Death is said to be just around the corner

I'll put the older fellow first.

And ask you to guess what they have in common.

Leonard Cohen, 82, is a famous Canadian singer.

Clive James, 77, is a well-known Australian writer. 

And what do they have in common ?

Well, they both see themselves permanently on the verge of death.

And they seem to take pleasure in describing this situation

and telling us complacently about all its subtleties.

I'm a little fed up with their imminent departures,

which end up boring me....

even more than Dylan's Nobel Prize.
But don't misunderstand me. I truly hope they both stay with us
until the proverbial cows come home.

Australian obliged to consult a psychologist

There are some strange brains Down Under. The Australian tennisman Nick Kyrgios, 21, has been suspended from competitions in principle until 15 January 2017 because of his unsportsmanlike behavior. If he wishes to return to the courts before then, Kyrgios is obliged to consult a psychologist. It’s a tough mission for a professional person. I’m talking, of course, of the psychologist. He or she had better be careful. If Kyrgios didn’t like what he heard, the psychologist might receive a direct smash.

Washington Post announces start of Mosul assault

Un article dans le Washington Post, aux alentours de 00.30 [heure de Paris], annonce que l’attaque contre Mossoul vient d’être lancée par les forces d’Iraq. Le journal français Le Monde confirme vers 1 h 20 : Le premier ministre irakien, Haïdar Al-Abadi, a annoncé le début de l’offensive dans la nuit de dimanche à lundi.

An article in the Washington Post, half an hour ago, announced that Iraqi forces were beginning their assault on Mosul.

Latest Brice de Nice is out

 

Is the title pronounced like the English words "ice" and "nice" ?

Or rather like the final syllable of "police" ?

Well, both pronunciations are possible and acceptable.

The correct pronunciation depends entirely on one thing only :

How you prefer to pronounce his name?

Peter Sagan world road champion

The Slovakian cyclist Peter Sagan, world road champion last year, has just defended his title in Qatar, beating Britain’s Mark Cavendish and Belgium’s Tom Boonen. Click here to see the finish. In France, we all love this fellow, both for his friendly personality and for his bike stunts… not to mention his great cycling achievements.

English female Mozart

Alma Deutscher, 11, has composed an opera, Cinderella, which will be presented at Vienna on 29 December. Here’s an early chamber version of the first act.

French balcony-builder will have some explaining to do

Last night at 11 o’clock, in the centre of the city of Angers, a third-floor balcony suddenly tore itself free and slid towards the ground, killing four students who had been calmly standing on it, celebrating the recent renting of the flat by friends. On its way down, the balcony tore away two lower balconies. The mayor announced that an inquiry will be held with the aim of detecting construction flaws. Click here for a video.

Our brains believe whatever they see

I imagine an experiment in which viewers are presented with a pair of twins, both of whom have an unidentified substance in their mouth. Viewers are told that one of the twins has a chunk of chewing gum, whereas the other has been tricked into chewing a poisonous substance that will inevitably end up killing her. Viewers are asked to study carefully the two chewing twins, for exactly a minute, and try to determine which one is soon to be poisoned.

The experiment works better if viewers are encouraged to use the major half of their brain : either the left hemisphere, or the right hemisphere. If viewers happen to be puzzled by this advice, they can be told that their brains will solve that problem automatically.

Obama informed on artificial intelligence

A French journalist at Libération was surprised by the fact that Barack Obama is sufficiently aware of artificial intelligence to be able to talk about this subject in an expert context, here.

                [Christopher Anderson/Magnum Photos]

Would French politicians be capable of behaving in the same way? The answer, I fear, is negative. I’ve always had the impression that many people in France feel they know what the expression “intelligence artificielle” signifies, more-or-less, but in fact their knowledge is quite superficial... mainly because they've never bothered to examine this subject. In totally different domains, the same kind of imaginary awareness exists in France for subjects such as the historicity of Jesus and the bible, and the principles of Darwinian evolution. People like to think they're cultivated in such fields, but they know next to nothing... even though they talk as if they did. That's France!

Salamanders smarter than God

I disagree with Sam Harris when he says that he finds it interesting that

people of faith only tend to pray for
conditions that are self-limiting.

Personally, I don't find that information in the least bit "interesting".

Sexually speaking, Australia is an advanced nation

Our ambassador in France is Stephen Brady. You see him in the following snapshot (baldish) alongside his friend Peter Stephens (drinking milk).

Click here to read an article from The Sydney Morning Herald about a minor diplomatic incident that took place in Paris on 25 April 2015 (Anzac Day).

There are holes in the Great Pyramid of Giza

Well, fix them, dear Lisa, dear Lisa, dear Lisa.

If you want to see what made me say those words, look at the following delightful video:

Let’s get back to Giza. An article in Le Figaro says that new results obtained by infrared detectors, muon tomography and 3D modeling have just been published. Above all, two previously-unknown cavities have been discovered in this 4500-year-old construction.

Robert De Niro on Trump [repeat post]

My post of a week ago presented this video. I like it so much, and I hate Trump so much, that I’m putting it up once again.

Obama speaks out: “Come on, man”

Click here to see Barack Obama talking to
America's greatest pile of elephant shit.

Click here to listen to Michelle Obama talking
about an ugly sexual predator.

The USA will surely need a lot of time to erase memories of Trump.
For many years, a stinking trail will be left behind him.

French clown leaves the circus

Pierre Etaix, 87, died this morning.

He worked with Jacques Tati [1907-1982]
and was married to Annie Fratellini [1932-1997],
famous for her role in Zazie in the métro.

Independence referendum in Scotland

At the opening of the Scottish National Party in Glasgow, Nicola Sturgeon, prime minister of Scotland, announced her intention to present a new project, next week, for an independence referendum.

Fake healers

Answer is blowin' in the wind

Bob Dylan, 75, has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Born Robert Allen Zimmerman in 1941, Dylan started his musical career in 1959 in Minnesota cafés. He received the prize "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition".

Archangel’s new skin

The monastery of the Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy is topped by a statue of an archangel whose English name would be Michael. Yesterday evening, a wonderful TV documentary showed the steps involved, on earth, in replacing the archangel’s golden skin.

We then saw him being carried back up by helicopter to his home in the sky. Click here for a newspaper article on this operation, which includes a short video. The same Normandy-based show presented the elegant tomb in Caen of a distant ancestor who interests me greatly: William the Conqueror.

 

My chart on this link [click to enlarge] goes back through

my paternal grandmother Kathleen Pickering [1889-1964]:

Lad on a bike

This courageous Scotsman, Danny MacAskill, is never afraid of falling off his bike. You have to wait until the end of the documentary to discover that falls occur regularly.