I’ve changed. Don’t worry, I’m still gorgeous and fabulous and magnificent in every way, but I’ve changed. From being a professional optician, a football fan, political critic and devotee of all the arts (as long as its not ballet, opera or… or art), who happened to be Jewish; I’m now a professional Jew who works, likes football and tolerates politics. Got no fucking time left for arts; being Jewish takes up too many hours. Its a big commitment. And that’s without ever opening a prayer book. God forbid. What a fabulously ironic phrase.

So, hot on the trail of venting my dismay, disgust and disappointment about ambulance-gate, (for which, I’m glad to say, 2 arrests have now been made. I’m not so glad that the police have refused my request for just 10 minutes in the cell with them, just me and my baseball bat), last night I attended a lecture. Which wasn’t really a lecture, more a ‘conversation’. With Natasha Hausdorff. She’s the head of UK Lawyers for Israel and wonderfully outspoken protector of the Jews from people talking rubbish. Because she’s an international law barrister and just tells all the stupid, BBC-inspired sheep, what the words they band about really mean and how the ‘occupied territories’ are actually Israel, according to not just laws, but British laws. And how the police have the power to stop genocidal chants like ‘from the River to the Sea’ but are restrained by a government in fear of losing its not insubstantial left wing from doing so.

Did I say she’s clever? Might have missed that. But most importantly, she is, like me, exceptionally beautiful. And ‘we’ (there were 200 people there) spoke about antisemitism. Because it affects everything. Particularly now.

And, as if to illustrate that very point, the event was held at JW3. The Jewish community centre on the Finchley Road in Hampstead. A fabulous, purpose-built facility and a great ‘space’. They have lectures, concerts, comedians, movies; they have lessons in everything from Spanish to Spanish Omelettes, French to French cuisine, all sorts of things, especially relating to food.

And outside were guards. Several of them. Metal detectors in hand, handbag searches mandatory, 24 hours a day. The centre spends £600,000 a year on security. How much more entertainment could be had for that money? How many more courses, or mobility sessions for people a bit older than me, or cookery classes, FFS, if they could save that vast sum?

But its simply not an option. As proven on Sunday night just up the road in Golders Green. You simply can’t be too vigilant. There is so much ‘hate’, and just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx