I judge this to be a time for change

Bonjour. This column comes to you from Paris, France, as the Americans might say, in case you mix it up with Paris, Texas or any other Paris. The weather is fair to middling. Sunny spells and scattered showers were not invented by the Irish met office.

As you may have seen on other pages this morning, I was covering the Ian Bailey murder trial in Paris. The only observation to make about the case on this page is that French judges are mad for work. On Monday last, the trial opened at 2.30pm and the court sat until 10.30pm.