Pierre Gemayel, the Lebanese Industry Minister was shot yesterday in broad daylight, at 34 years old. Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB colonel and defector was poisoned in early November, he has been in a critical condition since Sunday and doctors at one of London's top hospitals still don't know for sure what poison was used on him. Robert Altman is dead.
On a personal note, my very best friend L is moving to Hong Kong in a few weeks. We've lived in the same city since we were 18 (give or take a year) and I'm going to miss her enormously. She is one of those people who you end up laughing with, even if you're the foulest of moods to start with. She's been wildly successful in her career, which is now taking her to Asia, and of course I wish her the best of luck, but I can't help feeling a bit sorry for myself that she's leaving Paris and me behind.
Now, I'm not one to paint a gloomy picture of the world, but doesn't that make rather a lot of bad news for one week? Plus it has been raining everyday. I'm sure I'd be forgiven for not being as chipper as I manage to be most of the time.
Then this evening on my way home I saw a man cycling in the pouring rain with a bunch of roses in his backpack. I have to say it warmed my soul a little.
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Reminds me of the time, very early in my Paris days, when I got on a strike-hit RER at 6-ish one crowded and grumpy evening. We all stood there, jostling for space, feeling squeezed and mistreated and pretty misanthropic as we waited for the train to decide to leave. And then a man got on with an enormous bunch of flowers - and a space opened magically and instantly, big enough to take him and for the flowers not to get squashed, like the Red Sea retreating before Moses. (Nearly) everyone raised a smile, and the rest of the journey was spent in astonishing good humour.
I always think of that day when I need a lift out of Parisian gloom.
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