On Spider Man

Madeleine: "How much do you think the first Spider Man is worth?"
Me: "'The Amazing Spider Man' or 'Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider Man?'" [Dad's note: my Spider Man collection includes 'Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider Man' in vintage condition from 1-50. I also own 'The Amazing Spider Man' from around #100]
Madeleine: "'Peter Parker.'"
Me: "I don't know. Maybe 75 dollars. .."
Madeleine: "What!? Is that all ?"
Me: "That's a lot considering I paid 25 cents for it."
Madeleine: "I thought it would be worth more."
Me: "How many times is it worth now to when I first bought it?"
Madeleine: "Oh, no, not that !"
Me: "A figure, please."
Madeleine: "Uh, 300?"
Me: "Wow, you're right. That was one hell of a guess. What are the odds on that?"
Madeleine: "Is it right?"
Me: "How did you get 300?"
Madeleine: "It was easy. 25 goes into 75 three times and, um,  I added two zeros to go from 25 cents to dollars."
Me:
Eitan: "What's so funny Dad?"
Madeleine: "It's still right isn't it ?"

We watch a TV add for L'Oreal's "Punky" mascara. Me: "Do you wear it? You're the target audience."
Madeleine: "No. And I'm not the target audience because I don't wear mascara."
Me: "All these ads do is sell junk."
Madeleine: "Wouldn't it be cool if you didn't have to pay for it? What if you could trade for other stuff?"
Me: "That's a great idea. You could call it junk-for-junk dot com."
Madeleine: "I would use it."
Me: "So would I."

Half Term Break

Madeleine and Willoughby

The kids on half term break and Eitan watches four hours of television which really means six. Or 7. In fairness the poor kid is recovering from a cold and he (and Madeleine) have been working hard in school, sports and extracurriculars.  Each have a running schedule to keep them sharp and, yes, there is some homework. Eitan is re reading 'Lonesome Dove' but it has been slow going: after several weeks he's on page 76 of 945. Still, it is not Harry Potter (Thanks God).

Willoughby over for the afternoon. When not hanging out, he designs graphics for different merchandise sold on redbubble.com (he and Madeleine lie on the floor reviewing traffic statistics and listening to music).

We pile into the car to buy another turtle (pre named Alfonzo Smith). Madeleine: "At Sheen Mount we used to get house points for good behaviour."
Willoughby: "At my school, we got to be a Mexican for the day."
Me: "Oh?"
Willoughby: "We were studying the Mexicans or something. We also had a Mexican Of The Year but they just decided to give it to everybody."
Me:
Willoughby: "By being good, you got Mexican points. If you got enough points you got a prize."
Me: "Like a taco?"
Willoughby: "Like your picture with a golden Mexican moustache."
Me: "So did you learn anything about the Mexicans?"
Willoughby: "Um, no. But we got to dress up like them."
Me:
Willoughby: "I guess that's kind of racist. Stereotyping them like that."
Me: "So you did learn something."

St Louis Re Union

David and Moe

David is Moe's sister Joy's oldest child, ie, my cousin.  Both are from St Louis. I saw David last summer in London.

David's special interests include esophageal diseases, colon cancer screening and outcomes in endoscopy (his website bio says). He has has been a member of the OHSU faculty since 1982, and Chief of the GI Division since 1998.

David's research into colon cancer (VA Cooperative Study on Colon Cancer Screening, 1993 to 2002) changed the way colon cancer screened in the US. His work has saved tens of thousands of lives. Famously he gave Katie Couric a colonoscopy live, on air, during the Today Show (Couric's husband died from colon cancer).

David is also a walker and whenever together we try to organise a hike of some sort. Some years ago we marched across London covering the West End to East London. My earliest memories of David from visits to St Louis when I was maybe 4 or five.

Abstract from David's research:

Background Aims: The relative efficacy and effectiveness of different colon screening programs has not been assessed. The purpose of this analysis was to provide a model for comparing several colon screening programs and to determine the key variables that impact program effectiveness. 

Methods:  Five screening programs were compared: annual fecal occult blood test (FOBT) alone, flexible sigmoidoscopy, flexible sigmoidoscopy and FOBT combined, one-time colonoscopy, and air-contrast barium enema. Key variables were adjusted for sensitivity analyses. Cost-effectiveness was defined as the cost per cancer death prevented. 

Results : FOBT alone prevents fewer cancer deaths than the other programs. The addition of flexible sigmoidoscopy to the FOBT increases the rate of cancer prevention. One-time colonoscopy has the greatest impact on colorectal cancer mortality, largely because of assumptions that cancer would be prevented in most patients who undergo polypectomy. FOBT alone is the most cost-effective of the programs, but the cost is sensitive to several key variables.

Conclusions: The model shows key variables that impact the cost-effectiveness of colon screening programs. Compliance is an important determinant of effectiveness of all of the screening programs. Future study should be focused on methods of patient education that improve patient compliance with screening.

Portland

 Shoes

Photos from Sonnet and Madeleine's trip to Portland are coming in - these are from my cousin David, where our gals stay during their visit.  They are visited by Moe, Sloan and Mary and other local and far away friends who lend their love and support of Sonnet.

From Oregon, Madeleine and Moe head for the Bay Area to join Gracie, Maggie and the cat Sweetie Pie in Berkeley while Sonnet in Los Angeles meeting with museum directors.

Sonnet, I am told by someone not Sonnet, forgets her opening-evening gown and has an afternoon find a loaner from a friend.

Her exhibition goes off with a bang! as the opening dinner draws Portland's Good and The Great. Over 400  guests- "as big as London", she notes.

The following day Sonnet presents to 500 people on the  exhibition's opening day, giving "the back story on Italian fashion" Madeleine now says. "It went amazing. And people were lining up to get her autograph."

Grandfather, granddaughter 

Oasis Or Mirage

What would Bond say?

I return to the land of the weird and the strange. A gold Porsche Carrera greets me at the Abu Dhabi airport along with a third-world scrum.  It is a most inglorious welcome to the wealthiest city in the world (2007), according to Fortune Magazine.

Once outside, the temps are a pleasant 80 degrees in the late evening. In several months, during the daytime, the thermometer will climb above 130 degrees. I think of this as I jog, the only pedestrian for miles. It takes me two hours to stop sweating afterwards and the dude at the gym looks at me as though I have taken a shower in my suit. In fairness, it looks like I have taken a shower in my suit.

Abu Dhabi is under construction, fueling its economy, as buildings compete to reach the highest mark (the Khalif's benevolent terrifying face looks down upon us from twenty painted stories on many building sides). None can compete with Dubai's Burj Khalifa yet my hotel room, on the 37th floor, looks up a further 33 stories.

Next to the four magnificent Etihad towers, where I am staying, is the ugliest building I have ever seen : gold plated, ten story exterior atrium on the middle floors, a Battlestar Galactica design. 60 floors of pure shiet. Towers, it seems, are in such high demand that anyone can build one. I can't imagine that Abu Dhabi's real estate is anywhere near half filled.

Tycho

Self portrait XXXXI

Friday. And here we go.

The boy and I are down with the bug. Eitan misses his second day of school and comatose under his duvet where he has been all day and I find him this evening. Whimpering. Me, I power through meetings. Now we watch repeats of Modern Family and Big Bang Theory.

The good news: no plans for the weekend and the kids officially on half term break (do they go to school more than vacation?) and Sonnet returns Sunday afternoon. God bless.

Me: "Eitan how's your state of mind?"
Eitan: "Huh?"
Me: "Your state of mind. For the blog."
Eitan: "Spacey."

Mindfulness

Noontime, Piccadilly Circus

It' is cold and grey in London. Yep, February. And March. And April . . . The British cheer themselves up with red buses, red poste boxes and red phone booths. I like this about Britain.

I spend the afternoon at Oxford with Willem who, as we know, runs The Oxford Mindfulness Center "that works with partners around the world to prevent depression and enhance human potential through the therapeutic use of mindfulness."  Think meditation meets mind control.

Mindfulness is getting a lot of attention these days too.  The UK, for instance, wrote 47m prescriptions for anti-depressant drugs in 2011 - as popular as M&Ms.  OMC research shows that mindfulness reduces the recurrence rate of of depression by 50% over 12 months in patients with three or more previous episodes of depressions. In other words, mindfulness is as effective as the drugs without the side effects. 

It is all very Northern Californian ish.

On The UK Deficit

The IMF thinks that the UK will have the largest budget deficit, excluding the effects of the economic cycle, in Europe in 2015 putting Britain's finances in worse shape, in this regard, than Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece or Spain. Among the major developed nations only Japan is running a bigger deficit than the UK.

So far, the public sector deficit has not deterred investors from buying UK govt bonds, which have soared to record levels, buoyed by low inflation and a perception that the UK is a safe haven underpinned by an aggressive deficit reduction programme. Since the financial crisis, the UK has effected the seventh-largest fiscal consolidation among 31 advanced economies tracked by the IMF. 

The success of the reduction programme has, however, been blunted by a lopsided economic recovery with falling wages and lower-than expected tax revenues.

The remaining consolidation will therefore likely come in the next parliament via spending cuts. The IFS estimates that public spending, as a share of national income, may fall to its lowest level since 1948 resulting in 900,000 public-sector job losses reducing the government workforce to its lowest point since 1971 (Deloittes).

Enter the May elections: to reach its targets, Conservatives would cut spending by 6.7% from 2015 to 2019; Labour could hit its less demanding goals by cutting 1.4%. According to the Financial Times, this implies that, by 2019-20, Labour will spend £27 billion a year more than the Conservatives.

Get out the vote.

Taking Care Of Business

Richmond Gate, Richmond Park

Eitan and I bachelors since Thursday as Sonnet and Madeleine in Portland, Oregon, for the opening of The Italians.  We keep it together, going to a pub for dinner last night, staying up late watching TV. Sleeping in. Usual stuff.

Eitan runs the Surrey League Division 1 cross country race, placing 9th out of 29 in a competitive race.  He is glad it's over.

Adventure, Stage Two

Tom's Cafe

I say a momentary good-bye to our dear friends Cindy and Scott, who I first met via the Brown community (Scott on the Board of Trustees and friends with Ira Magaziner who created Brown's "new curriculum).  They arrived in London same time as us, 1997, as Scott opened the law offices of Brown Rudnick.  

Scott and I share a liberal agenda and stories of Providence. He is on the museum acquisition committee of the Rhode Island School of Design where my sister spent a semester in college - I sent Scott a paper Katie wrote on the museum in .. 1987. He turned sixty when I turned 40 and we had a 100 celebration.  Cindy and I share gossips about Brown interviews and London celebrities and today we chuckle over the evening we sat next to Sean Connery and his wife at a Knightsbridge restaurant.

Scott and Cindy returning to Boston for their new careers and next adventures. A small project is the ancient school in Newport, RI, that Scott is turning into their next home. With basketball courts. It will engage him for a while.

Eitan thrilled to be in Tom's Kitchen in Chelsea famous, dear reader, in "Made In Chelsea."

Madeleine Teenager

Madeleine turns 13.

We could not be more proud of this confident, intelligent young woman who has grown up before our very eyes. From the minute she was born, an intense one hour delivery, I knew we had something special: Madeleine was all in from her first loud cry "I'm here, take notice!"

Madeleine's fearlessness evident from the early days when we worried about her trust in strangers, who she approached with a scratchy "hola" or "hello, mister." Her tree-climbing often found me exasperated at the school entrance trying to coach her down from 20 feet. And then there were the battles to get her to wear a dress to a wedding or some party - no way. Not even a lifetime of no-television could budge her.

Madeleine for a long while was a tom-boy happily digging holes in the backyard with her (mainly) boy friends, looking for worms or burying treasures. She was fascinated by bugs which she examined under the microscope. Her love for stuffed animals ("buddies) transferred to fish, hamsters, turtles and, of course, Rusty who she battled for for two years to bring home. How could I say no?

Since secondary school, Madeleine has blossomed into a committed student with top marks in all subjects and rave reviews from her teachers who appreciate her enthusiasm and fast-hand for the question or answer. We are delighted with her friends who are often the class eccentrics ("the cool of the uncool") interested in drama and theatre and sport. She has thrown herself into running and has demonstrated talent on the track and cross-country piste. She attends drama class Saturday mornings. She dreams of California and, like me, is a dreamer.

Some years ago I recall peaking out a window to observe a ring of teenagers. Madeleine, age 8: "I don't wanna be a teenager Dad!" And now she is. And it is glorious.

A Beautiful River

The tide is out

It is a cold morning and I cross the Waterloo Bridge from Waterloo station heading to Sommerset House where it all began: This is where the Courtauld Art Institute located. 

Beneath me, the River Thames flows East as the tide goes out, towards the North Sea. From now, low tide, the water will rise as much as 23 feet during high tide. 

London is uniquely intertwined with the river, similar to San Francisco and the bay: It is unimaginable to consider one without the other. Human habitation dates back to neolithic times; Julius Caesar was here in 54 BC. And of course Shakespeare.

The Thames tidal flow makes it both interesting and rejuvenating - it charges the city (for some, south of the river a no-go area; East London the new hot spot while the Isle of Dogs equals Canary Wharf) and sweeps away, at least spiritually, London's cares (no longer sewage, fortunately). 

Final 8

Hampton "A" Squad. Photo from Mark Boyle

In an exciting day of football action, Eitan's Hampton Under-14s "A" squad take on Bishop Stortford High from Hertfordshire which is somewhere north of London (I'm in Amsterdam for meetings never to be recalled on my deathbed). This the Final Eight of the English Schools FA Cup (the "ESFA Cup") for all independent and states schools in the country or 610 teams.

The boys have won ten games to get here and are fired up: they win 5-2 in a game, Eitan says, much more competitive then the score. Shaun-Chris the game's star (black kid in middle) who scores four goals. Eitan plays "holding mid-field" and disrupts the action with searing tackles.

Eitan notes that at this level Hampton playing schools associated with the professional football academies - Bishop a feeder for Tottenham Hot Spurs.

Next step: the Final Four.

Eitan flops on the couch, homework done, for some well deserved TV.

It's Snow

False dawn

Madeleine gets her wish - snow! Somehow it is nicer when the sun is up. Of course this means the trains are late and traffic piles up. Planes delayed. By 10AM it's slush.

The kids have discovered eBay and Eitan makes 40 bob (split 50:50 with Dad) selling one of Dad's shirts, never worn by Dad due to some fancy stitching that does not go with Dad's style. Now the kids go through their rooms, attic and garage to convert lost treasures into cold hard cash. They cooperate, agreeing to split any proceeds (after I take my cut). We discuss whether it is right to sell Madeleine's "buddies" instead of donating the stuffed animals to charity. She has turned ruthless. Capitalism in its most naked form.

More Debt

No. 31

According to a recent report from the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), the ratio of global debt, excluding financial institutions, now stands about 210% of global GDP, up from 175% on the eve of the financial crisis. The CEPR report's title, "Deleveraging? What Deleveraging?" captures its key finding. It could have also been, "What, me worry?"  How daja vu.

Here is what President Hoover's Treasury Secretary, Andrew Mellon, advocated: 

"Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate... it will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people."

Party Talk

Auntie Katie's Xmas Slippers 

Sonnet and I pick up Madeleine from a Saturday night party. 

Me: "What did you guys talk about?"
Madeleine: "Nothing."
Me: "Nothing? So what did you do all night ?"
Madeleine: "I don't know. Stood around and pretended we knew each other."
Sonnet: "You must have talked about something."
Me: "Seriously. How about school? Or the weather?"
Madeleine: "Kids don't do small talk, Dad."

Math Is Fun!

Fibonacci is everywhere

Prof Golé warms up the Smith crowd with an overview of phyllotaxis which is the arrangement of leaves on a plant stem - Phyllotactic spirals form a distinctive class of patterns in nature. We are enthused. From there we hit the Fibonacci numbers (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, ... add the last two to get the next, just make sure you start at 0) and the Golden Rule (Divide two lines where the longer part divided by the smaller part is also equal to the whole length divided by the longer part). Then we nail patterns from accretion. The crowd goes wild ! We are on our feet pumping fists like it's the Super Bowl !!

An interesting observation, being in an audience of mainly women, is how supportive the sisterhood is of each other. Speaker makes bad joke, everyone laughs.

Smith Annual Dinner

Sonnet at Paradise Pond, Smith College, 2013

Sonnet and I join Nita and Alain for the Smith College annual dinner at the Sloane Club. The guest speaker, Christophe Golé, a French mathematician and professor at Smith, whose interests are in the theory of dynamical systems as it applies to Hamiltonian systems and Mathematical Biology. (Dynamical systems, dear reader, is the mathematical theory that studies time evolution of systems. They have been used to model many systems from physics, economics, biology etc. The theory's claim to fame is to be the proper setting to the mathematical notion of chaos). I already look forward to Eric's commentary. 

Prior to dinner I chat with a tall blonde, Smith class of '11, with an alluring smile and brimming with confidence. 23 years old. I start to get some swagger until she informs me she "does" algorithms for Google. Hmmm, good to know I now have nothing to say to young people. Sonnet chides me anyway: "you needn't have to do that anymore." Am I relieved by this?

Eitan: "What band is this?"

Me: " 'War On Drugs'. You're mom and I are going to their concert in March. Want to join us?"

Eitan: "I'm OK."

Dramz

Eitan is Caesar

Eitan enjoys school drama and may sit the drama exam for GCSEs next year. Sonnet and I think he would enjoy it but for now his third elective is French. He has stage presence.

I return to London on the over-nighter saying good-bye to Thierry who is on his way to Paris then Milan for the weekend. We cover a lot of ground, he and I. My flight a short five hours putting me into T5 Friday morning 4:50AM and dark, dark, dark. I arrive home to a few groggy hugs and Sonnet in action: she keeps a sharp schedule. Soon it is just me and the dog so I head for work.

Madeleine (6:25AM): "Dad, it's you."

Mobius Strip

Eric gleefully describes his scarf which is also a mobius strip which has a mathematical property of having a non-orientable surface: "You can splice two together and get a klein bottle" he points out. (A klein bottle, dear reader, is a two-dimensional manifold against which a system for determining a normal vector cannot be consistently defined). Like father, like son.

Eric and I have breakfast and catch each other up on various activities: Ben is somehow a Jr in college and contemplating an engineering PhD; Jonah is committed to drama and Isabel is evolving. It's about growing up.

Cricket Rocketeers

Here is another classic from Todd - us launching "The Payloader" which had a clear compartment where Todd and I stuffed bugs and other things. It's the same rocket I recently fired with Johnny.  Note the hand crafted launch pad. The photo taken in 1978 in the parking lot of Golden Gate Fields race track. It was a family affair - Katie and Leslie cower behind the Dodge Swinger.

Power Tower

Central Park

The Solow Building at 9 West 57 Street is buyout central with Apollo, Silver Lake and Highland Capital located here. On the 42nd top floor, where my meeting takes place, is the grand daddy of them all: Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts Co which has completed $400 billion of deal making since the 70s. This is the view when you're king of the hill.

Today marks the 35th anniversary of the London Marathon, a distance I never conquered nor will ever run again. In 1998, at my running prime, I finished London in 3:11 yet had to walk the last two miles. Paula Radcliffe, who I have followed since 1997 when I saw her win a winter road-race bobbing her head all the way, will make the London Marathon her last competitive race come April.

New York Shuts Down

Penn Station

"The Storm Of The Century" arrives on the Eastern Seaboard just in time to cancel a bunch of meetings that have taken several months to set up. Oh well, snow day ! Mayor de Blasio tells us to stay inside, orders all cars off the street from 11PM (that's never happened before) and closes the subway for only the 3rd time in the city's history (interestingly Sonnet and I in Manhattan the first time January 8, 1996). Schools shut and flights cancelled. New York settles in for a good old time.

During the Blizzard of 1996, Sonnet and I walked from our Riverside Drive apartment to the newly opened gourmet Fairway grocery store beneath the Riverside Drive overpass. Not a soul to be seen. We bought a bunch of live lobsters and white wine and walked home through two feet of snow for a saintly evening.

One ton of street salt is $58, up 30% from last year.

Uptown

Harlem Ride

Katie and I head to Harlem for brunch at celeb chef Marcus Samuelsson's comfort food joint "The Red Rooster" (we have Caribbean bacon, stewed beans, haitian piklitz and egg. Plus collard greens and grits, of course) followed by a walk along Lenox Avenue to Central Park. A large group of cyclists catch our attention - a memorial, we are told.

Katie takes a photo of a women's clothing shop which advertises "real clothes for real sizes" only to be accosted by the owner who asks Katie to erase the image. I think uh-oh but instead Katie has a long talk with Sister Sylvia who is angered by out-of-towners snapping photos and exploiting Harlem. She notes a recent documentary shot in her neighbourhood and showing in Paris without the permission of those filmed. She and Katie bond and I am very impressed as my instinct would have been just about the opposite to Katie's.

Guggenheim

I wake up early Sunday in Manhattan and, feeling disoriented from jet lag and lack of sleep, do what I always do in these circumstances: put on my running shoes and hit the road. In this case, it is a short hop from the Four Seasons to Central Park where I am greeted by 1000s of runners completing a half-marathon. I love the company which inspires me to go for a full loop, which passes in a New York minute. This is my second favourites place to run after Tilden Park.

From the Guggenheim website (abbreviated):
In June 1943, Frank Lloyd Wright received a letter from Hilla Rebay, the art advisor to Solomon R. Guggenheim, asking the architect to design a new building to house Guggenheim's four-year-old Museum of Non-Objective Painting. The project evolved into a complex struggle pitting the architect against his clients, city officials, the art world, and public opinion. Both Guggenheim and Wright would die before the building's 1959 completion.

Wright made no secret of his disenchantment with Guggenheim's choice of New York for his museum: "I can think of several more desirable places in the world to build his great museum," Wright wrote in 1949 to Arthur Holden, "but we will have to try New York." To Wright, the city was overbuilt, overpopulated, and lacked architectural merit.

Still, he proceeded with his client's wishes, considering locations on 36th Street, 54th Street, and Park Avenue (all in Manhattan), as well as in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, before settling on the present site on Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Streets. Its proximity to Central Park was key: the museum is an embodiment of Wright's attempts to render the inherent plasticity of organic forms in architecture.

KKH Re Union

Jackie, Ray and Katie

The KKH reunions at Ray's house in Brooklyn and we are greeted by Ray in his salwar kameez and Afghani hats, which he hands out to the men. This is only the second time we have been together as a group since August 1997. All are assembled, missing only Sonnet, and include Ray, Tom, Sharon, Joanna, Katie, me and - of course - Munir.

The route, on the Pakistani side, commenced at Taxila City (40km from Islamabad and Rawalpindi) to Abbottabad, where Bin Laden killed. I had forgotten that we lunched not far from his mansion, which was located on the KKH at the intersection of the road leading to the military academy. From there is was Chatter Plain near Basham (famous for its gun trade) then Kohistan, "the mountain district."

Munir tells the story of Yakub Shaw and the Punjabi wrestler.

One night, in Kashgar, Yakub was at a restaurant with the famous Punjabi wrestler who was with his entourage of ten men. After a loud evening, the Punjabi wrestler departed without paying his our his entourage's bill. Yakub overheard the proprietor complaining about the Pakastanis and the trouble they caused. He said, "No. Do not complain about the Pakistanis.  I am Pakistani." Then he paid their bill and then went immediately to the hotel room of the Punjabi wrestler. He entered the room with force and locked the door behind him from the inside.  From outside, people heard a terrible noise and banging. After 30 minutes, Yaqub opened the door. The Punjabi wrestler was on the floor where he had received a terrible beating [Munir indicates Yaqub washing his hands of the whole affair as he walks by the entourage].

Meanwhile

Madeleine and her pals

The last couple weeks have zipped by including the Noel Xmas party for Astorg at a..  . haunted house in Paris (Sonnet: "That was unexpected."); Noa's Bat Mitvah, Hampton School's "A" squad advance to the final eight of the English Schools FA Cup, or ESFA, out of 610 squads.  Sonnet prepares for the opening of Italian Fashion in Portland, Oregon (she will take Madeleine) and I soon depart for a week on the East Coast including seeing Katie in NYC and a reunion of the Silk Road at the professor's home in Brooklyn.

Eitan stands before the refrigerator. Sonnet: "What are you looking for?"

Eitan: "Food."

Roger Goes Public

A typical Box employee

Roger's company Box floats (the stock price is up!) on the New York Stock Exchange raising $175m, underwritten by several investment banks including Morgan Stanley where, Roger reminds us, he began his career shortly after Brown. Now who is holding the bag? 

Roger's decision to leave the security of Microsoft a courageous one, requiring a relocation from Seattle to Silicon Valley. While the transition disruptive, his family has thrived and matured and it has been a joy, though not always, to be a part of it. You've come a long way, baby.

The Long Road

Lest we forget how far these kids have come.

Eitan considers his mock GCSEs, exams he will take in 18 months. He will sit 12 subjects and must today choose three electives. No easy task, deciding one's future. You will be hearing a lot about the GCSEs, dear reader. Stay tuned.

Eitan: "Didn't somebody once ask you in an interview what vegetable you would want to be?"
Me: "Brussel sprouts. Nobody would eat me."
Madeleine: "I would want a vegetable that gets respect. Like broccoli."
Me: "Broccoli?"
Madeleine: "Beetroot doesn't get any respect."
Klara: "What about a tomato?"
Eitan: "Good one only it's a fruit."
Madeleine: "If I was a fruit I would want to be a passion fruit. No, wait, a guava."
Me:
Madeleine: "So I would be living in the tropics."
Me: "I'm glad we've got the fruit and veg covered."

Race Day Collage

Wimbledon Common 

Madeleine runs a x-country race on Wimbledon Common competing against 100 girls or so.  The 3K race starts on a flat green "but then winds its way through a horrible muddy terrain" (says Madeleine). She now tells me that her strategy was to "charge through the puddles and mud swamps while the other runners went around them."

I watch the final push - go Madeleine! - and she finds an extra gear to pass 4 girls (pictured) to finish an unofficial 13th (first for her new club Hercules Wimbledon).

Madeleine: "It felt like there was a knife in my shoulder and my asthma was super-bad." (Dad's note, Madeleine races with an inhaler which she uses during and after running and any exertion)

Goal Posts

The kids cooperate on Gracie's holiday present

From one muddy pitch to the next, Eitan plays center mid field against Worster Park on a cold, wet and dark day in a concrete town on the outskirts of London. The morning made worse by the outcome: 4-2 them (Eitan scores one, misses another). It should have been a draw but those are the breaks. Madeleine wisely stays in bed.

Now I am in Paris and despite the date it still feels like Christmas. The lights and ornaments remain along Faubourg St Honoree and carols fill the hotel. Are the retailers trying to eek out a few more holiday sales or the French unwilling to let go? (Sonnet took everything down December 31).

Madeleine, doodling: "It's an animal. And a pineapple."
Me: "Oh?"
Madeleine: "Its a pinanimal."
Me:
Madeline: "This one is a Frankenstein dog. A Frankendog."
Me: "Cool."

Surrey Cross Country Championships

Teamwork

 We sit around the kitchen listening to the rain on a dark Saturday morning. The kids running a cross country race. Even Rusty hesitates in these conditions. I have become that parent who talks about walking six miles in the snow to get to school. Well .. my and Katie's swimming galas went from the crack of dawn to late evening or night. Madeleine rolls her eyes.

We arrive at Lloyds Park in the Borough of Croydon (awful, Kate Moss is from here) to find the various clubs doing their pre race preparations and I think: Military. I take the dog for a tour of the course and it is unrunnable in the mud without spikes.

Madeleine's race, 3K, off first - bang! - and the many legged beast heads for the first turn, lost from site over the hill and into the common.  There is a strange loll while the spectators seek a new vantage point (I head towards the finish line) then there they are - at least the front runner, covered in mud grimacing, in effort - racing down the final incline towards the finishing shoot. Madeleine is in hot pursuit, maybe 30 yards outside. She finishes, clutching her inhaler, in 12:25, good enough for a top place.

Final leg

Eitan sits around for 1.5 hours before his starting gun. He competes with the U15s which get an extra kilometre for the 4k race. Cross country new to both kids and Eitan surveys the course beforehand.

Eitan off like a rocket, settles in and finishes in the middle of the pack.

Both kids satisfied/ relieved when it is over. In the car Madeleine devours a 'bacon buddy' and Eitan a muffin and bag of crisps. Bravo.

Me (kids dive into pizza): "Say something about the race."
Sonnet: "Everybody has to have a piece of broccoli!"
Madeleine: "It was very tough."
Eitan: "The puddles made it fun."

Napoleon In The House

Napoleon's Coronation, which we saw last month at the Louvre

Sonnet and I begin the New Year with War And Peace, ten hours of it, broadcast on Radio 4 all day, New Year's day. It is a wonderful production, abridged of course, and brings alive the book I read several years ago.

W&P, Vanity Fair and Les Miserables (which I read following our visit to the Paris sewers) each cover the same period of history focusing on Napoleon's failure in Moscow or Waterloo. Tolstoy, Thackery and Hugo create epicness by making the wars a major character in their tails while writing their stories 50 or 60 years after the demise of the French army.  It is a window into a different era that changed the future of Europe.

And Napoleon, for his part, rose from the French Revolution of 1789. He dominated European affairs for two decades, leading France in the  Napoleonic Wars and seizing control of most of continental Europe before Waterloo 1815. One of the greatest commanders in history, his campaigns are studied at military schools worldwide and he remains simultaneously one of the most celebrated and controversial political figures in European history.

In civil affairs Napoloeon put in place many liberal reforms across Europe summarized by British historian Andrew Roberts:

"The ideas that underpin our modern world—meritocracy, equality before the law, property rights, religious toleration, modern secular education, sound finances, and so on—were championed, consolidated, codified and geographically extended by Napoleon. To them he added a rational and efficient local administration, an end to rural banditry, the encouragement of science and the arts, the abolition of feudalism and the greatest codification of laws since the fall of the Roman Empire."

"Imagination rules the world."-Napoleon Bonaparte

A Lull In The Action

Family Portrait

We enjoy the lull of the holidays, sleeping in, going to yoga and eating cheese and chocolate. Drinking red wine. Reading. But all good things must come to an end and we drop Auntie Katie off at T2. With a hug and a smile she returns to Manhattan.

An add for "Alpecin Caffeine Shampoo" tells us that 2 million bottles sold in Germany last year which makes me wonder: is there a faster way than coffee?

Eitan sells the six antique chairs sitting in the garage on eBay (they were otherwise to the dump). He discovers a new business model and now selling one of my shirts.

Me: "Are you shaving your legs?"
Madeleine: "OMG."

Sonnet: "So what kinds of snacks should I be getting you?"
Eitan: "Cereal."
Sonnet: "Oh? What kind?"
Eitan: "Crave."
Madeleine: "Cheerios."
Sonnet: "Now we're talking."
Eitan: "Wheat-a-bix."
Me, Madeleine:
Sonnet: "He is British."
Me: "Frosted Flakes."
Madeleine: "Lucky Charms. Oh, I love Lucky Charms."
Sonnet: "We are not getting Lucky Charms."
Me: "What's Crave, anyway?"
Eitan: "It's, like, cereal cubes with creamy chocolate inside."
Me: "That's basically candy."
Eitan: "Yes but you can have it for breakfast."

Camden

Camden Market

At Madeleine's request, we spend the day in Camden Town to visit the market, which has been going since 1974 when a small weekly crafts market operated every Sunday near Camden Lock. It eventually developed into a large complex of temporary stalls.  Now it is London's fourth-most popular visitor attraction drawing 100,000 people on the weekend.

Madeleine and Eitan head for the clothing stalls and shoe stores: they each buy a "Vans" sweatshirt (arguing who saw it first) and Eitan gets some fresh Puma's.  They both have an eye for the thing.

Me, wearing a tight cotton turtle neck: "Can you see my nips?"
Madeleine: "Dad!"
Me: "I thought we could talk about anything."
Madeleine: "We can. Just not everything."
Me: "So nips are out. What else?"
Madeleine:
Me: "Guys. Can we talk about guys?"
Madeleine: "OMG. This is so embarrassing."
Me: "I'm just trying to understand the boundaries."

Holiday Spirit

Train to Camden

Boxing Day comes and goes. We host a small party for our local friends then wrap up the afternoon in front of a couple of movies: Leon (for me) about an assassin who takes in a 12 year-old Natalie Portman which provides plenty of action and gore, just perfect for the holidays, followed by The Avengers for some more action, though this time mindless. Hollywood's focus on gay comic book heroes has become a bore.

I run the Parkrun 3 mile race in Richmond Park (every Saturday, 9AM) and complete the course in 20:56 or 27 out of 215 runners.  Eitan elects to sleep in, fair enough. The winning time is 17:31 or the difference between me, now, and twenty years.

Photo by Katie.

Cheer

New puppy slippers and a rooster hat from Auntie Katie.

Christmas Day starts surprisingly late around 10AM. Gone are the days when Eitan and Madeleine up at the crack of dawn pestering us downstairs! Downstairs! Downstairs! Eitan needs his sleep which even trumps presents.

We watch the movie Big which has the the kids' attention, especially the scene where Tom Hanks arrives at the office Christmas party in a white tuxedo then acts like a general weirdo. Eitan: "It's just like a kid acts at a party!"

Madeleine burns a napkin with a table cable, which gets a scolding from Sonnet. Madeleine: "Dad what would happen if I put my iPhone in the fire?"
Me: "You'd be without an iPhone?"
Madeleine: "Would it melt or something?"
Me: "Or it might explode."
Madeleine: "That's what I thought. Just wondering."

Katie: "There are a few things the Brits do better and some things the Americans do better."
Eitan: "I know."
Katie: "The Americans do better teeth. And better skin." 
Eitan:
Katie: "The Brits do better gardens, flowers and tea. And better accents. The Americans have better food."
Me: "I'm not so sure about that."
Katie: "Bangers and mash?"
Me: "I like the French. For food."
Eitan: "The Americans can't play football."
Katie: "We have more land! We have more land!"
Eitan: "You don't have to gloat."

Xmas Eve

Barnes track

We sneak into the Barnes field which used to be not sneaking but now there is a fence and gate which impedes our entry. It has become a Christmas Eve event.  Sonnet prepares gravlax and we have bagels for dinner, as is our custom.

Katie's Op-Ed Project is going great guns. In 2014, she and her colleagues visited seven countries and worked with over 25 universities. She says "Booyah!"

Des Egouts

Following our visit to the Musee Des Egouts De Paris, also known as the Paris sewer museum, I decide to read Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables."

Paris's first sewer system BTW was built in the 1200's: It consisted of open troughs that ran down the center of each cobblestone road. It was not esp effective and contributed to the spread of the Black Death.

The first underground sewer was built in 1370 beneath the Rue Montmartre, and drained into the Seine. The Sewers were expanded slowly during the next 400 years. However due to a lack of coverage beneath the city and widespread disrepair the sewers remained a problem. ..

Napoleon Bonaparte finally brought the sewers up to speed. In 1805, Bruneseau was commissioned to undertake the building of 182 new miles of sewer:

"The complete visitation of the subterranean sewer system of Paris occupied seven years, from 1805 to 1812. While yet he was performing it, Bruneseau laid out, directed and brought to an end some considerable works; in 1808 he lowered the floor of the Ponceau, and creating new lines everywhere, he extended the sewer... At the same time he disinfected and purified the whole network. (Les Miserables, Jean Valjean; Book II, Ch. 4)"

No other city has a sewer network that that of Paris whose tunnels stretch 2,100 kilometres. It houses, in addition to the drinking and non drinking water mains, telecommunication cables, pneumatic cables and traffic light management cables.  Every day, 1.2 million cubic metres of wastewater have to be collected. Every year, 15,000 cubic metres of solid waste are taken out and disposed of.

Me: "The first line of Les Mis .. ."
Kate: "Which is?"
Me: "In the year 1815 Monseigneur Charles-Francois-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of Digne."
Kate: "That's an auspicious start."

More On Hair

Vampire

Here’s an advertisement by Oxford BioLabs for hair loss:

“Hair loss can be a nightmare. It can make you look less attractive, and also lead to disadvantages within your career and limit you in your partner choice. It can lead to depression, loss of self-confidence and even identity change.”   

Who knew?

Fortunately my hair has got me to where I wish to be: married, a career of some sort, and male.

Eitan has nothing to worry about as his mother’s father had a full head of thick and heavy hair.  I remember Stan's slicked back pompadour from another era - it was very becoming, esp when perched on a bar stool with drink and fag, animated in some story. Indeed another time.