The City of Alight

As has become traditional, my decrepit semi-comatose body roused itself for its annual appearance on the Mark Steyn Cruise only to implode immediately upon disembarkation. So I am playing catch-up here, even though there is nothing much to catch up to, only the same old same old, albeit accelerating toward the final civilisational dénouement: today, a Canadian province votes on whether to hold a binding secession referendum; an Australian MP is in critical condition after being deliberately mown down by a constituent; and a UK woman has been marked down by HM Constabulary as having "mental health issues" because she chose to vacation in Israel. Meanwhile, on the Continent, the mostly peaceful Gallic "scuffles" have spread to Italy:

Last I heard, the BBC was assuring us that the French "education" "protests" were something to do with "children" "wanting our voices to be heard". Next thing you know, the flaming spire of the beautiful 150-year-old Limoges Town Hall (which survived the national evolution from Second Empire to Fifth Republic to First Emirate) was tumbling into the street. I visited a deputy mayor or some such there during France's terrible summer of 2016 and thought it had the most beautiful staircase of any municipal building I had ever been in. Ashes now, and I doubt anyone will ever be charged with its destruction.

Whatever the national mood might be said to be, President Macron failed to embody it, even after being persuaded to take a ten-minute break from his private box at the Céline Dion gig. Instead, in an unreassuring address, he professed himself befuddled: