Entretemps, autres qu’avec des lettres écrites par un membre de leur cabinet, y aura-t-il un seul gouvernement français pour s’occuper réellement de la catastrophe sanitaire que représente pour l’habitant lambda le scandale de l’eau potable en Guadeloupe ? Vue d’une luxueuse chambre d’hôtel,la Guadeloupe, c’est “très jolie” aussi, je n’en doute pas. Mais un seul aperçu d’une des “stations d’épuration des eaux” confirme qu’il vaut mieux se trouver très très haut dans l’espace et très très détaché des vraies questions pour jouer à “ma fusée est meilleure que la tienne”. )

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En passant, et sans rapport évident avec ce qui précède, un bref extrait de Tip of the Tongue de Peter Brook (dans ma traduction): “Je ne citerai qu’un des mots fréquemment employé en français, qui est particulièrement intriguant. “Normalement”. Ce qui semble exprimer une tendance anti-rationaliste que les français seraient peu enclins d’admettre. “Où est…la gare ?…ou le café ?” – “Normalement, vous répond-on, vous descendez la rue vous tournez à droite et normalement c’est sur votre gauche.” Une suggestion extraordinaire selon laquelle nous vivons dans un monde anormal où, durant la nuit, ils auraient pu être déplacés de l’autre côté de la rue. L’usage quotidien, routinier, de normalement comme si nous étions encore porteurs d’un monde pre-cartésien dans lequel l’anormal trouvait place.”

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Seen from the porthole in his Unity rocket, billionaire A declared that the earth was “really pretty”. Billionaire B’s team immediately informed the media that his Blue Origin rocket climbs higher and that its windows are bigger. Maybe the simplest solution would be for an impartial panel to measure length and width of the these two gentlemen’s virile member, thus settling the issue once and for all. Should be added to their number the billionaire who recently promised to throw millions at problems left unsolved by governments, because I see no reason to applaud representatives of a financial regime that has completely phagocytized the political regime, demanding only one thing from it: the maintenance and development of barriers limiting the rights of all, except their own.

Meanwhile, other than letters written by a member of their staff, will there be a single French government to actually tackle the sanitary disaster of the potable water scandal for the ordinary resident of Guadeloupe? Seen from a luxury hotel room, Guadeloupe is also “very pretty”, I don’t doubt it for a second. But even a single look at one of the “water treatment plants” on the island serves as confirmation that it’s best to be far far up in space and very very detached from the real issues to play at “my rocket is better than yours”.)

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In passing, and with no obvious relationship to what came before, a brief excerpt from Peter Brook’s Tip of the Tongue: “I will just quote one very often-used word in French that is specially intriguing. “Normalement’ (‘normally’). This seems to express an anti-rationalist streak that the French would be pained to admit. “Où est …la gare ?…ou le café ?” “Normalement, comes the answer, vous descendez la rue, vous tournez à droite et normalement, c’est sur votre gauche.” (Normally, you go down the road, turn right and, normally, it is on your left’.) A wondrous suggestion that we are living in an abnormal world, where during the night, it could have been spirited to the opposite side of the road. The common everyday use of normalement as though we still carry in us memories of a pre-Cartesian world where the abnormal fell into place.”*

*Peter Brook, Tip of the Tongue, Reflections on Language and Meaning, Nick Hern Books, London 2017