Breathing again. I'm back. What an awful end of week it has been.

For the time being, and if you are a Web content provider, you have three choices:

Le monde daté du 11 décembre dit en bas de page 9 que F. Bayrou a été magnanime à l'égard d'A. Juppé en disant "L'idée qu'il faudrait faire porter à Alain Juppé tout seul responsabilité de ce qui est arrivé est une idée que je ne partage pas.". Warf!!!! Yves Bordenave, qui a écrit ce papier, est visiblement un débutant en langue de bois. Il faut clairement comprendre "J'associe pleinement J. Chirac à A. Juppé quant à la responsabilité de ce qui est arrivé.".... Faut tout leur expliquer, hein.

The keywords of the day are: Composer (surprising isn't it ?), images, size and XBL. The corollary keywords of the day are: test, re-test, re-re-test, and so on. Resulting keyword of the day is: YAY!!! Stay tuned.

Before you flame me, read this:

If you have more knowledge of world's geography than G.W. Bush, you have already heard of the Aral sea. The Aral sea is dying, thanks to the Soviets who used the water of all the rivers going to the Aral sea to irrigate the coton fields. Massive environmental destructions, as always.

But that's not the most frightening about the Aral sea ! In its center, there is an island called Resurrection Island. It keeps growing because the water level keeps decreasing. On the western coast of Aral, the soviets had built an R&D biological center and, of course, they studied biological weapons. After the end of Soviet Union, the scientists have stored the remaining germs on Resurrection Island, in sealed barrels immerged in chlorinated water. They stored there 100 tons of anthrax. This was officially reported by american experts who visited the site in the late 90's and by a french medical newspaper "Le Quotidien du Médecin"; the newspaper was quoted by book author René Cagnat in his book "La rumeur des steppes". Important detail, René Cagnat is a former french diplomat, a very reliable source; he is now retired but stayed in Central Asia. He went there. He saw, he knows.

As I said above, the island is expanding, it will soon be linked to the coast. And some cases of animal anthrax have been reported on the island, showing that the barrels are not hermetic enough. Oh, did I mention that the Aral sea is in one the most explosive areas of the world, just a few hundreds of kms away from Afghanistan for instance, where misery is so high that everything can be sold and bought ? Everything. Even germs.

Hey, the reports mention anthrax barrels. But what else ?...

By the way, if you're a french reader, don't use the word anthrax in French, because it does not have the same meaning. English anthrax is French charbon. French anthrax is totally different and is linked to furuncles.

Maria, Andrea, Laure, Christophe and I have decided to test/taste one super-restaurant per year. We started last saturday with "Le Relais Louis XIII", rue des Grands Augustins in Paris (Joe Francis, if you read this, this is 30 meters away from the restaurant where we had dinner together last time you were in Paris with Maggie).

• the place is just marvelous: it's the place where Louis XIII learned about the death of his father and therefore became King of France. The portrait of his mother close to the entrance is only 400 years old. It's cosy, classic style, large tables, no noise from the street. Very nice place.
• service is just remarkable: the waiters are all friendly and smiling, they are not as distant as they use to be in french elitist restaurants. The wine waiter recommended us a not too expensive wine that I will remember, de-li-cious. The service is never intrusive and always answers very fast to your requests.
• food is excellent, quality is top, tastes are yummy. And quantity is great: to tell the truth, I could not finish the main dish !
• price is a bit expensive if you don't choose the lunch menu. With champagne, white wine, red wine, lunch à la carte (mise-en-bouche, soup, starters, main dish, cheese and pastries) and coffee, we peaked at 168 euros per person... That's why we are going to test one restaurant only per year.
• what we preferred: potatoe cooked with truffles and caviar, ravioli of lobster and foie gras, roasted duck (1/2 duck per person !!!), roe deer steak and all pastries; and as I said above, the wines were exceptional.