Before - During - After

Savoy

The majestic Savoy re-opens following a two-year make-over. Her 268 rooms offer panoramic views of the Thames across Savoy Place and the Thames Embankment. The renovations closed the hotel from December 2007 until October 2010 and cost £220 million or £120 more than budgeted when the Prince Alwaleed bought the property with the help of my friend Ramsey. The over-runs due mainly to structural upgrades - the hotel opened its doors, after all, in 1889 and lacked modern communications and safety features. The Savoy's American Bar famous to GIs on furlough during WWII - so much so, in fact, (as rumour notes) that the 50-meters running up the entrance the only road in Britain where the driver on the right-hand-side, American style. It is one of three places in London to have a properly prepared martini.

Sonnet and I took "high tea" at the Savoy on our first visit to London in May 1997. I do recall vividly the two Oscar Wildes lounging in the peacock's chaise longue marking new visitors and passing their pithy observations between themselves like fine little farts.

La Famiglia

Sonnet with Stan and Silver in Santa Fe, New Mexico, August 2010.

Oil

The world reacts to Libya's violence : oil prices at two-year highs and climbing. Brent Crude $107 a barrel this morning. Who benefits, I wonder? Libya produces 1.7 million barrels of oil per day, exporting 1.2 million barrels or 17th globally, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The UK makes 1.3 million barrels daily and exports 775,000 (After the Gulf, there is pressure to suspend deep water extraction from the North Sea, pictured). Britain ranks 20th. Number One is Russia at 9.5 million barrels daily. While Russia the top producer of oil, they are ranked #2 by exports after Saudi Arabia. Russia exports 5.4 million barrels per day while SA seven million. According to secret reports released by Wikileaks, Saudi Arabia may have exaggerated its crude oil reserves by 40% - if true, Saudi might not be able to control prices which has often been the country's role with the assumed largest oil caches.

Image from Getty

Me: "What do you think young people do when they are in love?"

Madeleine: "I don't know. Go to the toy store?"

One Aldwych

In the elevator.

The Golden Head

From the Tate Britain. Artist Andrew O'Connor's work, "The Golden Head," completed in 1905. Here is what the museum says: "O'Connor was an American sculptor who specialised in funerary and public monuments, and portrait busts. He lived in Paris from 1903 to 1914 where he came under the influence of Rodin and Dalou. This head is an idealised portrait of O'Connor's second wife Jessie, who was the model for many of his sculptures. A version of this head crowns the funerary figure in the monument to General Thomas in Sleepy Hollow cemetery, near Tarrytown, New York. This funerary figure is a seated female shown in an attitude of mourning and reflection."

Thames Grey

The Thames this morning from another direction, this time eastward. My shot taken with my mobile phone from Waterloo Bridge. To my right is the Southbank Center and in the distance, St Paul's, the Barbican and Canary Wharf. Damp. Moldy. Grey. Cold. These words come to mind.

Half Term Blues

The kids two days into their half-term break and even Rusty bored. Now, as I write, the Shakespears enjoy a "staring contest" at the dinner table (Sonnet working late). Yes, I want to holler at them to be quiet (makes sense to me at least) but instead I let them have their fun. How restrained. Madeleine notes sharply, "Eitan, you're just faking!" which makes me wonder: How does one fake a staring contest?

Me: "Ok, I want to see a book report over half term."

Madeleine: "You are always trying to ruin our break!"

Me: "How many pages? How about five?"

Eitan, Madeleine:

Sonnet: "Five is a bit long. How about two. Both sides of a page."

Me: "Two it is. Now I want it to be about a book you've read and no jacket covers, Madeleine."

Madeleine:

Me: "And, to help you out, maybe you want to form an argument. Like for Harry Potter, you could discuss whether Harry mature enough for the responsibilities of being a wizard."

Madeleine: "Of course he is."

Me: "Good, now put it on a piece of paper."

Madeleine: "I could just research it on the Internet."

Me: "That is what you won't be doing. Two pages, please."

Drivers License

Aunt Marcia recently found my long-lost California drivers license, gone since freshman year in college. I remember searching frantically for it. Those looking closely may notice my birth year, doctored using the "5" in "1530 Euclid Avenue." This got me into The Tunnel and the Palladium as well as all the alcohol I wished to consume. Marcia asks if Larry confiscated my license when I took the Bronxville family car? But that is for another story.

Eitan's Cake

Eitan bakes an orange cake whose ingredients include unsalted butter, two eggs, golden caster sugar, flour and baking power. And, of course, one orange.

Madeleine: "Why do you read the newspaper any way?"

Me: "That's a good question."

Madeleine: "It's a waste of time."

Eitan: "Mr B wants us to read the newspaper every week. So we can talk about it in class."

Me: "Like what?"

Eitan: "Sports and everything. Wayne Rooney's bicycle kick."

Me: "Sounds like you've got it covered."

Eitan: "I suppose so."

Eitan, on this photo: "I sort of look like a teen-ager."

Mark Fast

Photo by Sonnet from Mark Fast's collection, which Sonnet and Madeleine see yesterday in town.

.01 Seconds

A fascinating series of photos, below, of the 100-meter butterfly final at the 2008 Beijing Olympics pitting Phelps against Serbia’s Milorad Cavic (on the right). Without Phelp's magic touch, the quest to surpass Mark Spitz's seven Olympic golds would have come to an end at race seven.

Trellick Tower

Sonnet has the idea to visit Lisboa, early, for the best cream pastries and fried pork sandwiches in Notting Hill. Years ago in Maida Vale and pre-kids, we walked to Lisboa most Saturday mornings then the Portebella market for vintage whatever. All my cuff-links from then. Lisboa on the Golborne Rd and near the horrific Trellik Tower, pictured, which has fascinated me for years. Trellik, next to the Grand Union Canal littered with dog shit, a 31-storey block of flats designed in the Brutalist style by architect Ernő Goldfinger (Ian Fleming hated the building so much he named a central Bond villain after the architect). The tower completed in '72 and now recognised as Grade II* listed building.

Once this a Portuguese neighborhood but now there is little left from that era. The grey, wet, weather prevents us from a further stroll.

Sonnet heads to the Craig Lawrence knitwear and Betty Jackson catwalks. This afternoon she takes Madeleine to see John Rocha. Fashion week, dude.

'58

Moe and Grace before the Rotary Dance. Grace wears her high school sweater and was a cheer-leader at Upper Arlington High School outside of Columbus, Ohio, from 1956-1958. She tells me the school mascot was the Golden Bear. Jack Nicklaus, whose nick-name "the Golden Bear," was graduated a year ahead my mom; he was captain or co-captain of the football, basketball and baseball teams "and played a little golf on the side which none of us really knew about." Grace led cheers for the football and basketball teams and notes the teams pretty good. "There were six of us, three sophomores and three seniors."

On Upper Arlington High: The school has received a number of accolades, including the highest number of National Merit Semi-Finalists in Ohio's public schools for three of the last four years,a nationally award-winning student newsmagazine, Arlingtonian, and the National Cup for the top orchestra in the country. It was the only school district in the nation to receive three White House honors as Service Learning Leaders.

More important for our story, the high school sports teams are consistently ranked among the top Division I schools in Ohio, particularly in the sports of football, golf, tennis, basketball, water polo, cross country, lacrosse, and swimming. The Upper Arlington football team captured the Division One state title in football in 2000, and were led by Jeff Backes, who earned the Mr. Football Award for Ohio, and Simon Fraser, who went on to play for the Ohio State Buckeyes and Cleveland Browns. Upper Arlington is tied with the Cincinnati all boys school St. Xavier High School for the most Ohio High School Athletic Association team state championships both with 42. Upper Arlington has won 105 state titles overall, including sports not sponsored by the OHSAA.

"How people keep correcting us when we are young! There is always some bad habit or other they tell us we ought to get over. Yet most bad habits are tools to help us through life."
--Jack Nicklaus

On Our Wedding Invitation

Me: "Well, Eitan, I am sorry to inform you that your mother and I not invited to the Royal Wedding. "The invitations went out this week and we did not receive the golden invitation. Unless it should arrive in today's post, that is."

Eitan: "Well, who cares?"

Me: "It's a Royal Snub."

Eitan: "I wouldn't want to go if I had a ticket anyway."

Me: "Hear, hear."

Eitan: "Did you really want to go?"

Me: "I wouldn't have said no. Just to see Kate's dress."

Eitan: "Her dress? Are you mad?"

Me: "These things are important."

Eitan: "For an adult maybe."

Drury's Statue

A bridge has been at Vauxhaull since 13th century when the south river a swamp. Following numerous essays, a new bridge built to a starkly functional design at the turn of of the 19th century, and many influential architects complained about the lack of consultation during the design process. In 1903, during the construction of the bridge, the LCC consulted with architect William Edward Riley about the possible decorative elements that could be added to the bridge. Riley proposed erecting two 60-foot pylons topped with statues at one end of the bridge, and adding decorative sculpture to the bridge piers. The pylons were rejected on cost but it was decided to erect monumental bronze statues above the piers.

On the upstream piers are Pomeroy's Agriculture, Architecture, Engineering and Pottery, whilst on the downstream piers are Drury's Science, Fine Arts, Local Government and Education. Each statue weighs approximately two tons. Despite their size, the statues are little-noticed by users of the bridge as they are not visible from the bridge itself, but only from the river banks or from passing shipping.

I hung over the side of the bridge to get this shot.

Wud Up, Y'All?

And, yes, Friday. It is not entirely clear that I have moved the ball down-field this week but, then, nor has the world come to an end. Our family routine fixed: AM dog walk -> kids to school -> work &c -> swimming, football, trumpet, tutor, play-date(s) -> dinner -> reading -> lights out. The kids on half-term from Monday.

We have dinner with Peri and Jim who, when we last saw him, turning 5-0. Jim has handled the new decade magnificently. Recall he is Managing Director at Google since '05 (brother Richard since '01) and heads the company's syndication and diistribution teams across multiple platforms, products and ad formats. He always has great insight into where things are heading and enjoys the responsibility, which require him to spend a fair amount of time in Mountain View (he refuses to get a flat or car). Fortunately Peri a wonder women and well on top of the family while Jim away AND running her business which is the largest travel service to Turkey. Peri went to Smith. Power couple.

Water Colour

My photo from the museum's modern collection - the chandelier on-off like a Christmas tree and it takes about twenty shots to get with lights. Meanwhile I spend 20 minutes maximum in the Water Colour exhibition which I don't find particularly interesting, though the early maps of England and Norfolk from the 12th and 13th centuries, in water colour, pretty cool. Here is the overview from the Tate:

Watercolour at Tate Britain invites you to challenge your preconceptions of what watercolour is. The most ambitious exhibition about watercolour ever to be staged, with works spanning 800 years, this boundary-breaking survey celebrates the full variety of ways watercolour has been used. From manuscripts, miniatures and maps through to works showing the expressive visual splendour of foreign landscapes, watercolour has always played a part in British Art. Artists range from JMW Turner and Thomas Girtin to Anish Kapoor and Tracey Emin.

Battersea #2

Today is a London day, grey and dark - cold. This is what I and everyone thinks of when they consider here. I cross the Vauxhaull Bridge on my way to the Tate Britain to see the Water Colour exhibition and check in with some l'art. Seems like the right thing to do on a slow day otherwise.

Boxcar 2D

Below, a nifty program designed by Derp Bike Designer, learns to build a "car" using a genetic algorithm - the clip in its advanced stages. It starts with a population of 20 randomly generated shapes with wheels and runs each one to see how far it goes. The cars that go the furthest reproduce to produce offspring for the next generation. The offspring combine the traits of the parents to hopefully produce better cars.

It uses a physics library to simulate the effects of gravity, friction, collisions, motor torque, and spring tension for the car. This lets the car be a wide range of shapes and sizes, while still making the simulation realistic. There are also many extra variables because of the complicated car and axles and the color clearly illustrates the evolution.

Eric adds further: "initially the components are assembled randomly. different variables affect the wheel sizes, hub heights, etc.cars that fare better pass their genes along preferentially. over time they settle on optimal designs. it illustrates an software technique known as a genetic algorithm---the analogy to darwinian evolution is strong."