Post Marathon - Shyst!

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Sunday morning I’m up at 6AM (5AM London) following a restless night. My mind and spirit ready to run 26+ miles and my body seems reasonably Ok. Even my achillies being agreeable – perhaps it is the adrenaline that makes their irritation go away. So .. after breakfast I spill onto Potsdam Platz and enjoy the luxury of walking to the start-line – no subway or bus or weird logistics, which is a good way to begin.

The sun coming up but still dark yet 1,000s of runners head in one direction: to the starting gate. Oh, the humanity. I pass beside the famous Brandenburg Gate along with everybody else then sit for an hour on the steps of the Reichstag. A park takes the inflow and bag checks just beyond. Soon later, I make my way to the course. Temperature warm for a marathon – maybe 17 or 18 degrees – and the excitement palpable. As always, the toilet lines forever and I feel sorry for the women, who comprise maybe 80%. Us dudes just piss wherever like the dogs. 

I’m in stall “C” or three from the front where the magnificent Haile Gabreslysee most assuredly lined up with the elite runners. My group anticipates sub-three hours and a fit, healthy lot. Many, I notice, have shaved their legs. Maybe this a German thing. With ten minutes to go, the loudspeakers play Wagner and announce “welcome” from every language on the globe. Then it is all 10-9-8 ... and we are off!

So the first thing I have to say is that A) one knows inside ten miles if the day is The Day; and B) you cannot fool the marathon. Unfortunately for me, a rythem never found hold, which is what the first half of the race about. At this stage, I would expect to enter a painless, gliding state – I could just as easily be reading a book or watching TV let alone doing a long run. And then the challenge to simply tune out all else. Well, by 10K I knew I was in trouble and at 20K, self-loathing. I got through that stage by 30K and then it really became miserable.

Once off my 3-hour target, I decided to walk if need be and boy did it need be. My Achilles returned with a vengeance and then nails into my upper legs and calves. After 20, I was focused on one-foot-in-front-of-the-other and even hummed this to myself for a bit. Then the wheels came off and there I was in an Aid station (same as London) and then a bar when I couldn’t find a water station. I had to lay down and put my feet on a chair – which the Sunday morning drinking-smoking Krauts thought pretty funny. Fuckers. Traumatic. Surreal.

And then finally it is over.

Beginnen

Here she is - the start.  Tomorrow morning, 9AM sharp, me and Haile will be here.

I jog to the Branderburg Gate and the mood festive.  The inline skater competition underway and the athletes pass by with good cheer.  The crowds out and the warm weather rewards our being alive.  Berlin shines.  In the far distance the Fernsehturn, or "television tower," which is visible from everywhere and built from '66-69 to be the symbol of Berlin.  It is memorable for the large bulbus towards its top and then a red-white needles reaching 365 meters.  The Soviet footprint everywhere.

Yes, This Fears Got A Hold On Me

Title from the White Lies song "Death," which I listen to while counting down the hours.  I am mostly in the hotel despite beautiful weather and Berlin around me.  I have forced myself to sleep ten hours the last couple of nights and taken naps.  Eating too much pasta which I am now sick of.  I will go for a short jog this evening to the front-line start-line around sunset to check out the vibe and take a few more photos when the light good.  I am strangely emotional, isolated from everything, having chosen not to bring Sonnet and the kids (Kurz: "I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight... razor... and surviving").  I have never run a marathon to my expectation and all of them have ended in tears.  I am not sure about tomorrow either since my achilles are letting me know they are there.  They are none to happy either.  Still.  And yet.  I am in Berlin, having put down the mileage, sacrificing every Sunday for the last six months.  The weather is perfect.  40,000 runners to compete - the greatest marathon ever - and Haile going for a World Record.  I have been thinking about this day for the last ten years since London '98 when I ran 3:11, walking the last two.  I may not break three hours tomorrow but at least now I remember the thrill of it all. Join the race.

"and when I see a new day
Whose driving the same way
I picture my own grave
This fear's got a hold on me

Yes, this fear's got a hold on me
Yes, this fear's got a hold on me "

--White Lies

Compensation - Microscopes - A Quote From Geithner And Horton

This housing complex typical and fascinating - it is near the Tempelhof Airport and one can  feel the goose stepping. 

We know Big Government to mess with Wall Street compensation and here is what Treasury Secretary Geithner says: "The simple proposition should be that you don't want people being paid for taking too much risk, and you want to make sure that their compensation is tied tolong-term performance."  This quote everywhere today, including front-and-center in the New York Times.  I think Geithner has the second half right - compensation should be connected to long-term results.  His opening statement, however, wrong: any entrepreneur knows that one's reward intimately connected to a risk (I learned this lesson first hand from 1999-2002 when my millions of equity became worth almost zero pretty quickly).  Wall Street is capitalism and people should be rewarded for taking risk and the more the better, as long as they somehow cannot flip their exposure onto an institution, another entity or a clueless public.

I get Madeleine on the phone who tells me, rather breathelessly I should add, that she has caught a bug from our pond: "I put it in a jar and named him 'Bugsy.'" Madeleine loves all creatures great and small and Sonnet and I muse upon her future, which could be as a vetrinarian.  I do feel she would love such a profession.  So my first stop after finishing this blog to buy a good, solid microscope by Bausch & Lomb, just like the one I had as a youngster. It was heavy and felt scientific.  I remember the week end hours creating slides of blood, saliva, pond or lake water.  While my attention span always short, I managed the lens and - wow! - seeing the micro-flotsam awesome.  A totally different world before me. 

"A person's a person, no matter how small."

--Horton

Brandenburg Gate

Pictured, the symbol of Berlin and indeed, Germany.  It is also where I will start and (I do hope) finish the marathon.  The weather could not be better - today about 17 degrees and sunny yet autumnal.  Most of the streets being shut down as I write though still 37 hours to the event (but who's counting).  This year's buzz about the great Haile Gebreselassie who owns the World Record in 2:03:59 which he set last year on this very course.  He thinks he can go 2:03:30 Sunday and even sub-2:03 "on a perfect day."  Pushing him are Duncan Kibet and Sammy Korir, both from Kenya and both under 2:05.  In fact, this is the fastest men's marathon ever assembled with 11 runners under 2:10. To put this in perspective, the winning time as recently as 1993 was 2:10:57.  I recall as a swimmer seeing age-group dudes achieving miraculous results - like John Mykannan or Jeff Kostoff, both in Southern California, swimming under 4:20s for the 500 yard freestyle which was not far off the American record back in the early 1980s (I got to know John BTW since we trained together when he was at Cal; he went on to win the 400 meters silver in Los Angeles before college; Kostoff joined Stanford and broke every short-course distance record in the books).  This is how I feel about the elite athletes: super human,  inspirational.



The women's race also quick with Askale Tafa Magarsa in pole position with an entry time of 2:21:31 then Atsed Habtamu (2:25:17) and Genet Getaneh (2:26:37).  All from Ethiopia.  Paula Radcliffe contemplated Berlin to better her World Record of 2:15:25 but, alas, it is not to be - she has been injured or under-trained this year and not at her best. 


I collect my race number at the marathon expo inside the former Tempelhof Airport.  And boy, it is a scene.  My guess runners have above-average disposable income and they certainly are mad about their weird, introverted sport.  I am too when not grumbling about injury or some running induced perversion. Given the big Sunday ahead, we do what comes naturally to middle aged athletes - buy shit.  And there is plenty of it - ASICS, Nike, Adidas, Mazino, Power Bar, Lucazade, Puma, track suits, racing kit, water systems, trainers this, gear that .. each vendor has a high-tech stall some with you volunteers in panty hose pushing their whatever. I look. All this crap inside airplane hangers which adds to the immenseness of the experience.  Outside, on the airstrips, inline skaters do their thing while beer gardens and barbecues fill more space.  It is hard not to be swept away by the vibe, which is all excitement and anticipation.

Patsdamer Platz

I arrive in Berlin for my week end of truth.  The maraton Sunday morning.  I stay at the Marriot in Patsdamer Platz which has changed magically even during the short time I have known her.  Patsdamer totally laid to waste during World War II and then desolate during the Cold War when The Wall bisected its former location.  Today it has become yet another Midtown Manhattan (indeed, my hotels restaurant called "Midtown") with steel and glass skyscrapers everywhere including PwC and Deutsche Bank.  I know this makes Germany proud but Is there no imagination left?  I could be in Shanghai. Or London.

During the WW and as with most of Berlin, almost all of the buildings around Potsdamer Platz turned to rubble by air raids and heavy artillery. The three most destructive raids (out of nearly 400) that the city suffered, occurred on 23 November 1943, and 3 February and 26 February 1945. Things were not helped by the very close proximity of Hitler's Reich Chancellery, just one block away in Voßstraße, and many other Nazi buildings nearby so Potsdamer Platz was a major bull's eye.

Once the bombing and shelling stopped, the ground invasion began as Soviet forces stormed the centre of Berlin street by street, building by building, aiming for the Reich Chancellery and other key symbols of the Nazi government. The city was divided into sectors by the occupying Allies at the end of the war, Potsdamer found itself on the boundary between the American, British and Soviet sectors.  Then came the Cold War and the Berlin Wall in 1961.

I thank my lucky stars not to have been born during that horrible time when Europe stuck the knife into its heart. 

Artic Monkeys - Berlin - Teacher Review

Christian sends me this pic from last night at the Fox Oakland - a great venue where we recently saw The Decemberists.  Unfortunately, the band now popular enough to play the big venues so I decline to see them at Wembley Arena in November as they tour the UK. Still, their energy and spirit true and the recent third album "Humbug", while not a classic like "Whatever You Say I Am, I'm Not" and "Favourite Worst Nightmare," is good.  We have several good shows coming up this autumn including St Etienne, Automatic Toxic Event and my most anticipated: The White Lies.  Now they rock (daps to CW for introducing me to them).

I soon depart solo for Berlin and the marathon, which takes place Sunday.  Along with my running sneakers, space-designed socks and sweat-whisking, breathable-fibre tank-top and shorts, I will pack aspirin, sports gel, electrolyte hydration, cereal, sun-tan lotion, Vaurnet sunglasses, vassaline and Peet's coffee, whose caffeine content may trip doping alarms.  My secret weapon.  So more on Berlin from Berlin.

The Shakepeare's review their new teachers following the first week of school. Eitan gives a thumb's up, while Madeleine sideways.  I ask why her dissatisfaction? and she shrugs: "homework."

London Tech

So here is an interesting find: Boston Consulting suggests that Europe edges out North America as the world's wealthiest region. Since the crisis began in September '08, overall wealth (as measured by the asset management industry) has dropped 11.7% to $92.4 trillion (that would be 11 zero's and a four following the 92). The U.S. has been hit hardest, reporting a 21.8% decline in wealth firms assets to $29.3 trillion, primarily because of U.S. equity investments in 2008, which got pummelled. This in tune with the US the median income, which the 2009 Census reports is $50,303 or down 4.2 since 2000 - my suspicion that most of the decline during this recession. Europe has $32.7 trillion of assets under management with a decline of 5.8%. In fact, the only area to report a gain Latin America, posting a 3% rise in assets under management to $2.5 trillion in 2008. While everybody pounded, millionaires took it on the chin since the majority of their holdings real estate and equities.

While London at the middle of the financial mess thanks, in part, to the City we are also a technology center. My friend Sanford, who is Stanford engineer and tech evangelist (he also dances the salsa and from Florida) met Boris Johnson in NY this week - Boris in the Big Apple to ring the NASDAQ bell and talk about how London is the new place for eCommerce. Sanford thought this pretty rich and he should know having lived in London during the boom-bust and being a Director of my boom-bust start-up Ezoka.

So I will agree with Stanford: London does not have a vibrant high-tech or entrepreneurial community - these guys all went for the Big Bucks at the Big Banks. Why bother with starting or building?

Despite this, we are the leaders in a number of key public services. My Oyster Card, for instance, connects the underground, bus and rail networks seamlessly to my billing. Users pay by top-up or contract. London the first city to have congestion-charging, which has changed traffic patterns in the most congested parts of town. I bitch and moan about the cost (£8 per day or £80 ticket) but it works flawlessly. Our Victorian water and sewage systems allowed London to become the first city of one and then two million citizens and the largest population in the world until surpassed by Tokyo in '52. Full mobile coverage of Britain before anyone else in Europe and London at the center - my friend Author helped build the BT-Police emergency-cell communications network with no fear of redundancy during crisis. A first. The underground the world's oldest. Much of our modern skyline- like the Swiss Re Gherkin or soon, the Shard of Glass - use steel and glass as never before. London is where modern science began when John Snow discovered that cholera spreads via contaminated water in 1854. And so on and so forth.

I think a beauty of the New Age that we are surrounded by this cool stuff which changes our communication, travel, health, ecosystem and lives yet we never know the less.

Madeleine Vionnet

Here we are at the Musee de la Mode et du Textile to see Madeleine Vionnet (my photo from mobile phone since camera not permitted). Vionnet once called the "Queen of the bias cut" and "the architect among dressmakers", and best-known for elegant Grecian-style dresses and for introducing the bias cut to the fashion world (a "bias cut" BTW is more than an annoying expression - it is also the direction of a piece of woven fabric, usually referred to simply as "the bias" or "the cross-grain", is at 45 degrees to its warp and weft threads). Vionnet's simple styles involved a lengthy preparation process, including cutting, draping, and pinning fabric designs on to miniature dolls, before recreating them in chiffon, silk, or Moroccan crepe on life-size models. Vionnet used materials such as crêpe de chine, gabardine, and satin to make her clothes; fabrics that were unusual in women's fashion of the 1920s and 30s. Sonnet loves Vionnet and I learn - for the first time - that our Madeleine named from Vionnet. How could I not know this? My wife's inner thoughts still surprise me. And I am glad our Madeleine from a strong woman.

Me to Madeleine (at bedtime): "You are a very intelligent young lady."
Madeleine: "Pigs are smart too."
Me:
Madeleine: "And dolphins. But they get caught in fishnets. And die. So they are not as smart as pigs."

New Season

It is not only the NFL that starts today. Eitan plays his first competitive match against Illsworth, which is not far from us on the A4. Age nine when the FA allows league play. The squad takes a two-nil victory in a pinball-esque match thanks in large party to KPR's goalie who, on no fewer than three occasions, saves goal when all odds against him. The final heroic a blocked penalty shot from ten feet away. Us dads still not sure how he got his mitts on that one. Before the start, Eitan selected Team Captain and given the arm-band, which is visible on his right in the photo. He accepts the responsibility with a seriousness the new title deserves. During the action, Eitan sets up up KPR's two scores with well placed crosses. I think this may be his best move .. racing down the sideline, in control, top speed and the instant before out-of-bounds he lays a foot on the ball sending it sailing before goal. Sometimes a team mate there for the decisive header or shot-into-net. Fun to watch, no doubt, and his crew have come together these last six months to play as a team. I would have not thought possible earlier this summer.

Madeleine meanwhile has her pal Jackson for an over-night and up rather late giggling and doing what kids do. Sonnet and I remark at her happiness - you know, we don't hear her laughter often enough.

The Other Football

Football, American style, kicks off today and the cheer leaders back, God bless. Since the Raiders and 49ers suck - the 1970s and 1980s now a long time ago - it is all on my beloved Cal to deliver the promised land. In Cal's case, a Rose Bowl (Dad, my promise stands: if Cal goes, we go). During my courtship of Sonnet in '93 we went to see Cal vs. Washington - she had never seen anything like it - the stadium, the crowds and the sideline's bare flesh. "Perky" she described the pom poms in their little outfits jumping about and rousing the crowd.

Such a thing would never fly in England or anywhere outside America. European football may be seen by the US as a bunch of dive-taking pansies who wouldn't last a second the NFL. And my goodness, true - professional soccer players have the frames of distance runners trotting back-and-forth for 90 minutes. The fans, though, are die hard - who can forget the 1970s and Liverpool and more recently England fans banned from travel to European Cup games? These hooligans drink and provoke, attack fans in their own city and discredit our nation.

Somehow soccer's anticipation combined with the exultation of a goal (or its opposite) strike a violent nerve in many blue-collar spectators who, perhaps, otherwise repressed somehow (this is England) and given the chance for release cause bedlam. Watching games at the pub a remarkably unpleasant experience if you wish your team to win .. no doubt, exciting too but the build up and pressure mount as the game advances. It's like no other sport - Remarkable.

Photo from the WWW, uncredited.

Tour Montparnasse

Here is Tour Montparnasse, a horrible building in the 15th arrondisement and Paris's answer to Centre Point. It is 210-meters and built from 1969-72 and remains the tallest skyscraper in France, though there is some pressure by the height of Tour Axa (225 meters) being built now and eventually Tour Phare, Tour Signal and Tour Generali at a planned 300-meters. These latter projects on ice thanks to the meltdown. The 59 stories on top of Montparnasse-Bienvenue Paris Metro and across the street from busy Gare Montparnasse train station so easy to understand the rational for having a commercial slab here. Still, its simple architecture, gigantic proportions and monolithic appearance out of place in Paris pardieu and, as a result, two years after its completion the construction of skyscrapers in the city centre banned. And of course - l'asbestos! - and so there is. As of July 2007, Mont-P closed and empty for at least three years and maybe another five .. they should just bring it down. I once had a meeting on the second floor with some pension fund - what floor more demoralising?

My photo BTW taken across the street at Jardin Atlantique above the tracks of the Montparnasse train station, which itself an ugly failure of communal work-live space. I hate this part of Paris. We are here to visit Musee Jean Moulin which has a temporary expo on women's war-time fashion which Sonnet checks out ("professionally instructive; fascinating"). The museum otherwise about being in the French Resistance during WWII and how France saved the free-world. Hmmm.

Madeleine: "Can I watch WWW smack down?"

To Do

We slowly move into our new house and last night marks a week. Sonnet does an excellent job putting stuff in its place but we are still lite on furniture and the kids sleep on mattresses, the poor dears. It does not yet feel our own but this will change over time and after Sonnet engages the interior designers, which is somewhere in the middle of our list of things to do - pictured (first on the list: replace water cylinder - that was a first day doozy). For the most part, however, there is very little that must immediately get done and so we enjoy. For instance, I am watering the outdoor plants even though this now technically Eitan and Madeleine's job.

Me to Madeleine trying to ruffle her: "You are embarressing me in front of (school chum) Jackson"
Madeleine: "Well, you're the one who wore a cow suit to school."

Luxembourg

We have the perfect picnic with Kristin in the Jardin Luxembourg, which is largest park in Paris at 22.5 hectares or about the size of the Columbia University campus. It is in the 6th arrondisement and the garden of the French Senate, which itself housed in the Luxembourg Palace. The Medici Fountain - pictured and where we have lunch built in 1630 by Marie de Medici, the widow of King Henry IV. It was designed, I learn, by Tomasso Francini, a Florentine fountain maker and hydraulic engineer who was brought from Florence to France by Henry. It was in the form of a grotto which was popular in Italy during the Renaissance. It fell into ruins during the 18th century, but in 1811, at the command of Napoleon, the fountain restored by Jean Chalring who was the architect of the Arc de Triomphe. Cool. In 1864-66, the fountain was moved to its present location, the long basin of water was built, and the sculptures of the giant Polyphemus surprising the lovers Acis and Galatea. Plus there is a duck family.

Paris has a totally different vibe and Sonnet and I compare - London a sprawling hot mess with theatre, bars and modern design next to Victorian clutter. It rambles onward and outward driven from its vital energy generated in W1 and the Thames. Paris, too, has the river but it is more of a cleansing thing - unlike the tidal Thames, the Seine slow flowing and one-way. Consequently, Paris has a more measured pace. It is by far the more sophisticated city and above all for adults - in fact, I don't know what kids actually do here since they are hidden away from sight. Adults, meanwhile, enjoy the the peaks of civilisation from Haute Couture to Arts and of course cuisine, oh la la (as I say repeatedly to Sonnet's eventual annoyance). It is impossible to have a bad meal in Paris. Yesterday, for instance, we buy cheeses from the fromagerie, meats from the charcouterie; breads and fruits and big, ripe tomatoes. In short, perfect. Why is this impossible anywhere else?

On food for a moment: I recall my business school friend Walt who visited Paris in '97 whilst working for the Lydia Group who own Chanterelle which received the James Beard Award for Best Restaurant in America last year. I think Walt was doing business development or something for Lydia and was visiting Europe's best restaurants for ideas .. at his choice, we stayed in the worst hotel I have ever known (described by the Lonely Planet as "a Turkish delight" complete with communal squatters) and drank a lot of wine and bourbon while barely sleeping. Walt quitting smoking so wearing the nicotine-patch yet puffing away. Despite our general exhaustion and squalor we ate food that was .. sublime. A good memory certainly.

Me: "Madeleine do you want to earn some money by doing chores?"
Madeleine: "I am not really into work, dad."

Hel-lo

Sonnet and I ditch, er, drop off the kids at "Breakfast Club" and head for King's Cross St Pancras station and the Eurostar. We are going to Paris to see a few museums and visit Kristin, who is a friend from high school. On the train we sit next to two gay dudes who are dressed very cool and wearing their dark shades. They sleep the entire journey after (and now I ease drop) being up all night and before that Barcelona and Madrid. Ah, to be young and in Love, heading for Paris on an autumnal day. There are worse ways to spend one's time. The kids happy too since Aggie babysits allowing us our together.

"This hatred of America by some people is just outrageous. And you need to get over that."
Republican congressman Joe Wilson in 2002 on Washington Journal speaking to congressman Bob Filner, who had stated that the US "gave" Iraq "chemical and biological weapons" in the 1980s.

Charing Chores

Behind me is is the Thames and then One Embankment; behind that, Charing Cross which denotes the junction of the Strand, Whitehall and Cockspur Street just south of Trafalgar Square. I have often wondered it's name and learn today that it is from the long demolished Eleanor cross (now occupied by a statue of King Charles I mounted on a horse - misogynists, all) located at the former hamlet of Charing. It is the central datum point for measuring distances from London. Go figure.

This morning a plumber and electrician arrive at 8AM, ensemble, while Sonnet scrambles about her lipstick and the kids drag their feet. Same as it ever was. We have implemented a new discipline in the new house including chores. Lots of them. Very sternly Sonnet and I lay out the rules including back-yard and front (split between the Shakespeares), bathroom duty and pre-dinner table and after-meal clean up. In addition to such harshness, we now have a 7:30PM bed and 8PM lights out. Madeleine's mouth drops over this one. I warn that if they complain now or at any time, a demerit will be administered. Five demerits in three-months nets no allowance. If, however, they have none I promise to double their allowance. Madeleine: "What if we have one?" Me: "We'll see." Madeleine: "two?" Me: "Negotiation." Madeleine: "three?" Me: "Same." Madeleine: "four?" Me: "thin ice." It seems to be working too as Eitan bounces into my room to show me how a coin bounces from his bed military style. After a long, boring and tedious summer (for them, dear reader), I think Eitan and Madeleine crave the structure.

Underground

My yesterday begins at Bikram yoga, 6:30AM, which I say is miserable. It takes 30 minutes to recover and another hour to stop sweating. Fortunately my first meeting - at the Wolseley - not until 9:30AM and I am perspired out by then and even dry. It is an unusually hot day in London which doesn't help much either. So I meet my dear friend Najib, who used to be with GE Capital where he was Chief Executive of GE Credit Services. He left GE in 2001 to start 1st Credit, which has become one of the UK's largest debt collection agencies, managing more than four million consumer accounts with a face value of approximately £5 billion. In short, Najib is a bad ass who has come up from humble roots (his parents shop keepers) and delivered on the Western dream. Bravo. Now Najib is also Muslim and this summer married a Jewish women from Regent's Park or the flashy part of town. We laugh a bit about this and he comments: "crossing the divide, one wedding at a time" and it is hard to disagree - not that I know many Muslims but I certainly don't know any married to a Jew. Or visa verse. I love Najib for this.

From breakfast, I sun myself in Green Park before meeting David at Nobu for lunch. I get sunburn, pictured and serves me right, made worse by this being the last week of summer and I have otherwise been pretty good about sunblock.

"Amigo! Amigo!"

--George W. Bush, calling out to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in Spanish at the G-8 Summit, Rusutsu, Japan, July 10, 2008

Joy

Friday night I return to a new address. Despite the late hour, Sonnet up tells me about the move, which I so adroitly avoid, dear reader, wanting nothing to do with any of it. I may have been a distance swimmer but I really no longer have the endurance for such things. So the place now looks like a small bomb went off somewhere - kids room covered with there detritus, Eitan in instant trouble trying to wall paper his room with football posters using thumb tacks. We have a fair amount of work to do before comfortable, including furniture and interior design but this should be mostly fun especially if I am not involved. Our first Big Shock, on Day One no less, the water system which we learn should be entirely re-worked since the boiler missing certain key protections. Hello? This would have been nice to know two weeks ago, but who checks the back pipes? Any ways its small beer against everything else but does mean we have to have workers traipsing about while we try to settle in. Otherwise it is a joy to be here.

Madeleine has a rough day as we go to the pet shop so she may buy some ornamentals for her fish tank. She being very concerned for "Flippers," "Bubbles," and "Gills" comfort in their new surroundings. Unfortunately, the item she wants £2 more than the change in her pocket and I refuse to lend her money.. this bad habit has become a regular request. Further, Madeleine chucked the opportunity to earn some dough this morning from chores like watering or sweeping (said she: "I'm not really interested in working, dad."). Such tears ("Can we get an ice cream? And by the way I am not talking to you."). From there to Pandemonium where she patiently tests new toys and picks a small, white, plastic polar bear. The cashier informs her the price has gone up by £1 and, not having the extra money, our defeated hero hangs her head and resignedly returns the object to its place. Not even ice cream - strawberry, with candy sprinkles and a chocolate flake - can improve our fallen's mood and when home, she spends 20 minutes sobbing to Sonnet.

"Yesterday, you made note of my -- the lack of my talent when it comes to dancing. But nevertheless, I want you to know I danced with joy. And no question Liberia has gone through very difficult times."
-- George W., speaking with the president of Liberia, Washington, D.C., Oct. 22, 2008

Duane

Duane is hard to miss: 6'10" with a personality that matches. As a youngster he was recruited by the Ivies to play basketball and had various scholarship offers including Santa Barbara to play volley ball. At Brown, he was the first in our hallway to own a printer, which everybody used often at pre-dawn the day an assignment due. I was in that line often enough. This back to '85 when a computer machine barely held enough memory for a 20-page paper and a week's work instantly lost when the thing crashed or switched-off before 'saving.' My generation technology's guinea pig - now college kids do everything wirelessly and the thought of a paper trail inconceivable. Terry Semel, former CEO of Yahoo!, once said: my generation looks at the Internet, the next uses the Internet while young people live on the Internet. Or something like that.

So back to Duane, who grew up in rural Canada so remote he commuted to school via helicopter (his father in the oil business). Post Brown, he made his mark in film writing and directing the short "Loafing," which was the winner of the Audience Award at the International Slamdance Film Festival in '97. His unreleased film "Limp" featured INXS singer Michael Hutchence and was shelved after Hutchence's suicide two weeks after completion. Bad timing. Duane then moved to New York to be a rock star forming Custom and signing to Artist Direct Records as the label's inaugural artist. He made his debut album, "Fast," in a home studio he had built in his 5,000 sf flat by north of Canal Street, playing most of the instruments himself. He earned controversy in 2002 when MTV banned the video for his single, "Hey Mister," which Duane directed himself (it follows a young woman as she frolics on the beach, hangs out with the singer, and goes shopping. The music video featured the song's sexually suggestive lyrics being written on the woman's skin as well as upskirt shots exposing her underwear. Youtube it, dude). "Fast" released in March 2002 and Duane touring ever since. His music is punchy, loud, sexually suggestive and cool.

"Hey Mister I really like your daughter.
I'd like to eat her like ice cream
Maybed dip er in chocolate"
-- Duane Lavold, "Hey Mister"

Semiramis

I stay at the Semiramis Hotel by the Egyptian industrial designer Karim Rashid whose projects include interiors, fashion, furniture, lighting, art and music to installation. It's a freak of a place without room numbers (replaced with symbols), flashing lights and wacky colours - my room hot pink and lime which a bit overwhelming. The pool similar tiled vibe and a model-shoot taking place when I arrive. A lot of nicely toned bikinis stroll about as Duane and I relive college memories and drink white wine. It's not 3PM.

From there we have dinner with another fellow from Poland House - Constantine, who is a self-made shipping entrepreneur who has built a fleet of 30 dry-cargo and tankers, which he trades or leases. He once owned two of the world's four largest super tankers able to transport four million barrels of oil or over $400 million of cargo at today's prices. The ships 400 meters in length and 20 stories high at the control deck; the hull 25 meters down - scuba divers, he points out, can't go so deep which is a problem should something need to be examined or repaired. The tankers efficient to - the average cost of oil transport about two or three cents per gallon or second only to pipelines. A voyage may take over 90 days and burn 15,000 tons of fuel. In the US, only Louisiana has a refinery to accept offshore payloads - it is located two miles in the Gulf of Mexico and Constantine tells me it is just a big hose floating in the middle of no where. Cool.

We have dinner locally and drink wine from Constantine's vineyard in Argentina which today makes about 25,000 bottles while he plans to make it a bigger business. In 2006, his grapes won a prestigious award which goes perfectly with the olive trees and outdoors where we now sit.

Greece

I arrive in Athens to meet old college friend Duane, whom I have not seen in 20 years yet we shared our dorm-unit. Those memories run deep. Duane has since gone on to be a film producer and touring rock-star but more on him later. Right now my head in 1985 when I pulled up to Keeney Quad on college hill in a taxi with everything I owned a black trunk packed several weeks before in Berkeley. Fresh... man... Ivor and I spent the prior two weeks in New York at my Aunt's house not doing much since we had no money. Somehow we had the place to our own. Manhattan then was a sweet, unobtainable temptation so we watched James Bond and ate Wonder Bread-Velveta cheese sandwhiches. I recall the low-level anxiety and excitement which peaked from the way weird train ride connecting Grand Central to college station, Providence, Rhode Island. So Brown: the Quad for freshmen and my "house" Poland which is also where I met Roger, our Resident Counsellor wholly underqualifed to deal with the emotional dramas of 18 year olds set free - sex and drugs and all that, poor fellow. We had a pretty interesting dorm to - as Duane and I reminisce - including celebrity children, athletes, the rich, the weird and the stoners. Ah, yes. There was a lot of pharmaceuticals (it was the mid-80s) though I was mostly outside that excitement thanks to swimming and personality, oh boy. I was also trying to pass three entry science courses my first term which is something otherwise not recommended. Brown offered an orientation and for a moment I felt my uniqueness coming from California, which did not seem a liability on the preppy East Coast.

My competition, after all, prep-school kids shipped from the Upper East side by parents too busy nor caring to bring them up. The entitled were plenty, and I see them today from time-to-time, though not always from Brown, and usually useless. The college had many good people to, of course- and this what makes our memories special. Duane catches me up on guys and women we knew who have gone on to make their mark: Doug Liman (film director, "Swingers", "The Bourne Identity"), Susan Motamed (film producer, "The Smartest Man In The Room" and the fist person I met); Rory Kennedy (actor, "Ghosts of Abu Ghriab"); Amy Carter, Marci Klein (SNL producer), Cosmo von Buleau.. What a crowd. Certainly I will never be exposed to such dynamic group again. Better, I am proud to call many my friends.

Photo uncredited of Helena Paparizou from the WWW- I have no idea what the ad says but thought more interesting then putting up another shot of a city skyline. More interesting to me, at least.

Holiday's End - Brown's Lockerbie

Tomorrow the kids return to school so here we are at the Texas Embassy, which has been serving horrible Tex-mex to home-sick Americans since at least '97 when we arrived (the building BTW formerly the HQ for the White Star shipping line which owned the Titanic. When the Titanic sank, this where the survivor's list posted - a copy hangs at the back of the restaurant. Every stone unturned ...). The Brits have their weird Angus Steak Houses with green and velvet decor at floor level allowing pedestrians to watch the eaters devour and we Ex-pats have the Embassy. In truth, the last time I was here was saying good-bye to Dale who was, indeed, returning to Texas. Most customers today younger by ten (or fifteen?!) years and launching their evening into Piccadilly or Soho for a night of heavy boozing. Been there, done that, college boy. Around the corner on Haymarket Street (since I indulge my Ex-pat self) rests the old Sports Bar where Americans congregated around the World Series or NFL. I watched the Tampa Bay Bucks blow out the Oakland Raiders 48-21 in 2003 after waiting in line for, like, two-hours then getting shitty seats. Since post-9/11, cement blocks installed before the entrance and we were searched close to indignant. That was the last time the Bay Area had a half-way decent professional football team. It closed several years ago.

But any way and again. Scotland's release of Lockerbie terrorist Abdelbaset Al Megrahi now kicked up to Downing Street where - surprise, surprise - Super Gee's finger prints all over the transfer. This clearly why Brown has refused to comment on Kenny MacAskill's "compassionate grounds" nonsense. Yesterday released, official documents assert that British minister Bill Rammell warned earlier this year that there would be 'catastrophic' consequences if Megrahi not released; he consequently assured the Libyans that neither Brown nor Foreign Secretary David Miliband wanted Megrahi to "pass away in prison" even though Megrahi convicted of killing 273 people. Meanwhile tyrant Khadafi celebrates his 40 years with a Major victory from the Megrahi and presumably BP gets its £15B oil deal. This worse then slimy - we let down victims and families who have suffered the gravest loss imaginable.

Me: "Say something."
Madeleine (considers): "I am very happy."
Me: "Anything else?"
Madeleine: "Hmmm. We are going to move house. And the dog."

Guns America

"Our lives are no less valuable at political events than they are while we are shopping, jogging or watching television at home. Yet I'm being told that while I can defend myself at home or at the grocery store, if I cross a line and go to a political event and someone gets violent, I can't defend myself by carrying a gun. That makes no sense. We have the right to defend ourselves anywhere our lives could be threatened."

This is what intelligent men and women up against in America. This time our citizen idiot Philip Van Cleaves, President of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, who is on the Op-Ed page of the USA Today. Does Philip look around and see the wild, wild, west? In a civilised society, we defer our protection to the police who do a pretty good job if you look at crime and murder rates per population but here is the data from the FBI (1999 information) - total homicides per 100,000 in 1999 were 5.7 of which 3.72 were handgun, or 11,130 (the percentage of murders committed by firearms 68%). Given that crime rates continue to drop in all major US cities, the numbers look better today. America has its mean streets and if Americans want to bunker up in their homes with a pistol or semi-automatic, God bless (38% of US households have a firearm BTW while over 223 million in circulation as at 1993 says the ATF). Where I have a Big Problem is public places. Nobody should have the right to bring a home weapon to the shopping mall, our schools or sporting venues and civic centers. These points well policed and crowds offer further protection (unless it's West Ham football). What kind of a moron would spend his good life fighting for the right to bring a concealed weapon to a town hall meeting? Our country still suffers the assassinations of JFK and Bobby, Martin Luther King and John Lenon; nearly Reagon. The only dead certainty is that each fell from a bullet.

Photo from Racism Review.

Cheerio

Today a bank holiday and for once the weather nice. We've suffered that before, oh boy. Summer's end upon us. This week end we - or I should say Sonnet and the kids - pack. I finish my last long run - this time 22 miles - and am generally useless for the rest of the day. Most of our junk boxed, marked and ready to go. Movers arrive Friday when the kids conveniently in school and I conveniently in Athens.

So... the marathon. The last time I lined up in a cow suit and crashed out at 25 miles. Moo. Before that, it was '98 when I completed London in 3:11 despite walking the last two miles and barely holding it together on the Bird Cage and Buckingham Palace despite the crowds and spectacular setting. In between there have been jumps and starts where I have put in the training yet missed out due to injury. The worst being the Jubilee Year when I was to run the Lake Vyrnwy in Wales picked specifically for its flat surface and low numbers+tree shade. Three weeks before my lower back ached and that was that. In my mind, cracking three hours not only possible it should be easy if trained up and injury-free. Afterall, I tell myself, I have gone 1:16 on the half and never had difficulty on long runs, sometimes jumping into a 20 with nothing other than a wing and a prayer. And yet the marathon alludes me, having broken my spirit on four occasions. I have yet to complete one without walking.

My training for Berlin next month began a year ago in Colorado. I was dissatisfied with my middle age athletisim and gut line. Since, I have adhered to a training program and established a good base and, while I have not lost any weight, I have redistributed my stomach so it no longer gluts. Sonnet likes that. For the record, ten years ago I weighed around 74KG and now it is 82KG. My blood pressure down and my resting heart-rate 40-42 which is a measurable improvement. Still, and yet, I no longer have the same bounce I once did. My long runs - and I have done six of them the last two months - are labored and not especially enjoyable. Even with massage and rest I recover slowly and, as I write, the aches and pains are there.

The race, then, really boils down to the day. If, over the next three weeks I recover from the training AND the planets aline, maybe I will do something special. But if not, I have still shown myself I can run like a young man, even if not has long and as fast.

Moderne

Here is the Royal Festival Hall of the rejuvenated Southbank Centre, which Tony Blair was to destroy by 2002. He didn't. I snap this photograph yesterday as we walk to Waterloo station for a train ride home and Sonnet's hair appointment. The RFH's foundation stone was laid by Prime Minister Clement Attlee in 1949 on the site of the former brewery built in 1837 (no rock uncovered in this city). The thing opened in 1951. Today, RFH is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected (in April 1988). The London Philharmonic Orchestra performs in the hall while the skateboarders skate underneath. Sonnet's Uncle Shelton was invited to consider running the entire complex when he was doing the same in Los Angeles for the L.A. Arts and Cultural Center.

Today the Southbank hosts restaurants, bars and venues along a riverside promenade. The next door Queen Elizabeth Hall and Hayward Gallery both an example of brutalist architecture meant to separate their appearances from the RFH. Think gnarly concrete but it's cool. This where the London Jazz Festival held and most recently we saw Berkeley friend Josh Redman. The best thing about the Southbank is the young people - who come here on a London evening to be a part of the Big City's sophistication and feel like adults. Looking northward offers the best view bar none - lit up is the embankment with her art-deco buildings, bridges and scene. This the ideal place to be in one's 20s, first job and flat and on a date with somebody you might spend the rest of your life with.

“Serious confrontation has to be against the leaders and key elements, against those who organized and provoked and carried out the enemy’s plan."
-- President Mahmoud Ahmadineja, against his chief political rivals on Friday, calling on judiciary officials to “decisively” and “mercilessly” prosecute them for challenging the legitimacy of his electoral victory and tarnishing the image of the state.

Self Portrait XI

We're by City Hall, affectionately known as "the sail" due to Sir Norman Foster's unusual design. The building in Southwark next to the Tower Bridge. This area used to be unused land which I recall fairly well from my early days working in the City at Botts & Co -- I had a running loop from New Fetter Lane via Fleet Street to Blackfriars then along the embankment, crossing the Tower Bridge then the Thames's southside to Waterloo or Westminster Bridge and back. If you've seen the movie "An American Werewolf in London" there's a scene of hobo city just here - the werewolf spotted by a drunk warming his hands over a garbabe-pale fire. The new City Hall, finished in 2002, changed all that with its glass-and-steel design which pulled in multiple, horrible copy cats which now make the area totally unpleasant, in my opinion. I have no problem regenerating but does every architect have to re-build Midtown Manhattan? Prince Charles might have a point sticking his nose into the council's jurisdiction telling them and the public such crap inconsistent with London's traditional red-brick and Victorian history. Or at least the sky-line, which is preserved somehow despite monstrosities like Centre Point. Still, this progress and maybe in 200 years they, to, will become beautiful.

“My mission is to create a structure that is sensitive to the culture and climate of its place.”
--Norman Foster.

"I'm telling you there's an enemy that would like to attack America, Americans, again. There just is. That's the reality of the world. And I wish him all the very best."
-- George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Jan. 12, 2009

South Thames

Sonnet and I catch a train to London Bridge to visit our solicitors and complete the purchase of 45 York Avenue, now officially our new address from 1 September. Afterwards we have lunch on Bermondsey Road famous for its market and a cool-edgy part of town. A flat here in one's 20s would be ideal - surrounded by clubs and bars+art and culture. It feels a shade run down and dodgy yet the old brownstones majestic and aged perfectly. Afterwards we kick around the river and I take photos - here, facing North. I have no idea the buildings nor ever inside, which I find surprising sometimes. My job, after all, to meet people in high places with nice views. Also pictuered on their put-put, HM Coastguard - I recall their recruiting posters on the underground showing some dudes ripping up the water; the caption: "All this before 8AM" and thinking - good, God, imagine doing it all day? I suppose many people trudging along to their office in over-jammed cars would. I am glad I gave up the City and commute some years ago.

Sonnet tired from her trip but puts up with my ongoing commentary about this and that - a couple kissing, why tourists photograph pigeons, that building which is ugly - this sort of thing. At one point I ask her if she thinks I am intersting? since she sure hears enough from me. In return for her patience, I do give her my full and uncompromised attention so I suppose a fair trade, if not surely a better deal for me.

Sonnet Home!

Sonnet returns from Santa Fe following a week with her parents, Uncle Shelton and Bridgette, Uncle Bill and Aunt Robin and Ray. Together they see two operas, several concert recitals, museums, galleries and the Native American (or Indian?) market which is the largest of its kind and offers wonderful jewelry, tapestry, stones, paintings and the like. She also hits Target for the kids winter wardrobe, God bless. Madeleine is all chatter in car ride to the airport and we re-hash Wednesday's kennel interview. She is quite happy of her performance but, "really, dad - it is all about bringing home a dog" and I certainly agree. As for Sonnet, she is in one piece following a long journey and happy to be home, as we are thrilled she is here. Just in time for the Bank Holiday week end which will be spent packing in preparation for the Big Move.

Ice Cream - Ted Kennedy - Health Care

Our yesterday concludes with a well deserved treat. Before and once again, we visit the Dog Kennel so Madeleine can further her research on various breeds. She takes her decision quite seriously. While there, we have an interview in case one day soon we go home with a new family member - Madeleine does well despite her butterflies ("why do you want a dog?" Madeleine: "because I love all dogs and breeds. I want to walk him every day").

An otherwise perfect day interrupted by Ted Kennedy's passing. Kennedy could have gone either way following Chappaquiddick and became one of the liberal's Great Lions. He was the second most senior member of the Senate, and the third longest-servicing senator in U.S. history and one of the most outspoken and effective Senate proponents of progressive causes and bills. Sadly he won't be with us to fight for health-care reform, which was his life-long ambition

So whatever you think of Kennedy, you have to admire the right's audacity. The US is the only major industrialised country that does not provide regular health care to its citizens. Instead, we are required to provide for ourselves - and 50 million people cannot afford the insurance. As a result, 18,000 US citizens die each year because they cannot get treatment. Yet the Republicans accuse the Democrats, who are trying to fix the problem, of being "killers" or Nazis - and have successfully put Democrats on the defensive. Same as it ever was. The Republicans want to defend the existing system for many reasons but also because they receive massive sums of money by the private medical firms who benefit from the status quo. But they cannot do so honestly - 70% of Americans say it is "immoral" to retain a medical system that does not cover all citizens. My dad said so last night. So they have to invent lies - like "death panels."

The real problem is that 80% of Americans receive the best care in the world and are covered so don't feel a need for change urgently if at all. Unless they lose their job. Or want to start a company. We further lose our compassion when scared shitless yet doing nothing should also keep us up at night: consultants McKinsey & Co. state today's health care cost is 17.6% of GDP and set to double inside ten years; US health care already the highest in the Western World. Ever wonder how Rome collapsed? We need you more then ever, Teddy.

"His extraordinary life on this Earth has come to an end. And the extraordinary good that he did lives on."
--President Obama on Ted Kennedy