Like all of us, I’m housebound. In a bid to allay cabin fever and death by boredom, I’ve taken a front-row seat by the window. With a tip of the chapeau to Colette, who wrote Paris de Ma Fenêtre (Paris from My Window) from her apartment on the Place du Palais Royal during the German occupation of WWII, I’ll begin my random musings on the city from one small corner of London during the `occupation’ by the coronavirus COVID-19.

Charles de Gaulle, a junior minister in a collapsing government and a relatively junior general in an army that was ceasing to exist, landed at Heston airport after a gruelling and perilous flight from Bordeaux, on Monday 17 June 1940. Few of his British hosts knew who he was, Winston Churchill being the exception. During his visits to France, Churchill had immediately noticed “a young, energetic general called de Gaulle.” `(In Gabriel Le Bomin’s biopic of de Gaulle, which features the early days of the two men’s relationship, Churchill is brilliantly played by Tim Hudson – who is also a London Blue Badge Guide!)