Farewell To The Fairground

Sonnet and I see the "White Lies" at Sheps Bush last night. We muscle our way to the front stage and the closest I have been to the band (the show sold out and a wall of energy behind us yet strangely not there). Their second album released this month but it is the first I recognise with songs: "Death", "To Lose My Life," and "Farewell To The Fairground," sung with joy. The band from Ealing, London, and the audience young Brit hoppers. They know the words to every song. My ears still ringing.

Egypt

Madeleine's 9th birthday party today and we prepare ourselves for an afternoon of 10 kids, the movies (Gnomeo & Juliette in 3D, groan), pizza and an overnight. Our gal excited.

Hosni Mubarek steps down as President of Egypt after 18 days of mass demonstrations.

High Fashion And Dog Hair

Me: "Madeleine please remove the dog hair from your jumper and trousers before leaving for school."

Madeleine: "But any kid with a dog has dog hair on them."

Me: "Not in this house. Besides, it is not respectful to your teacher."

Madeleine: "That is so unfair! All the other kids can have dog hair on them but not me."

Me: "Sorry, those are the rules."

Madeleine: "You just never understand, do you Dad!?"

Viktor & Rolf

Sonnet and I visit Musée de La Mode et du Textile, which is a wonderful museum inside the Louvre (She gave a lecture at Les Arts Decoratifs at the Institut National du Patrimoine at the Louvre in 2009). The exhibitions include various famous designers like Viktor & Rolf, pictured, augmented by video display of their costumes on the catwalk. I find the image one of the creepiest I have taken. V&R's work strongly influenced by The Eyes of Laura Mars.

Viktor Horsting (1969) & Rolf Snoeren (1969) met at the Arnhem Academy of Art and Design in The Netherlands. They began working together after graduation, relocating to Paris in 1993 to launch their careers. Their first collection 'Hyères' (1993) based on distortion, reconstruction and layering won three prizes at the Salon Europeen des Jeunes Stylistes at the Festival International de Mode et de Photographie. The subsequent presentation of four collections in experimental art spaces led them in 1998 to show their first Haute Couture collection (Spring/Summer 1998).

Viktor & Rolf returned to ready-to-wear in 2000, with 'Stars and Stripes' (Autumn/Winter 2000-01). The menswear line 'Monsieur' was added in 2003 (Autumn/Winter), modelled entirely by Viktor & Rolf in a mirrored performance. The Viktor & Rolf range has since grown to include shoes, accessories and eyewear.In addition to their own lines, Viktor & Rolf have collaborated with a number of other well known brands including Samsonite (2009) with whom they produced a luggage line, Shu Uemura (2008) for a range of couture false eyelashes, Piper Heidsieck (2007) for the iconic upside down bottle and, in 2006, the line for high street chain H&M which greatly extended their appeal to the general public. With the desire to expand, in 2008 they entered into a partnership with Italian clothing magnate Renzo Rosso of Only the Brave, allowing the company to develop new product ranges, extend distribution and open further boutiques.

A true man hates no one.
--Napoleon Bonaparte

L'Art

Here Sonnet in the French Paintings, the largest of its kind anywhere.

More on the Louvre: Following the French Revolution, the museum opened in 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings mostly being royal and confiscated church property. Because of structural problems with the building, the museum closed in 1796 until 1801. The size of the collection increased under Napoleon and renamed the Musée Napoléon. After the defeat of Napoléon at Waterloo, many works seized by his armies were returned to their original owners. The collection was increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII andCharles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown through donations and gifts since the Third Republic, except during the two World Wars. As of 2008, the collection is divided among eight curatorial departments: Egyptian Antiquities; Near Eastern Antiquities; Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculpture; Decorative Arts;

Paintings; Prints and Drawings.

"A picture is worth a thousand words."
--Napoleon Bonaparte

The Louvre

We give the Grand Dame a full day. I am pained to acknowledge that despite my visits to Paris I have not been to the Louvre once though within walking distance of my hotel. In fact the last time I was here, I believe, 1989 when my family on a lay-over en route to Africa. I was so jet-lagged I could not see straight let alone contemplate the enormity of the museum - 35,000 objects from prehistory to the 19th century exhibited over an area of 60,600 square metres.

My photo taken from the Egyptian collection on the fourth floor. In 1983, French President François Mitterrand proposed the Grand Louvre plan to renovate the building and relocate the Finance Ministry, allowing displays throughout the building. Architect I. M. Pei proposed the glass pyramid which stands over the new main entrance of the main court, the Cour Napoléon. The pyramid and its underground lobby inaugurated October 15, 1988. The second phase of the Grand Louvre plan, La Pyramide Inversée, was completed in 1993.

Sonnet and I focus on the Vermiers - two of his 26 existing paintings here - and the Italian Renaissance with extra attention to El Greco, Bertolucci, and da Vinci. I see the Mona Lisa which is now in a protective bullet proof casing and a guard rail of ten feet. The first time I saw her, in 1984, she was unprotected. During World War II, the painting was removed from the Louvre and taken safely, first to Château d'Amboise, then to the Loc-Dieu Abbey and Château de Chambord, then finally to the Ingres Museum in Montauban. And now there she is, 500 years after Leonardo painted her, looking at us strangely and us none the wiser.

8ème

Sonnet and I sit outside Cafe Ambasade facing the pretty Frenchies walking determinedly to their work on Rue du Faubourge St Honoré which, Dear Reader, we know is the shopping avenue of Paris. The men own pointy shoes and tussled hair while the young ladies with black leggings or flair trousers, capes, or fur shawls; they walk with the unusual lope of the model. The travailleurs boutique are as pretty as their wares.

Meanwhile we have pain au chocolat and tartine with raspberry jam+coffee and life is good. I completely, and I mean completely, forget about the kids. Astorg's fifth fund over-subscribed without much surprise as their prior three partnerships world beaters. We discuss allocations and cut backs which is never fun since a lot of guys have put real work into their due diligence. Those slow to the draw, suffer. Prior fund-raisings not so easy and nothing taken for granted nor relationships neglected. How extraordinary to enjoy this unique friendship - from California to the 8th arrondisement. Go figure.

Sonnet: "Thank you for giving us an evening in Paris."

Madeleine: "Was it romantic?"

Sonnet: "Yes, it was."

Madeleine: "Did you eat buttered snails?"

Sonnet: "As a matter of fact we did."

Madeleine: "Woa."

Paris Morning

Sonnet and I zip to Paris for a clean get away and 24 hours no kids. God bless you, Aneta. We stay at my usual place which has been upgraded to five-stars though the service about the same. It is all about location. I have a meeting with Astorg then we are free to explore the Marais where we head for a falafel in the Jewish quarter then some shopping. Yes, I buy perfume at Estaban, where we always make a visit. I am not afraid of my metro-sexual (hear that, Justin?). By the afternoon Sonnet ready for a nap and I go jogging along the Seine to La Cité and Notre Dame. We head out for a late dinner at Chez Benoit in the 4th - superb.

The only two cities, other than London, where I would wish to live for a while are Paris and Rome.

"A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets."
--Napoleon Bonaparte

Spectacle

I pick up Madeleine early from school to visit the High Street optometrist and our little dear's dreams come true : glasses. I tell her she can have the ones pictured which gets an "oh, Dad" and I spend the better part of an hour waiting for her to pick out a pair. This is her decision though I am quietly delighted when she chooses a pair of flash rectangular injection molds in Halloween orange. She is torn between these and the more sensible metal frames. The helpful Dr offers something in the middle and our bookworm sold.

Madeleine complains about breakfast which, she notes, "always the same." So today we go to Waitrose to jazz things up which means - sugar cereal. Not. (Madeleine's pupils dilated from her eye-test and she squints at the boxes and loudly states "I am blind.") In the end we get Sultana scones and Cheerios. Same as it ever was.

Sonnet: "You got her scones?"

Me: "Yeah, so?"

Sonnet: "I can just see it now: 'Please Dad can you get me some scones .. .'"

Me: "Well, she wanted chocolate croissants."

Sonnet: "You're such a softy."

Woj

Katie's Harvurd friend Susan Wojcicki profiled in today's San Jose Mercury News as "The Most Important Googler You've Never Heard Of" (photo by Robyn Twomey). Susan oversees Google's two main advertising products, AdWords and AdSense, which bring in the vast majority of Google's revenues (and even more of its profits). Back in '98, when Serge and Larry venture-backed by Kleiner Perkins (who BTW thought Google the least likely company to succeed in their '97 fund - because of Google, the fund the best partnership ever created based on returns) they needed a cheap work place and Susan rented her garage to the company (This really does happen in SV). Eventually Susan left a comfortable job at Intel to became one of the earliest employees and the first woman employee and then the first mother employee (she has four kids). She was behind Google's most important m and a's: DoubleClick and YouTube, after failing to keep up with YouTube as head of Google Video. She rocks.

I return to lap-swimming which is really the best sport for any age but especially older-age. No pounding nor possible sports-related injury accepting a blocked ear maybe. I have threatened to join a Masters club but their pool-times the worst: work-outs from 9PM. We have a couple of good (at least clean) public pools in Richmond and Lord knows we know them as both kids practice 4X a week. I do long for those outdoor Californian 50-meter basins which are a staple in the West Coast suburbs.

Madeleine: "Every day I keep waking up in the middle of the night."

2

My second birthday cake, pictured, probably taken, and eaten, in San Francisco before we moved to Berkeley. It kinda looks like me.

Madeleine 9

Aggie picks up Madeleine for a surprise movie afternoon and today she celebrates with breakfast-in-bed (tradition dictates) and vanilla cake and ice cream tonight, pictured. Madeleine takes joy giving us un-birthday gifts and I am delighted with a packet of wildflower seeds and a journal to record my observations of the garden. Perfect.

Me: "Any words on being nine?"

Madeleine: "It feels pretty much the same."

Me: "Just wait 'til your my age."

Madeleine: "I just realised that this my last year of single-digits."

Sonnet sings in the kitchen: "♫ Look at me I'm dancing."

Me: "Your mother can sure be weird."

Eitan: "Yeah, Mr-Run-A-Marathon-In-A-Cow-Suit."

Me: "Add 'em up."

Eitan: ". . tell-a-story-in-my-classroom-using-a-cowboy-accent-and-strip-to-your-swim-trunks-in-Madeleine's-class . "

Me: "Any more?"

Eitan: ". . sing-on-the-way-to-school . ."

Me:

Eitan: "Do you really want me to go on?"

At the dinner table.

Madeleine: "Do you know what a 'train track' is?"

Aneta: "No?"

Madeleine: "Well, you know what a train is right?"

Aneta: "Yes."

Madeleine: "A train track is the track thing underneath the train."

Aneta: "Oh, OK, tank you."

Crime Stopper

From last week, Scotland Yard makes UK crime data available at the street level. I can punch in my postal code and see the number of burglaries, murders, rapes &c. that have taken place nearby my, or any body's, house. Pictured, drug use per 1000 Londoners. This is a bold move and we are the first metropolitan area to have access to such rich data at our finger tips. True, one can find similar reports on US cities via Google api but this culled from public information and misses smaller or petty crime. The Police hope transparency will help make our streets safer. I would not disagree.

KPR lose to the Barnes Eagles 2-1 in a game the boys never lead. None made happier by the windy cold which feels sub-zero. Eitan takes a ball to the face which leaves him dazed momentarily and the ref stops the action. He takes three strikes which miss and unclear whether the slap or frustration makes him hold back tears.

Sonnet and I stay up late to watch "On The Waterfront."

"I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. It's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor … and surviving."

--Marlon Brando, Apocalypse Now

Buck

I am within fifteen-feet of these mysterious, ancient, beasts.

Sonnet and I for a walk and must hold back Rusty from the deer. Eitan takes his 10+ exam for St Paul's and I think Sonnet and I more anxious than he is. Sonnet bolts awake, 11PM, to double-check the alarm. When I drop off the boy he is as cool as a cucumber, which is as it should be - so what? his attitude suggests. Eitan refuses to take a banana for a snack (the test four hours) until I threaten to tell the Head Master that he is diabetic and needs it for his blood sugar. He puts the banana in his jacket pocket. I don't help out by arriving at St Paul's in my w/e work jeans, hair uncombed - and look! there is the Head Master himself to greet us. The auditorium filled with yummie mummies in Armani Jeans filling their £1000 knee-high boots. Not feeling part of it.

But back to our stroll .. Sonnet and I once walked from Maida Vale to the V&A every day when I was between jobs before Trailhead Capital. It was an urban trek too from our leafy mansion block to the grungy Harrow Road, over the Paddington Canal and under the A40 fly-over then Bayswater and, heaven, Hyde Park and finally The Albert Memorial, built by Queen Victoria for her beloved husband Prince Albert who died of typhoid in 1861. Unusually Albert faces away from the park so his view of Kensington and not the lovely fields he held so dear.

I pick up Eitan and he and pal Cyrus are buzzy. I am told the exam "Okay" while the reading comprehension and maths "hard". Eitan asked to choose one of three titles to write a story so he goes for "The Journey" and describes, in first person present, a six-year-old boy from a poor family left in England when his parents move to America. In the end the reader informed he is reading the boy's diary. A nice literary device, Sonnet says. About 120 kids sit the 10+ for ten spots.

Me, explaining why high taxes de-motivating: "Imagine if the government took 90p of every pound you earned?"

Eitan: "So?"

Me: "OK, so say you are a famous footballer making millions of pounds and the government takes 90% of it. Would you still be as motivated to play?"

Eitan: "Yes."

Me: "Well, Ok, but say it was your chores."

Eitan: "But you don't pay me anything to do my chores."

Me: "Let's say I paid you 20 pounds to sweep the backyard. "

Eitan: "That would be so cool!"

Me: "Yes but then you had to give 18 back."

Eitan: "I'd still have two pounds whereas before I was getting nothing. Are you really going to give me two-pounds if I sweep?"

Me:

Eitan: "Plus you owe me my allowance for the last four weeks. That's twenty pounds."

Me:

Eitan: "And you owe Madeleine's allowance too."

Me: "I'm glad we had this little conversation."

Big Board

Now this is a serious Board Room inside Doughty Hanson's offices on the Pall Mall next to St James's Park. It easily seats twenty. I am with Nigel who supported eZoka.com back in the day and we have remained fast friends since. DH, for her part, founded in 1985 by Nigel Doughty and Dick Hanson and has invested €23 billion in over 100 deals across nine funds. I first met Dick in '97, after business school and interviewing for entry-jobs in London, when he asked me to analyse his firm's performance using the capital asset pricing model and, quite specifically, the efficiency frontier - concepts I had learned in my advanced finance courses at Columbia most notably with Prof. Tsomocos whose wedding Sonnet and I attended on an island in Greece. But that is another story. Helpfully Dick suggested that I map my thoughts on the white board. I did not get the job, oh boy, but two years later DH invested nearly $10 million in my company. As Costa says and I repeat: "Careers are a long thing."

Me: "What do you want to do after 'performance class'"?

Madeleine, enthusiastically: "I don't know?"

Me: "Oh.. I hate to do this to you but chores."

Madeleine:

Me: "Don't give me that look."

Madeleine: "Well you're all like 'what do you want to do after performance class' and then you're like 'chores.'"

Me: "What don't you like about chores anyway?"

Madeleine: "I just don't like them. I'd rather be reading a book."

Me: "Boy you must really hate chores."

Madeleine directly: "You are trying to make me say I don't like reading. I love reading."

Me: "You're right. I'm sorry about that.

Sonnet: "We also have to find time to do your school work and tutor homework."

Madeleine: "Oh, Mom, you too. Don't do this to me."

Me: "It's only 40 minutes out of your whole week end."

Sonnet: "It's more like two-hours."

Madeleine: "My week-end is ruined and it's only Saturday morning!"

Holy Christ

I visit the VA yesterday and check out the European 11-13th century, which is in a neglected gallery off the main entrance. Shame, too, because there are beautiful treasures here from the High Renaissance including this c.1150 statue of Jesus. I wonder about the lone guard who sits in his chair all-day-long. From there I visit Raphael's cartoons ("cartones" in Italian) which are seven large cartoons for tapestries, painted in 1515-16 and showing scenes from the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles. They are the only survivors of set of ten cartoons commissioned by Pope Leo X for tapestries for the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Palace, which are still (on special occasions) hung below Michelangelo's famous ceiling. My visit less than 20 minutes but how lucky am I?

Eitan, wistfully: "I remember when we thought having a bagel on the cutting board a luxury."

Madeleine eats cereal reading 'Captain Underpants.'

Me: "Do you ever wake up and think about what's going on in the world."

Madeleine, without looking up: "No, not really."

Meanwhile Poolside

Sooo I spend 90 minutes watching Eitan go back and forth and back and forth. At some point I fall asleep. Sitting up.

Eitan: "I'm making dinner tonight."

Me: "Are you going to make your famous carrot soup?"

Eitan: "It's not famous yet."

Me: "What will make it famous?"

Eitan: "I don't know. I am also making desert. See, look at all the ingredients" (Eitan shows me the ingredients for 'fresh ginger bread and lemon icing')

Me: "Are you going to chuck it all in a bowl and start mixing?"

Eitan: "That's what I used to do. Look at the number of ingredients in this one . ."

Me: "Woa."

Eitan: "Prunes, currants, glazed cherries, egg whites, vodka . ."

Me: "You're under-aged for that one. Illegal, dude."

Eitan: "I could make it but I just couldn't eat it."

On Debt

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A funny thing happened along the way of this recession : UK unemployment has gone up surprisingly little - from 5% to 8% (compare this to the US's 4.5% to 10%) while company failures at near-30-year lows. The 1990s recession was only one-third as deep yet insolvencies six-times today's level. Similarly, housing repossessions are startlingly low given the financial mess. What gives? A reason, according to turn-around and private equity investor Jon Mouton, the result of near-term policies designed to lower UK interest rates to levels not seen in 30 years. One can manage a lot of debt if interest payments next to nothing. The Bank of England has printed money. And the government increased borrowing to avoid cutting spending to the public sector. All of which has reduced unemployment and avoided financial pain. But what cost?

We have tried to solve our difficulties with borrowing and use more borrowing to support existing borrowing. UK govt debt stands at 100% GDP - excluding public pensions obligations, private finance initiative commitments and bank support, which adds 3x. The US came back from the '70s because corporate America fired everybody resulting in the Rust Belt and creating Silicon Valley which has been a much better investment than Detroit, which we bail out again. Bad businesses should be allowed to fail redeploying resources elsewhere. This be capitalism

The debt we are accumulating means that we live better, no doubt. But those after us must deal with the same debt. The low interest rates hurt savers and pensioners and reward those who borrow rashly. Pain aversion, Molton argues, and not morality, is the abiding characteristic of current economic policies. Even today deficit reducing coalition has dodged hard decisions like cutting net investment by two-thirds over the next five-years. Cameron and Co. rely on low interest rates persisting on good economic growth (following December, this looks challenged) and stable financial conditions. Even if the planets align, we have a debt mountain to live with.

The UK, despite it all, is trying to avoid Greece and Ireland and maybe Spain, Portugual and Italy. The conservatives in power after all and they are lopping a third from the arts and public services, 20% from the NHS and 8% from the military (public education 'ring fenced'). They are able to do so, too, unlike the stymied USA. There we get the shrills at Fox News and the Tea Party wagging the Republican party doing nobody any good.

John Barry, Composer, 1933-2011

Eyes Of Laura Mars

My third "R" rated movie (after "Saturday Night Fever" and Clint Eastwood's "The Gauntlet") was "The Eyes Of Laura Mars," which I watched with Grace and Katie in '78, age 11. The film about Laura Mars (Faye Dunaway) a fashion photographer who specializes in stylized violence. In her luxurious Manhattan apartment (so 70s!), Laura has a nightmare that her sexy model friend Doris is viciously murdered with an ice pick, her eyeballs stabbed. Laura wakes up and looks through a soon-to-be-published coffee table book of her photos, titled The Eyes of Mars, which Doris had edited. In it, there is a picture of Doris...identical to an image she had in the dream. Later Doris found murdered, eyes gauged out.

As a premise for a horror movie Laura works - this was John Carpenter's first major studio film, after all. It also had its intended consequences : I walked from the first violent scene and have had periodic nightmares ever since.

I watched Laura several years ago on late night tele and the film stands up, mostly, 30 years later and, surprise!, the violence barely mentionable against today's video gore. I still find the picture-poster terrifying and remain as fascinated by it now as then.

Rusty sick - again - after eating Hamster food - again.

Madeleine: "Why does he do that? He's not even allowed upstairs."

Me: "Unfortunately the one time he was upstairs he found the hamster food."

Madeleine: "So why does he do it again and again?"

Me: "Well, imagine I put a Snickers Bar on the top of third floor stairs. And let's say you went up there and found it."

Madeleine: "Yeah, so what?"

Me: "Would you go up there the next day looking for a Snickers Bar?"

Madeleine: "Yes."

Me: "And the day after?"

Madeleine: "Probably."

Me: "Well there you go."

Madeleine: "Can I have a Snickers Bar when we get home?"

Me: "I have a theory. Since I ask you over and over to do anything I think you have become dependent on my asking you to do things."

Eitan: "Well that is an idea."

Me: "If we took away traffic lights, for instance, I bet people would become better drivers."

Eitan: "That would wreak havoc upon us all."