It's so darned hot under the eaves today that I almost wish the chill in the tone of a brief letter from Apple in answer to my challenge to Cupertino would leak out of the mailbox to chill down the room.
The defective new PowerBook at issue is back in its box, so Marianne can discover it for herself. When she opens it, I hope the work I've done will be compensation for the news that it must go back to Apple for a couple of days.
The mail from Mr Gauthier wasn't "posted" until America was up and at work, but I don't know whether the Executive Relations man at Apple France, consulted California.
In any event, he suggested I take the Mac across town to AppleCare, where it will be fixed within 48 hours.
I hope he didn't take my story personally, once read. Gauthier has always been courteous and efficient during my very few dealings with him.
However, my rant here and at Blogcritics brought me a mixed bag of more correspondence than I'd imagined, with a slender majority of mails from people who haven't had my kind of problem or who report trouble with new Macs roughly in the same proportion or lower, as figures I've had from dealers and technicians.
Others were less lucky.
From Brazil, Rainer sent me to a report on Applelinks, which helpfully provides the big picture for a temporary fix with a business card on a fairly similar machine.
I've told Apple I'm not posting the initial response straight away. It answers none of my questions. I spelled out even more clearly, I hope, that I've got neither reason nor any wish to undermine the company's reputation, but have other facts -- and a handful of fancies -- gathered over the years which explain why the article was not a gratuitous, angry outburst.
There I'm happy almost to leave things, but if this reply of mine brings a fuller response, I'll post that rather than the one that tells us nothing we didn't know already.
zzz
The cat scratched me in thanks for doing for what Marianne's mum suggested. She might be able gently to stroke her with an ice cube in a plastic bag, but not me.
I reckon Kytie, who no longer objects to being sprayed occasionally like the geraniums, will be happy to go home once Catherine is able to fetch her. Here, she has taken up permanent residence in the bathroom, emerging only to eat.
Her chosen spot is right between the toilet bowl and a cat litter I can't put anywhere else, which doesn't help when My Condition urges.
I've warned Marianne, who's decided to come tonight but won't venture into the furnace of a suburban train this afternoon since she doesn't have to, that the flat has now become the heat-trap we were told to get ready for by the meteorologists and no longer gets cooler during the night.
The end of their holiday down in the northern part of Provence was spoilt for Catherine by heatstroke, two days in bed -- and she's a cautious woman, knows the rules.
If every summer is like this, which wouldn't surprise me now, will architects rethink the famous zinc roofs of Paris (big picture) from a pleasing gallery by Francis Toussaint)?
The domed arcologies ('halfbakery' - nice name for an "ideas" site) of several near-future "historians" could be what we're going to need soon.
zzz
On My Condition, I've fixed up an appointment for an abdominal echography. Tomorrow morning, when the temperature is supposed to start falling. I don't want the situation to stagnate, like the alarming white blood cell count, still far too high.
The wind is hot in the shade outside, more so than yesterday, which saw a trip to Sainte-Anne's, a few stops away near the Glacière M-station.
I went with a friend to the neuro-surgery department for a check of his own at what in less-PC times would have been called the lunatic asylum on Health Street. The rendez-vous was at the worst time for taking a sometimes overground line and the trip was gruelling for my friend, but the hospital itself is like an uncovered arcology of its own, with long, verdant well-shaded alleys which were almost cool.
Apart from the striking, friendly modernity inside the pavillons, each named presumably for a renowned physician (I hadn't heard of most of them), we soon noticed a detail.
The alleys bore such names as Hector Berlioz, Gérard de Nerval (French site) and, yes, there was a Van Gogh.
I thought Allée Franz Kafka was stretched a bit far. Marianne was glad to hear there was also an Edgar Allan Poe (not on the map), whose work she reads more than ever I did.
3:21:07 PM link 
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