Sorry about last week’s Pariscope walk. That was a bit of a bust because it rained all weekend and Leo was sick with a cold. So we wound up staying at home, playing with the cats, and eating scrambled eggs. It wouldn’t have been very interesting to broadcast that live.

But today, for the first time, we’re going to use this Periscope thingamajigger to do real journalism. Because today is May Day — the International Day of Laborers and the Working Classes promoted by the labor movement, anarchists, socialists, and communists, as well as an ancient European spring holiday — celebrated without irony and with a large cohort of riot police everywhere in the world but America, where we will never be so over the Cold War that we can use the phrase “International Workers Day” with a straight face. The weather report says it will be sunny and fine, so this should be a colorful day indeed for journalists such as ourselves.

May Day’s an extremely significant holiday in France. As important as Thanksgiving in the US. And almost everywhere in the world, May Day means journalists can sell stuff. What kind of stuff? No one knows, but even no news is worth a few bucks: “May Day was celebrated peacefully in Paris” is considered news. (That’s probably the only news we’ll get out of the day, but it’s still news. Guarantee you it will not be celebrated peacefully somewhere else. Probably Istanbul. I remember one year when the May Day celebrations there were, to everyone’s astonishment, totally peaceful — and that was news.)

Okay, before I sort out Talleyrand for all of you — which I will do today, I solemnly vow — I just wanted to point out that astonishingly generous Ricochet members have pushed my campaign to crowd-fund and self-publish a new book about Europe so close to the “25-percent funded” mark that I wish I could hug you all.

Then I realized that I could do something almost as nice.

I have boxes and boxes of paperback copies of Why Margaret Thatcher Matters and Menace in Europe sitting in my attic. If, between now and tomorrow, your contribution helps to put the counter over the 25-percent mark, I’ll send you a signed copy of both books — dedicated, if you like, to the person in your life who really needs one, badly.