I am going to Paris, as one will, but what is unexpected is that I am bringing cheese. To Paris. The cheeseman at Neal’s Yard today was French, even, which brings the whole thing full circle.

“Don’t believe what you read in the paper,” he said, as he handed over the white-wrapped parcels, and I asked myself if he was referring to the myth that they make good cheese in France. “It is not as they say,” he said, “and Paris is not fire everywhere.”

“Very good,” I said, and wondered how I’d missed the thing about Paris being on fire. I came home to see what the Internet had to offer. Le Monde’s Web site says sixty-two million Europeans have tried cannabis. Le Nouvel Observateur reports that Gary Glitter has been charged for paedophilia in Vietnam.

I’ll be on the five o’clock train as planned, then, cocking a snook at the debilitating winter chill. I might stay in all day and read, but, dang it, I will be staying in all day and reading IN PARIS.