Paris climate agreement reached

This is a huge success for France and for our major French politicians François Hollande and Laurent Fabius. Above all, it is a gigantic success for our children and for the human offspring of all nations. Last but not least, it is a wonderful success for a hunk of matter floating around in the universe: the lovely old planet Earth, and its inhabitants of all species.

http://www.francetvinfo.fr/meteo/climat/cop21/video-cop21-laurent-fabius-aux-bords-des-larmes-au-moment-de-presenter-le-projet-d-accord_1218717.html

Urban homestead in the USA

Americans tend to tell us so many nasty stories about everyday problems in their immense land (not to mention stories of the candidate Trump) that I was terribly thrilled to read this wonderful story in a French website about a fantastic urban homestead in California. You can find English-language explanations and photos by looking up the name of the head of the family, Jules Dervaes, who lives in Pasadena with his three offspring.

http://www.humanite-biodiversite.fr/article/une-famille-americaine-fait-pousser-3-tonnes-de-nourriture-bio-par-an-dans-son-jardin

On the other hand, I don't know to what extent mysterious forces such as God (after all, we're in California) might be playing a role in this amazing Garden of Eden. I'll leave you to judge...

My simple word of thanks to fellow-citizens

As the festive season approaches, and lots of families in France are installing their Christmas trees and buying presents for their children and family friends (if they're wealthy enough to do so), I would like to convey a simple and sincere word of thanks (even though they don't necessarily read my Antipodes blog) to the men and woman who will be spending their days and nights aboard the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, preparing if not actually manning the aircraft full of bombs for Daech.

Once upon a time, the families of French military folk were constantly worried that their offspring might take dangerous risks and run into trouble in such-and-such a foreign country, far from home. These days, such operational service men and woman are often worried that their families back home might be faced with terrorists risks and troubles. And this kind of thinking enhances their military spirit.

At the end of one path, at the start of another

The undeniable star of COP21 was Laurent Fabius (seen here between the French president François Hollande and the UN chief Ban Ki-Moon), who pronounced those honest words about the end of one path (an enormous path, needless to say) and the start of another.

His major announcement arrived at three minutes after midday:

"We've attained a project of agreement that is ambitious and well-balanced. The increase in temperature must be contained well below 2°C, and we must strive to maintain it at 1.5°C, which will enable us to reduce significantly the risks and impact of global warming."

Fabius concluded his short speech: "This COP21 is a turning point in history." He stood up with his hand on his heart, while the audience broke out in enormous applause.

Good monkey audience

This happy monkey gets a good laugh out of the simple things in life:

http://video.lefigaro.fr/figaro/video/la-reaction-hilarante-d-un-singe-apres-un-tour-de-magie/4654919526001/

Madonna's presence in Paris

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0w0iOCT100

Garbage in, memories out

You might imagine that these employees in green uniforms, working in Paris, are everyday garbage collectors.

They are, in a sense, but they're operating in a very special context, with strict instructions about the kind of stuff they must collect— written lines of poetry, drawings on paper, photos — and the reasons why that stuff is being collected. They are employed by the Archives of Paris, and they are working against time in the hope of saving for posterity the collection of paper documents left by hosts of sad and shocked people in the wake of the terrorist tragedies of 13 November.

The archivists in charge of this operation need additional working space in their offices to dry out and examine the pile of documents. On the other hand, they do not keep objects such as flags, felt toys and guitars.

Later on, the Archives and the municipality of Paris intend to create a peaceful site (maybe at the Place de la République) where all these documents can be shown to the public.

In the nearby city of Lyon, similar archival operations have been taking place.

Last-minute challenges at COP21

The COP21 project for a final agreement aimed at preventing a disastrous rise in heat of our planet has been put back a day, from Friday 11 December to tomorrow Saturday 12.

• Concerning the all-important question of the maximum acceptable rise in global warming, the latest version of the COP21 project indicates a compromise. The rise must be well below 2°C, while efforts must be made to limit the rise to 1.5°C.

• Concerning the difference in responsibilities between rich and poorer nations, no firm agreement has been reached yet, but this vital question continues to be debated strongly.

• Attached to the latter theme is the question of indicating who should foot the bills created  by operations of climate control.

• There is the adjacent problem of paying for damages suffered by lands (such as Tuvalu or Kiribati) that might sink below rising sea waters.

• Several other problems must still be solved… but it is quite possible that success will be attained within the next 24 hours. Let us hope so.

Our aging president

We've all known for several years that our former president Jacques Chirac is presenting inevitable signs of growing old... like all of us, for that matter.

Few French people would have imagined that this rather ordinary individual would in fact turn out to be the most popular former French president by far, probably for the simple reason that he is truly an ordinary human being.

I remember an amusing event in the Rue Rambuteau, long ago, when the candidate Chirac was moving around in our neighborhood and shaking hands with local people. Our young daughter Emmanuelle, like countless kids, was wandering around on the footpath, waiting to join in the fun of shaking hands with a politician. For some strange reason, she decided that shaking hands once was not good enough. So, she stepped back into the line of people waiting for Chirac. Surprisingly, in spite of the hordes of people standing there, Chirac realized instantly that he had already shaken hands with my daughter, and he made some kind of a trivial remark to that effect, which surprised my daughter.

In that tiny incident, I have the impression that Jacques Chirac had demonstrated to Emmanuelle (and me) that he was indeed a rather personal and attentive kind of political friend.

Back in contact with Queen Victoria

This morning I received an email from an Australian lady named Henty (descendant of the famous family of Australian explorers) who now lives in Paris. Years ago, when she happened to be living in Pont-en-Royans for a while, she asked me to examine an interesting little portrait of the young queen Victoria. My friend had always imagined that this painting was valuable, but it took me little effort to discover that this shoddy unsigned portrait of Victoria, created on a ceramic background, was somewhat pretty, but surely worth nothing at all.

Here's my presentation of four of the lady's ancestors, all artists:

I'm convinced that it was the fourth fellow, Ernest Heath [1867-1945], more an imaginative craftsman than a talented portraitist, who produced the ceramic plaque belonging to my friend. To do so, he simply "borrowed" an existing portrait of the young queen, painted by a portraitist who was probably a friend of one of Ernest Heath's famous ancestors. What interested Ernest was the possibility of creating a copied version of the original portrait on a ceramic plaque. Clearly this was some kind of graphic arts experiment that he carried out in his London school.

A website explains my conclusions: http://nutopia.free.fr/victoria/

Lion beyond trainer's control

Normally, we don't imagine that lions in a circus act might get beyond the control of their trainer. It's rare, but that's what happened a few days ago in the north of France.

"I thought they were going to eat me," explained the shocked trainer, who stated that he no longer intends to work with the white male lion, who had stirred up a fight between the animals that soon got out of control, forcing the trainer to escape from the cage. Onlookers felt certain that they were about to witness a bloody battle between the animals, but the trainer succeeded in coaxing the animals back to their individual cages.

Although I know next to nothing about this field of entertainment (?), I would imagine that the trainer might look into the idea of another professional activity... in the sale of pups and kittens, say.

Just over two days to go

The COP21 president Laurent Fabius is making an all-out attempt to get people to agree.

It's a difficult task. Some people would say it's impossible. I hope he succeeds.

Russian dog ready to discover France

The delightful little dog Dobrynya (German Shepherd race), given by Russia to France, to replace the Raid star Diesel killed at Saint-Denis, has recently been delivered to the French embassy in Moscow.

Click to enlarge

I'm convinced that Dobrynya will be happy to settle down in France, where she'll be loved by everybody.

My grandfather's London

Over the last few years, several members of my Australian family have taken advantage of the addresses of places indicated in my family-history research to visit the area of northern London where our grandfather Ernest Skyvington [1891-1985] lived, before his arrival in Australia on Christmas day 1908. Pop, as we called him, was born and grew up in a comfortable London district that is known today as Stroud Green, located just to the west of lovely Finsbury Park.

My family-history book entitled They Sought the Last of Lands contains lots of references to this pleasant corner of London, which still contains (in spite of World War II, followed by urban development) the totality of places associated with Pop's childhood: the house at 65 Evershot Road where Ernest was born, the house at 16 Marriott Road where his mother died when her son was nine years old, the house at 72 Mount Pleasant Crescent (today's address) where the young boy was brought up by his mother's family, and Ernest's Stroud Green school.

At the web link http://issuu.com/gamone/docs/last, readers can browse through an on-line version of my book, which includes various photos of my grandfather's childhood district of Stroud Green.

Late in life, my grandfather (accompanied by his daughter Yvonne) went on a trip to London, but I don't believe they actually identified and located many (if any at all) of his childhood places. (That trip to London took place before the start of my personal research into my grandfather's personal history.)

An English writer exactly ten years younger than my grandfather lived in that same Stroud Green district. I'm talking of the police officer Cecil Rolph Hewitt [1901-1994], who published books under the name of C. H. Rolph.

As a young boy, at the time that Pop was at school in Stroud Green, "Bill" Hewitt (as he was called) lived in a narrow terrace house at 101 Woodstock Road, just across the road from Pop's school.

So, if any of my readers are interested in obtaining sound facts about Pop's childhood places in Stroud Green, I advise them to purchase (through the Internet) this well-written book: London Particulars - Memories of an Edwardian Boyhood, C. H. Rolph, Oxford Paperbacks, 1980.

Fork in the road

Nations of the planet Earth are moving towards a fork in the road.

Let's take the right direction. The outcome of COP21 will define future life for our descendants.

Brazil mudflow

When I was a boy of 15, in my final year at Grafton High School, somebody encouraged me (?) to enter a competition for the award of a bursary from Australia’s celebrated BHP company. I knew that this gigantic company had obtained its name from a mining town, Broken Hill, in western New South Wales, and that it had a steelworks in Newcastle, to the north of Sydney. But nobody bothered to provide me with information about this potential employer, or to take me on a visit to its sites.

I was awarded the bursary, but I didn’t stay with BHP for more than a year. That was more than enough time for me to learn (often from hands-on experience at their Newcastle site) that I had no desire whatsoever to spend my earthly existence in such an environment. Normally, if my parents and school-teachers had been a little more alert, they would have reached such a conclusion a year or so earlier.

Today, the Australian-registered mining, metals and petroleum company is called BHP Billiton, and their latest revenues class it as the planet’s largest mining company. Can you imagine me still working for such an employer?

A month ago, there was a mudflow in one of their mines, in Brazil. Here’s a photo of the site (which appeared in the context of COP21):

I look upon this photo as a watery and muddy image of Hell on Earth, and I'm relieved to know that I was in no way associated with the folk who create such a hellish environment.

Climate negotiators seem to be making progress

The latest news from COP21 appears to be encouraging. People are apparently engaged in discussions and debates, searching for possible agreement. Nobody seems to be yelling or throwing punches...

The planned timing schedule has been respected. That's both amazing and most reassuring. Ladies and gentlemen, we respect your efforts. Please carry on your good work! Today, Saturday 5 December, after a week of discussions, negotiators have drawn up a rough copy of the text to be proposed next week as the basis of a future agreement.

Tensions existed between negotiators for a while, but they appear to be easing down.

In the context of COP21, today was labeled Action Day. Why not? Hearing that label, negotiators are less likely to stand still. A French lady, Laurence Tubiana, produced a nice conclusion: "We could have done better; we could have done worse. What's important is that we have a text."

As for the conference president, Laurent Fabius, he gave the impression that he was pleased with events.

And a final happy Action Day speech was delivered by the French president François Hollande.

If only Sarko hit the nail on the head

This message from Nicolas Sarkozy fills me with hope: "Voting for the right-wing Front National is a way of making sure that the Left wins the second round."

That would be a great way of making sure that our Socialists remain in power. But we can no longer trust in Sarkozy's beliefs.

In any case, I don't think I'll go out to vote this weekend.

Presidential visit to our aircraft-carrier

Apparently the French president François Hollande is currently visiting the aircraft carrier Charles-de-Gaulle, in service against our Daech enemy at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. I'm pleased to know that the president is visiting our 2000 armed fighters, and that he'll be watching the catapult takeoff of Rafale and Super Etendard aircraft. I'm pleased too that this information is being presented by the media in a low-key fashion, and that we're light years away from the stupid era of the US idiot Bush. Jeez, I'm relieved that we no longer have to deal with idiotic heads of state (and heads of forces) such as George Bush and his UK-Australian cronies. Sure, the survival of our Abbott fellow was a momentary mistake, but I consider that this idiot is henceforth totally out of action.

Everything's right in America

Last Wednesday, in San Bernardino (California), six females and eight males were killed in a typical if not rather ordinary shootout in God's Own Country. Do the people of that nation really wish to put an end to sad events of that kind, or is that their accepted way of life?

At the same moment, a US firm has just announced its launch in January 2016 of a TV-shopping channel called Gun TV, dedicated to the sale of weapons throughout the land.

Violence due to gun conflicts apparently costs the USA some 229 billion dollars a year. That's a lot of money just to stand up for your rights and to protect (?) yourself.

My most successful Australian blog post

This was certainly the most successful (popular) blog post I ever made on the subject of Australia:

http://skyvington.blogspot.fr/2011/01/free-settlers-in-antipodes.html

And so it should be, because this blog post combined several different but related themes, including the amazing idea that the first free settlers in Australia included relatives named Rose from Dorset. This is more than likely, but I never got around to searching for some definite proof... and so I let this interesting question drop.

Young cousins in Australia could look into this subject, if they were motivated. As for me, I promptly inserted a fictitious version of the Rose family into my future Israeli novel All the Earth is Mine... where there were already so many themes of all kinds that this new one didn't bother anybody!

A snake at Gamone

I have some Australian readers, so here's a rare kind of Gamone news item that should interest them.

Yes, we have snakes here! In the case of this fellow, I was so busy taking out my Nikon to get a photo of him, and making sure that my dog didn't try to attack the serpent, that I hardly noticed when the snake turned back towards the reddish door (of a shed attached to my house, which was once upon a time a pig sty) and disappeared under the foundations.

Now what kind of a reptile could it be ? I can hear my Australian friends debating about whether it's some kind of deadly snake. Do these Aussies see me as silly because I didn't dash in with a spade to kill the creature ?

Now, I'm sorry to disappoint my Australian friends. I think that snake specialists would discover rapidly, if they magnified my photo, that the dangerous reptile is no more than a nice old greenish-colored carpet snake (check with Google) of the kind that eats toads and lizards... and wouldn't possibly do me any harm whatsoever.

I must point out to readers that this friendly old snake appeared on the Gamone scene several months ago, just before my accident. I hope he's still around... and ready to return next spring.

A silly thing I did as a genealogy writer

When you're working seriously on family-history research, and attempting to blend all the data together in the form of a pleasant book, it's fair enough that the writer should have a little bit of fun.

That typescript sort of exploded little by little in my face. First, I discovered that a young brother of one of my great-grandfathers said his family name was Latton, and pretended to descend from an ancient nobleman. Then I discovered that another great-grandfather said his family name was Courtenay, and also pretended to descend from an ancient nobleman. In both cases, this crazy make-believe gave rise to genuine offspring bearing the fake family names. Talk about my mad ancestors...

The only bit of innocent fun I had as a researcher/writer consisted of looking for proofs that one of my first-known X-great grandfathers (where the X can be replaced by a few dozen "great" terms) was in fact the Norman fellow known as William the Conqueror. At the time, I truly imagined this as a playful item that wouldn't bother anybody. But readers are inevitably impressed by such trivial facts.

Today, after ages of separation, I've just been brought in contact with a much-appreciated Australian cousin. And the first thing he did was to tell me that he was proud to be related to William the Conqueror. Maybe I should have never even mentioned this Norman war-lord in my otherwise serious family-history study.

Icebergs in Paris

Icebergs in Paris, in front of the elegant church of the Madeleine. Why not ?

That was the corner of Paris where I started work with IBM (in the nearby Cité du Retiro) in February 1962. All that's missing today is a polar bear or even an Eskimo...

Worse than that: I've confused the Panthéon for the Madeleine !

Britain will be helping us

A lot of UK politicians have decided to help France in the combat against Daesh (the most acceptable title of the terrorist organization that carried out terrible attacks in Paris).

We are obliged to realize that a considerable body of politicians did not vote to support the decision. However David Cameron is reassured.

I believe the House has taken the right decision to keep the UK safe - military action in Syria as one part of a broader strategy.

Great Britain has 8 Tornados GR4 stationed in Cyprus, and others will be mobilized shortly.

Blue trams are good for you

It takes a lot of smart thinking to transform our ordinary vision of a tramway into something excessively attractive. In Sydney, when I was a university student, the depot where trams were housed would become the site of the famous opera house, but that didn't make these noisy vehicles any more pleasant and comfortable.

I'm convinced though that everybody will fall in love with this sexy French vehicle called a Bluetram, which is essentially an elegant electric-powered bus.

These superb vehicles are being tested experimentally in Paris on the Champs-Elysées from now until the end of January 2016, along a nine-stop "tram line" between Concorde and Etoile. The only aspect of the Bluetram that makes it differ from an ordinary electric vehicle is the obligation to charge its battery automatically, for 20 seconds, at every "tram stop".

Hydrangea-covered slopes above the sea in Brittany

When my son François first drove me onto these slopes (which can be found in several different places along the coast), and told me the story of this spectacular horticultural entreprise, I was amazed.

It's a relatively recent affair, imagined by a single fellow. He decided that Hydrangea would grow well in such places, and that the flowers could then be picked, packaged and transported economically to various major flower markets. And the rest is a splendid success story. It's the sort of lovely story that makes me wonder: Gee, it's so simple; why didn't I think of that?

Back to good health with my Macintosh

There's no better way of making sure you're in good mental and physical health (of a psychological kind) than to decide to carry out an update to the latest version of the Macintosh operating system. So, as of the end of the afternoon, I've acquired (for free) the latest El Capitan system.

Did I really need this latest version of the Macintosh operating system ? Of course yes, it proves that I've still got basically the same cerebral system (mine, not that of my computer) as before I had my accident.

Living on water

This is an old version of the cover of my novel All the Earth is Mine, published by Gamone Press and available through Amazon.

To access it on the screen, click http://issuu.com/gamone/docs/earth.

This novel has several linked themes inspired primarily by my fascination with the Jewish state of Israel. One of the themes is the high-tech idea of building artificial islands on which people can live. In fact, this has become a reality. In Holland, for example, the idea of building your future house on water has become quite common.

People at the COP21 gathering have suggested that floating houses might be a means of avoiding the nasty threat of getting drowned by rising seas.

Renewable energy from Paris

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV9ByfAgqaY&feature=youtu.be

Bad students of the class

For many years, the climate-change class has had two lazy and lousy students, who simply weren't making an effort to work hard enough to get near the top of the class. They're a pair of hill-billy nations, with exceptionally conservative governments of what the French refer to as the climato-sceptique variety. The names of these lousy students: Australia and Canada. They consume huge quantities of fossil fuel, and they take pride in polluting the rest of the planet. In the case of my native land, we even had an idiotic prime minister from 2013 to 2015, Tony Abbott, who suggested that climate change was bullshit, and claimed that coal was good for humanity. It was impossible to imagine a greater asshole.

China can perform wonderful magic tricks

Some magicians can get animals of all kinds to dance.

But China has a trick for getting vehicles moving along a highway to break into amazing dance antics.

http://www.lemonde.fr/asie-pacifique/video/2015/11/30/l-etrange-levitation-de-trois-vehicules-cree-le-mystere-en-chine_4820770_3216.htm

In fact, all you need is a metal cable and some kind of a vehicle to throw the cable all over the road, in the way of innocent vehicles. Good trick.

This young Italian fellow can find the right simple words

Matteo Renzi, 40-year-old prime minister of Italy since 2014.

Culture is stronger than ignorance,

beauty is more powerful than barbarity.

Jonah ascends into the great white cloud

I found this French video clip on the web:

http://www.lemonde.fr/rugby/video/2015/11/30/hommage-et-derniers-hakas-pour-jonah-lomu_4820550_1616937.html

It's weird, like many things these days. This dead rugby giant is like one of the assassinated young people at the Bataclan a fortnight ago. There's simply no obvious way of fitting such a happening into the world order. The world seems to have fallen apart. There is no world order, only disorder. And immense sadness.

Everybody's rolling into climate action

The conference president, Laurent Fabius, has officially started the COP21 operations.

China has made a spectacular point by announcing an extraordinarily high level of air pollution in Pekin.

And here in France, citizens have just been informed that the sexy new electricity meter known as Linky will be installed free-of-charge to tens of thousands of customers as of tomorrow.

So, things are in fact moving forward. Thank you COP21 !

Hopes for our children, and for our children's children

The decisions to be made in Paris, from today until December 11, are no less an affair than writing the next chapter of the geological story of our planet. We're facing our primary possession: our unique framework of human life. For the coming decades, our decisions will determine the stability of societies, and the well-being and security of millions of human beings.

This is the goal and ambition of the unique international conference that is about to open in the French capital. It is unique, first and foremost, because of the huge company of people to be gathered together here: 150 heads of state and governments from the delegations of the 195 states that belong to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

At the end of the Paris conference, their future agreement will replace, as of 2020, the Kyoto Protocol, which was a huge disappointment.

We know the figures. Today, the atmospheric level of carbon dioxide (CO2), the major greenhouse gas created by human beings, is higher than ever since the Pliocene era, more than two and a half million years ago. The temperature of the present year will be, for the first time ever, more than 1°C above the pre-industrial level.

Throughout the coming fortnight, the international community will have to agree upon the ambition of reduced output, associated with the choice of economic controls that must be adopted in order to achieve the reduction.

Nothing can arise solely on the grounds of fear and hopelessness. We need to believe in the possibility of social and cultural innovation.

After the massacres of November 13, the French capital acquired world-wide compassion. Today, Paris is about to symbolize the target of immense hope for the future. Our children and our grandchildren will inherit, for years to come, the outcome of COP21.

[This blog post was inspired largely by today’s editorial of Le Monde.]