Da Vinci drama before the actual film

This should make for interesting reflexion on history, art & plagiarism:

Da Vinci trial pits history against art
Nothing less than the future of Western literature is at stake in the High Court tomorrow. Or so the publisher of The Da Vinci Code, the money-spinning blockbuster by Dan Brown, is expected to argue in a ground-breaking trial.
Brown, whose tale of clerical conspiracy and murder has become the bestselling hardback adult novel of all time, is accused of plundering his plot from a non-fiction work called The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail

Historians Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who co-wrote the book with Henry Lincoln, claim that Brown plagiarised 'the whole jigsaw puzzle' of their decade's worth of research - that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had a child, founding a bloodline that was protected by the Knights Templar.

The Observer, Sunday February 26, 2006
Read the rest of this article

Tongue-smacking sour

A craving for something sour can be as maddening as a craving for chocolate. It sneaks up on you while your mind is on a different subject altogether.

Then the craving makes a little nook for itself in a corner of your mind, and from that nook, it drills and hammers its way to your tongue, until all you can taste is the tangy sour-salty taste that is actually not there.

I found* a wonderful recipe to fit such situations: chopped green lime with sliced green chillies drowned in olive oil with salt and a little pepper. Spread that mixture on slices of baguette and you have the best Sunday afternoon snack you could dream of.

PS: I believe this will not be to the taste of everyone. Tastebuds are divided between those that understand half-ripe mangoes & oranges sprinkled with salt, and those that don't.

*Two of my aunts mentioned it one afternoon.

The wild world of Michelin stars

C''est sur l'île Rodrigues, un caillou de l'océan Indien balayé par les alizés où il séjourne, qu'Olivier Roellinger, cuisinier des Maisons de Bricourt à Cancale (Ille-et-Vilaine), a reçu confirmation de son entrée dans le club, entrouvert pour lui seul cette année, des restaurants trois étoiles. Alerté par les indiscrétions d'usage sur l'imminence de cette promotion, Olivier Roellinger, coureur d'océans, n'a pas différé son voyage. Un exercice dont il est friand chaque année pour se ressourcer au contact des "beautés sauvages, rustiques et âpres" de la nature sous les tropiques.

Cette distinction prend pour lui un certain relief, car, cuisinier atypique et d'une extrême sensibilité, il est donc le seul à faire son entrée dans le cercle fermé des titulaires de trois macarons, dont le nombre de 26 reste stable. En effet, son entrée est compensée par la sortie de Lucas-Carton, dont on se souvient qu'Alain Senderens, son chef, avait décidé au printemps dernier "de rendre ses étoiles au Michelin". Il s'agissait, affirmait-il, de pouvoir se consacrer à une cuisine "sans chichis". N'avait-il pas assuré que la pression entraînée par l'attribution des étoiles l'empêchait de proposer des sardines à sa clientèle ?

(...)
Après les turbulences créées par la disparition de Bernard Loiseau voilà trois ans, les fuites et les loupés du Guide l'an passé, l'équipe de Jean-Luc Naret, son nouveau directeur, paraît avoir repéré quelques-uns des mouvements de fond qui vont agiter le monde turbulent des casseroles.

Le Monde, 22 février 2006

Rang De Basanti

Rang De Basanti, the rage of 2006 so far in Indian Cinema. The article in the link above is a good indication of the impact of the film. The music is unusual to say the least and the story apparently simple. I came out thinking that if politicians had watched the film before it came, they might have banned it.

Not that it's that controversial. Rather that it hands back some sort of power to action to the hands of the youth.

Then again, politicians well versed in the art of appeasement know that oppression is the best trigger to revolution. Maybe this film is simply one way to channel today's frustration through other means than actual hard-hitting rebellion. But I really enjoyed it. In the end, it's up to us to know how to keep our thinking free.

For a less political viewpoint, have a look here.

Ah! Ces Français!

Did you know that when French people say 1.421, they actually mean one thousand four hundred and twenty-one? And when they say 1,421, they mean one decimal four two one. They say "un virgule quatre deux un"

Obviously now, the British use 1,421 to mean one thousand four hundred and twenty-one and when they write 1.421, it's one decimal four two one.

We can imagine the complications that could arise from British & French writing to each other about money. E.g. "Cher Monsieur Stuffton, je suis heureux de vous transmettre par virement bancaire le montant de 3.421623 euros. Veuillez me confirmer réception. Monsieur Dupont"

And the British guy simply not understanding what the fuss is all about. There is apparently a convention now, and that should help the French, but not the British.

A cloudy sea

This was taken one Sunday afternoon at Flic-en-Flac two weeks ago.

Chinese New Year

Last week was Chinese New Year.

Mauritius has a sizeable community of people whose ancestors came from China three generations back. Those Mauritians actively celebrate the festival here

Throughout the week, there were echoes of fat red firecrackers everywhere. In the background through the windows at work, far-off at night before we went to bed. In the morning, the malls (what we call 'arcades' here) were strewn with red petals from those crackers.

On Sunday morning, I chanced upon a Lion Dance. The lion jumped and scampered in front of the Chinese store, to the beat of cymbals wielded by two silk-clad Chinese Cultural Association artists. It was one of those joyful, angry and scary dances where all negative energies are purged, and as far as I know, evil spirits chased off.

We got cakes from friends who had celebrated: one called wax-cake which looks a little like...wax but tastes really good (this does not sound good, I know, but it is), then salty snacks, and also cakes made from rice flour and sesame seeds. And, well, a public holiday, even if it was already Sunday.

The view from behind the wheel

No, not mine. The taxi driver's view from behind the wheel. As you can guess, I've been cabbing a lot to and from work.

So one of my openings to the world outside of my ceramic-tiled flat-screened workplace is conversations with taxi-drivers.

The main villain in the story is the government. The main hero is the "small man" eking out a life for himself and his children by driving people around.

The government offered free public transport to old people and students, one of their greatest offences against taxi drivers. God knows it's now a choice for pensioners to stay home or travel around our big country. It was never a choice between a cab and a bus in the first place. But anyway...bad, bad.

The government raised the price of petrol. Taxi drivers need to raise their rates. And become less competitive. And lose clients.

The government allows lorries to go round belching dark smoke but enforces the law on cabs getting regular servicing. And this injustice hurts.

As you can tell, I find this humorous, because I'm able to see the other side. But to those people hoping that their children will get scholarships to study abroad, trying to go and fetch their kids from private tuition and also make sure their passenger reaches home on time, worried about the state of traffic on today's streets because if they have an accident they lose one month's income or more, it's no fun.

So this is Mauritius at the moment, through a taxi driver's eyes. But we all agree that another election (our last was last year, a regular 5 years after the previous one) now is not the solution, and that whatever money the nation has is better invested into future projects than another campaign. At least it would seem that, somehow, we've got our priorities right. Let's hope.