vendredi 29 août 2003

How does your computer smell today? France Télécom, in its infinite wisdom, has taken those old scratch and sniff cards they used occasionally to hand out for certain not very good comedies at the cinema to a whole new level. FT R&D has brought to fruition a project to deliver smells over the internet. Of late, 200 French households have been savouring the delights of Burgundy wines and a range of well-known perfumes as a trial run for marketing the scheme, the September issue of 'Univers MacWorld' reports. The ideas behind the Exhalia (Fr) project took shape three years ago when the R&D people at FT went into partnership with l'Institut Supérieur International du Parfum, de la Cosmétique et de l'Aromatique Alimentaire (ISIPCA; Fr, English pages "under development) and a couple of industrial firms, Ruetz Scent Systems et AC2i®. How the smells waft into the house is explained, but only in French again, in a new FT press release which also contains pretty pictures. Commercial applications, they assert, could lie in interactive sniff TV, online perfume promotion, the public health sector (they're welcome to some samples of my Condition), virtual wine "tasting" ... and computer stink games. You could even get a smelly CD-ROM... I see no mention of this country's rich cheese industry, but there is an "innovation gallery" Flash site where French-speakers can read and hear about all this (without the odours). zzz The tip-off from Univers MacWorld was easy to follow up with the public beta, out on Wednesday, of DEVONagent, shown in action here. I've had an eye on Devon Technologies and been waiting for this one since I found and favourably reviewed their flexible notepad, database and classifier, DEVONthink, in mid-August. With seamless integration into Mac OS X and its services menus, this multi-search engine cum research tool cum browser rockets the developers into the "killer apps" category. It took me all of 30 minutes to realise that this one will become indispensable. DEVONagent informed me, incidentally, that this log is currently valued at $5,734.59. First I knew about that! It seems Blogshares has been keeping an eye on me since March 13 (along with countless others). So the least I could do was stake my claim to the place once I'd discovered that. What this "fantasy market" is about, I'll find out some other time. The workings of the stock exchange, virtual or not, have always been beyond my grasp. 11:28:41 PM  link   your views? [] Interrupted service Like the temperature which has plummeted, I've been subdued lately, what with more -- minor -- medical probing and an excess of chores and shopping trips. I won't bother with Lara Croft's latest race around the world, having reassured Tony that the nipples were intact but he didn't miss anything. 'Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life' was OK fun, but came nowhere near to dethroning 'Pirates of the Caribbean' as my silly adventure movie of the summer. As Brian Webster wrote of 'TR2': "inspiration is in short supply here. It’s only when Lara and Terry [Butler: the male lead, busted by Angelina from a Kazakhstan prison to help in the hunt for Pandora's Box, no less] are up close and personal that you get the sense that anybody was really all that interested in making this film. And even then, it’s just the contrast of those decent scenes with the drudgery of the rest of the movie that makes them stand out. Butler is charismatic and able to stand up to Jolie’s over-inflated persona here. But that hardly makes the film worthwhile on its own." (Apollo Movie Guide) No more than 4.5/10 in my book. zzz Something else that kept me offline was one of the most stupid thing I've done this year. In a moment of sublime inattention, as I cleared my Mac's partitions of many excess MBs acquired over the past few months, I managed completely to trash the 'Documents' folder on OS X, containing several years' worth of material. This would have been a disaster had I not, by luck, backed it up a couple of days earlier. Henceforth, my backups will be daily again; I was getting lax and I'm almost glad it happened with Marianne here to see for herself the truth of that old chestnut, that if it's never happened to you, it will. zzz Then my ISP went down today after a storm, not for the first time. This swiftly made the Kid cross, initially because she thought it was her fault our internet connection disappeared and then because it put paid to what she was getting up to with mlMac (abyssoft; donationware), which she rates as the best Kazaa client around for Macs. I've not tried it myself, but the racket noise next door would indicate that that it's efficient if you're into heavy metal. At the Canteen, netwiz François confirmed that his Noos cable connection up the road was also dead. After a 'phone call to the ISP, it miraculously returned, but the woman made me hold for so long while she contacted the techies that I suspect they hadn't realised it was down in the first place. Unkinder still, when I called the Canteen to tell François I'd managed to get through to Noos, he said: "I don't believe what they told you" before I'd even given him any details. On the whole, I've few complaints about Noos, but it's one of the few ISPs I'm aware of which has its very own active and often disgrunted consumers' association. LUCCAS (Fr) is a long-serving group which derives its acronym from the days before Noos muscled in to take over Cybercable and promptly capped the connection speed for clients of the time. 8:59:05 PM  link   your views? []

mardi 26 août 2003

The drummer from hell. & the LCD factor... One previous neighbour's sex life was singularly athletic and rewarding. This I can tell you with my usual impeccable taste now that she and her live-in boyfriend have moved on to bigger pastures. But like me, that delightful and civilised pair had a strong aversion to rude wake-up calls, which was hardly surprising given the late hour when the racket through the wall would sometimes come to an exhausted end. August being the month of the pneumatic drill, I was wrenched out of nightmare well before the permitted hour of 8:00 am. As what passes for consciousness seeped into my system, it struck me that this infernal object was a remarkably regular and peculiar-sounding drill, like a deep heartbeat amplified by several factors of 10. The vibrations rocking my bed were also dissimilar, like a carpenter using a hammer with inhuman precision, stopping for a second or two to make slight rhythmic alterations every four or five minutes. All attempts to return to the dark dream proved fruitless. A glance out of the window disclosed nothing untoward in the street. When I went into the living room, the noise was more disturbing still. Eventually I opened the door on to the landing. Oh Lord! It was them right next door. Now I heard the rest of it, the occasional electronic screech and some caterwauling from what was once an innocent babe in arms. "That, Daddy," the Kid informed me when she finally got up in her own time, quite undisturbed by the noise, but still looking like I felt, "is techno for breakfast!" "Well, it's worse, darling, than anything you've ever subjected me to -- including the band I'm not allowed to insult any more." Honestly, it's not just my advanced age. A lot of the popular music really was better when I was a lad! Several of the Kid's favourite bands know this perfectly well, otherwise they wouldn't spend time at the beginning of the 21st century making noises which are extremely derivative of what I used to listen to in the late '60s and the Seventies. It's the LCD factor that comes with computers that I blame for some of the worst contemporary horrors to assault my ears. I speak not of the "liquid crystal display" (Howstuffworks), but the lowest common denominator. Much as I appreciate the considerable benefits information technology has brought to music, there's nothing more aurally offensive -- in my own very humble opinion, of course -- than a bunch of kids who've learned how to make a drum loop and let the bloody thing run for whole tracks on end, without the slightest creative intervention apart from a few almost equally unbearable additions electronically plastered on top. I had a hard time yesterday -- as perhaps ½ of the Loyal Three and Three-Quarters might have noticed should (s)he have spotted the chopping and changing in the new sidebar to the right -- picking among Amazon's choice of feeds into this 'blog. Every time I thought I'd got the balance right, some object would flash up to unsettle me. I "have no problem with" -- more on that in a sec -- helping to promote cultural artefacts which are not to my own remarkably cultivated taste, but I'd much rather not blemish this haven of peace and tranquillity, as rich in its way as a Zen garden, with dog turds. Such excreta may well be somebody's idea of a best-seller, otherwise they wouldn't be on the list, but they're also a product of our LCD consumer culture, fabricated like junk food with as little polluting human intervention and thought as possible. Fortunately, if those Amazon people decide to allow me to continue to be a partner in spite of this little exercise in creative self-expression, I gather that I may arrange to customize those feeds even further, offering you exactly what I fancy. Probably I would also be able to reduce the number of flashing ads to the required minimum, which I couldn't work out how to do by myself. I hope they don't conclude that, this way, I'd be no use to them at all... zzz "I have no problem with..." "You've got a problem with... "Ah, but that gives me a problem! You see, while I don't have a problem with..." This exchange, only very slightly exaggerated though the real one was more drawn out and included numerous other "problems with", was characteristic of a whole conversation I endured recently on the Beeb's 'Sunday' programme, a sometimes interesting religious affairs broadcast that begins on Radio 4 at an hour when usually I try not to be out of bed. I won't steal the thunder of an e-mail Tony's plotting to the Beeb, which will consist almost entirely of the contemporary clichés he finds hardest on the ears. But when it's done, I'll let you have it. I hope he includes a tiny little news presenter's tick that drives me up the wall when they introduce a soundbite: "This report by so-and-so." Would it really be so exhausting to say "This report is by..."? zzz As you can see, I got out of the right side of bed this morning. I have little choice. Getting out of the left side would take me straight through the wall into one of the young neighbour's bedrooms. So now I'm going to take my excellent humour off to the canteen, along with constipation (the Immodium actually worked for once), and see what other joys I can find to write about. Or then keep a promise to take Marianne to inspect Angelina's nipples this afternoon. "You really do have quite a taste, like teenage boys, for bright and beautiful heroines," the Wildcat observed. "Yes," I confessed. "Women like you." "But they're also pretty murderous." "So where's the difference, my love?" 1:42:55 PM  link   your views? [] Other people's outbursts. Nothing like a rant Why spare the loyal 3 ¾ what I didn't spare myself? Political feelings are running high, chez Glenn of the Beeb, Victoria, Heli, and others. "WE ARE NOT MARXISTS AT THE BBC: And don't listen to those capitalist imperialists who say otherwise!" That was Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit. He links to a report in 'The Independent'. The views of a top BBC telly exec will be music to Tony's ears. My friend hasn't bought or read a Murdoch paper in years. On principle. Loathes the bastard. Victoria gives vent at Blogcritics, but added that the ruder version is at her own place. Where, of course, I thought I'd enjoy it even more. "Now, in news sure to offend a hell of a lot of people but after watching the BBC, NBC, CNN and hearing about the bombings in India, the renewed fighting in Israel, and the fact that the International Red Cross is pulling most of their workers out of Baghdad, when the fuck will the United States just leave them to it and let them all just blow the fuck out of each other?" I can disagree with some of what she writes, but I really like the spirit behind it at 'tekwh0re' (for more). Neat site! North of me, Heli's also had it up right up to here! "What do we have here in the Netherlands? Kleptocrats! George Bush has set a very bad example. The only difference with organized crime is that a government can make laws that make their crimes 'legal'." (Heaven and Hell Radio) They could send you Chirac instead? On similar lines: "Every year, the Pentagon is allocated $1.1 trillion $400 million, and never has to account for it. Where does the money go? 'More than $1.1 trillion of federal government money is missing. Our government leaders say they will not account for it. However finding this money could solve all of our federal, state and local budget crises. Where is the Money?'" Cory (but on Sunday) at Boing Boing for the rest... Victoria wants 'Troops Out' abroad. Bill Gallagher's fuming about conquest much closer to home: Other than the obvious conquered peoples of the USA, which include the Native American People, and the African Americans, there exist a very large portion of European types who are in the strictest sense of the word, conquered, and who exhibit starkly many social traits of a conquered people. But this isn't your usual Confederate rant. At 'l.a. indymedia'. Meanwhile, also across the Pond: Donald Rumsfeld plans to fight terrorism by goading terrorists into action, and then catching them out. One article mentions this program, the other talks more in-depth about it and aspects of the first article in general (both are from November 1, 2002). One "disgusted Copolymer" submits outrage to 'morons.org' What happened this weekend? We're nowhere near the full moon... 12:41:51 AM  link   your views? [] 'NetNewsWire 1.0.4 ships' ... along with a hack "Highlights of this release include using Web Kit (the Safari HTML renderer) for HTML display, custom style sheets, displaying differences in updated items, performance boosts, TypePad support, support for gzip compression, and more. "For more details, see what’s new in NetNewsWire 1.0.4." [Ranchero] At his place, meanwhile, Jonathan Rentzsch published a hack for people wanting a widescreen version of my favourite newsreader. Brent tells us so. I've done enough hacking myself for a while. Brent could include this as an option in NNW 1.1. I've joined the little SVP list. 12:10:08 AM  link   your views? []

lundi 25 août 2003

Some serious hacking ... and how I joined a virtual library Hacking computers. I've further explored the delights -- and dangers -- of this activity in the proper and noble sense of the term, which as every geek knows, has nothing to do with the way the word's used in the popular press. The Condition was so awful that food was out of the question until almost midnight, I really didn't want to talk to anybody or keep up on the news, the Kid had plenty to keep herself busy -- and I kept my mind as disconnected as possible from the goings on in my body by doing some mildly adventurous things with Mac OS X. There was only one bad half-hour when, logged in as "root", I fiddled with one or two things in what they call the "Core Services" of my machine a little too much and had to boot into Mac OS 9 on a separate partition on the hard disk to undo the damage. Some intriguing ideas and tips are to be found at one hacking 'blog collective, where contributors currently seem currently to be on vacation. In audio, for instance, I learn from Nick Sayer that "that m4a and m4p files are really mp4 files. In fact, if you rename an m4a as an mp4, Windows QuickTime will play it perfectly, and as a bonus will extract a WAV file if you like. Using mp4info, you can peer inside an MPEG4 file. On an m4a file, you see the expected: a single AAC encoded audio track. On an m4p, however, you see an "unknown" encoding audio track. These [the Mac OS X MPEG 4 tools] are command line tools, so you will need to play with the terminal to use 'em, but they seem darned useful." Since the link to fetch the tools in Nick's May 1 entry at OS X Hax is now dead, I'll explore later. Most of the time, I was trying out half a dozen hacks I've long wanted to implement from Mac OS X Hints and ResExcellence, two of my favourite DIY sites. Oh yes. Of course I backed up everything I tweaked before delving in. Thank heavens! Some of the most committed hackers, as well as developers, swear by Resorcerer. But I'm a long way from that league, and some who are in it are unhappy at the idea of forking out ... 256 dollars (235 euros), plus shipping costs! I'll stick with HexEdit (10 years old last month, free and last upgraded eight days ago). It's at the SourceForge I've written about before. zzz The changes Marianne likes most about are the obvious ones, such as the ... unconventional things that happen when my Mac boots up. People fed up with the usual Apple succession of launch screens can let a good and fun tool like Visage ($9.95) from Sanity Software do the work for them, but it's more entertaining to do it yourself. I use Visage mostly as a learning aid. Ideas from the Deep, one of my bookmarked software developer sites, is an interesting outfit for distributing products for Mac and for Windows (should you really want Nanosaur, Bugdom and the like), as well as for sponsoring Open Source projects (HexEdit among them). zzz On Open Source development, which I encountered in depth during some research in South Africa a couple of years back, I do plan to write more once I've fully explored the mass of links e-mailed to me by the quiet wizard Jean-Claude. Mac-addict -- then computer sciences lecturer in SA, now in Queensland -- Philip Machanick gave me the lowdown on the doctrinarian Richard M. Stallman, the Free Software Foundation and his GNU project ("GNU," we're told, "is a recursive acronym for 'GNU's Not Unix''; it is pronounced 'guh-NEW'."). He also told me about Bruce Perens, who recently published a draft for perusal and feedback of an 'Open Source Strategy for the Open Group'. zzz For now, on Jean-Claude's recommendation, I've just started to read Eric Raymond's "musings on Linux and Open Source by an accidental revolutionary", as he subtitles his essays 'The Cathedral and the Bazaar' (O'Reilly, 2001 Amazon UK*). I haven't bought this; it's in my new virtual library, where I've been again this afternoon. Enough money has been spent this month on introductory computer books for Marianne's delight. Last night, I had another, good look at O'Reilly's Safari Books scheme and decided that it's a first-class idea. The principle is that you pay a monthly (or annual) subscription, the amount depending on how many books you want to take out of the library at a time (I went for the lowest number: five). The choice of more than 1,000 titles from several publishers is excellent. I initially had reservations about reading online, but it's cleverly done. The full text of each book is split up into easy to swallow bites and it's equally easy to navigate your way around the plate. You can bookmark pages, print and take notes, and the only condition is that the book stays on your private shelf for a month before you can swap it for a new one. Raymond's book is a great and accessible read, well worth the fuss made about it when it was published. From what I've learned about Open Source via Jean-Claude's updates, I agree with reviewers at Amazon. 'The Cathedral and the Bazaar' is open to non-geeks and far more balanced in its approach than some of the famous names in rival camps. I've long wanted a copy of Mac OS X Unleashed (Sams, 2002; Amazon), but the O'Reilly site gives me a month with that five-star 1,500-page monster together with four other books for about half the price of buying that alone. Hmm. When it comes to computers and some other technical subjects, I think my reading habits are in for quite a change... Like decent software, you can also give the bookshelf a free trial run for a couple of weeks. Like an idiot, I forgot that... Oh. As to my own innards, they've been almost as well-behaved today as the Mac's. Blessed relief! ________ *To answer questions I've been asked: I generally link to Amazon in the UK rather than Amazon.com not only for geographical reasons but because the US links are far more widespread and used at BC. And yes: I have considered applying for Amazon associate membership myself, with the results you see here as of today. Buying via my 'blog won't change my bank balance, but might enhance my gift-giving capacity... 10:18:50 PM  link   your views? []

dimanche 24 août 2003

Glorious Japanese visuals In light of today's nice note from Shoji Ikeda and with a link to the flower cards themselves, this(*) is the purple hyacinth intended for the Wildcat. Things Japanese constituted a good part of a quiet day. Except that 'Ghost in the Shell' (IMDb; 'Kôkaku kidôtai') gave the Kid's computer and my speakers a testing time. At last I've caught up with this 1995 anime cyber-thriller, on DVD (the Kid wasn't interested, but now wants to see it tomorrow) and I'm glad to have done so. Sure, it was hyped up on first release and adds nothing new in sci-fi to an abundant literature which preceded it, but the 3-D visuals remain stunning and the music that plays an important part is bewitching. Composer Kenji Kawai first left his mark on me with 'Avalon' (IMDb;' 2001), an extraordinary "love it or hate it" cult movie with a mainly Polish cast from the same writer/director team, Mamoru Ishii and Kazunori Itô. That's another one I'd readily see again for the soundtrack and visuals alone. _____ (*No credit, simply because the search engine kept the picture from a now "dead" page.) 12:38:19 AM  link   your views? []

samedi 23 août 2003

Ma foie! (& other bits & ejaculations) I hope you've eaten because now that you've asked, here it is. I haven't had my lunch -- again -- because the nausea won't go away, but it usually does by the middle of the evening. Some people put babies inside online. When the Kid saw me reaching for the scanner, she said: "Oh Papa!" "They did ask." This offal has no infant in it. It's in Perfect Nick. So they say. I know the Wildcat wants the one in colour, but nobody else does, darling. So you'll have to come and see it for yourself. If any of the loyal 3 ¾ can see flaws the doctors can't, please let me know. Pretty. Aren't I? 3:49:46 PM  link   your views? [] Fair, balanced, spin-free: a brace of cases Heli's Heaven and Hell Radio has been joined by a number of bloggers lately in slipping an ironic "fair and balanced" tag into the titles of their places. They've been inspired, if that's the word, by the Fox vs. Franken case on which Heli today brought us up to speed: Reuters: "A federal judge on Friday slammed Fox News' trademark infringement lawsuit against Al Franken and his publisher Penguin Group and refused to stop the sale of the liberal satirist's new book that pokes fun at the network and host Bill O'Reilly. Fox charged that Franken had violated its trademarked phrase 'fair and balanced' by including it on the cover of his book entitled 'Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them'. Fox is owned by News Corp. and Penguin is a unit of Pearson. The book went on sale on Thursday." zzz If you like needles in haystacks, the Iraq weapons dossier evidence that's shaken the British government and the BBC alike is instructive. Particularly some of the e-mail: That's part, self-evidently, of an e-mail from BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan, now in the public domain under the 'Evidence' tab on the site of the Hutton Inquiry into the apparent suicide of microbiologist David Kelly on July 17, three days after it was sent. I've been looking through this stuff -- which takes the shape of downloadable .pdf files -- since picking up Thursday morning's story that Lord Hutton's investigation would start publishing its evidence. It's not easy, when some of the papers look like this, no less and no more. But at this stage, even before Defence Minister Geoff Hoon and Tony Blair himself have their say (Beeb) next week, the site is still worth a visit. The Net has in the past month carried masses of speculation of the kind launched at Lisa Rein's Radar, a highly readable American 'blog, on July 22. At GuluFuture, another "inside track" where I sometimes hitch a train ride, editor Fintan Dunne was already posting the Kelly murder scenario the previous day. Get me right: I'm not knocking the speculators and conspiracy theorists, being pretty good at that myself. Indeed, Dunne's kind of site, which has returned to the story since, makes for gripping reading with some good links. When I told the Wildcat that I'd spent about three hours sifting the Hutton site, she asked me what I made of it and proffered her own "gut feeling" that the single-source aspect to this sorry saga had been a bad idea. Yes. But in the defence domain, it can be pretty hard, sometimes to do otherwise. I don't know yet, what I make of it all. What I've read in this evidence confirms an impression, however: by the time the second Gulf War began, on the most questionable of pretexts, both Tony Blair's government and some in the BBC's news services were spoiling for a fight. Whether Dr Kelly took his own life or was murdered, he and his family were, in part, victims in crossfire that became increasingly intense with the start of the summer. One of the most interesting and useful features of what the Hutton Inquiry has put on line, so far, is that it's raw, unadulterated but for those hefty swipes of a thick black pen. Here the marker is used more sparingly. Never mind the content for now, it's the medium that continues to intrigues me. "Spin" was one of the major banes of the war coverage. Spin by governments. Spin by the media. Spin by bloggers like me. For now, the Hutton Inquiry site, as such, is a spin-free zone. For now, as the evidence mounts, there's reason to hope that it will remain that way. And thus, we might learn a thing or two. 2:34:04 PM  link   your views? []

vendredi 22 août 2003

'Gridlinked': warning -- works fast, potentially addictive Comment on the following paragraph and assertions in 600 words: "Of course, criminals are people who have not received the correct moral education. They are people who have not enjoyed the opportunities of the rest of us. We should pity them, and as a society we should look after them. Punishment is not the answer. It only worsens an already bad situation. If we execute people, this apparently makes us as bad as them . . . Bollocks . . . In the early years of the millennium this was always considered to be the case. The insanities of 'political correctness' blinded many to plain realities: if you execute a criminal, he won't do it again. Punishment of the criminal is good for the victims, if they are still alive. Why should we, as a society, look after and re-educate them when we hardly have the resources to do this for law-abiding citizens? Nowadays, we have grasped these realities, so murderers and many recidivists are mind-wiped. We have not ceased to execute people because we are more 'civilized', but because that would be a waste of a perfectly useful body. And there are many personalities waiting in cyberspace (AI and uploaded human) for another crack at living in the real world." From How It Is by Gordon. Now there's a work whose very title would appeal to a wise old friend, who's wry observations on the world almost invariably end with a "That's how it is." Gordon's little gems are among those chosen for the chapter headings constituting one of the pleasures of 'Gridlinked' (Amazon UK) by Neal Asher (Macmillan/Pan, 2001). Ian Cormac, the "James Bond" of Earth Central Security, has little time for convention and and kindly law-enforcement in Asher's first full-length novel, which begins with a bang in 2432. In an earlier fleeting reference, I wrote that any book which starts out with a space travel engineer saying the equivalent of "Beam me up, Mr Scott" and unintentionally blowing up a planet on his arrival has potential. Any parallel with the 'Star Trek' series ends right there. There's no bridge on Hubris, one of the starships to feature in an intergalactic Polity where the bulk of humanity's political and economic business is run by artificial intelligence. Asher delivers on the promising start, in a tight tale of psychopathic separatist killers and mercenaries, special service agents, almost unbeatable androids from the Golem range, and an ambiguous and cryptic alien Dragon. From the first explosion to a violent climax, this English author works fast, usually sparse in vocabulary to the point of crudeness, but unsparing with the brush strokes in a cinemascope thriller. Occasionally, to see the same word too often used in one sentence gave an infuriating itch to a reader far better at subbing other people's work than his own. But to call much of the writing crude is not to put down Asher, whose plot is as satisfyingly complex as the several worlds he describes in 'Gridlinked'. You can't put Asher down; twice I found this book on the floor in the morning, with a pair of fortunately unbroken glasses. Only the imperative of sleep kept me from reading all night. Less equals more for an author who credits a grateful reader with the imagination to fill in some deliberate gaps, such as aspects of his characters' past which he hints at just enough to tell you all you need to know if this is your first encounter with his cosmos. The James Bond reference becomes explicit in a teasing way which pleases, while those broad brush strokes are not slapdash but could make 'Gridlinked' surefire action movie potential in the right director's hands. Whether Asher is the sci-fi inventor of his favoured method of interstellar travel, the Runcible and its Spoon, I'm not sure, but 'Gridlinked' builds on the Runcible tales with which he began to make a name and indeed swallows one of them whole, 'The Dragon and the Flower'. (This is mentioned in Asher pages at Authortrek by K.P. Mahoney, who considers him a "sublime master". I wouldn't go that far, but Asher's hot all right). Such science as he needs makes hard sense, including the Grid from which Ian Cormac disconnects early in the story. This is a cold-turkey break, after 30 networked years, from a link which gave him some of his skills at the cost of his humanity and, potentially, of his life. I knew how 'Gridlinked' was going to end about 40 or 50 pages from the finish. But Asher's punches were faster and more cunning than my guesswork. He threw me several more times before the penultimate page. If I didn't have several others waiting on the shelf, I'd probably already be into 'The Skinner' (Amazon US henceforth; Pan Macmillan, March 2003 in paperback). Asher's nigh on addictive. After this, I can't totally sever myself from what genre-maniacs might label "space opera". Next stop for review: 'Revelation Space' by Alastair Reynolds (2000) or Probability Moon' (& 'Sun'; 2000 & 2001) by Nancy Kress. 8:17:19 PM  link   your views? [] 'It's the computer' ... and disciplining teenage terrors: a sermon Adjustments: in a delightful letter, Shoji Ikeda apologetically informs me that the flower for the wildcat is not a purple hyacinth, but bletilla striata. In Japan, it's a purple orchid (Botgard) native to Ikeda-san's part of the world. Thank you! This changes the meaning of the flower, but that does no harm. On the contrary! For her part, Catherine assures me that her splendid comment was made not in a job interview but during one with a human relations person. She reckons she'd be on the dole otherwise. Me, I'm not so sure... In a rare fit of real but short-lived rage, I broke the telephone aerial this morning. I'd got a letter from the 'Sécu' (Social Security) saying that I'd told them I sent them some missing papers with regard to the Condition, but they had not received them. The letter was posted on Tuesday, a day after I walked to their local offices twice: first, to see why they hadn't paid me anything since the beginning of July, then to take them two copies of the missing documents. So I 'phoned to tell them that they now had three copies of what they need -- only to find that, as increasingly often in this world of ours, the number for the local centre had become that of a robo-woman who sent you to a central service. The point when I banged the 'phone down hard came when I couldn't make out the whole of the new number robo-woman was shouting over a Rossini overture (or something similarly chirpy and irritating) for the fourth time of trying. On finally getting it all, the reply was at least astonishingly quick and I had cooled down. "Please take no notice of that letter," the girl said. "It's just the computer." This kind of tale is so banal nowadays that it's scarcely worth bothering with, but for the equally banal fact that even the best computers are only as good as the people who programme the buggers. On Monday, I'd been told that my payments had been stopped -- because of "the computer". With a small gap in the records, it was unable to handle anything that came after the missing bit (which was 17 days out of 51). Once unleashed -- as with the computer at my bank, the BNP, which frequently crashes according to the staff there -- the doings of the machine appear to be beyond human intervention. This I learned the day the bank computer decided my credit rating was appalling, when really, as humans readily acknowledged, it was fine. There was literally nothing they could do, they explained, until the computer agreed with them. Which it did. Three months later. As for robo-woman, I told the real girl, in friendly fashion, that the voice was bad enough for me but would be worse for partially deaf people. I've lost count of how many times Tony and others like him have told me how very annoying it is that many people still haven't learned that when you're talking to somebody who is hard of hearing, you don't gabble like robo-woman, even less SHOUT! What they need is clear enunciation and direct looks. I mumble too. Often when I'm fighting back irritation close to boiling (now there's a giveaway for my nearest and dearest). But with Tony, I need to talk at little more than the usual level, so long as I pronounce the words properly. zzz The kid was scared by my unusual outburst. She grabbed the 'phone with the bent aerial and snapped it completely while trying to fix it! I wasn't cross with her for that, she was doing her best, but unfortunately I was already angry at the way she'd yet again got out of bed and headed straight for her computer to launch into a chat session, quite oblivious of the filthy mess she'd left on the kitchen table yesterday, the clothes and magazines she'd strewn all over the place and the washing-up she'd promised to do last night. Finally, I've gone on strike with regard to that lot. In the past few days, to her considerable alarm, I've turned into a discipline enforcing machine. Being 14, clever, seductive, usually kind-hearted and as insecure and self-assertive as almost any kid of that age is no excuse for being bone idle. One advantage of being divorced is that she'll "take shit" from me that her mother no longer dares throw at her, she's almost had to give up for the sake of a relatively quiet life. I've told the kid that I'm writing this. And why. I've also said that on her own blog I want to see the words: "I picked up Daddy's 'phone and made a call to Slovenia that cost him 70.72 euros (almost 80 dollars) and I will never do it again!" There's no point in making her write it 500 times as I'd have had to do at her age. When I was a very wicked lad, we didn't have computers that can copy and paste. Serious moral, though: I know a lot of people who are divorced (it's unfortunately one of the hazards of journalism too) and far more badly off than I am with Marianne. Some of their teenagers have turned into terrors very fast for two reasons: - the parents haven't managed to agree completely on matters of upbringing. This matters, because the older the kids get, the cleverer they become at exploiting the points of discord to their own advantage at the expense of everybody; - it's not because the teenagers of divorcees are a little more fucked-up than all their friends -- which they are and there's very little you can do about it apart from keeping all channels of communication wide open and boosting their confidence -- that you should feel guilty and let them do what they want. By Marianne's age, most kids should know perfectly well that the divorce of their parents is not their fault, though it often takes some getting to that point. Learning to differentiate between serious problems and normal teenaged fucked-up-ness is a challenge requiring effort and attentiveness, but it can done much more easily when both parents are on the same wavelength. When Marianne's mum went for a crucial job interview once, she was asked a difficult question, more or less this: "What do you consider to be the greatest achievement you've pulled off with success?" She didn't hesitate. "My divorce." Years ago, I could have killed the woman when she told me this; today, I understand. It makes me smile even more because I don't think she'd say the same thing nowadays. She's managed even better since! End of sermon. zzz So, wildcat. And others. If some very long-distance 'phone calls become a little more difficult, it's because the Scotch tape round the antenna has come off. What was particularly silly about this was that I did my accounts, oh hateful task. Afterwards. To find via the online banking site that a large sum of money from the Sécu is poised to drop on to my current account later today. Now I can turn my attention back to the post office and their hunt for the parcel that they left a notice in my little letter-box about. The man who didn't want to walk up the stairs forgot to fill in any of the references on the slip as to where the parcel would become available among all the others at the post office. The kid has greeted this news with relief. As long as the "research operation" they say they've launched is under way, she won't be able to read the Mac book I ordered for her from Amazon France. Today's offering for the wildcat I found in a remarkable 'Flowers Photo Gallery from Japan, the copyrighted work of "Ikeda, Shoji" -- that comma leaves me uncertain as to which way round I should give the name. But now I know. The purple hyacinth orchid was not among the free cards at the gallery, but I've alerted its owner to the theft because it's the most beautiful one Google gave me. Rest assured, darling. I wouldn't dream of ever publishing your real fantasies. They're far too outrageous. Even for my loyal three-and-a-quarter. 2:02:30 PM  link   your views? []

jeudi 21 août 2003

A dull day-in-a-life mishmash. By request Tony's stuck with the cricket again or his books, telly or Mac. Especially stuck since bloghero Yang had to pay him a visit this morning -- with one knee seized up and painful, a stroll to the surgery was out of the question. I'm stuck too. Nausea still there, this morning's mighty headache vanquished, the insides back under control. That, I regret to tell Natalie and everybody else, particularly Carole and others asking for a more detailed update, is "The Condition" today. Tony and I each got as far as our respective pharmacies and no further. Wonderful, isn't it? But at least I can blog. Catherine, my former spouse, thinks that if T. and I can find n° 3, we could re-enact a well-known French comic strip of her youth (her earlier youth, I mean of course) which recounted the adventures of three incurables... Post-holiday Yang no longer has pouches under his eyes. We decided not to swap horses (specialists), once he'd studied all the latest results and we discussed them at length. The upshot is that a tanned backside or two will be kicked, with a September 7 deadline for a diagnosis. The doctor hasn't ruled out the bone marrow probe his partner suggested in his absence, but is more interested in exactly what's happening in the small intestine. It could mean a longer trip to hospital than the last day-visit to find out. I have yet more tests to do between now and then, but I'm glad the ball is rolling again after a fortnight's hiatus. No news from 'The Canteen'. It was safer to skip lunch. Still, I've got a word for that bloghero. When I returned to the chemists' to fetch the medicines I'd abandoned, such was my need to get back to a loo, people were waiting for a man who really needed a bucket. To put his stock in. He'd been prescribed enough to last him a year in the Sahara. That's what I thought it might be until my turn came. Eight boxes of 20 painkillers? Eight more of anti-nausea pills! I gave more than half that lot straight back, remarking that "I'm not the entire French Foreign Legion, you know." As for 'The Kid', she's happy again, after behaving too much like an addict short of a fix for her own good while her new Mac was seen to by Apple. She's of an age to have kept a slightly embarrassed distance yesterday when I had to get off the Métro, one stop after we got on with the repaired machine, as a matter of urgency. Should anyone else have the same problem at Courcelles station, be warned that the area is a café-less, toilet-free zone. A merciful RATP woman let me use their private one next to the ticket-office. Marianne pretended she had nothing to do with me for the duration. While I'm stuck, so is she to some extent, but was able today to rent and watch her first DVD, now that part of her machine works. She came back with 'The Animatrix'. Nice of her. Now I can see 'The Final Flight of the Osiris', not one of the four free downloads on the site. Tony and I have spoken of accompanying Marianne to see what many French people will insist on calling 'Tomb Rider' if mobility coincides imminently. That he'd even consider this is an indication either of desperation or a most proper and gentlemanly desire to make sure I wasn't telling fibs the day I explained how I gave Angelina her nipples back. The woman was already worried about them in 2001. "...something for those hardcore game fans. Lara has those big breasts in the game. We didn't want to make them as big as in the game, but at the same time we didn't want to take away from her the things that are, you know, her trademarks. But I don't know what all this fixation is about anyway," she told NY Rock in what sounds suspiciously like a little fib of her own. "[S]he finally found true love in the August issue of CosmoGirl!," which is not the first place I'd have thought of looking. It was less kind of Tony to give me his view on acting: "Yes, acting. D'you remember that? It's what people used to do on stage and in the movies before special effects and you didn't know what's real and what's gadgetry." Angelina, on whom I am not fixated, has explained in an interview I've mislaid that in Lara Croft 2, she wanted to round out the whole character, not just the boobs. Instead, here she is talking to Sci-Fi.com. We'll see. That cricket is robbing Tony, again, of Radio 4 (LW). He may have to think "broadband", the way the BBC's online choice is growing. It includes a very moving programme aired this morning. "The story of British tommies sent 'over the top' to fight the Germans in the trenches of the First World War is one of the most vivid emblems of powerlessness in the face of military discipline and social pressures that required young men to join up and do their duty." 'Voices of the Powerless': a highly recommended half-hour. Far less moving were the current Labour Pains brought on by the Hutton probe (Yahoo! News-wrap) into the death of David Kelly. The Hutton Inquiry site will henceforth be publishing what James Naughtie presented as a "bag of gems": "all the documentary evidence relating to the enquiry." Contemporary historian Anthony Seldon (Amazon UK picks) and Iain Dale of 'Politico's Bookshop gave Naughtie a thought-provoking eight-minute Today interview (direct link to RealPlayer clip) about this unprecedented development. Though fascinated by the e-mails and "the workings of government," Seldon pleas for more oral records. "Are the e-mails going to be kept in future?" he asks. I know I've left out 'The Wildcat'. But she must have gone to ground. Not even a miaow. I'm not surprised. Last time we spoke, she was: - plotting a murder (acceptable); - thinking of taking a teenage lover (no threat there); - showing interest in somebody older (that switched on the warning light). So, no flower today. Just a kiss. And now, Natalie, they all go back into lower case. 9:44:59 PM  link   your views? [] What they've said about me (don't you love reader's letters?) Chipstah! has posted sweet Fanny Adams since 'Claudette plays hard to get' on July 17. I'd worry about him if it weren't for his appalling Republican politics. His home page still bears a tribute from me among reviews he's put there. "The eagle's unloaded its a**hole!" I didn't put the asterisks in the entry he pinched that from during "that War", but he's a model of restraint and decorum. The fellow came to mind because I was wondering what my reviews and e-mails down the months would say if I wanted them on my home page. 'Merde in France' also posts reviews. But they make some of them up. This is where some of the loyal 3¾ get to shake hands. Or kiss each other. Dive beneath the sheets if they must. I really don't mind. Just one of the following quotes -- a selection of direct responses to posts here -- is made up by me. But which one? "I appreciate your writing. Sometimes I don't know if anyone but the random right-winger reads my stuff (since they always post a rabid complaint/comment). Nice to have the evidence of being heard." (Brian, film-maker, blogger, temporary candidate to govern California) "Very sad, important, informative and thoughtful, Nick, thanks." (Eric, editor, Blogcritics) "I enjoyed reading your websitelog, but J. thought it a bit self-indulgent (...) T. didn't comment. I suspect he would have preferred a proper present (...) I believe that would have been nicer, too. (...) What an uncaring family I have." (My mother, on a postcard) "The thing I like about your blog is that it's personal and yet not self-absorbed. There's enough detachment and awareness to lift it out of the confessional bog (blog bog) (...) I shall keep up with the threads of your various sagas - the Wildcat, the Kid, the Condition, the Canteen, etc. - almost sound like chapter headings of that unwritten novel?" Natalie d'A, London cartoonist, alter ego) "Of course you tried all the orthodox things already?" (Rainer B., software developer, Brazil-based website baron) "Made me smile. Thanks for this cool review. And, yes, it's all about the quirky sense of humor." (Lyda M., American novelist and critic) "God, Nick! People are going to guess who I am!" (The Wildcat) "If you put that in your blog, I'm going to put pictures of the inside of your bowels in mine." (The Kid) "I think that as a journalist you have the right to express yourself in citing the real facts; transformed or interpreted, [they] can be damaging to people who are perhaps not necessarily the cause of your problems. But it's the job and I can't rebuke you. "For my part I don't adhere to this kind of criticism (...)" (Patrice G., Executive Relations, Apple France) "Apple was kind enough to replace one of my PowerBook G4s after a negligent Airborne delivery man left it out in the pouring rain so it was soaked through. Sometimes I've had to ask to speak with a supervisor to get real action, but eventually Apple usually comes through." (Mac Diva, pantry-keeper, critic) "You write like a cross between Monty Python and Jeanne d'Arc. More of the porno pictures, please..." (Heather F, self-professed "houseslave", Perth, Australia) "As you probably know, under French law you can purely and simply be sacked for such things..." (David S., colleague, prudent chum, union activist) "Always nice to find an office conversation piece, yes? ;)" (Franklin in Florida, self-professed "whore") "How is it you've usually managed to avoid falling over the edge of the limits you've pushed? (...) That was risky." (Julie V., Bristol, England, no longer a Mac newbie, painter, movie-maniac) "That's a very nice review, now I've read it." (Justina R., British novelist) "Good review, but you mixed up Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp. (...) Huge difference..." (Ryan, musician, blogger, critic) "I took a look at your blog. It is interesting reading." (Alan, "Z", "a pretty ugly mass of organized chaos (...) a lot like you," traveller) "Yes, I liked it. But I've got a couple of quibbles..." (Gina D., news editor, colleague, reporter, on what I did with her Algeria photolog) " Mr Barrett (is that better?) (...) Don't DARE install Movable Type on your own." (Lee, round a few Parisian corners, student, blogger) "When are you going to write about me again?" (André B., literary lion, artist) "However, it is not easy for me to understand what [is] the purpose of your web site" (John, "in Seoul, Korea", photographer) "can't read you every day but catch up when I can. we have two power cuts a day now" (Protected identity, friend in Zimbabwe) "Wow! Quite a review--intimidating, in fact. I'm not sure anything else I do is going to measure up to your expectations now. :-)" (Karl S. novelist, founder member of SF Canada) "No biggy, I just pass um along........" (Mark aka "Sandbox", fellow founder of TS, blog tipster) "Many, many thanks for sharing Beatrice's pix with us ... brought back fun memories of Nigeria (including Beatrice and myself truly wading thru filthy waterlogged Lagos streets" (Abhik K.-C., AFP journalist in Abidjan, Ivory Coast) "Woooow, i noticed you mentioned me at your blog :D. Gosh, i'm honored..." (Marcel D., TechSurvivor in Belgium) "Rejoice with me: I've just achieved my first dry fart in a fortnight" (A.N. Other, complete content of an e-mail headed 'Not for blog') By the way, you're welcome to be as nice or as nasty as you like in the "comments" box, rather than e-mail. I can't do anything about the fact that it appears not to work when you send something. It does. 4:31:20 PM  link   your views? [] The apple and the crossbow bolt CHANGED MY MIND. I'm removing this story. Not from the Internet, but here. Not because Apple has asked me to (they wouldn't dare), but because it bogs down the 'blog. When I saw how long I posted it late last night, it gave me the shivers. So now it's sitting at the place it was really intended for, currently still on the front page at Blogcritics. Among other fine pieces... "After Apple's icebath, I warned that another article was imminent, even sent a draft and a chance to respond to three unanswered questions." In fact, cordial relations have resumed with Apple France, but the responses I naïvely plan to obtain from Cupertino are still absent. Thus a dart fired across the Pond. Like William Tell in the land of the cloud-cuckoo clock. 2:01:48 AM  link   your views? []

mercredi 20 août 2003

Monstrous blow in a small world: tribute to Sergio Vieira de Mello In Sergio Vieira de Mello, the senior UN official who died after one of the two massive bomb attacks (AFP) that dominate today's headlines, the world body has lost one of its finest men and the whole planet a noble soul in the quest for peace and human rights. "C'était vraiment un chic type!" journalist Sonia B., who knew the man in Bosnia, told me this morning; a really fine guy who "spent less time with his UN colleagues than out on the streets with the people" who bore the brunt of the siege of Sarajevo. "De Mello was a pragmatist, not a man for the institutions," my colleague and friend added. "He didn't bullshit we journalists and it was people he cared about, the ordinary people. He saved lives in a Christian way. A truly Christian way, I mean, discreetly, without the least fuss about it. "When [late French former president François] Mitterrand came to Sarajevo [in June 1992], there was applause. When De Mello left Sarajevo, many people were weeping." Yesterday's lunch at "the canteen" was rich when it came to people in this small world. I found Sam, currently running the pizzeria, deep in local geography and tales of childhood with a pretty young woman he'd long taken for a Moroccan but who turned out to come from almost next door to his own village in Algeria's Kabylie. I struck up a friendship with Philippe, who knew many parts of Africa, India and Afghanistan that I've been to, and more besides, after a long civil service career under successive French governments in fields ranging from defence and intelligence to humanitarian cooperation. It was a pleasure to be able to talk to an open-minded and humanitarian man about both the successes and foul misdeeds of this country's various rulers, as well as those of "obscure" places like the Central African Republic, without a host of preliminaries and explanations. Philippe has been on mission to some of these countries alongside staff from a range of UN organisations, developing considerable respect for the people who keep the United Nations going despite its flaws, the more idle appointees and the weight of a bureaucracy which comes with the juggling of a myriad members and opposing policies. Neither of us mentioned the late UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, because we didn't know that he was pinioned under rubble after the Baghdad blast that was to claim his life, along with at least (update) 23 others, while more than 100 people were injured. "He asked for a glass of water before he died," Sonia said. "It was atrocious." She can be a tough nut when she needs to, Sonia. Not only has she covered the Balkan conflicts, she comes from that region. But De Mello's death still shook her to tears. The appalling news I got from the wildcat, who was tapped into AFP's wires and is among another friend to have met De Mello. Like her, the Brazilian was a "doer", efficient in an office but often happier out of one. His predecessor in one of the toughest jobs in the UN, Mary Robinson, said on the radio this morning that he was a field man to the core, ideally suited to the task of UN special representative in Iraq. The BBC will no doubt be updating its brief background piece on the UN's work behind the scenes in Iraq. In Africa, De Mello won respect -- though often with one hand tied behind his back for lack of funds, international commitment and the bloody-mindedness of the "local players" -- as a coordinator in the tormented Great Lakes region, seeking to restore a semblance of order and keep humanitarian assistance functioning after the Rwandan genocide and with the war in Democratic Republic of Congo. He went on to play a key role in helping steer East Timor to independence and -- ah! buzzphrase of the new century, "good governance" -- by former "terrorists" four years ago. That BBC story says "there was no obvious participation on [De Mello's] part in the formation of the new governing council for Iraq, which was billed as one of the key steps in the country's move away from an autocratic regime to a democracy." But every journalist who knew or has written about the gifted diplomat will read that "no obvious participation" for the semi diplo-speak it is. Moreover, the United Nations -- its senior staff, not the Security Council -- has done its best to keep a distance, particularly "on the record", from any plans drawn up by those who engaged in what a large part of the world still considers an illegal, unjustified war, whether it ended Saddam's barbaric regime or not. Realpolitik is complex. De Mello, a thoroughly good and immensely patient man, will have had strong opinions about who is rightfully and indeed legally entitled to run Iraq. There's no doubt he will have made those views known, through channels whose tortuous workings he mastered, to its current overlords, particularly the United States. In my corner, another civil servant -- and also, I would say on the strength of a first 90-minute conversation in some depth, another good man -- knew perfectly well that when you talk to a journalist nothing is off the record for ever as we "swapped notes" on the differences between the Americans' behaviour in Baghdad and that of the Brits in Basra. Philippe, with his defence and satellite expertise, also filled me in on a question I've long wanted a better answer to than "jungle", but frequently forgotten to ask: how it was that scores of thousands of Hutus could "vanish" in eastern Zaïre, as then it was, after the Rwandan butchery. That's for some other time... I am not suggesting there that De Mello's death and those of other UN personnel among the victims was a direct result of the policies of the occupation forces in Iraq. On the "why?", the BBC's Paul Reynolds has already made an interesting first stab at an analysis. Most of the analysis will come later, just as some of the "facts" will eventually out. Doing their best at "the factory", my own immediate colleagues are still quite properly wrapped up with the shocking event, its immediate aftermath, the quest for survivors and the fallout. The same goes for yesterday's other brutal bombing of a central Jerusalem bus, with its similar toll. But that equally appalling crime is sadly of another order, part of a fearful but long-standing "pattern of death", with likely consequences which are only too predictable. In the often frightening "New World Order", what happens in Israel and what journalists are not allowed to call Palestine makes some kind of shocking, tragic and historic sense. Unacceptable but understandable. The savage murder of De Mello and almost a score of others is a far less immediately comprehensible consequence of the gross injustices and the resulting fanaticism which constitute the wicked side of that so-called order. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called it "senseless". Certainly it is one of the most brutal blows the United Nations has sustained since one of the Ghanaian's predecessors died in the Congo when his plane blew up in the air and crashed in September 1961. There are those who contend that Dag Hammersköld, who supported the electoral process then in hand in that benighted country, was also assassinated. Film-maker Hans Rudiger Minow made an intriguing documentary about this, shown last April on Planète television (Historia article; French). He pinned it on a mining company and the Belgians. When a teenager, I read Hammersköld's 'Markings'. The man said very many wise things. "Peacekeeping is not a job for soldiers, but only a soldier can do it," was among them. Especially soldiers who work alongside people of the calibre of De Mello, whose brain and looks were enough to "melt the hearts of women in Sarajevo", Sonia also remarked. In the blogosphere, Dave recalled another Hammersköld comment in February, when he said that "forgiveness breaks the chains of causality" (Joyce's Paradiso). Yesterday's atrocity in the wake of barbarism by so many parties in the Middle and Near East could make forgiveness an even rarer quality than ever. 12:51:50 PM  link   your views? []

mardi 19 août 2003

Women in winged boots "So what is PC exactly? When I lived and worked for a major university in the heart of the District of Columbia, I was given an HR handbook that outlined in exact detail what PC means. It means keeping your mouth shut PERIOD!" Hmm. I don't know what an HR handbook is. Yet. But I do know how Dawn Olsen feels. Not that I saw this at the lady's blog. Lady? Oh, but yes! On being PC at BC. Or not. Almost anyone who begins like this is off to an excellent start: "Everyone knows I have no tact, taste or decorum, but what isn't clear to all is that is a conscious choice on my part." zzz Another flower? You bet! This one came off something absent from my wardrobe: a I found a pretty one in Austria. It was ©. I found an ever nicer one in a Peapod. It was for personal desktop use ONLY! But today's special. I wish a favourite cat a year full of the qualities of the iris, which also bears another, more secret message. Iris was sister of the Harpies as well. In times when they had a much better press than they do now. P.S.: for reasons almost beyond my control, posts are few and far between right now. Better blog service will, I hope, resume tomorrow. 7:37:42 PM  link   your views? []

dimanche 17 août 2003

My weapons at the wildcat's feet I returned to the canteen today, notwithstanding the state of my insides, to learn if anything mind-blowing has been happening hereabouts, which it hasn't. Somebody was upset because the bike I lent them for the duration has run away. Then literary lion Baudier, also upset -- by ill-treatment at the hands of people who should know far better -- darkly warned me that the computer I've given Marianne may end up being a "barrier 'twixt you and your daughter if she spends all her time on it". I passed this cheering news on to the charming youth, who said: "You can tell Mr Baudier that I don't need encouragement from a computer to abandon you to your fate." "Eh takk!" she added. "Voilà my revenge for KoRn!" (Flash site; load your lugholes with wax -- ouch!!!). Not my day. I blame the wildcat (for a change). Given the choice between sound effects I could offer from the bathroom or what Marianne was yet again listening to next door, I thought the sleek hunter would prefer the latter. So it was. "What are those dulcet tones that waft to my ears?" she enquired down the 'phone. "Wonderful, aren't they?" I said. Such sweet enchantment. But I got caught in a cunning trap yesterday and am no longer allowed to say or write anything objectionable about the joy for the ears of KoRn. I promised. The wildcat changes the subject when I tell her that she's the "sexiest beanpole on the planet" and not Keira Knightley, whatever the critics might say. She steals my breath away with descriptions of what she's wearing, even down to the length of the slit in the skirt, and leaves plenty of scope to imagine the remainder ... and then won't allow me to reciprocate. Where the wildcat is, it is hot. Dare I say sultry? But when I suggest spraying her like the more ordinary cat or providing the massage she's dying for with the most exquisite attention, she starts talking about things like Serbian food! Knowing full well what that total irrelevance does to my insides. Today, life is hard! But ... she defended my daughter, rightly pointing out that Marianne is nice when she says nothing about my musical tastes. And she wants a flower. I choose the polianthes, just what she needs today. . "Could you send a sword?" she asked. "Have I become a blog-heroine?" Evidently she's a blog-heroine. Did it need saying? She's the blog-heroine here, avec sa beauté sans pareille! Take your pick, sweet heart. Perhaps a well-balanced rapier, to match the fine sweep of your claws just before the weeks I missed you so much (even if I deserved it)? They say the one in the middle is deadly in the right hands. Could it be 'Freedom's Sword' you need, this one the work of Scottish artist Andrew Hillhouse for MacBraveHeart? Just let it loose... The 'Sword of the Spirit', with a flame to match that heart of yours, was painted by an American, Jeff Haynie, but intended only for games and for a religious symbolism. This one I found in the hands of a generous physics professor, Julien Sprott. The sword by René Hard-to-Read may not interest you, but your foes would be dead already should you choose to do battle clad like the manga lady wielding it. I know I would... Despite the hot Mediterranean blood that must run in your veins, I can't see you wielding the sword that conquered we Brits (Roman Britain). Your methods are more far subtle, if equally effective... But for close-range operations, I could easily envisage you pulling a Spanish dagger (by Rainmaker) from its fortunate sheath running up the length of your slender thigh... "Oh Papa!!" Yes, she's right. Time to return to earth, even if the lass was protesting about something completely different. The polianthes, held at the Botanary in Dave's Garden to mean "grey flower", is a singular plant. More commonly known as the tuberose, it is a magical plant, whose nectar is held by some to have special powers. Seeking its likeness, I learned that the Aztecs used its oil to flavour chocolate. It can be found in the same zones as the yucca cactus, sometimes called the 'Spanish dagger'. Its essence is today used in perfumes and I have seen pictures of Hawaiian lovelies wearing a tuberose lei at weddings. Such a necklace would also look well on the wildcat's brown shoulders, never mind the occasion! But it's secret significance, as ever, is something else again. What say you, wildcat? Fancy a prowl on some long white beach on Pacific shores? Then you'd be ready to fight your way to liberty... 8:06:28 PM  link   your views? [] Sad tidings ... and some artistic relief A black cross and a black-bordered notice concerning the church mass and funeral arrangements went up during the week on the communal board in the entrance hall of our building. I've since seen similar sad little announcements of loss in other old apartment blocks nearby. The man who succumbed to his ailments here in the overwhelming heat was in his 80s, a frail fixture of the building, often to be seen and swap a few words with as he leaned against the main street door, keeping up with the doings of the district as best he could. When Marianne's mother, looking better but still shaky on her pins after the heatstroke, brought the youngster round the night before an elderly spinster neighbour told us of the death of her brother, she said: "When the figures come out, it'll be a hecatomb!" This, I thought, was an exaggeration, until I saw a blog link to Thursday's CNN story on France's "heat emergency". The estimated 3,000 deaths referred to there are very many more than everybody was speculating on at the start of last week. "But the head of the doctors' emergency association, Patrick Pelloux, criticized the estimate as low. He said emergency physicians estimated that between 1,000 and 2,000 people had died in the Paris region alone. "Saint-Antoine Hopital in Paris, which has no air conditioning, was packed with patients -- many of them elderly, and many of them in beds pushed into hallways. "The head of funeral services for Paris said the city's morgues were full. The French television network TF1 aired video of air-conditioned tents that had been erected to hold the bodies of the dead." Normally, I've disliked them far too much since the first Gulf War to go to CNN for any of my news, but I'll readily acknowledge that the above story and this one -- from AP, in fact -- about 'Modesty melts in steamy Paris' are right on the mark. As my 3¾ regular readers (yes, it's gone up!) will know, I don't have a telly and don't want one, especially now that the reality show offered by the neighbours has been far more fun. Enough to make you regret that the temperature has dropped to a measly 25°C (77°F) in the shade. My only quibble is that they overdo the bit about bad tempers, certainly in this part of town. Though I suspect that Apple France must have been extremely hot under the collar about my rant of the 9th. They've got until Tuesday morning to come up with a satisfactory reply. Should they not, I will simply, as promised but with due warning, publish the icy but totally uninformative response I've already had, with their views on my style. Obviously they operate on that only rarely true premise that if you ignore a problem long enough, it will simply go away. zzz My Condition has delivered the direst of reminders that it is still very much present. I loved 'Pirates' and enjoyed writing it up, but three films in as many days and yesterday's trip well across the Seine (the furthest I've been since the shits started too long ago) have taken their own toll. This morning saw nasty nausea back with a vengeance, after the long, troubled sleep of the drained, and there was still plenty left for the first couple of hours of the day, making me spend much of them in the loo. But bloghero Yang is back tomorrow. I'll let the doctor endure his miserable Monday among the masses bound to pack out the surgery, then inform him that he must be delightfully refreshed, buzzing with renewed energy, and just dying to kick a few specialist asses hard to get, at last, a Diagnosis! Natalie's written me a lovely long letter, and won't mind me lifting the bit where she says that "I understand that Chinese medicine, diagnosed and administered by a properly qualified practitioner, can work very well if you can put up with the foul tasting stuff they give you. But I have no personal experience of it." This particular bloghero, Natalie,