Hallelulah!
For the second time this year, braver Parisians were eating their lunch outside on the café terraces.
North of the river, where business took me, about a dozen policemen were raiding some sort of school. Across the street, scores of young protesters were relaxing while more police watched them, their 'No to the the search!' banner drooping unattended as everybody stood about chatting in bright sunshine.
Nobody could be bothered to tell me what was going on and I didn't push it. If this was their idea of a fun afternoon, fine.
Even underground, people were behaving in an almost civilised fashion, despite the renewed crush in the Métro now that the school holidays are over.
And I got a radiant smile from Ms "I'm almost married" Cécile, one of the belles du quartier.
That's what she told me a while back when I asked her out.
"Maybe Monday?" she said. "I'm not working then. But I'm almost married. I thought you ought to know that."
Now that was the kind of answer I like: straight to the point.
The only thing wrong with such a day off was being woken ridiculously early by a pressing reminder that the Condition, if very much better than last year, remains determined to disturb me on occasion, just as the doctors warned.
Once the pigeons realised I was unavoidably up, they came flocking.
I think I've been unwise.
A family in the building across the garden out the back has put up a bird feeder, but last month I noticed that the pigeons inevitably get to it before all the smaller ones we'd like to keep in town.
Being unable and disinclined to shoot them, I've taken to crumbling up left-overs from Paris's N° 1 bakery every morning and putting the bread on my windowsill with the aim, obviously, of drawing the pigeons away from the seed.
This plan has worked only too well. For the first two or three days, they dared not approach until I was out of sight, but now they've realised that I don't plan to kill them and have even begun inviting their friends.
"Poison the buggers," somebody suggested at the Factory, but I can't bring myself to do that. It's hard when you're almost on speaking terms. One entertaining place, Le Scarabée, warned last year that Paris's sky-rats were mutating.
I know they're pests ... but so am I.
"Original Email sent to various Hotels in Austria:
Dear Sir,
I've been a huge fan of the Crocodile Dundee movies since I was a little kid.
I have already booked my flight to Austria. I plan to arrive in a town called Vienna in December. Do you have any vacancies for the first week of December?
I plan to see kangaroos, Koalas and the Sydney Opera House. Are the Austrian Aborigines a friendly people? Do you know if the Red Kangaroo is extinct in Austria or not?
In closing let me just say 'Good Day, mate' and 'Throw another shrimp on the barbie for me!'
Sincerely,
Lawrence Silverman"
This particular pest -- "bothering people from Denmark to Brazil" -- posted the replies at 'greencats' (via 'growabrain').
9:02:20 PM link 
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