to, in Australia, as a B-double tanker. There are lots of them on Australian roads, and a vehicle of this type can carry some 40,000 liters of fuel.

A few days ago, around noon, a tanker of this kind was hurtling along the highway, heading south, in the vicinity of Tintenbar. Imagine that you're sitting in the passenger's seat as the driver dives into that curved descent shown in the top photo. A witness says he heard the vehicle hitting the guard rail. Within a few seconds, the tanker crossed the road and burst into flames that shot 30 meters into the sky.

Hours later, after the intervention of a hundred fire fighters, fuel was still burning in the vicinity of the accident. Police suspected that the driver had disappeared in the holocaust.

Normally, there's more than enough mineral wealth in Australia to supply the nation with superb modern highways, which would surely reduce the likelihood of spectacular accidents of this kind. But the use of that mineral wealth to build decent roads for the people is a political eventuality that is not likely to arise for some time to come. Waiting for the revolution…

ADDENDUM: No sooner had I written that last word, revolution, than I found it highlighted in an amusing and perspicacious Bill Bleak cartoon [display]. Clearly, I'm not the only Australian observer who imagines that the nation needs to break out, politically, of a system of vicious circles. Recently, here in France, our celebrated minister of the Economy, Christine Lagarde, said that Sarkozy's new government was "totally revolutionary", because of its accent on "solidity and professionalism". She went on to explain, bizarrely, that the principle of a revolution consists of turning through a complete circle of 360°. In the great novel entitled The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi, 11th Prince of Lampedusa [1896-1957], the hero refers to the ongoing Italian "revolution" in the following terms: "If we want things to remain as they've always been, then everything will have to change." Maybe that's not a bad definition for the kind of revolution I have in mind in the context of my native land.

Snow's still here

My daughter Emmanuelle would be arriving by train at Valence at 12.30. At 11 o'clock in the morning, I was still putting snow tires on the Citroën and using the relatively warm water from my spring to melt the ice where the car had been stuck for several days. Finally, I managed to drive slowly down the icy road and get to Valence more-or-less on time.

Back at Gamone, I noticed that my car had ice stalactites attached to the body. My daughter met up with Fitzroy. After lunch, Sylvie and William turned up here, to see how the horses were getting along.

They were accompanied by Fitzroy's sister, mother and grandmother. (With all four black-and-white Collies darting around in the snow, I found it hard to distinguish who was who.) So, within an hour or so of her arrival at Gamone, my daughter had met up with everybody. Also, it was the first time ever that Emmanuelle had seen the property covered in snow.

The dogs were so excited (animated above all by Fitzroy) that they appeared at times to be on the brink of getting involved in a giant brawl. At one stage, Fitzroy and his sister got stuck into one another. There was a marvelous moment when Sophia stepped in and pushed back Fitzroy, as if she were reprimanding him for fighting with his sister.

Winter guests at Gamone

Since Xmas eve, my donkeys are sharing their paddock and their hay with William's two horses. If ever there were any antagonism between the animals, I had planned to put the horses in an independent paddock, with their own hay. But everything seems to be going smoothly. And why not? The donkeys and the horses are like the Denisovans and the Melanesians. They appreciate company.

Prehistoric encounters

Well before my time, the high school in my native town of Grafton (New South Wales, Australia) was associated with two youths who went on to become world-renowned scholars in their respective domains.

In 1875, 18-year-old Havelock Ellis left his native London aboard a ship—captained by his father—bound for New South Wales. In spite of his lack of teaching credentials, he succeeded in convincing a grammar school in Grafton to hire him as a master. Soon after, the school's headmaster died, and Ellis inherited his job, which he managed to keep for a year... up until his incompetency became blatant.

Back in England, he studied medicine, and ended up becoming a world pioneer in a novel domain: sexology. I might point out that, during my time as a student in Grafton, I don't recall ever hearing of this illustrious gentleman. Retrospectively, I can understand why. In Grafton at the time I attended the high school, no teacher would have ever dared to utter a word such as "sexology". Ignorance was bliss, and the expression "carnal knowledge" designated a crime for which one of my friends (a young cyclist, accused of a brief encounter with a consenting under-age girl) got sent to jail. In another incident, a Grafton shopkeeper was imprisoned for practicing the kind of relationship that Havelock Ellis had analyzed in his first celebrated treatise: homosexuality.

As his given name suggests, Grafton Elliot Smith was born in my future native town in 1871, and he went to school there (where his English-born father was the headmaster) up until the age of 12. He studied medicine at the University of Sydney, and was a resident at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. He specialized in brain anatomy, and went on to become a distinguished professor of anatomy in the UK. In an unexpected career switch, he turned to prehistoric anthropology, and even wrote a book on the pharaoh Tutankhamun. Unfortunately, the eminent scholar made the mistake of being bamboozled by a "discovery" that turned out to be a notorious hoax.

That affair had a distinctly negative effect upon the reputation of Sir Grafton Elliot Smith. His so-called diffusionist theories on the spread of human culture had also finally gone out of fashion. Before his prestige paled, Smith had influenced a fellow-Australian scholar who would go on to make a gigantic discovery in paleontology.

Raymond Dart was born in Brisbane in 1893, and he studied medicine at the University of Sydney, where he was a resident of Saint Andrew's College. (I happened to spend 1956 at that college.) In much the same way as Grafton Elliot Smith, Raymond Dart started to get interested in paleontology. In 1924, he discovered an extraordinary skull of a three-year-old child at a place named Taung in South Africa. Around its human-like eye sockets, the skull bore beak marks, suggesting that the Taung Child had been devoured by an eagle. This upright-walking creature had lived 2.5 million years ago, but its brain was as small as that of a modern chimpanzee.

Raymond Dart decided that this creature—part simian, part human—deserved a new genus name. Unfortunately, he invented a clumsy term: Australopithecus, which means "southern ape-man". So, the official name of the Taung Child was Australopithecus africanus. Here's an artist's impression of what the distraught parents might have looked like, as they watched in terror their child being borne away on the wings of an eagle:

Trivial anecdote: When I started to work as an assistant English teacher at the Lycée Henri IV in Paris in 1963, I was intrigued to discover that all the students were familiar with the ugly French translation of this stupid generic term, Australopithèque, which sounds as if it has something to do with Australia. So, it was inevitable that I should receive this term, invented by my compatriot Raymond Dart, as a nickname. How's that for a ridiculous situation? It was hard for me to explain that we Australian citizens—already associated with the people that the French often refer to erroneously as "Arborigènes", since they imagine vaguely that the indigenous tribes of Australia once lived in trees (arbres in French)—had no direct links with so-called "southern ape-men" in Africa.

In fact, the research era during which paleontologists contemplated the forms of fossil fragments, while attempting to invent plausible generic and specific categories, has already drawn to a close. Today, the mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) extracted from tiny prehistoric relics provides an amazingly precise means of interpreting mysterious paleontological findings. A splendid example of this new approach is provided by the case of the tooth found in the Siberian cave of Denisova.

Not so long ago, it would have been unthinkable to draw any profound conclusions from such an insignificant element. How can we even be certain that it is indeed a human tooth? Well, in fact, it isn't! Analysis of the mtDNA and comparisons with the human and Neanderthal genomes indicate that these so-called Denisovan creatures, who lived in Siberia some 30,000 years ago, were in fact closer to Neanderthals than to the Homo sapiens species.

Both the Neanderthals and the Denisovans had a common ancestor (shown in red) located on a branch that was parallel to that of our human ancestry. But the most extraordinary finding was that these Denisovans (whose known relics were found up in Siberia) apparently did some casual rocking and rolling with the ancestors of present-day Melanesians, in the Antipodes.

God only knows where they held their parties, because it's a long way from Siberia to these Pacific islands to the north-east of Australia. We can be fairly certain, however, that future DNA finds will reveal the addresses of such encounters between humans and Denisovans, no doubt somewhere in Asia.

Dawkins hears Ratzinger

Richard Dawkins must have a slight masochistic foible, otherwise I can't imagine why he would risk spoiling the lovely pagan family festival of the Winter Solstice by straining his ears to hear the pope's annual installment of rubbish. The professor is never better than when he's expressing—through writing or speech—his disgust for that ancient and abominable institution known as the Church. Click the following photo to access a brilliant short piece by Dawkins inspired by the mumblings of Ratzi.

Do-it-yourself Arctic voyages

Innocent frozen French citizens are asking: "Is all that talk about global warming really serious? Aren't we rather experiencing the beginning of a return of the ice ages?" Here, for example, is a current image of the bookstalls alongside the Seine in Paris:

And here's a nice shot of the Pont des Arts, running into the Louvre:

A French humorist once said (more or less): "The Parisians love to go out on excursions into the surrounding countryside. To make life easier for them, let's import the countryside into Paris." You can't deny that it sounds like a Very Good Idea. Thanks to global warming, we're moving rapidly into a situation of that kind. Up until now, only wealthy people such as retired bank managers could afford to go on winter vacations up into the polar regions. These days, as a consequence of global warming, it's the Arctic that's moving down to places such as Paris. And Parisians no longer need to call upon a tourist agency to book an expensive Arctic voyage. They can merely step outside in the bleak air and try to get to their work location, then back home at the end of the day.

Meteorologists are explaining that the cold conditions in Paris and elsewhere are a direct consequence of the accelerated melting of the polar icecap. The term albedo designates the respective proportions of incident sunlight that are either reflected or absorbed at any geographical point. Since the volume of the polar icecap is shrinking, less sunlight gets reflected. Consequently, the sea waters are absorbing increasing quantities of sunlight, which means that they're warming up. The outcome of this polar phenomenon is the creation of high-pressure systems that end up pushing more and more cold polar air down towards lands such as France. And this process is unlikely to wane.

Paris has always had an excellent public-transport system. First, there were charming old buses with an open rear platform to jump on and off, dangerously. Then there was the celebrated métro. These days, there's the excellent self-service bicycle network called Vélib. And soon there'll be tiny electric automobiles in a system to be called Autolib.

In the future, there should be good commercial openings, particularly in the Paris suburbs, for an efficient system of Arctic transport.

I'm presently looking into the idea of moving back up there with my donkeys Moshé and Fanette (and my dogs, of course), in the hope of setting up a small suburban transport system that should normally make me a millionaire in the near future.

Wintry view from behind the house

Normally, I wouldn't think of strolling up behind the house and taking a photo in the direction of the cliffs of Presles. If I did so this afternoon, it was because I happened to be up there taking photos of my donkeys, and I was intrigued by the thick layer of snow remaining on my roof (which proves that my thermal insulation is sound) combined with the relative absence of snow on the slopes beyond Gamone Creek, and the patches of blue sky smiling out from behind the clouds above the plateau of the Coulmes (alongside Presles).

This photo is interesting in that it demonstrates how, in a mountainous region, a field of vision can change abruptly from one spot to another. In the case of this scene, somebody down in front of my house, just a few meters away from where I was standing to take this photo, would fail to see that giant cliff up in the top left-hand corner.

Snow fodder

Winter has hit us earlier than usual in France (the winter solstice only arrives on Tuesday), and we've had exceptionally big snowfalls. At Gamone, I'm reassured to have a good supply of hay for the two donkeys. They only need this fodder, of course, when the snow prevents them from getting at the grass.

I've adopted the convenient solution of storing the hay in dry conditions at a spot (50 meters up beyond the house) that's out-of-bounds for the donkeys. Twice a day, I put a small heap of hay onto a tarpaulin and drag this light load down the road to the donkeys' paddock.

In that way, we waste as little as possible of the precious fodder. Whenever I smell the wonderful aroma of this top-quality hay (which was mowed last spring up on the Vercors plateau near Vassieux), I'm reminded of my childhood days on the farm of my Walker uncles on the outskirts of South Grafton. They used to do their mowing using a pair of draft horses, and the hay was piled up in a single giant heap inside a wooden barn. For hens, the hay stack was a favorite spot for laying eggs. I don't think my uncles were in dire need of winter fodder for their herd of dairy cows, who could generally find enough grass to eat all year round. Maybe it was useful to have this stock of hay in the case of an exceptionally dry spell.

In France, we've inherited a marvelous old recipe from the ancient Gauls: filet mignon of pork roasted slowly on a bed of hay, which adds flavor to the meat. The pork is served up on its steamy wad of hay, accompanied by wild mushrooms, but the hay is not to be eaten.

Moshé and Fanette are now covered in thick fur, like a pair of baby mammoths. They stay out in the open, no matter what the weather's like. There's a shed in which they could be protected from falling snow, rain and sleet, but they never use it.

I intend to construct a small system for holding the hay up off the ground, with a roof. I ordered the four posts of Douglas pine a week or so ago, and they're waiting to be picked up at the sawmill (as soon as the snow disappears, and I can drive into town).

Talking about feeding the animals, I've run into an unexpected hitch. To feed the wild birds, I put sunflower seeds inside the bird house for the tits [mésanges], and I throw other assorted seeds on the ground for the finches [pinsons].

I've been amazed to discover that my dog Fitzroy, who consumes huge quantities of the finest dog foods (pasta and croquettes for pups), likes to round off his meals with bird seeds. He doesn't digest them, since the seeds reappear all over the surface of Fitzroy's turds, which look a little like Oriental pastries covered in sesame seeds.

Julian can go out walking

While still restrained to a certain extent (huge bail and electronic bracelet), Julian Assange will be able to go out walking in the grounds of Ellingham Hall in Bungay (Suffolk). This stately home belongs to the British TV journalist Vaughan Smith, who's a friend and supporter of Assange. Smith is the owner of London's Frontline Club, near Paddington station, whose self-proclaimed mission consists of "championing independent journalism".

Most prisons are not as nice. At present, the grounds are not quite as green, and there's snow on the lawns. In any case, Julian is a special prisoner. A sort of Count of Monte Cristo.

Strictly speaking, he's not a prisoner at all. Not even a clearly-accused suspect of anything less trifling than one-night-stands with groupies that got screwed up... Julian more so than the mindless groupies, who should be able to take better care of themselves.

I was shocked to learn that it was the British, not the Swedes, who had been determined to keep Julian Assange in jail [link]. Were Australian governmental authorities worried about this unexpected behavior on the part of our "motherland"? Well, yes, I have the impression that Kevin Rudd has been trying to do his bit (maybe a rather little bit, as a consequence of his demotion from power) to inject some clarity into this affair. Meanwhile, what is Julia Gillard doing to protect the rights of her limply-accused compatriot? I don't know. Maybe, one of these days, she'll tell us.

FOOTNOTE: Many people have confused the home of Vaughan Smith with another Ellingham Hall located at Chathill up in Northumberland. I myself made this mistake yesterday, for ten minutes or so. This other Ellingham Hall (which, I repeat, has absolutely nothing to do with the place down in Suffolk where Julian Assange is staying) is a luxurious country house located up towards the Scottish border [website], which has become a popular venue for corporate events, weddings and special occasions.

Mélanie's song

For old-timers like me, this remains a memorable song:



Melanie shouldn't complain about what YouTube has done to her song.

If the people are buying tears, I'll be rich some day.

Australian citizen in need of protection

Decades ago, before it became fashionable to joke about the paucity of effective contacts between Australian travelers and our diplomatic services, I used to say jokingly that Australian authorities would never dream of flying in helicopters to assist stranded Aussies. Today, this is no longer a silly joke, but a firm fact. Aussie embassies don't give a fuck about Aussie citizens abroad. They seem to say that, if Aussies are so dimwitted as to step outside of the Wide Brown Land, even for a brief excursion, then they deserve everything that might be coming to them in the way of devastating bolts of disaster from the Heavens. "Shit, mate, we told you not to leave. Yet you ventured into WogLand."

Seriously, we must all come together to protect our precious compatriot Julian Assange, whose Satanic enemy is none other than the fucking USA. Brain-damaged Yanks, acting on false pretenses, would be capable of seeking to eliminate Julian for his excellent deeds. It is the duty of all of us (including, above all, his English prison guards) to protect him from gunshots, poisons, spiders and snakes, evil death-wishes, etc.



We don't want to wake up and hear—in a typical American vein—that the founder of Wikileaks has been assassinated in mysterious circumstances…

Hey, I wonder if Mel Gibson might be thinking of Julian.

Beaten by Oprah and the elephant man

Dismayed by the lousy treatment of Julian Assange in the Australian press (a fleeting phenomenon, since the fascinating and sympathetic lord of Wikileaks has since become a well-represented and defended hero in our native land), I made a solemn resolution to cease reading The Australian and The Sydney Morning Herald. It was worse than trying to give up smoking (a problem I solved successfully a couple of decades ago). I realized unexpectedly that the Down Under press is a fabulous source of constant entertainment, like the on-stage acts of a delightfully vicious stand-up comedian… providing laughs, groans, frights and ample themes for reflection. Indeed, if the absurdities that enhance the Aussie media did not exist, one would have to invent them. They constitute a certain way of seeing the world around us… or maybe, rather, of not seeing that world. I imagine a curious pair of hi-tech sunglasses that provide their wearers with an Aussie view of existence.

These days, if you were to put on these magic spectacles, your vision would be crowded out by the broad body of a smiling Afro-American female named Oprah Winfrey (whose celebrity would appear to be largely quantitative, since she seems to have no qualitative claims to fame whatsoever... or else they're well concealed). If I understand correctly, this famous hulk of mediocrity is currently parading around in front of subjugated hordes of dumb Aussies on the site of Sydney's old tram depot, now replaced by an empty shell that will be referred to henceforth as the Oprah House. Why the hell is she there, and what's she supposed to be doing? I have no plausible answers to such questions… which maybe shouldn't even be asked. Oprah has simply been dumped there, on the edge of Sydney Harbour, for better or worse, like a load of transported convicts. God will decide what might become of her. Happily, she hasn't got a life sentence. So, with a bit of luck, she might fuck off sooner or later back to YankeeLand, and leave her mindless Aussie hosts to pick up the bill. Shit, I can't figure out what has come over my compatriots. At times—in their adulation of the pope, or their new saint Mary (not to mention their political agitations)—they seem to have gone stark raving lunatic, hysterical like a cut snake.

Fortunately, I'm reassured by the story of the elephant man in Thailand. The gist of the drama is that an Australian visitor in Bangkok refused to buy a bag of bananas for an elephant. Worse, this tourist from Down Under dared to express his thoughts about touristic attractions (in the same silly way that I just dared to talk about Oprah). The Aussie righter-of-wrongs claimed, as a social moralist, that the elephant's owner was using his beast as a pretext for begging.

Fair enough, the Thai elephant man was indeed begging for bananas. But what we don't know is whether the bananas in question were meant to be consumed by the beast (which would be normal) or by his owner (which would indeed imply a situation that might be likened to illegal gains from prostitution). Be that as it may, the Thai elephant owner hit the ugly tourist in the face, which shut him up just as surely as if an elephant had rammed a banana in the Aussie's mouth. I urge you to read the original article, entitled Aussie 'attacked' by Thai elephant guide [display].

In the presence of all this excellent stuff, I'm a little ashamed to think that I might have envisaged, for an instant, the abandon of such rich and delightful sources of fathomless and inconsequential authentic Aussie nonsense as The Australian and The Sydney Morning Herald.

Smart kids can win a cancer

Why is it that almost everything in our modern world—the best of all possible worlds, as Voltaire's optimistic Candide once assured us—seems to backfire? A delightful plastic puzzle for kids is composed of numbered squares, which the child is expected to assemble. What could be better in the way of home training for a prospective Einstein?

The only problem is that babies who play around with this particular variety of plastic shit could well pick up a cancer… which would obviously limit considerably their possibility of formulating new interpretations of the much sought-after Theory of Everything. Their cancer-ridden bodies might, of course, be useful for researchers attempting to combat this plague… but that's not exactly what we generally mean when we talk about bringing up intelligently our children to play a role in the modern world of science and technology.