The Last Day of a Condemned

This morning, dawn. Capital Punishment. "Let us call it by the name which, for lack of any other nobility, will at least give the nobility of truth, and let us recognize it for what it is essentially: a revenge" - Albert Camus

Saddam's last steps to the scaffold were filmed. They shot him til he was hung. If human justice is about satisfying the winners, what kind of justice is it? Mr Bush said that killing Saddam will help establishing democracy - quite a syllogism.

Fear. Small. Man. Society must avenge itself, society must punish. Like beasts. No transparency. Lack of justice. Souls' poverty.

Link the Birds

When I imagine the ideal music label, I see a pantheon of my favorite artists, a bunch of boys and girls who come from different countries, musical backgrounds and atmospheres. In real life, they've never met, but in my cd book, they're on the first page, looking deeply into each other's eyes/music. Then I imagine the most unexpected duets, mixing harmonies and cultures: Manu Chao meets Cake, The White Stripes shout while Charlotte Gainsbourg whispears, Jack Johnson giggles with Tribalistas, Seu Jorge cheers Shivaree up, Regina Spektor tries to make her voice bigger than Youssou N'Dours', Souad Massi and Ben Harper fall in love.

In my room, Emily Loizeau and Andrew Bird live on the same shelf, and I like them both the same way: a lot - even more. Suddenly, "Planes at night protect us from flowers" meets "I watched waterbugs skate memories, like mohair sweaters". But this time, it's not only a distraction of the mind, it's real! Andrew came along with his violin when Emily recorded her first album. And now, she comes along with her piano when he is touring in Europe.

Then I got interested in Fargo, that dreamed label that actually exists - they signed both Emily and Andie, that's why... I met all their kiddos, from Neal Casal to Alamo Race Track, Shearwater and Clem Side. Loizeau and Bird remain the most accomplished it's true: I've always been impressed by the way some musicians manage to frame their sweet madness, making it reachable and adorable.

'luck birdies.

Il est presque né le divin enfant...

... pendant que nous restons desespéremment humains.

Dans quelques journaux européens, le 24 décembre 2006. L'Iran bien sûr qui doit cesser d'agiter son uranium sous l'oeil inquiet de l'assemblée des représentants de l'ONU. Le Monde parle de "provocations iraniennes" et d'une ONU décridibilisée, critiquée par la Chine, la Russie et par les Etats-Unis qui à l'inverse des deux précédents trouvent la sanction insuffisante. Quant à l'Iran, elle dénonce une mesure illégale. De toute évidence, une menace à l'entente diplomatique mondiale. Sur le même sujet, le Guardian demeure plus mesuré "it should be seen as an interim step towards a full travel ban if Iran fails to comply" et fait allusion aux risques courus par Israel à la suite de cette résolution.

Dans El Pais, on parle de José Luis García Sabrido, chirurgien en chef de l'hôpital public de Gregorio Marañón de Madrid, parti jeudi dernier au chevet de Fidel Castro. Guettons le gaiement?

Une image pieuse dans La Reppublica, Benoit XVI les bras levés mais pas pour le Christ. Une autre sorte de martyre, Piergiorgio Welby. Atteint de dystrophie musculaire et enchaîné à son lit depuis 1997, il avait demandé le droit de mourrir, un recours jugé irrecevable. Dimanche dernier, on l'a débranché à sa demande. L'Eglise lui refuse des osèques religieuses alors les hommes se sont réunis pour le fêter eux mêmes, paiens, aujourd'hui dimanche 24 décembre, le jour de la naissance du "sauveur". Ce soir Benoit XVI dans son bénédicité, demandera la paix.

JOYEUX NOEL!

Chronique déambulatoire

Je gare souvent ma voiture villa Borghese, c'est plus pratique pour aller dans le centre, car c'est ingarrable. I don't know what that means. What is the point? Una sopa di verdura per favore... Qu'est-ce que c'est? J'ai pas peur du noir. I think I miss London. I miss London. I miss London. I'm cold but it's not that cold. Une fontaine. Elle n'a pas de tête la statue. Qui c'est? Who is it? Quien es? Mama was queen of the mambo. Oi...er... ciao...er... voce fala ingles? Nao nao nao.... Per favore, parla francese? Spagnolo? Niente? Parla, no? It's not a bad idea to rent a car, but then I'm gonna be advertising those silly things on my car. What if I don't agree? What if it's totally uncool? Do people se sacrifie when they do this kind of choses? Piazza delle Muse, dove si trova? Dove si trova la piaza delle muse? Lawrence, Valentina, Louis, Viola, Matan, Cecilia, Audrey est tombée amoureuse d'un Italien de Rome. Principesa, caffé principesa? I know I shouldn't be wearing my hat, it's not that cold, yesterday it was 18 degrees in Roma. Roma, Roma, Roma! Cazzo. Caffé. Pyramide ce soir, concert de jazz. Trop fatigée. Every monkey'd like to be in my place instead of me. Je veux retrouver la librairie pres de la piazza venezia je crois. What do I buy? I want to buy a book? Should I ask him what book I can buy? Piazza del Popolo, what other name? You smeel people, do you smell it? The floor and the spontanéité des gens. De l'air narquois, qui vole, qui vibre. Spontanéité. Spontanéité. Indifférence. Beau, Beautiful, Bellissimo. I'm tired. I think. A glass of water, oh yes, a glass of water. Two. Three. O'clock rock. I'm going to stand there and watch. I'm sitting in front of the Gallerie delle arti. I'm smoking a cigarette. I'm free now. I'm free and a little low, because it often goes together. Free is lonely, lonely is low? Low is..? Rome how do they not get lost? I don't know. The streets are so tournicotantes. Aix, tu te souviens? C'était pareil, j'étais always lost in the streets. I'm too bad. Nobody knows fortunately.

In Bristol

Calais Sands at Low Water, Turner.
As alcohol was still poisoning my veins, I stopped in different places of the city, watching people going down the streets with their Christmas bags. Waiting there for time to die.

At 4.30pm I was in a pub reading The Girl who Plays Go by Shan Sa . I saw those letters put together:

"Yes, soul's vanity is death"

It is always a shock to see someone else writing for you something you would never be able to even think of. Your hell is the one of others.

Almost definitely the beginning of an end

2006, not a year for dictators. It smells like it's the end of a certain world. Some are truely affected, some just see it as a headline of a newspaper. Some know that it's a big deal, but yet don't realise it. I'm thinking of Mr. Hernandez, my Spanish teacher from Cuba.

I was running in this pool of... shit. At the bottom, were lying corpses and I knew that my friend was among them. I couldn't find him. The smell was so horrible it would make me give up on him. This is how he won, the dictator. Stronger than me, stronger than all the rest. Full of cleverness and cruelty. He got us all. You would never win. You would be able to get a better life, escaping to Miami, and me to Paris. But you wouldn't win. You would be a coward. To fight a dictator, you've got to be one.

I suppose the end will only be completed when these generations of cowards stop living with their guilt. That is to say when they are all gone, back to the center of the earth, where it all began. One day, in a few centuries, the dictator will be forgotten. Then only he will stop winning.

2 pairs of eyes in the London Tornado

At 2.30 pm yesterday, P and I were in Kensal Rise, London, after the tornado hit the area.

Gathering with the press, the well dressed journos, we tried our best to be taken seriously, shouting everywhere we could "French Press! French Press! AFP!" - my favorite lie - and it worked quite well until P started to feel guilty and admitted we were students. Because we both look like we're 12 years old, press officers, policemen, witnesses, a woman who was in one of the damaged houses, the lib dem leader of Brent council pitied us and agreed to be interviewed. For one of the interview, other journos gathered around us and our minusculus tripod to film our man. That was pride! The group manager also agreed to take us on a private tour to one of the damaged houses.

One funny story was when we attended the press conference. We managed to set our equipment right in front of the stage, close to the big TV crews. Our mini tripod + videocam felt like some old and proud veteran standing by those giant cameras. P left to call the French TV and I was on my own dealing with the mic issues... The other journos had put their big hairy ones on the table and we just had the little clip mic. So I had no choice... I discretely plugged our one-million-kilometer-long cable into the camera, then to the mini mic (what was the most ridiculous, the cable or the mic??) and stepped towards the table to drop it delicately on one of those gigantic mics... I thank the other journos for a/ Not laughing at me b/ Pretending that it was common practise c/ Pretending that they hadn't seen anything!

We ended our evening in the Royal British legion where the people living in the damaged houses had been relocated. Most of the press had their vans nearby and journos were wearing ties and tuxedos. We arrived there after a long and cold walk, getting lost three times before meeting the holly stable.

It was a great experience, and (not surprisingly) we learnt more in one day than in 3 months. Working in a rush, worrying about the footages. Making phone calls and trying to sell our story abroad was also a bit of a challenge, and we found out how NOT to do it!

Deconstructing and Feeling

"LET'S DECONSTRUCT THE NEWS!". One of the sentences which has stroken me the most this month, "DECONSTRUCT, people... remember that you have to DE-CONS-TRUCT". So in the last four weeks I've been deconstructing absolutely everything I had in front of me, from the BBC1 news bulletin, to the platform of Northwick Park tube station. It is true that you get to understand your environment much better, through an almost scientifical point of view, like if you were some sort of engineer.

I realised that deconstructing was one of the most useful observation technique, and probably the most efficient way to improve your own skills. I teach French to a 25 year old English girl, and I began to use that 'deconstruction' thing in my lessons. I recently noticed that people who only speak English find it really hard to learn another language because their mothertongue is not as logic as other indo-european languages can be. I go to an Italian class in London, and I can see that it's a long and complex process to make them get the gender and number rules for example. So my objective was to make sure that my student could understand the mechanisms of French language. I was struggling sometimes to make her accept the idea that you have to say "she" in French when refering to a table or a house... Sounds silly? In fact it is (relatively) logical. So today I thought: let's start from the beginning, and as I had this hallucination that my TV lecturer's face was appearing through the window, I told her "LET'S DECONSTRUCT!". And so we did, and so it worked. She saw the light emanating from the verbs, subjects, accusatives and circonstances laying in the sentences. And then she smiled with satisfaction.

Of Mice and Men

There are mice in our house. It had to happen considering the detestable attitude of 3 of my housemates when it comes to washing up matters. I could write a very long post about that growing pile of old and crusty cutlery shining over the sink - that can only be pleasant to watch when the sun's beams caress our magnificent window - or about my numerous attempts to educate those depraved students I share this house with, but that would make me a little dejected and even more stressed that I already am.

So, some interesting facts about Mus Musculus. DID YOU KNOW THAT mice are attracted by water, have massive fests in your kitchen when you're asleep, and could easily live there (if you're not an anorexic soja milk addict) for almost a year? Wikipedia and the mouse-man who came in this morning say so. When he came in my room, I told him I hadn't seen any, to which he replied "HO HO! Have you seen that big hole in your floor? I bet plenty of them are waiting for you to turn of your lights! Do you keep food here?". I didn't reply to that question... but started picturing in my mind this mountain of French cooking chocolate bars hidden in my cupboard, on top of which a bottle of Martini has been standing enthroned.

This afternoon I received this text: "Hey Vic, I'll b home at 9ish 4 the house meetin. Also i have a feeling that Vitas, Lee n Louise will try 2 argue theyre not that messy n Hannahs not there 2 bk us up so will u help me make sure ppl know they HAVE 2 b tidy? xx". I thought it was kind of sweet but quickly realised I was in a dramatically sad situation. She then sent me: "Vitas is always suspicious. did u hear about the time he flushed noodles down the toilet downstairs?". This is just to give a broad idea of the kind of freakshows I live with. Mice are not the only ennemies...

One other revolting issue is the attitude of the landlord. Apparently in England the tenants have all the rights. When on our housemate summit meeting we talked about calling the Health and Environment Services to back up our claim when facing the landlord, my junky housemate (less high than usual) said we would be considered responsible for the state of the house, even if half of us has just moved in, even if the mice have been gnawing our house for at least 6 years. Debate among housemates. Then war. The landlord living in Ireland and being more busy with the reproduction of his sheeps, we'll have to deal with those disgusting issues on our own. I say: we must investigate and be more self-confident. But I was so passionately involved in the conversation, my speech turned into toad's spit, just like when David asks me "What's your stand up?" and I have to reply very quickly.

The point is (as V would say) we are students and we shoudln't be too demanding they say in the landlords' paradise. When we earn money and start paying our loans back, then we can look for a decent house, a decent life, have the right to take pride for the place we live in, respect the others, respect ourselves etc. Until then, we have to live with mice.

Damien Hirst - Interactive

... a bit ghoulish, and genuinely insane. A few words exchanged this afternoon in the Serpentine Gallery.

"Is this Damien Hirst in the sleeping bag, or a homeless person?"
"I can't believe he took that picture, developed it and thought "IT IS SO COOL, I'M GONNA MAKE IT BIGGER AND SELL IT". And someone bought it."
"Sorry, you're not allowed to take pictures"
"In fact, a lot of provocation, even if that's not your first impression."
"Why is there a pair of shoes here? Do you think they belong to someone or they're part of the exhibition? Maybe to the homeless guy in the first room."
"Excuse me, you can't take pictures here"
"Are you still reading? I stopped line 4."
"Oh, a zebra."
"I like that one very much. Very much. Verrrrry verrrrry much."
"I wouldn't put that in my living room."
"I'm really sorry, but taking pictures is forbidden"
"Excuse me, what's his name?"
"Aaaaaahhhhh, it's giving me a headache."
"Is this real blood you think?"
"I did it, I took a picture"
"Ok, well, I guess we're done. They will let us take a picture from outside won't they?"

I haven't figured out if I liked it or not. Do I need to write that I'm a bit ashamed of admiting it?

Night out with a trader

I made all the possible mistakes since I've started doing TV: in one week I shot with the night vision option on, forgot my tripod, my mic, didn't set up the sound properly, filmed a blured life and left my tape at home too many times. Yesterday I chose to repeat all those mistakes at the same time. No need to say that my desperate attempt to impress him failed a hundred percent. No need to say that when he setted up my camera for me, I was a little annoyed. Need to say that if I want to show my bosses that I'm made for this job, I've got a lot of bread on the board (French talk). Yes, I am aware. Yesterday night, I was out for an interview.

His flat is cold in substance, but warm inside. The man of the situation is a trader working in Canary Wharf. He lives in a posh area of London that he calls the West End, but that is not the West End - bless him. He has a huge plasma TV screen hanging on an empty wall, the last season of 24 ready to be watched and the flattest mobile phone I've ever seen. He drives probably the only Smart available in London and he told me he got hired because he made it clear in his interview: "I want to make money". That sentence wouldn't have lead him far in France I guess, as he says "France is a communist country". Fair enough. He described his experience in London as Biased by the financial world he lives in. This morning, he woke up at 5.45, left the house at 6.30. He won't be back until 7.30 tonight. I (so naively) asked him if such a schedule was justified, he looked at his watch while swallowing his coffee: "well, I'll be at my office at 7, that's 8 in Paris, 3pm in Tokyo: just on time". I looked at him with the redest eyes I'd never had: ... how can he be so awake?

That's the life he likes to have. He could look more arrogant than that, but he's too clever. He speaks neatly and is well educated. About journalism he said: "The problem today is about filtering the news. In my job we receive far too much information. Take Bloomberg: you can't even read the news flux, it's going too fast... I am completely against that whole blog thing: it doesn't provide the right information at the right time; it rarely filters. So many people feel the need to fill their blogs just because they have one, sometimes they don't care about the quality of the content". In my interview, I couldn't help looking at him with my very human eyes. I didn't dare to ask him "Do you feel lonely sometimes?".

He was just like that guy, you know the one we all have on our mind when we think of the City. The satisfied one, the engineer who works in high finance and knows the world mecanisms. Oh well, I believe this is just one certain point of view.

My day has barely begun. I watched him and wrote about him. Right now, he must be on the phone with the head of that South African bank he told me about, and probably forgot that I existed by now. But that's alright...

We are just journalists...

One thing: you want to be a journalist? Then be self-confident. Our flag. I agree to be self-confident, but the truth is, since I've stepped into the Journalism @ Westminster's world, I've become very confused :s

Last week, with a few classmates, I attended an 'unclassified'-kind-of-event at the Frontline club. It was extensively commented on journalism students' blogs [see description here: http://www.adamwestbrook.co.uk/]. The second half of the night was a debate on journalism and technologies - which I'm definitely not trying to escape from, don't get me wrong. I have often criticised the inhumanity of modern journalism: blogs, hits, networks, internet, hyperlinks, outernet... They all seem to obey one single robotic trend, a sort of mediatic globalisation that I modestly dislike. I don't want to ignore the tools that we are given today, and that are supposed to make our journos' lives much easier - in David's words. To proove my half good/half bad faith, I do have an account on YouTube, and in the last 10 days I've been googling names of every single person I met since I was born. But I would like to make sure that we have the choice to use those tools and above all the choice to use them our own silly way. When I look at the blogs made by my fellow journalists, I feel disappointed for finding the same kind of writings, ideas, thoughts and cleverness. A lot of them want to show that they're playing the new media rules Get Yourselves a blog or you won't get it right but what if all this was only superficial?

Today David said: "You need to get a blog. The Guardian won't even look at you if you don't. Not mentioning the others... If you want to make your documentary, you have to start showing your footages and your work on a blog. Then people get to know you. They see you do a good work and they want to meet you". Exactly, do you get my point now? We are now taught to show ourselves, but they don't insist on how to produce a good piece of work. Originality in the way you present and what about the story? I don't hear enough people talking about their stories, I don't hear their whimsies, just that sentence endlessly repeated "I've just read your blog, I think it's fantastic". Can we be more creative now?

I like David very much. I think he was asking himself questions and found the answers he was looking for. I would like to tell him "Please David, let me in the dark for now. Maybe I'll call you later".

Jeff

Denmark Street est ma rue préférée de Londres. Elle part du Foyles à Tottenham Court Road, une boutique de livres et de disque du style du Gibert français où je vais une fois par semaine donner mon cours de français. Un autre de mes endroits favoris.

Dans Denmark Street, il n'y a que des magasins de musique. Beaucoup de manches et de cordes, et puis il y a Rose Morris, le magasin de Jeff, touché de blanc et noir. Je l'ai rencontré l'année dernière: un pianiste polonais m'avait envoyée du côté de chez lui. Un an plus tard, j'y suis retournée, d'abord avec un autre musicien, donc très tendue, mais surtout gênée de me laisser aller sur les touches de tous ces claviers. J'avais rapidement pianoté Yann Thiersen et Jeff avait dit "Amelie?". Aujourd'hui, j'y suis allée seule de nouveau, pour le harceler de questions naives. A un moment il m'a dit: "Amelie"? J'aime aller dans un magasin qui n'est pas un magasin. Rentrer pour parler de passions et non de prix. D'octaves et de pédales, de haut-parleurs et de silences. J'aime les cheveux frisés et grisonnants de Jeff qui travaille à Rose Morris depuis 15 ans et dont j'imagine la fabuleuse histoire sans n'en connaître le quart. J'aime ce type, pendant que mon père est à Paris et ne me tape plus sur les doigts en me donnant des cours de solfège.

J'ai acheté un piano aujourd'hui... Bonheur de l'imaginer ici dans quelques 48 heures. Tristesse en revanche de ne plus avoir l'excuse commerciale d'aller voir Jeff. Je reviendrai pour qu'il me parle avec les mains en me dessinant des carrés dans l'air, croyant que je ne comprends pas le mot "book".

Jonathan Littell - part 2

Another interview published in Le Monde today - thank you for talking to us Jon - where he criticises the lack of professionalism of French journalists who don't check the information they report. [http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3260,36-835008@51-835100,0.html]

Therefore, I have to apologise for maybe naively repeating in my previous post what others misundertsood! I am not sure anymore that Jonathan actually exists. Too many secrets I say...

This interview is one of the headlines of the newspaper today. And he's just the writer...

The French corner - Jonathan Littell

He won both the Prix Goncourt and the Prix de l'Académie Française, the two most important litterary prizes in France. He did not come to get them and stayed playing with his children in his house in Barcelona. He does not like the media, that is probably why the media like him. He wrote in French although he's american. For Les Bienveillantes, he meticulously investigated the mecanisms of the concentration camps, and the extermination of jewish and disabled people. He managed to write a novel and not a report. The French like him because he seems to despise them.

You can (finally!) listen to him on http://www.bloghandicap.fr/

"The Germans came up with a lot of ideas to get rid of the jews. Many of those ideas were not executable. Murder appeared to be the only solution"

Playing international poker

So let's get together and play poker. Poker, just a game? Have you ever imagined that it could just be another of those silly western ideas? I never thought about that in fact... My father taught me how to play when I was 8 because he was tired of doing some repetitively boring babysittings. Once my mother came back from her night class, and saw my depressed genitor and my unlucky self getting fleeced by my sister Ariane (4 year old at the time). We were just playing matches anyway...

So for some poker is just a funny, exciting, addictive game, for others it is complex, useless, boring, and... completely illogical. For me, it is just about getting to know your friends better...

Yesterday there was 1 half American/half Palestinian, 1 Vietnamese, 2 Indians, 1 South African, 1 Bahrain(ERR)ese(?) and 2 French players. Most of them were complete beginners, not always getting the point of the game. Everyone complained of the Vietnamese who was constantly raising too high and leading the rest of the world to bankrupcy. However, the American said that it was the rule of poker, to what my French self replied that it was just an expression of the expansion of capitalism across the world. My fellow citizen tried to beg money to the Vietnamese. She eventually stole some admitting at this point of the game she had no pride. There was a desperate South African attempt to get a straight... She was elected the queen of the night when she finally got one. And finally, the girl from Bahrain won her first and last turn with a pair of nine: she was so happy I thought her smile was gonna make the table blow.

Friendle

That Internet junky.

The Westminster staff will be happy to read that my interest for the media has significantly increased last weekend. M&R visiting from Pariggi. Spent the weekend in the most crowded bars and websites of the world. YouTube became our best friend and turned us into complete doofus: we typed "Sacha Baron Cohen", "Silent library" and "Les dix commandements" after listening to that insane - but talented - French singer, Anais, on radioblogclub. A quick glance at Gad Elmaleh's character, "John-Fashion-London". Obviously, one of the first thing we did was to watch the deleted scenes of Eurotrip. Dimwits. Curved backs. We sat there on my bed, laughing too loud and eating sweets.

In America

S. said today: "yes I knew the democrats were gonna pass. I didn't expect it was going to be that close though... I think the Americans want to tell the rest of the world that they regret 2004. They want to say 'sorry, we take it back, we made a mistake!'".

For our TV class today we had to imagine we were going to interview Donald Rumsfeld and write the cue for our dreamed report. Rumsfeld was just an unemployed man, feeling regrets for the way he dealt with the war in Iraq.

Environmentalism

From globalisation to moderation...

I feel there is something new about our planet. The way we look at it, the way we eventually start to worry about it. It's like an endless love story, almost forced, between mankind and nature, with a lot of ups and downs. Finally the man looks at his girl again and realises how mean he's been to her.

After Stern, after Nairobi, I feel this concern does not emerge from the governments, but from the citizens. I like the idea that the people shows the way forward (see previous post): it has always been like that, and will always be... making its way through various types of manipulation. Unexpected.

Praise the people, but work with the governments. Recycling, bying bio, wearing Veja shoes is expensive. Completely illogical, so... completely modifiable. An era of rarity, and the only way to adapt is moderation... I know some won't like that concept. It's like telling a little boy "you've had enough candies now". And the little boy cries.

It's like a story.

Punish horror with horror

Couldn't help watching Sadam with emotion today. Not much objectivity in this blog I'm afraid, not much sensibility either.

Being forced to watch that judge humiliating Sadam in front of the rest of the world, that judge asking him to stand up so that he could fall better after hearing he was going to die? Proud like a man, small like a man. Whose superiority was he really serving? Reviewing the different steps of the trials, one can just realise that no justice was made as it was planned in the beginning: it is not the people from Iraq who judged the Hussein. The people is glorious, the man alone is evil.

I could imagine Sadam Husein's last steps to the scaffold filmed by CNN. The images will cost a fortune and the Americans will be the first to see them. They will watch their bellybomb.

Read (again): Les Misérables.

Dream

20 minutes ago I was at an interview to be a sport journalist. I remember thinking "I'm not qualified at all for this job and I know nothing about sport but maybe I can get it... they like me I think" That was the most worrying bit!

Peter Mayle

On Sunday night, I finally managed to get in touch with Mr.Mayle who kindly agreed to be interviewed by me two days later - today. Yesterday was a long day... I had less than 24 hours to find his book A Good Year, read it, make sure with the radio station that I could interview him over the phone (something I had never done before... silly but true) and finally find a cinema showing Ridley Scott's adaptation of the book that was released last Friday, and eventually see it... Back at home at 11pm, in bed at 1, questions written for the next day.

9.30 I'm in the studio. Tim, the helpman, is in hurry and I barely understand which buttons I have to push, press, turn. I somehow manage to get Peter Mayle over the phone, pleasant and ready to speak. Of course, I hang up on him while pressing, pushing, turning the buttons. Fortunately he is a comprehensive person...

The interview was sweet and I discovered a very sensitive person remembering his first days in Provence and his wife with emotion. How old is he? I don't know but he talked as if moving to the South of France made him a new man. Modest and well educated, as English people can be, he gave me 30 minutes of his time, and shared with me his passion for Provence, his gratefulness (to whom?) for having succeeded in leading such a quiet and peaceful way of life. Happiness we did not mention, as you cannot joke with it, but I could guess in his words. Thank you Mr. Mayle...

When we hung up, I cannot describe feeling of relief that overwhelmed me. A piece of Lavender might have traveled over the phone and got me drunk. It felt good after those 2 stressful days, to finally get something concrete, a product of my work. It isn't finished though. 30minutes of interview to be turned into a 2min30 package... How silly!

My Veil, Your imbroglio

It reminds the French of good old times where the government decided girls were not to go to school with material covering their face. We talked about it for weeks and suddenly... the story died and evrything became normal.

The veil ban was one of the top debates in Britain last week. It is now moving to extremism.

What if a part of the British media, not scared that the public gets confused between those two COMPLETELY different issues, turn out to be a group of narrow-minded, fake intellectuals and journalists. Not diplomatic. Racism risen in Britain... I won't be surprised if that's where we are going.

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6053992.stm]

Friendship

Yesterday, G. said that when she starts to like someone, she begins to feel more and more insecure.

Mother Bar, Old Street, London.

Symbols and broken objects

For more clarity and a better understanding of this blog project...

D'après l'éthymologie grecque le symbole, sumbolon, était constitué des deux morceaux d'un objet brisé, de sorte que leur réunion, par un assemblage parfait, constituait une preuve de leur origine commune et donc un sens de reconnaissance très sûr.

According to Greek ethymology, symbol, sumbolon, was made of two pieces of a broken object and their jointure, like a perfect reunion, was a proof of their common origins therefore an obvious sign of recognition.

Here is a blog made of all those little representations that make life so full of meanings: mine, yours, ours... To avoid misunderstandings.

Este blog es para hablar sin mentir, para que desaparezcan las confusiones y los malentendidos.

Blog, Internet, Outernet, Journalism, SUMBOLON

Yesterday, he told us journalism was soon going to be about outernet. No interface. He said "have a blog". He meant "belong to that new generation of journalists" who will be judged through the number of hits on their blogs. In my course, people are from Australia, China, Taiwan, India, Vietnam, Palestine, Lebanon, Turkey, Italy, Spain, France, Brazil, USA, South Africa and Nigeria. Before coming to London to do this course, most of them were journalists already. Some of them in a country where you can't simply write what you think. And he told us, show, write, go beyond yourselves. Use internet, use youtube and be advertised. It was all about presentation. No substance. It wasn't "you have the choice to" but "you have to.. or you'll be left out". As the Rital says, "he's just being provocative".

Yesterday night, we all went out to listen to Matan's guitar going loca. It was perfectly beautiful. Substance. That was where we, journalists, ought to go. Go get the essence of...L*I*F*E ?

So new born blog will be about that rich year I'm gonna spend here in London. I will follow his advice, I will have a (new) blog to be part of the alternative world, life, spirit... whatever, what the hell, just normal!

Sumbolon.