Antipodes

This shy little fellow has taken up residence recently in the ancient stone cellar behind my living room: the place where the monks once mad...

Last week, I drove to the village of Notre-Dame-de-l'Osier , not far beyond Saint-Marcellin. In the local church, this stained-glass win...

Living on slopes, as I do, is quite different to living on flat land. And living on my own is quite different to being accompanied by a wife...

I've always been amused by the following innocuous joke: A tourist is driving in the Australian outback, looking for a friend of a frien...

Recently, in email discussions with Australian friends visiting France for the rugby, I pointed out vaguely that I might be hindered in meet...

Most people are enticed by the mythical concept of consuming their own homegrown produce. As the mentally-retarded big guy named Lennie in S...

There's a saying in French: Before you've actually shot the bear, don't try to sell its skin. We might reflect upon this wisdom ...

This blurry but otherwise charming family photo was taken over a quarter of a century ago by a little boy. Today, if you visit the website o...

Often, I like to see how new words have come into existence. And sometimes, to understand a new word that appears to be modern— a neologism ...

Last Friday, 58-year-old Dominique Strauss-Kahn , a former French finance minister, was elected to the position of managing director of the ...

As I explained in my recent article entitled Gamone enhancements [ display ] , I'm thinking of installing a wrought iron and glass marq...

A couple of years ago, when the bend in the dirt track that runs up beyond my house was about to be transformed for the first time into a ma...

A Martian, seeing the following banner displayed on the Internet, might imagine that this affair is about to be examined for the first time:...

Most people have heard tales about the mythical Aussie beast known as a bunyip , but sightings have been rare, and scientific research on th...

One of my female friends back in Paris was a prolific and eclectic writer. She had decided, a long time ago, to invest in a multi-volumed co...

When I was a young man, a widely-read little book by the British scientist and novelist C P Snow presented a dichotomous vision of contempo...

The following true story is perfectly trivial, but it's amusing in the sense that it could only happen in France. It starts with a typic...

Whereas France is hosting the world cup in rugby, the nation's most popular individual is a soccer star: Zinédine Zidane . For those of ...

When I bought Gamone, on Australia Day 1994, it was a rough place. The left-hand ground-floor of the building served as stables for anim...

On the point of writing a blog article about a fascinating TV show I watched last night, it was funny for me to consult the excellent weekly...