Absent falling coal

..except I don't think they were French. Not English, either, or at least not originally, but not French.

That aside, they were being sleazy French men.

Saturday, I was sitting having coffee with a friend, and a guy sitting at a nearby table came up to me and said:

"I just wanted to tell you you look fabulous"
"Er, thank you" (thinking, oh god, creep, and watching my friend being shocked/horrified/cracking up)
"May I join you?"
"Er, no, sorry, we're discussing rather private things, sorry"
"OH. Well, may I buy you another coffee?"
"No, I'm fine thanks"
"Oh. Well, I hope you have a good day, and you do look fabulous"
... and he left, and we cracked up.

Today, when I was walking back from the library up High Street, a guy ran after me. The conversation was largely similar, except without the coffee and with handing me an invite to a bible study group and asking if he could "get to know me as a friend". I was a bit more of a stuck record ("I'm sorry, I'm very busy") with this one, but he, like the other one, left me alone after a couple of minutes.

After a year of much worse in Paris, I'm really not that bothered. But why the hell are they all gonig after me? There were leggy blondes in miniskirts waiting to cross the road, why not them (rather than me in battered leather jacket, soft crumply boots, and a black/grey dress)?

I'd forgotten how good - productive, yes, but also enjoyable - sensible working patterns should be. Like doing things a bit in advance, and not staying up to finish them out of sheer bloody-mindedness, but getting up in the morning to do them. I'm now grateful I had that imposed on my in my first two terms, I probably wouldn't have done nearly as well in Mods otherwise. Just a shame it's taken me so long to rediscover it.

In other news - tea is good, especially when I first get up; Paris is still stupidly warm; I think I'm becoming allergic to trousers; I'm wondering which point I started using everything as a mental intellectual springboard to dive into all sorts of obscure references and arguments.