off to the Calgary Stampede!

this afternoon, between rainshowers, i was walking across the esplanade of the Invalides when two fighter planes went whipping across the sky, one trailing red exhaust & one blue. i suppose they're warming up for Bastille Day on Saturday. they were followed by several passenger-sized jets, each quite weird-looking & flying very low. maybe they're experimental jets? no idea, though one had a bizarre platform on top of it, another was trailing a huge antennae. and each was accompanied by an entourage of fighter jets, very impressive and noisy--even though most people didn't seem to notice, even when a distressed corgi being walked on the lawns barked valiantly, bouncing up and down on its short legs.

if it keeps raining, i'm going to start preparing for another flood like the one in 1910 (when even the esplanade of the Invalides looked like St. Mark's in Venice).

Journalist Alan Johnson is back in Scotland, after being freed last week. The BBC Gaza correspondent (the only Gaza correspondent) said in a press conference after his release that it was "the strangest thing" to be the focus of a story. And that he's looking forward to getting back to journalism after a few months' roundly deserved rest. For once, a happy ending.