J’étais Paris

I have nothing to add to the horror and revulsion felt all over the world at the terrorist atrocities in Paris. But perhaps the strangest thing about my childhood is that I used to go there all the time. My eldest sister lived in Paris and the rest of us took full advantage of this for the brief time she was there. I can almost smell the Gauloises now as I recall wandering wide-eyed around Montmartre, la Rive Gauche and even Pigalle when it made Soho seem like Surbiton. London and Paris in the 1970s were worlds apart in every way but the EU, the Eurostar and technological progress have brought our two cities much closer together. Never more so than this weekend. Paris is a truly magical city and nobody, least of all the forces of evil, will ever be able to change that.