The bar was busy, but not with my besties, so I found a stool in my corner on the terrace and watched the parade on rue des Lombards. A group stood close, and one of them kept looking at me. Couldn’t believe how ugly I am, I expect. He was 40-ish, maybe, slim, with big eyes, the most beautiful teeth I’ve ever seen, they were mesmerising, and handsome. He wore his baseball cap back to front, like the young people, although maybe men should stop doing that before they’re 18.

We nodded bonsoir, and started talking, his voice was mellifluous. He’s English, has lived here for 15 years, but is moving to UAE in a month for a new job. He’s a journalist, geo-politics his speciality. “There’s a lot of geo-politics around at the moment,” I said. There is.

He has many food intolerances: sulphur in wine, pork… He said that his friends don’t ever eat pork, meaning they were Muslim, or Jewish, but they weren’t Jewish. A couple of them, at least, were from Lebanon, and I’m happy to eat pork, indeed, crave unsmoked streaky, which I can’t find in France. “Perhaps Zoroastrian?” I suggested, but no one knew if they eat pork, and we can’t ask Freddie Mercury. He showed me his bracelet which had a small silver cross for a clasp, he is a practising Christian. Between us we only needed an Armenian to make a human illustration of the Old City in Jerusalem.

I said I’d lived in Tel Aviv for a year. I used to be more hesitant about saying this, sometimes when I tell people there is a second’s pause before they take that look off their face. Israel is a contentious subject, for some. It’s important that I don’t hide it, but it’s terrible that I feel self-conscious saying what I am, and I know other Jews feel the same, but he and his group were neutral on the matter. They left looking for a Syrian restaurant. Perhaps I’m too sensitive, but there are many people these days who say the most terrible things about Jews, even if they use the word Zionist.

The next evening I heard an almighty racket outside my flat: there was a march on rue Étienne Marcel protesting, of course, Israel. I went to look. It stretched from Place Victories to Boulevard de Sebastopol, around a kilometre. It surprised me, I don’t know why, that over 60% of the marchers were women. There were a few signs held up about genocide, and there was chanting about Israel being assassins, or some such nonsense. Much of both was, oddly, in English. Intifada is, I think, Arabic. I wished I imported keffiyehs, and people can believe what they like, however wrong they are.

Specifically, the protesters were objecting to a report from the day before of a 2000 lb bomb being dropped on a refugee camp near Rafa, killing many Gazans. The story has since been shown to be untrue in all of its parts, but when did that matter? As we know, a lie can travel around the world while the truth is pulling up its underpants. It is galling, to say the least, that the word of rapists, kidnappers, and baby killers is believed before that of Jews.

Still, there seemed a lot less spittle-flecked hatred than at the march’s equivalents in London, Berlin and the US. There was more smugness in the air than rage, but protesters are always very pleased with themselves, for being able to see the ‘truth’, like anything can be reduced so simply, especially in this context. There was no mention of the hostages, or the atrocities of 7 October, and, really, there has to be. We, at least, have not forgotten them, nor will we.

The next day the Spanish Foreign Secretary asked ministers to stop accusing Israel of genocide because it allows Gazans to rock up to the Spanish consulate demanding asylum, and the consulate is obliged to put the applicants on a plane to Spain. Everyone (almost) seems to take Gaza’s side, but no one wants to give them refuge. They are useful pawns for Iran in their forever war with Israel and the West, it’s a bit like when someone goes out with you to get back at their ex. The war won’t end easily, it’s too profitable for the worst of them as they stuff their hilltop villas and endless terror tunnels with aid billions. Palestinians need better leaders, as do Israelis.

There’s too much news around at the moment. The propaganda bot farms have been working hard, but maybe it’s all done by AI these days. WordPress now has an AI function. Perhaps if I was 15 I’d take it in my stride, but at 65 it seems terrifying, because the dark cloud of anxiety that hovers above my head isn’t heavy enough already.

The AI button gives me a slightly different opinion every time I check it, which is often. It said this post ‘...shows a vivid description of a social interaction and raises interesting points about food intolerances and personal identities. The tone and flow of the writing could be improved for a more engaging read.’ That’s telling me, but I’d be more impressed if its style was less clunky.

It suggested I improve the title, and gave ‘Insights on Geo-Politics, Food Intolerances, and Personal Identities‘ as an alternative. Snappy. It offered to generate an image and produced a street of zombie silhouettes, not too different, but not better, that a photo I used for a post called Ghosts a few years ago; it didn’t look real and I prefer mine. Anyway, I won’t, in a million years, understand how an algorithm can have an opinion, and it agrees: ‘Keep in mind that an algorithm’s opinion can be disregarded, and trust your own judgment.’ Merci for that, and the same goes for the anti-Zionists, or antisemites, or whatever they call themselves..