a night's sleep really helps

Writing from an internet cafe because my poor MacZine is completely confused. I tried two different places for wifi this morning, and, idiot that I am, I changed various configurations trying to get online, ended up annulling my entire internet access system, I think. So it's cafes until I get to London and can go to the Mac store and/or find a genius. Oh Bruce my own personal genius, where art thou, now so sorely needed? Selfishly rehearsing in Victoria! Heartless fiend.

Roman Polanski saved the day. I was toppling over with jet lag yesterday evening, wanted just to sleep at 6 p.m. with the floor moving under me, but managed to get to a cinema to see "The Ghost Writer" which is a most paranoid, excellent and exciting film. Kept me wide awake seeing plots everywhere. Took a sleeping pill at 10 and slept for 10 hours. En forme today, had a grand creme and a croissant in a great cafe nearby which said it had wifi, and then ... let's not talk about it.

Then I met my friend Michele who is 71 going on 32 - thick black hair and a vital spirit; we meandered, arm in arm, for hours, stopped for a cafe and then for a wonderful 3 course lunch at Polidor, a restaurant in the heart of the Latin Quarter which dates from 1837 - and the toilets, dinosaur feet, have not been updated since! When I joked with the waitress, she said, "They don't want to modernise anything here. It's the Polidor Museum." Well, the toilet, anyway. The food was timeless, and so is Michele. She has gone home, I missed another downpour by ducking in here, and now the sun is shining.

I had several moments earlier where I realized that I was sitting with a dear friend in a beautiful old restaurant, just like a Parisienne. But this time, I'm not walking with my mouth open, moaning every five minutes with pleasure. This is Paris, and I am here. Only two moans of ecstasy today - when I bit into my croissant at breakfast, and tasted my soup - cream of lentil soup with foie gras mixed in - at lunch. Moans. I will go out now and find something else to moan with joy about. It will not be hard.

London tomorrow, where the weather forecast is - snow.