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Hello and welcome to Spectator Out Loud. Each week we choose some of our favorite pieces

from the magazine and ask their writers to read them out loud. Each week we choose some of our favourite pieces from the magazine and ask

their writers to read them out loud. I'm Patrick Gibbons and on the podcast this week. What's

happened to Paris? Walking through its streets, Sean Thomas worries that the City of Light

has lost some of its charm. After an influx of US-style opioids, Cara Kennedy reports on a potential drug crisis in Wales.

Reviewing Lisa Hilton's new book, The Scandal of the Century, Philip Hensher describes how an affair which ruined one woman would be the making of another.

Damien Thompson reflects on his 30-year sobriety and his battle with British chemists. And as the Welsh Parliament

debates a law banning politicians from lying, Toby Young argues it amounts to an assault on parliamentary

sovereignty. Up first, Sean Thomas. You know that feeling when you haven't seen someone for several

years and when you do, you really notice the changes generally

it is a melancholy moment you spot the extra wrinkles the added pounds occasionally it can be

positive gym-toned physique amusing new green and orange hair lots of us had these moments as we

emerged blinking and bewildered from the bunker of COVID.

I've just had this same experience but with a city, Paris.

The French capital is a place that I know well. I must have visited a dozen times over the decades.

I've seen the Louvre Pyramid go up. I've seen Notre Dame go down in flames on TV and a horrified

airport in Vegas. But I have not been to Paris since before the pandemic, so I was keen to check

...