As he plodded on his camel steadily through the dry heat, he came upon an oasis.  Approaching the desert spring, the traveler was surprised to find three brothers weeping profusely.

Through conversation with the mourning brothers, the traveler discovered their father had recently passed away.  The source of the tears was the brother’s inability to satisfy their fathers’ last wish.

The father had given strict instructions that the inheritance of his estate be divided in such a way that the oldest received one half, the second received one third, and the youngest received one ninth of the father’s estate.

The brothers had successfully divided the rest of their father’s property, but were unable to do so with the camels.  The father had left them 17 camels, and, try as they may, the brothers could not distribute the camels according to father’s wishes.

The traveler considered the dilemma and then offered the brothers a solution.  He insisted they receive his camel as a gift.  After much conversation and many attempts at refusal, the brothers relented to the travelers’ demands and received the kindness of his gift.

With 18 camels, the brothers were able to properly divide the inheritance and satisfy their father’s wishes.  The older brother received one half of the herd and took his 9 camels.  The second brother received one third of the herd and took his 6 camels.  The youngest brother received one ninth of the herd and took his 2 camels.

Surprisingly, 9 camels plus 6 camels plus 2 camels equals 17 camels.  With the inheritance properly distributed, the traveler was able to take his camel and continue on his journey.

What solution do you have to offer to the desperate situations around you?   Are you riding on the 18^th camel?

Answers on the back of a 500 euro note please to Villa Roquette

PS – the answer is rather annoying, but the 500 euro notes are very welcome

After retreating three years ago to heal my wounds from a grievous mauling, I am again entering the jousts and offering homes for sale in our part of Languedoc.

Working with an honorable man through the long established estate-agency Coast and Country in Mougins, we are rebuilding our website SouthernFrance.com to give information and services for property buyers, sellers and renters in Languedoc.

My modest stillness and humility will now be augmented – so come one come all to France – I am here ready.

A year away from the Hurly Burly of Internet an a couple of months back in and it is a can of worms.

So I am testing some old ideas of “popularity”, for example This is a link to a search engine which is listing our apartments and BandB in France – if dear Mr Google sees this page – then he may follow that link and he may think it is an important site and give it a big kiss.

Or he/she may think I am a horrid trickster an cast me forever into oblivion.

Ah… the slings and arrows….

I don’t suppose I will ever meet more than a tiny fraction of my Facebook ‘friends’ – if I did write to some of the more interesting sounding people on my wall, I assume that they would assume, at best, that I am a sad and sorry specimen (no comments necessary) – but the team atEnjoYourParis seem genuinely welcoming and offer a friendly service – I may even contact some of them when I am next in Paris

I am spending a quiet Sunday thinking about this as I was shown some interesting technology last week which is making me mull over some of the ‘indispensable’ things in our lives today. I see from my email that more people I already know write to me through Facebook than direct to my email address – more – the majority of these people are emailing me from their iphone or blackberry.

I have a problem with phones, I find it difficult, often impossible, to use one. I am happy to meet anyone any time anywhere – I have met and spoken to Princes, Dukes, gangsters and muggers – I have even argued with bank managers in their marble pleasure domes and enjoyed the experience – but, I cannot talk to people on the phone.

I liked my iphone as it could do most stuff without me actually having to speak to someone. Texting should be the answer, but I like the clunk and speed of a keyboard (as long as it is an Apple one) – I know I am a tiny minority (read stupid) there must be a word for phone phobia – just looked it up, it is called phone-phobia or telephobia, about 20,000 googlies) – so the melting together of technologies is great for me.

What I saw is a pocket sized solar powered Uninterrupted Power Supply – this would energise a phone, laptop, kindle etc – although small, it has lithium batteries, so is not feather-weight. What i am sure is eveloving is just one product – basically a phone, with keyboard (laser projection perhaps) – all my applications and storage in a “cloud” – a screen which emulates a book, like the Kindle and a detachable cover which acts as a solar panel/collector/back up battery.

I doubt I will like speaking on phones though.

As things speeded up and storage got plentiful and cheap, we could send out newsletters – blogs evolved – advertising was added – the Internet society generously gave open source blogging platforms, Drupal, Spip Typepad, WordPress – then came, the naming of names, social networking – MySpace (remember that), Youtube – now Facebook and Twitter are the el-supremos.

Two years ago I spent a lot of time researching the social networking scene – I planned a site of sites – a mashup of services and joined over 150 different social networks – I still get charming ladies asking me to be their very best friends ever – tongue in cheek, I called the site Portable Soup – a satisfying mixture of nourishing ingredients – (OK 200 years old and tasted horrid) – I still believe the next step or three in Internet development is a mash of information, you put in a couple of pointers and are delivered a total, correct and relevant result from the zillions of extant infobytes gleaning your wishes into a virtual hamburger.

Meanwhile a lot of very nice and clever people are already supplying parts of this future – I picked up on a Facebook comment from Raj Anand
from his bog at Kwiqq about Tripbod .

I love the idea – for the price of a Starbuck (OK two Starbucks) visiting somewhere will be more real and your valuable time wisely used. if you are traveling is is worth visiting Tripbod and if you want to get a glimpse of the future, follow http://blog.kwiqq.com/ – I am not associated with either in any way.

Bonne Route

The wine varieties are not the same as table grapes, sour and sharp – but here and there a generous landowner would plant refreshing eating grapes for the pleasure of his workers – along with figs (17 varieties), pomegranate, quince and pears, there is a bounty of fruit. Blackberries (the fruit) are plentiful, but in this climate tend to be small and bitter.

Today was probably the last dog walk where I could have plenty of grapes to refresh myself – at the turning point of our walk, I discovered a row of vines with ten or twelve different varieties of eating grapes – today there was just about enough – tomorrow I doubt there will be any – still, next come the figs – it must be Autumn

I started the Internet sites because I had a dream – to teach Zone System, black and white photography, from our home with accommodation in the South of France – I got sidetracked and ended up making websites and renting the accommodation for the planned students as vacation rentals – it was a lot of fun.

I still have that dream.