Paris

was fun, exhausting, and it was great to see that even on the scale of a world championship event organizers can manage to screw up pretty big. But there was great fencing to see, and quite some surprises.

Things I'll remember of Satur/Sabreday: the American Homer who was up against a French opponent twice in a row (first Apithy, and what a match that was!, then Lopez), which means having the whole of the Grand Palais, as in hundreds of Frenchies cheering their fencer on and pin-drop silence when you score a point, and just marching on. That's quite some mental strength there. And of course the beautiful final: the German Limbach (who's 194cm but uses this length with surprising elegance and explosiveness) against the Korean Won (who can jump impressively high, probably over Limbach if he really wants to) and Won won.

Spent Sunday in my favorite Parisian museum, l'Hotel National Des Invalides, though the expo on the Tsars was a bit thin. But for all you digiblips that like to see weapons of all sorts, real fighting ones to beautifully inlaid hunting weapons and honorary sabres and uniforms and half the collection of Vauban's architectural models (the other half is kept in Lille) and also a good expo on the world wars: get there early, and you can easily while away a whole day in whatever period you like, and your ticket remains valid for the day (so you can leave and do something else if you're the kind of digiblip that could actually get enough of weaponry).

Monday was Epee day at the Championships, and though not my weapon, saw some great stuff too, even if our favorites managed to shoot themselves in the foot whenever they could. Had to leave before the finale to catch our Thalys, and then found out that the finalists we predicted did everything the other way around. Silly epeists...

On the writing front: on the train to the international station of Brussels Cow Watcher handed me an excellent solution for a problem that came out of something it thought up for part 3 in the Barynn trilogy and which has been bugging me for a very long time. Alas not an easy and simple solution, but damnit, a good one.