Bay Area Morning

I am behind on my weblog following a week in California. Bare with me. My photo of the Bay Area taken from Panaramic Rd in the North Berkeley Hills behind Memorial football stadium. The Golden Gate visible to the immediate left of the tree. I arrive SFO Monday afternoon and up the following morning 4AM. Rather then lay in bed and fight my demons, I pinch my dad's tri-pod and quietly let myself out the front door. This the dead-zone: the only movement a lone, empty bus (the No. 65 which used to be the No. 7 in my day) which cruises up Euclid Avenue. I pass the Cal dorms, Top Dog (a Berkeley fixture since '66), a sciences building and the business school - all locked down. I brought Sonnet to Panaramic during our early courtship and she recalls the night - like now, it was unusually warm and the view unchanged. I make my phone calls and consider the strangeness of looking at this while talking to Helsinki or London. Not possible fifteen years ago.

We have a proper family re-union dinner as Katie in Palo Alto where she signs a partnership with Stanford University. They will provide editorial training for women and minorities.

According to the San Fran Chronicle, the San Francisco Bay Area is one of the wealthiest regions in the U.S thanks to the economic power engines of San Francisco and San Jose. The Bay Area has approximately 123,621 millionaire households. Among medium-sized cities, Pleasanton has the highest household income in the country, and Livermore the third highest. 48% of the Bay's households have annual incomes >$75,000 vs. 26% for the nation. The percentage of households with incomes above $100,000 was double the nationwide percentage. Roughly one third of households had a six figure income, versus less than 16% at the nationwide level.

In June 2003, a study by Stanford University reviewing US Census Bureau statistics determined the median household income in the Bay is roughly 60% above national average. Overall the largest income bracket in the Bay Area were households making between $100,000 and $150,000 annually, who constituted roughly 18% of households. On a national level the largest income bracket were households with incomes between $30,000 and $40,000 who constituted 13% of all households nationwide. Of the 100 highest income counties by per capita income in the United States, six are in the San Francisco Bay Area (Marin, San Mateo, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Contra Costa, Alameda).

According to Forbes Magazine, published in 2005, 12 of the top 50 most expensive Zip Codes are here (Atherton, Ross, Diablo, Belvedere-Tiburon, Nicasio, Portola Valley, Los Altos-Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos-Monte Sereno, the Cow Hollow-Marina District of San Francisco, Alamo, and Burlingame-Hillsborough).Forty-seven Bay Area residents made the Forbes magazine's 400 richest Americans list, published in 2007. Thirteen live within San Francisco proper, placing it seventh among cities in the world. Among the forty-two were several well-known names such as Steve Jobs, George Lucas, and Charles Schwab. The highest-ranking resident is Larry Ellison of Oracle at No. 4. He is worth $19.5 billion. Additionally, a Forbes survey of the super wealthy concluded that the Bay Area had the highest concentration of the super wealthy relative to other locations such as New York City and Dallas. "America's Greediest Cities". (Forbes Magazine) A study by Claritas indicates that in 2004, 5% of all households within the San Francisco and San Jose metropolitan areas held $1 million in investable assets. As of 2007, there were approximately 80 public companies with annual revenues of over $1 billion a year, and 5-10 more private companies. Nearly 2/3 of these are in the Silicon Valley section of the Bay Area.

A May 2009 Fortune Magazine analysis of the US "Fortune 500" companies indicates that the combined San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland metropolitan region ranks second nationally (along with metro Chicago and Houston) with 29 companies. Additionally, when the combined total revenue of the Fortune 500 list companies is considered, the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland region again ranks second nationally after New York with $884 billion. As of 2010, the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland region ranks second only to New York City (and ahead of Chicago and Houston) as the number of Fortune 500 companies has increased to 31 companies. (April 2010 Fortune Magazine) (Sources: Inside Bay Area, Stanford University, US 2005 Economic Survey and the San Francisco Chronicle)

Eitan: "Do the Americans know what a 'loo' is?"

Dream Fulfilled

Heal, Boy, Heal

"Rusty" is a pure-bred (we have no plans to stud "Rusty" so no need to own papers which otherwise would make him more expensive). "Rusty's" dad, pictured, has won a series of local Powys competitions this year, selected "Best Pedigree," "Best Gun Dog," "Best Sporting Dog," and "Best Conditioned Dog," 2010. He also won "Best In Show" and since this his first competition the locals pretty pissed off. We are told this by Steve and Kati who are very proud of their pets. The drive to Wales adds to the story - a Welsh Springer Spaniel from .. Wales.

Love At First Sight

We arrive at the breeder's house in the middle of the Welsh countryside.

"Rusty" is pretty damn cute, I admit, and we are immediately smitten by the nine-week old puppy. Sure, we have heard the stories of sleepless nights and dog shit everywhere but for now, it is all love. To see Madeleine's face indescribable - this just may be the happiest day of her life. In fact, I am sure of it. We receive our final dog instructions about vaccinations, worming, pet food, exercise &c. Owning a pup somehow less daunting now that we have the pooch - it cannot really be that difficult, can it? As I mention to Sonnet, unlike with the kids we can just pop the dog into a potato sack and chuck him into the Thames. I get a cold stare. 15 minutes into our six-hour drive to London the dog throws up on Eitan.

The Welsh Springer Spaniel is a breed of dog and a member of the spaniel family. Thought to be comparable to the old Land Spaniel, they are similar to the English Springer Spaniel and historically have been referred to as both the Welsh Spaniel and the Welsh Cocker Spaniel. They were relatively unknown until a succession of victories in dog trials by the breed increased its popularity. Following recognition by The Kennel Club in 1902, the breed gained the modern name of Welsh Springer Spaniel. The breed's coat only comes in a single colour combination of white with red markings. Loyal and affectionate, they can become very attached to family members and are wary of strangers. They are a working dog, bred for hunting, and while not as rare as some varieties of spaniel, they are rarer than the more widely known English Springer Spaniel with which they are sometimes confused.

--Wiki

Wales Or Bust

Madeleine moments before meeting "Rusty" - the fulfillment of a two year campaign and dream come true.

Saying our good-byes to Dave and Tabitha and their clan, we head for Wales crossing the Brecon Beacon on a lovely autumnal day. It is hard not to be impressed by the splendid scenery. The mountains are red-brown which, Sonnet notes, are ferns now dead from the seasonal cold. 50-degrees latitude yet tropical plants cover most of the visible countryside. Bi-zaar. We are on our way to Rhayader, Powys.

Mid-morning outside Bath in the parking lot of the closed Pet Shop superstore, Sonnet saves the day with her Android phone with directions to where we are going. The sat-nav not programmed for Wales. The kids on the edge of their seat.

We drive past the Big Pit which draws shudders from the Shakespeares. Recall the pit a disused coal mine which today provides access to tourist via an elevator-drop some hundreds of feet below the earth's surface. The tunnels narrow and claustrophobic and, since Eitan and Madeleine the youngest by like 20 years, we found ourselves at the tail end of the group struggling to keep up. At one point Madeleine's torch falls off and while fixing the problem we are momentarily separated from the guide. The kids screamed like nobody's business and we were well glad to get the hell out of there.

The Anglo-Saxon word for 'foreign' or 'foreigner' was Waelisc and a 'foreign(er's) land' was called Wēalas. The modern English forms of these words with respect to the modern country are Welsh (the people) and Wales (the land). Historically in Britain the words were not restricted to modern Wales or to the Welsh but were used indiscriminately to refer to anything that the Anglo-Saxons associated with Celtic Britons, including other foreign lands (like Cornwall), places once associated with Celtic Britons (Walworth in County Durham and Walton in West Yorkshire), the surnames of people (Walsh and Wallace) and various other things that were once new and foreign to the Anglo-Saxons (ergo,"the walnut"). None of these historic usages is necessarily connected to Wales or the Welsh. The Anglo-Saxon words derived from the same Germanic root (singular Walh, plural Walha) that has provided modern names for Continental lands (e.g., Wallonia and Wallachia) and peoples (e.g., the Vlachs via a borrowing into Old Church Slavonic), none of which have any connection to Wales or the Welsh. Source: Wiki.

Madeleine: "Do you know where we are going?"

Me: "Yes, I just don't know how to get there."

Mixer

Tabitha, Johny and AC work on the cake mix - I think this one Sonnet's gingerbread cake. Sonnet also prepares a pork roast with apples and onions, parsnips, carrots and mashed potatoes. Fab-u-lous. Afterwards we put the kiddies to bed and sit around the fire talking about middle aged stuff: house design, real estate values, fx rates and the movies. A bit of "Mad Men" and "Brothers and Sisters" which Sonnet and I will check out after "The Wire" as we are about to begin Season 4. Really these things are all consuming and I have not read a book in some while. Dave and Tabitha have remodelled their home - every room flows and light floods through windows that look across cherry and apple groves, poplar and other trees which are changing colour in a most brilliant fashion. Beyond are open fields and the rolling hills of England. Below us, Bath. Tomorrow, dog.

Paddington Station

From Heathrow I catch the Paddington Express to meet Dave then off to Bath for the week end where Sonnet, Tabitha and Sam are seeing the ballet while the men prepare dinner (risotto, venison) and watch the kids (TV, chocolate cake). Sam and John are a neat couple - for the last 18 years John has been the key photographer for the Brits which is Britain's oscars. He has an wonderful inventory of popular images and I hope to choose one or two for our living room or somewhere. The kids race to my open arms as we have not seen each other since Monday. Sonnet does the same. Madeleine especially enthusiastic while Eitan has a bit of his cool on. He is pre-occupied by Wayne Rooney who announced he was leaving Manchester United but I am delighted to bring him the immediate news that Rooney has signed a five-year contract with ManU. I feel like Father Christmas.

Downtown Switzerland

I have an evening in Zurich and go for a jog along the lake. Since autumnal and the light changing with the afternoon and clouds, I bring along my camera and take a few shots – pictured. My first visit to Zurich in 1984 for a swimming meet. It looks no different today, really, despite a few new buildings and roadworks around the train station. Clean and charming. White. I dodge the trams to get across the street. From here it is Gutenberg, Sweden - a new city! -and Helsinki.

Zurich likes to call itself "Downtown Switzerland" (according to the Tourist Board) and is the largest city in Switzerland. While the municipality has about 380,500 inhabitants, the metropolitan area is nearly 2 million inhabitants. The canton was permanently settled for around 7,000 years ago and Zurich's history of goes back to its founding by the Romans, who, in 15 BC, called it Turicum. During the Middle Ages Zurich gained the independent and privileged status of imperial immediacy and, in 1519, was the place of origin and centre of the Protestant Reformation in German-speaking Switzerland, led by Ulrich Zwingli (www.zurich.com)

Zurich today is one of the world's largest financial centres while the low tax rate (27% flat) attracts overseas companies to set up their headquarters here - like Delaware maybe. Or HongKong. According to several surveys from 2006 to 2008, Zurich was named the city with the best quality of life in the world as well as the wealthiest city in Europe (source: Mercer Consulting). British hedge funds, banks and private equity funds are moving, or threatening to move, here.

Etoile

I jog this morning, 7AM, and disoriented by the activity on the Champs-Élysées - did my alarm go off at the wrong time? The avenue well lit, naturally, but there are people concluding their evening while street workers scrub down the road. Traffic honks away. It feels like midnight not the beginning of the day. My run takes me down the Champs to Place de la Concorde which is like playing "frogger" to cross. The Parisiennes have no qualms about striking a jogger at this hour. From there it is Toulerise then the Louvre; I cross a bridge to the Left Bank regarding Île de la Cité from point-on and finally Notre Dame with a single statue of Mary drawing my attention. By the time I return to my hotel the sun glancing the golden rooftops from the Grand Palais to the Arc de Triomphe, pictured. This is the Western World.

Salmon

Eitan: "Do you want to go away this week?"

Me: "No, I would rather stay with you."

Eitan: "Why do you go then?"

Me: "Money does not grow on trees. We have to earn it."

Eitan: "Can we copy it?"

Me: "Copy what?"

Eitan: "Money. Can't we just copy it?"

Me: "There are no short cuts unfortunately.... Keep trying though."

Madeleine: "I cannot believe we are getting a dog in less than six days."

La Grève And Astorg

What I don't get about the strikes, as I sit here in Paris across the street from the presidential palace, is why young people are involved (at now, ten of 12 oil refineries have have shut down or are in the process of closing while half the flights from CDG cancelled. Could be me tomorrow). Afterall, the protests about moving the retirement age from 60 (the lowest in Europe) to 62 and reforming the pension scheme which is much needed for its survival. For the yuf, this is a lifetime away - what twenty-year-old thinks beyond next week? Students should be fighting to ensure they get a piece of the pie, ie, pro-reform, instead of a possible insolvency. But I suppose this does not work when the state viewed as the secure long-term career track. By contrast, my free market taxi driver is énervé by the lack of fuel which means he may not work tomorrow. So I hope for Sarkozy's success. Of course the disruptions occur as I am with foreign investors who may committ tens of millions of euros to France. But at least yesterday it was a lovely fall afternoon with the foliage turning orange and the light bouncing from the Seine so, really, where else compares?

Despite it all, France has a powerful economy, which is the fifth largest in the world in nominal terms at $2.1 trillion, behind the United States, China, Japan and Germany and the eighth largest by purchasing power parity. It is the second largest economy in Europe behind Germany and fourth largest behind Germany, United Kingdom and Russia by PPP (World Bank figures). Unemployment at 10% keeps people nervous and the taxes are high no doubt (with UK catching up) but the health care and transportation networks are, arguably, the best in the world for what they provide.

France has produced global leaders in energy resources, retail, manufacturing and other industry. Managements here are clever in a French way - clever like the fox. As for investment, approximately .70% of GDP committed to private equity which is on par with Scandanavia and behind the UK and US, which have over 1%. This suggests room for growth - I have observed through Astorg that French owners have become comfortable with buy-outs as the exit route. It is no longer seen as unusual (compared to m&a or an IPO) as it was in the '90s. In theory the discipline of independent private ownership modernises business and, against popular opinion in some places (see: Germany) preserves jobs. Intuitively, better run companies are less likely to fail, though leverage may put enormous pressure on the operators. In any case, Astorg has done better than most when it comes to transformations - the firm has earned a top spot on the league tables.

Photo from CNN.

Alton

The Alton Estate, pictured, is a large council in Roehampton not too far from Sheen. It's made up of Alton East and the slightly later Alton West, each with several separate neighbourhoods. There are 13,000 residents making it one of the UK's largest. The architecture is mainly split between brutalist architecture and its Scandinavian-inspired counterpart. The area comprising a crossroads which links Roehampton Lane, Roehampton Village and the estate is undergoing planning to be redeveloped by Wandsworth Council.

Alton West was considered by many British architects to be the crowning glory of post World War Two social housing at tits completion in 1958. What made Alton West so special was its response to its setting: Built on a large expanse of parkland on the edge of Richmond Park, Alton West was a direct translation of Le Corbusiers’ idea of the Ville Radieuse or park city; sets of "point" and "slab" blocks being surrounded by the beauty of Richmond Park below. On this natural landscape at Alton West stood a number of different housing configurations; 12-storey "point" blocks with 4 flats per floor, terraces of low-rise maisonettes and cottages and perhaps most famously, five 11-storey "slab" blocks, heavily influenced by the recently completed Unité d'Habitation by Le Corbusier. Source: Wandsworth Council and Wiki

Madeleine, watching X-Factor: "Juggling fire, dad. Isn't that a bit dangerous?"

Hallowe'en Prequal

We have several families over for Sunday lunch including Dariaush who is from Iran. We talk about Iran's nuclear program and I learn that Iran's problem water. Specifically non-salienated "sweet" water which is used to extract oil. Consequently Iran depleting its water tables rapidly. Further, Iran's oil refined outside of the country by foreign companies. Consequently, Dariaush informs me, Iran must import oil from the global spot markets and it is not always cheap. See 2007. This is the reason for Iran's nuclear plans - despite being one of the world's largest owner of oil and gas they have to import energy and nuclear power cheaper+less water intensive. Their bomb making ambitions make no sense: Why spend billions building a nuclear weapon when one can be purchased for a couple hundred million on the black market? See Pakistan or North Korea. As for secrecy, Iran has likely acquired its technology from unsavory or surprising sources which it does not wish to share. Maybe Russia? Maybe America? As for Ahmadinejad it is any one's guess as to how he remains in power - nobody likes him including Mir-Hossein Mousavi Khameneh who is the powerful leader of the opposition party. Khameneh's nephew Seyed Ali Mousavi was killed by Ahmadinejad's security forces during the Iranian election protests and now his son accused of corruption. Ahmadinejad poking the hornet's nest. Dariaush thinks Big Business keeps Ahmadinejad in power since global companies benefit from oil sales contracts with Iran. Ahmadinejad a foil, propaganda, on scale with Iran's war with Iraq in the 1980s which united a country against a common cause, Iraq, while individuals lost their freedom after the Shah's removal (consider: USA WMD). This time though it might not work for Ahmadinejad but who knows?

Madeleine has a swimming gala yesterday morning and wins her relay and freestyle race. She gets a medal which she hangs up on her football trophy "that I won doing football, dad." We are thrilled for her.

Eitan Detective

We go to Emily's birthday party last night. Before dinner she hosts a "salon," asking five or six guests to present their expertise. Sonnet talks about 80s fashion, which is her planned next exhibition for 2012. I rarely get to see her in action and she is terrific - poised, comfortable and in control of her subject matter. I think of the ladies in Bronxville for some reason. The other speakers are equally remarkable: one guy describes his energy independent 9X9 meter eco-units which will one day soon be shipped around the world; another fellow who designed Trafalgar Square with Sir Richard Rogers. A famous writer reads a birthday poem while a neural scientist talks about the concept of 'home.' Concluding is Seraphine, a violinist for the London Philharmonic, who performs a melancholic tune of a man leaving home in Scotland. I talk to Seraphine afterwards - she grew up in St John's Wood before Oxford, when she met Emily. Seraphine's parents encouraged her talent from an early age and it has taken her around the world: she returned last week from Tokyo where, she notes, the Japanese attentive and appreciative of her craft. I ask if she is nervous before a performance? but she views it as any job, no sweat. It is what she does.

Sonnet meets the European Editor for Wired Magazine who refuses to sign up for Facebook. He is a gadget guy, he tells her. There is a new media element to the scene which is not surprising since Emily's husband James once at Yahoo and then part of the founding management of Skype and now responsible for Condé Nast's digital strategy. Condé publishes 85 magazines (including Wired). James sits on the main board with S.I. Newhouse Jr and is the youngest guy by ten years. Our mutual friend Nick Denton, founder of blog empire Gawker Media, profiled in this week's New Yorker magazine.

Sonnet wears her red dress and black pumps and we make scrambled eggs at midnight.

"A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine the taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to please or to educate" ("aut delectare aut prodesse est"). Salons, commonly associated with French literary and philosophical movements of the 17th century and 18th centuries, were carried on until quite recently, in urban settings, among like-minded people."

--Wiki

Some Cracks And The Dog's Name

Madeleine helps me fill in a few cracks from the second floor roof-deck. The area behind her I plan to turn into a green roof. Or maybe not.

Madeleine: "Are you glad you had two kids?"

Me: "Of course. You and Eitan are the joy of our life."

Madeleine: "Did you want a third kid?"

Me: "We thought about it I suppose. Are you happy to have me as your dad?"

Madeleine: "Well, I guess if I didn't have you some other dad might not let me have a dog."

Eitan reads a harvest-day verse to the entire school. We find out a day or two later when he looks up from his plate to fill us in on a few scanty details. How honoured, dear reader, are we to know at all.

Dog names contemplated by the family: Chester, Morris, Skud, Rusty, Dash, Ziggy, Don't-Shit-On-The-Carpet (mine), Waldo, Copper, Sipper, Makee (sp?), Mac Attack, Get-Out-Of-Bed-And-Take-The-Dog-Out (Sonnet), Marmaduke and Oscar. There are quite a few more but these are the ones that made it to a vote.

Tunnel & Tommy

Showing the world Europe can still do something with its hands and following 14 years of drilling, Switzerland builds the world’s longest rail tunnel - pictured. The Swiss tunnel's 34 miles cuts straight through the Alps. It is about 2.5 miles longer than the previous record tunnel in Japan. Unfortunately for those around and nearby, today's completion only the first stage of the project which includes more .. tunnels. And is not expected to be completed for maybe, like, 7 years. Designed primarily for large freight traffic, the tunnel will reduce travel time across the mountains and speed up commerce and trade. The trip from Zurich to Milan, for instance, now one hour faster. The project employed 2,500 diggers moving enough dirt and rock to build five of the Egyptian Pyramids.

Madeleine: "Dad do you think it is possible to dress Tommy up?

Me: "Sure. What would you dress Tommy up in?"

Madeleine: "I don't know. Do you think Tommy a Vampire Hamster?"

Me:

Madeleine: "For Halloween. Maybe I will dress him up as a Vampire Hamster."

Me: "Well that would be original."

Madeleine: "Would it? Why would it be original?"

Me: "Nobody has done it before."

Madeleine: "Really? We can make a web site about it. Do you want to hold it?"

Me: "I'm busy."

Madeleine: "Dad: serious question. Who do you like more, Tommy or the computer?"

Me:

Madeleine: "I knew it! You like the computer more don't you dad?"

Me:

Photo of the Swiss Tunnel from the AP.

Teacher Reviews+Butthead

And so yes - Friday again.

We have the parent-teacher conferences yesterday and both Eitan and Madeleine do fine. Mrs. Q, Madeleine's teacher, says that Madeleine is great at her times tables, has good ideas for story-writing, has improved her ability to develop story-lines and loves art. She shows us a hand crafted Tudor chair made with styrofoam, fabric and sparkles. Fabulous. We are delighted with Madeleine's progress.

Eitan's teacher, Mr P, is new to the school, from Ireland, and looks exactly like Butthead from 'Beavis & Butthead.' Seriously. Tall and unusually thin. Long narrow head slightly larger at the top, cropped black hair+large lower lip. Do a Google. Eitan tells us that the boys try to get him to say "third" because Mr P's accent says "turd." Yet P instills our confidence as he rattles through a check list of Eitan's accomplishments - he takes a particular interest Eitan's literary abilities which is P's favorite subject. Eitan may not be the class leader, we learn, but he is confident and independent - I think too early to call him a geek but that is there too.

As for Butthead in "Beavis & Butthead," Butthead wears dental braces has squinty eyes and a drooping nose with prominent nostrils. His top gums exposed due to a small upper lip and he speaks nasally with a deep voice and a slight lisp. He begins almost every statement with "Uhhhhhh..." and ends with his short trademark laugh "Uh huh huh huh". Calmer, though cockier, and marginally more intelligent than Beavis, Butt-head is oblivious to subtlety of any sort and is usually 100% confident in everything he says and does no matter how ridiculous or frivolous it is—unless it has to do with females, in which case he either wavers or comes on too strongly. His trademark phrase when approaching women is "hey baby". As the more dominant personality of the duo it seems he derives pleasure from regularly abusing Beavis. It is a total cap on the suburban teenager.

NYC Subway

Katie brings back wonderful memories of commuting to work in the Big Apple with her photo she sends me. My first year in New York I caught the "F" train from Greenwich Village up 6th Avenue to the 50th and Park Avenue station and the Mighty First Boston (Park Avenue Plaza - 55 East 52nd Street). Sometimes I got a seat but usually standing room only. Funny how I recall my very first day of work with Erik who "moood" like a cattle as we shuffled along the platform towards the exit - nobody paid him no mind. That would have been August 1989 after our 10-week "training" program meant to turn us into Financial Analysts or Investment Bankers or whatever we were meant to be. Underpaid whipping boys, mostly. But I guess it got us somewhere.

Here is the raw data from Wiki: The NY Subway is one of the oldest and most extensive public transportation systems in the world, with 468 stations in operation (423 if stations connected by transfers are counted as a single station); 229 miles of routes, translating into 656 miles of revenue track; and a total of 842 miles including non-revenue trackage. Much bigger than the Underground. In 2009, the subway delivered over 1.579 billion rides, averaging over five million on weekdays, 2.9 million on Saturdays, and 2.2 million on Sundays. The New York City Subway trails only Tokyo's, Moscow's and Seoul's subways in annual ridership and carries more passengers than all other rail mass transit systems in the US combined. It is one of the four systems, with PATH, parts of the Chicago 'L', and PATCO to offer service 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

“When it's three o'clock in New York, it's still 1938 in London.”

--Bette Midler

Tiffen School

Eitan and I check out the Tiffen School in Kingston - chemistry lab pictured (do note the flames originating from the boy's hands). Tiffen the best grammar school in our area and, indeed, one of the country's very best schools: the Head Teacher tells us Tiffen "inside Britain's Top-5 state schools" based on test scores while sending a fifth of its kids to "Oxbridge." Tiffen is also free, making it very dear: 1,400 applications chase 140 spots. We enjoy our grounds tour led by a confident 8th grader named "Kush" whose parents immigrated from some obscure part of India. Kush's dream is to read maths at Oxford or Cambridge and Eitan mortified when I ask Kush if he knows 8 x 7. Just testing. I notice that there are plenty of Indian students while all the kids delightfully awkward and goofy with bad skin, untucked shirts and unpolished shoes (I tell Eitan that if he goes to Tiffen he doesn't have to comb his hair). This nothing like St Paul's or the Hampton School where those boys blue blood and polished. Eitan and I discuss the differences between public and state schools and I note that while the publics might have better facilities and teacher-student ratios, they may fail to offer a fair cross section of society and could miss the most interesting people. This my experience at Berkeley High School anyway - my friends from then generally more interesting than the Ivy League. To hand, the "Head Boy" who addresses the auditorium remarkable - poised, confident, white and a strong jawline. We are all relieved I am sure.

While Eitan duly impressed by Tiffen he notes that it lacks one critical ingredient: football. This is a rowing and rugby place.

Really, Dad, Everything Is OK

Madeleine insists everything under control as she leaves for an after-school play date with Molly even though I do not know Molly's address or the pick-up coordination. Once sorted, we have a good chuckle together over this photo as we walk off the school playground.