Lift Off

We're off to Brixton to see current favorite band White Lies. Joining us are David from the neighborhood whose son Joe Eitan's best pal, Paul and his friend Steph who is from France and attractive in a way one can be at 30.  Beforehand, we have dinner at a family-style Portuguese which Sonnet and I discovered some long while ago and has become our pre-concert routine.  The best thing about the place: multiple old television screens always showing some far-away football game between two lesser countries.  The way it should be.  In Beijing I recall a meal by myself without a word of English.  The food unbelievably hot and a soccer match between two obscure provinces blinkered on a raised TV with bad reception. So I wonder: is it possible to have any understanding, let alone insight, into a billion people and their different history? Their's utterly meaningless.  I think often still as some many investors plough their dough into Asia assuming the magnificent growth an apple for the plucking.  I think not or, at least, the harvest to somebody who understands China far better than I.  And yet there I was, watching a game, and the obvious strikes me: we be one.