Sermon on the Mount

Designating a series of moralistic lessons said to have been preached by Jesus in the vicinity of Capernaum alongside the Sea of Galilee, the evangelist Matthew invented what came to be known as the Sermon on the Mount : no doubt the most novel and awesome presentation of moral philosophy and intense love in the history of human thought.

I had the chance to find myself at this unique spot on Friday 16 December 1988, after a coach trip to the Arab town of Nazareth, during my first trip to Israel. This was a chance for me to realize fully that everything I had ever imagined about Christianity was summed up exclusively in that extraordinary Sermon on the Mount, which seemed to have been conceived spontaneously in the middle of the countryside. Above all, these lessons went against the grain of everything that rich people, tyrants and evil men might have ever imagined.

These days, whenever inspired folk start trying to tell me how we might welcome Islamic believers into our societies, I wonder instantly: Have Muslims ever grasped what the Sermon on the Mount is all about? I have no reason to suppose that they've ever even heard of it, let alone been inspired by its fabulous messages.

Number of wild tigers in the world has risen by 22%

That's the sort of unexpected news that fills me with hope and pride.

The number of wild tigers has increased from 3,200 in 2010 to 3,890 at present: an increase of almost 22%. Tiger countries include Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, India, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russian Federation, Thailand and Vietnam.

We probably infected European Neanderthals with our African diseases

Neanderthal populations of Europe and Asia were probably weakened by pathogens that we homo sapiens emigrants brought with us when we moved away from our African birthplace. We probably didn't actually kill them in an outright manner, but the Neanderthals would have surely picked up our diseases such as tapeworms, tuberculosis, stomach ulcers and herpes. And these new afflictions would have no doubt sickened members of the old community to such an extent that they could no longer care for themselves by foraging and hunting.

Neanderthals seem to have been driven to extinction around 40,000 years ago. We didn't necessarily act deliberately in killing them. It has been suggested that we Humans and certain Neanderthal friends even got around to friendly sessions of rock-and-roll, resulting in genetic traces that remain in our present chromosomes. But the Neanderthals nevertheless disappeared from Europe and Asia soon after our arrival. You might say that it wasn't really our fault. But in a sense, it was.

Serial taxi rider

In April 2014, Agnès Saal was nominated as president of the Institut national de l'audiovisuel (which was an emanation of the Service de la Recherche de l'ORTF where I worked in the early 1970s).

A year later, the lady was obliged to abandon her high-level appointment after having been accused of an unusual misdemeanour. She appeared to have spent an exceptionally large amount of public money on taxi trips. When I first heard about this affair, I simply couldn't imagine how a professional person in Paris could possibly spend so much money on taxis.

I still can't understand how she did so... particularly when I learn that she had a professional chauffeur-driven automobile. Her children may have made taxi trips in Paris, but that wouldn't seem to account for all the expenses. In their attempts to shed light upon this mystery, many journalists asked questions.

Finally, her huge taxi bills remain a mystery. I'm convinced that, one of these days, we'll come upon a clear logical explanation...

Awesome French hoverboard

Click here to see an impressive demo from Franky Zapata.

France has ordered French drones

Last week, the French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian signed a contract of 350 million euros with the manufacturer Sagem for the purchase of 24 French Patroller drones, which have been tested satisfactorily for the last nine years in Afghanistan.

This drone can transmit high-quality images, and can carry a load of 250 kg of electronic surveillance equipment. Even in total darkness, this drone can detect whether a fellow on the ground is carrying either a simple bag of food or rather a kalachnikov weapon. This drone can even carry a human observer, to control operations programmed from the ground. In that way, the drone can legally operate in the same style as a conventional aircraft. (To my mind, that nevertheless sounds like an intrepid job for a passenger.)

Several Asian and Middle East nations have already expressed their interest in purchasing this French drone.

Extraordinary TV evening on the ancient Aborigines

I've just spent the evening watching two amazing documentaries on the ancient prehistory of the Australian Aborigines. Never before have I been treated to such a fabulous Aboriginal cultural description.

I'll be intrigued to learn whether my fellow citizens in Australia are aware of the existence of these documentaries.

Exotic Aussie road vehicle

Although I was born in Australia, and spent quite a few years there, I have to admit that I've never witnessed our most spectacular road vehicle: the Esky... which is actually used, at times, on public highways.

Its design is fairly straightforward. It's basically a matter of taking a traditional Esky container, as used to keep bottled beer cool, and fixing it on a set of wheels. All that then remains to be done is to motorize your new vehicle. And why would any Aussie guy want to build himself such a vehicle? The answer is obvious. Australia is a hot country, and Aussies need to take steps to avoid dying of thirst. There's no better solution than a low-cost light-weight vehicle that enables you to go out to a liquor shop, to purchase new supplies of thirst-quenching beer.

BREAKING NEWS: Wanneroo Police charged a 30-year-old man for allegedly driving a motorised esky while drunk.

Standing up in the night

The title of this blog post is an attempted translation of #nuitdebout which is a popular nocturnal movement in Paris.

The assemblies are spontaneous, peaceful and devoid of appointed chiefs. People "vote", as it were, by using hand signs. Personally, through TV reports, I find these nocturnal assemblies particularly spirited and moving, suggesting the birth of a new youth movement.

Dumpers of shit

Several associates of the French right-wing party Front national have found their names appearing in articles about the Panama Papers. The party chief Marine Le Pen has reacted to all this negative publicity.

She has referred to the big pile of offensive press articles as “tombereaux d’excréments” (dumpers of shit).

That's her way of taking out a shovel. Dig, Marine, dig!

Belgian terrorist with a hat

Click here to see the latest images of the infamous Brussels terrorist with a hat. Once upon a time, I was led to believe that we knew his identity, but I'm no longer certain. In any case, this guy troubles me. I have a weird impression that this mysterious intruder has been wandering around stealthily on my computer screen, non-stop, for several weeks, and resisting all police attempts to capture him...

BREAKING NEWS: No sooner had I finished this blog post than I received a further flash concerning the man with a hat. He has just been designated as a Belgian-Moroccan named Mohamed Abrini. We have a new photo of the fellow, whom I've renamed:

"Hatless Houdini"

And above all, we are told that he has just been arrested. Can I really believe that the ubiquitous terrorist with/without his famous hat has finally been captured? Or will he still be running around on my computer screen, once again, tomorrow?

It appears that our Hatless Houdini is 31 years old, and was arrested today in Anderlecht (Belgium).

If ever "Houdini" turned out to be registered as a theatrical performer (maybe with a bank account in Panama), he deserves to pick up a fortune in fees for his Internet performances. The poor bugger must be exhausted after all his non-stop walking around Belgium.

BREAKING NEWS: At the end of the day, Belgian authorities confirmed that they had indeed captured a terrorist named Mohamed Abrini, but they still don't know if he's the same fellow who was filmed with a hat. So, my choice of the name Hatless Houdini is fine.

Childhood culture

Years ago, when I was starting to collaborate regularly with French software engineers, I discovered that so-called "Anglo-Saxon" culture is not universal. As a typical young Australian, I wrongly assumed that my French colleagues would have a similar everyday culture to me. One day, in the IBM office in Paris, I said: "That reminds me of the story about George Washington and his father's cherry tree." My colleagues told me immediately that they'd never heard this tale, so they asked me to tell them the story. I explained: "Mindlessly, young George grabbed an axe and chopped down his father's cherry tree. That evening, the father was most unhappy, because he had loved the young tree, and he asked his children to tell him who had committed the silly act. Young George, ashamed of his stupidity, and aware that he deserved punishment, made a solemn declaration: Father, I cannot tell a lie; it was I who cut down your cherry tree."

Now, it's possible that American kids, hearing this tale, break down in tears. The reaction of my French IBM colleagues was different, totally down to earth: "So what the hell?" I realized instantly that my alleged story about little George Washington and his father's cherry tree was a total flop. For them, it wasn't really a genuine story.

Dawkins event in Oxford next Saturday

I'm happy to see that Richard Dawkins will be reappearing in Oxford next Saturday, at the Sheldonian Theatre, for the first public event since his stroke, in the company of his research assistant Yan Wong.

They will be presenting the new edition of their wonderful book, The Ancestor's Tale, A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution.

Aussie mining students shot in US drug deal

Two students from Curtin University (where I once spent a year as a lecturer) were visiting New Orleans to compete in an undefined inter-university contest referred to as “mining games”. At the end of the day, they asked to be driven to a sleazy neighborhood to meet up with a drug dealer, but their encounter ended in unhappy circumstances when they received nasty bullet wounds. They are still in hospital, but reported to be in a stable condition. Their families will probably travel to the USA to meet up with their sons, and take them home to Western Australia. Click here for a news item on the shooting. An Aussie newspaper article on this affair provides us with happy news:

"The Kalgoorlie-based WA School of Mines took out top titles at the Montana event, with the Wombat A team dubbed the champions for the second straight year, while the Wombat B team was the runner-up."

Good on you, Wombats! That reminds me of a journalist’s question to the widow of President Lincoln, assassinated while attending a Washington theatre evening.

“Up until that event, Mrs Lincoln, was your husband enjoying the play?”

French TV evening of Panama Papers

Notre Elise: an outstanding journalist

Click here to join in an evening of financial fun...

Can French youth still write French ?

I have my doubts... and it saddens me.

David Cameron is a man in the news

The British prime minister David Cameron seems to be playing with fire. Or maybe I might say that a lot of fire seems to be playing with the PM. I'm thinking, of course, of the Panama Papers, which have just brought the late Cameron father and his son into the limelight. I have the impression that the case of the PM and the forthcoming Brexit referendum (on 23 June) might well implode between now and then.

Although I have little evidence to back up such a belief, I've often felt that tax cheating is indeed a rather British preoccupation.

BREAKING NEWS Friday 8 April 2016 — Not only is Cameron a prick; he's also a liar, who only starts to approach the truth when he's cornered. He has just changed completely his explanations concerning links to his late father's offshore wealth. David Cameron's upper-class Pommy slickness gives me goose pimples, and makes me sick. It's rare for me to react so violently to a fellow's face and grin, not to mention his tone of voice and his complacency. That's not an argument, I know. Sorry. For the moment, I can't make myself clearer.

Where did Hannibal cross the Alps?

If only my smart dog Fitzroy had been around in 218 BC, I'm sure he would have figured out rapidly the exact itinerary chosen by Hannibal to cross the Alps and move into Italy. Fitzroy would have simply sniffed around for a while until he determined with accuracy the places where there were traces of horse dung and elephant piss, and he would have known immediately where Hannibal had traveled.

These days, scholars are still trying to solve this problem, and they are using scientific instruments to sniff at ancient specimens of animal dejections. Click here to access an article by Chris Allen, an environmental microbiologist at Queen's University Belfast, who reveals how microbial evidence has located dung left by Hannibal's horses when they were moving across the mountains.

[ I find it hard to believe that this kind of pseudo-scientific historical research is indeed serious. I'm not exactly proud to admit that I tend to be biased by the fact that the research in question has been conducted by would-be Alpine specialists from Northern Ireland. ]

The exact spot where Hannibal crossed the Alps is thought to be the treacherous Col de Traversette, seen here:

In the following map of the section of the Alps between France and Italy, the red blob indicates the location of the Col de Traversette:

Click to enlarge slightly

In the lower left-hand corner of this map, you can find a tiny village named Risoul. That's the Alpine birthplace of my dog Fitzroy, which lies just a whiff to the west of the spot where Hannibal and his animals scrambled over the Col de Traversette. It goes without saying that, if the Irish fellow Chris Allen wanted to call upon help from a local specialist to locate traces of archaic elephant piss and horse dung, I'm sure that my dog Fitzroy would be thrilled to participate in such an excursion... particularly if it's a chance to get involved in ancient history.

Gold Coast nut

Alex de Waal is an executive in charge of Queensland tourism. So, it’s normal that he was proud in June 2014 of that nitwit invention of personalized number plates.

Alex de Waal has just stepped into the limelight once again with his moronic opinions on coral bleaching. He downplays claims reported by scientists, and says that they’re overstated. He believes that areas in the vicinity of Cairns and Port Douglas, where most boat tours visit, are "looking great".

Why is this uninspiring fellow put in charge
of such a precious fragile asset?

Renaud won't be voting for the Left

The popular French singer Renaud emerged recently from a lengthy period that appeared to be linked (?) to depression and alcohol. Next Sunday afternoon, his appearance on the TV show of Michel Drucker is being hailed like an arrival of the Messiah. Meanwhile, the resurrected hero is voicing his current dislike of his former Left-wing friends. Consequently, political observers are bending over backwards (along with Renaud himself) in attempts to say whether the singer will end up voting for such-and-such a Right-wing candidate.

Recent rumors mention François Fillon. Personally, I feel that Renaud's a bright lad who's good at handling his publicity. When searching for an ideal expression, Renaud has the linguistic skills of a street poet: "La politique de ce gouvernement me débecte." (I'm incapable of translating his words into English. Maybe: "The government's politics sicken me.")