Daily Archives: July 28, 2013

The village and the wide, wide world

Posted on by


Fox-Amphoux roofscape, originally uploaded by jjn1.

Today we went to one of my favourite places in the Var — the tiny hilltop village of Fox-Amphoux. It’s an old Roman village at the intersection of two Roman roads, 540m above sea level with a lovely panoramic view of the surrounding countryside and it’s one of the quietest and most peaceful places I know. It has no shops, one tiny hotel and an artist’s studio. We sat on the steps of the church, in the shade of a nettle tree that is believed to be several hundred years old, and had a delicious picnic.

The village has one claim to fame, though. The clue is in this crude plaque:

Barras_plaque

It’s the birthplace of Paul de Barras, who was one of the leading figures in revolutionary and post-revolutionary France, and was for four years one of the most powerful men in France. (He was the lead member of the five-man French Directory between 1795 and 1799.)

Given the difficulties of communication at the time, one wonders how much the inhabitants of this place ever knew about their famous son. And whether he ever visited it after he’d gone on to greater things.

Climbing Mont Ventoux

Posted on by


The Summit, originally uploaded by jjn1.

A few weeks ago, the Tour de France made one of its occasional forays onto Mont Ventoux in Northern Provence. Since we were passing nearby on our journey south, we decided to drive to the summit — and were stunned by the legions of cyclists who were also heading up, clearly as their personal homage to the Tour stars. It’s a gruelling 18km climb in searing heat, and yet hundreds of cyclists were doing it. And of course many of their families had come along to lend moral and other support, so there was an almighty traffic-jam at the summit, which is 1911m (6269 feet) above sea level. Not for the faint-hearted, believe me.

Edward Snowden’s not the story. The fate of the internet is

Posted on by

This morning’s Observer column.

Repeat after me: Edward Snowden is not the story. The story is what he has revealed about the hidden wiring of our networked world. This insight seems to have escaped most of the world’s mainstream media, for reasons that escape me but would not have surprised Evelyn Waugh, whose contempt for journalists was one of his few endearing characteristics. The obvious explanations are: incorrigible ignorance; the imperative to personalise stories; or gullibility in swallowing US government spin, which brands Snowden as a spy rather than a whistleblower.

In a way, it doesn’t matter why the media lost the scent. What matters is that they did. So as a public service, let us summarise what Snowden has achieved thus far…