Dick pics

I’m old-fashioned… which isn’t surprising in the case of a fellow born in 1940. I belong to a generation of old-timers who were never tempted to use advanced technology to transmit images of their sexual organs to various corners of the planet, and maybe even (by inadvertance) into outer space and distant galaxies, where lots of little green guys and gals will be able to appreciate our earthly junk. These days, apparently, more and more people are engaged in this activity… just for fun, naturally. I’m led to believe that transmissions of this nature are generally intended for a restricted circle of receivers, most often a single individual. But problems do occur, and some of these images escape, as it were, and end up getting into the wrong hands (no pun intended). And there can be misunderstandings, too:

This question is examined in detail in the following fascinating video of an interview between John Oliver, host of Last Week Tonight on the US TV channel Home Box Office, and the US whistle-blower Edward Snowden.

‪Yesterday, in the early hours of the morning, a bust of Edward Snowden was erected in a New York park.

On this morning’s news, I heard that authorities in New York have just removed this statue.

Click here to read the full story of this affair. Let me add that few people are aware of what’s actually happening. To punish Snowden for disclosing lots of secret documents and then pissing off to Russia, Pentagon authorities are in fact going to put him to shame by enhancing the existing statue by appending a big ugly reinforced-concrete copy of the whistle-blower’s penis (based, so they claim, upon authentic visual data), and then putting the modified statue back on public display. This mission, carried out by NSA agents, is code-named Whistle Blow Job. But don't tell anybody I told you...

New crazes in taking pictures

A few years ago, when I needed a special self-portrait for a blog post (a photo that would show me wearing a newly-purchased Russian black-fur chapka), I tried desperately to use my Nikon to take a picture of me reflected in the bathroom mirror, but I never succeeded in obtaining exactly what I wanted. Above all, if I remember correctly, it didn’t look right to be attired in Siberian headwear with a plastic shower curtain in the background. So I gave up.

That was before the planet Earth encountered the phenomenon of selfies. Funnily enough, although I’ve owned several iPhones, I’ve never once been tempted to take a selfie… which goes to prove how atrociously old-fashioned I’ve become. Even today, I don’t recall ever having used my iPhone to send a text message to anybody, but that’s simply because I lead a quite solitary existence, beyond any circle of friends with whom I might wish to communicate in that fashion. To put it bluntly, mobile phones, text messages and selfies are simply not my kettle of fish… and surely never will be.

I was nevertheless intrigued to hear that, following an unfortunate incident at the Louvre, selfie sticks have now been banned in most French museums.

Click to obtain an enlarged view of the black eye

In any case, selfies are starting to become old hat. Among smart people, phonies are being replaced by dronies, in which you replace your has-been selfie stick by a drone equipped with a tiny GoPro video camera.

Groups of foreign tourists visiting France only have to bring along a drone with them to be sure of obtaining all kinds of fabulous aerial photos of themselves, to upload to their FaceBook pages. (Facebook is yet another thing I’ve never used. Truly, I’m antedeluvian.) But visitors still won’t be allowed to bring such hardware into the Louvre.

Talking about drones, I’ve just seen a fabulous video presentation of the most amazing drone that has ever been imagined. It’s alone in its category, and it makes all the other drones look like spluttering aircraft of the era of the Wright brothers.

Click the YouTube button, then watch this amazing video on your full screen.

If your mind is not blown by that video, then we're clearly not on the same span of eagle's wings.

To do justice to past inventors, I should point out that an imaginative engineer in Baltimore (USA) provided the world, in 1865, with an impressive graphic depiction of bird-powered aviation.

As far as I can ascertain, no prototype of this amazing aircraft was ever actually built and tested... which simply proves that it's often hard to get a good idea off the ground.

Meanwhile, in our modern world, which never wants to stand still, yet another spectacular innovation in picture-taking is starting to emerge. I’m talking of vertical video, the subject of this most informative video:

Click the YouTube button, then watch this funny video on your full screen.

Personally, I welcome this kind of new thinking. If the vertical video phenomenon were to become popular and widespread, it would be a fantastic economic boost for the entire media business, not to mention the electronics industry (faced with the challenge of supplying households with vertical TV and computer screens). I nevertheless fear the negative impact that vertical video would have upon certain TV sports. Popular spectator sports of a predominantly horizontal nature—such as football, rugby, sailing, rowing, swimming, F1 racing, ice hockey and even curling—would lose much of their attractiveness when presented in a strictly vertical-video context. The Tour de France would be reduced to the ascension of the famous 22 hair-pin bends of the Alpe d’Huez. Admittedly, acrobatic flying and base jumping would become the sporting events to watch on vertical-video TV… but a little bit of that stuff can't be pushed too far without boring your viewers.

Rather than comparing new vertical video with the old-fashioned horizontal variety, I’m awaiting patiently the introduction of total-3D-immersion TV, which would totally invade all the space of my living room. The antiquated phenomenon of screens would cease to exist. We viewers would simply be part of the show, day and night. Every time I was watching a football match, for example, and wanted to get up for a glass of wine or a pee, I would have to be careful to avoid getting hit in the face by a ball. That would certainly add spice to my passive existence as an avid TV-viewer of sporting events (which, incidentally, to be perfectly honest, I’m not).

Pyrenean colors

In one of his recent TV documentaries, François Skyvington found himself in the middle of a wonderful world of colors in the Midi-Pyrénées region of south-west France. To start the ball rolling, he visited an amazing old laboratory that has preserved the ancient and secret know-how involved in using a local plant as a source of blue dye.

Wearing his trademark orange scarf, François gazed with fascination at the mysterious blue broth that was cooking in the cauldron.

Then a bee started to buzz in his bonnet. François wondered how his orange scarf might react to the Pyrenean blue dyestuff. No sooner said than done. He took of his keffiyeh and threw it into the vat.

I have the impression that François may have wondered, at that moment, whether he might have just made a foolish decision. As they say in the classics, curiosity can kill a cat. Maybe curiosity can destroy a keffiyeh, too…

At first, it looked as if no harm had been done.

But a minute later, the outcome was quite different. A change in color was taking place in real time before the startled eyes of my son.

Now attired in a blue scarf, François asked the lady if he might be able to put his moped in the vat of dye, so that its color would match the keffiyeh. But they all agreed that this might not be a good idea. So, François bid farewell to his newly-discovered blue world.

Happily, in the next scene, through the magic of movie-making, François had retrieved his original orange keffiyeh. Besides, he seemed to be moving around still on the same archaic moped. But can we be sure? Be that as it may, we then find our golden-helmeted hero wandering around in a field of sunflowers.

Next thing, he’s sipping a glass of freshly-pressed sunflower oil as if it were a delicious nectar… which, apparently, it is.

Things then get serious, as the dominant color changes from orange to red: of the kind that is supposed to infuriate bulls.

The local fellows told François that bulls see reds and oranges as if they were 50 shades of grey. But that seems hard to believe. They also explained that, if you happen to be confronted by a furious bull, the best thing is to simply jump out of the way.

And François was promptly invited to take part in a 5-minute crash course on how to become a torero.

Courageous or foolhardy, he was prepared to prove that he had learnt his lessons well. That’s to say, sufficiently well to survive.

Apparently he didn't feel at all comfortable while awaiting the bull's charge. Olé!

As I’ve often said, riding around France on a two-wheeled vehicle such as a moped can be a dangerous business…

Moped Facebook

My son François Skyvington told me on the phone this morning that his moped road movies are currently being aired on the Arte channel at a rate that often rises to four 30-minute programmes a day. Apparently the producer has set up a Facebook page here.

The problem is that my son, like me, is not a regular Facebook user. So, the situation is likely to be a bit frustrating for people who might wish to communicate with my son through Facebook. On the other hand, I have the impression that, if you click around, this Facebook page offers you various extracts from the series.

Our third anthem

Once upon a time, in France, we had an extraordinary national anthem—stirring, but not particularly nice—that evoked blood and gore, the smoke of muskets, and images of slain soldiers.

Recently, we've received an anthem of a higher order, intended to evoke culture, history and harmony among the peoples of the Old World.

But there's yet another anthem, designed to remind us that we Europeans have become a continent of dumb TV-viewers, willing to watch almost anything, no matter how stupid it might be.

The grand final of the notorious Eurovision Song Contest will be taking place next Saturday evening in Sweden. If ever you've been out of contact with the planet Earth over the last decade or so, and you need to know what this spectacular happening is all about, just click here to visit their official website.

As usual, we believe that France is a top favorite, and almost certain to win the contest hands down. Unfortunately, the name of our singer escapes me for the moment. I've also forgotten the title of his/her song.