Cabinet

The Queen attends a cabinet meeting forcing us to ask : What the hell is she doing there ?

The Gang Skates

Madeleine, Jackson, Joe and Eitan at Hampton Court Palace

Eitan sings in the Hampton choir at the St Mary's Parish Church and seeing Sonnet's happiness makes me happy, too. We work our way through the 18 page program complete with Christmas songs, readings and prayers.  Madeleine insists I check my mobile 'off' and squirms at the idea of me singing; she gets the loud hiccups as the lights dim for Chorale Preludes on Nun komm der Heiden Heiland und Wachet auf ruft uns die Stime by Bach. I try not to giggle.

Eitan's last day of school at 12-noon and the boy reports his class watches movies.  I have already emailed Eitan's form teacher about a ' homework break' so close to the four week Xmas holiday but this time I let it ride.

Photo from Sonnet.

Baseball, Hot Dogs And Apple Pie

Spin

Eitan 'disposesses' the ball

Lyne Lions

Half time pow wow

Elm Grove maintain a clean sheet against the Lions, 7-nil.  

Sonnet and I to Wimbledon for a dinner party with Jim and Peri and their interesting friends : one fellow from Istanbul and an antiques trader; another organises bespoke celebrations for the richest people in the world.  The woman next to me separated from her husband 17 years ago but not divorced: "he's now worth a mint in the City" she reports.  Jim, for his part, continues to spend time in California with Google, where he has been seven years, joining at about my age.  He tells us the average age 27.  And this, the most powerful company the world has ever known.

I pin up a mistletoe.
Me: "Do you know what happens under a mistletoe?"
Madeleine: "No."
I grab Madeleine and cover her with kisses: "Ahh, stop it dad! Stop!"
Me: "I can't help myself.  You had better make sure some cute fellow doesn't come in to our house."
Madeleine: "Dad!"
Me: "Or the dog."

At Elm Grove I forget my shirt so do my post-run stretches topless. Eitan jogs over, growls: "Dad put your shirt on. Or go in the car or something."

Work And Play

My Friday - Friday !- lunch cancels so I join Sonnet at a local Japanese near the museum then, afterwards, sit around writing emails and bothering her a bit.  Sonnet now "upstairs" working on La Moda for the next several years and has a perfect hide-away overlooking the ancient brownstone. Since the top floor (passing through the Asiatic and silver collections to get to), Sonnet enjoys sunlight, a valuable commodity in London, esp. when dark and gloomy , like today.

Madeleine, tucked in bed with a cold, re-reads "The Hunger Games." Have we finally moved on from Harry Potter? ("No, Dad, we have not moved on from Harry Potter.")  Today her last day of school so she is officially on hols until January noting, mournfully, that she starts the next term the day following our return from California. She and I carry many similarities.

I take Eitan to football practise (Sonnet reports that Eitan qualifies for a duathlon and to represent his school); the dog and I geared up for a run around Bushy Park.

Eglise Madeleine

Sunrise, with mobile

A whirl wind trip goes from Paris to Amsterdam to Rijswijk, where I am now, blogging away. It keeps me sane. Before my afternoon meeting I jog in a familiar park - the receptionist my conspiracist who shows me the employee shower room.  Travel without exercise a bad combination.

I watch some BBC program in the hotel and learn that humans shed 3.5 kg of skin every year - that is, they point out - equal to seven bowls of corn flakes.  Here's another one: no one in Britain is 70 miles from the coast. I am on a roll.

“Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom. And in freedom, most people find sin.”
--Writer John Green

Xmas Cookies

Madeleine bakes

"Good night, mom, I'm going to bed."

Shiny River

Madeleine, from under a blanket, pops up: "Dad, you know, I just thought of something. If you are blind, do you see things in your dreams ?"
Me: "That is a very good question. I don't know."
Madeleine: "I bet they would want to. See things I mean."
Me: "Yeah, I imagine they would."
Madeleine: "I hope they can."
Me: "You have a big heart, kid."

Madeleine: "This girl at school has been calling me Mad-uh-lae-an, which I hate."
Sonnet: "I can understand why."
Madeleine: "So I gave her a nick name and she totally exploded. And nearly cried."
Sonnet:
Madeleine: "And besides my nick name is MO."
Sonnet: "MO?"
Madeleine: "Madeleine Orenstein. Mo.
Me: "Know who would appreciate that?"
Madeleine: "I have no idea."
Me: "Moe."
(Madeleine and Sonnet crack up for some reason.)

Ze Fromage

Sonnet shows us a Vacherin

We are out until late late last night earning, even, the au pair's respect. Ramsey and Jennifer host a party at their home in Hamstead complete with 8 piece band (trumpet!) that kicks and an unusual number of middle-age models. So this is where they go - North London. The best part is sitting outside with Sonnet, under a heat lamp, drinking a cocktail and discussing various gossips and goings on. Eitan out late at a swimming gala and Madeleine watches a movie.

This morning Eitan to another football match - this time Elm Grove - and Sonnet and I take the dog for a run; she now addresses Xmas cards while Madeleine does some homework (grumpy) and I listen to Philip Glass's 'koyaanisqatsi.'

Sonnet on the pictured cheese: "It looks like an organ."

Game Day

Eitan all business before Hampton's home match against Wilson's in Surrey (this my first Hampton game btw and I am told by Eitan "to not do anything embarrassing". As if). The lads arrive in school uniform so change while the Dads chit chat about their boy's football talents - this as ever before.  Hampton win 5-1.

I am happy to be home from Zurich given a foot of snow on the departing side and flights cancelled. A highlight the Zunfthaus zur Waag, a restaurant in the 'old town' where I have the Zürcher Kalbsgeschnetzeltes mit/ohne Kalbsnieren und Butterrösti which is slaced veal, "Zurich style," with calf’s kidneys and “Rösti”.  My guests (a large pe investor and a limited partner in Astorg) and I discuss the usual topics : investment, tax, regulation . .. corruption, which is rare in private equity, perhaps surprising given the opaque nature of the industry.  Contrast this to hedge funds, like SAC, which, in theory, are transparent, investing in public stocks, and yet rocked by insider trading.

Madeleine: "Hi, Dad."
Sonnet: "That's not a very enthusiastic way of greeting your father."
Me: "Didn't you miss me?"
Madeleine: "You were away ?"

Lake Zurich

Diving platform, winter

I am in Zurich today and tomorrow for meetings and, since my afternoon otherwise free, I take my camera for a jog by Lake Zurich. My taxi driver (who hates the mountains and the cold) tells me that the lake freezes  over - a quick web search indicates this has happened 25 times since 1200, most recently in 1962.

Switzerland about the cleanest, most efficient, place in Europe or any where : I recall Geneva: The trains run to the second; the airports, highways and rail networks connect seamlessly. The swiss pride their exactness.  Of course the sacrifice is the mad creative chaos that fuels many big cities : London's mixture of cultures, sub cultures, languages, food, traffic, newspapers, noise, discos, theatre and everything else is what makes it a thrilling place to be.

Red

Madeleine at football

Catherine Middleton pregnant which disrupts Sonnet's schedule as she was to spend the day showing the Duchess the Hollywood exhibition.

Me: "You know that I will be in Zurich tomorrow."
Eitan: "For how long?"
Me: "One night."
Eitan: "One night? What a waste of time."
Me: "What do you think I do - sit around the hotel and watch TV?"
Eitan: "I don't know .. .I guess."

Barking

The dog in the habit of, well, barking. Only problem is that he does so whenever let into the back-yard and, worse, the front when we go running often at 6AM.  The neighbours hate us (Sonnet hates Rusty).  A dog's gotta do what a dog's gotta do.

Madeleine to receive her exam marks and is unusually quiescent on the upper deck of the 337.  I hold her hand part of the way (until someone she knows enters the bus); it is a quiet journey.

Sonnet and I to the Emanuel hill form drinks in Clapham.  I spend thirty minutes talking to Lillian, with slight moustache, unable to make chitter-chatter.  Sonnet informs me later that Lillian is deconstructing the human genome with a particular focus on understanding the DNA sequencing of lupus.  Probably a good thing we did not reach this topic. She also rides a motorcycle.

Ginger

Redhead at Waterloo Station

Here is the morning : rain. Madeleine and I out the door in a rush, 7AM, me without my keys. Aneta shows up at my office before lunch having locked herself out, no mobile phone (hair a mess). Sonnet forgets her mobile so I coordinate Eitan's commute home from school. As his mobile turned 'off' Sonnet calls the school. Touch and go.

Flickr Tweet

Eric Fischer's 'heat map' shows geotagged Flickr photos and Twitter Tweets. The orange dots are photos, the blue are Tweets, and white is both in the same location. The UK stands out for usage and density.

Hayward Gallery

Matilda

W'loo bridge facing West

We catch a train to Waterloo station and cross the similarly named bridge - pictured. Much more fun than driving.  We are again to Covent Garden this time to see the musical 'Matilda' by Roald Dahl. It is a wonderful adaptation, too, and a close mirror to the story right down to the character's appearances (in my imagination) including the perfect horrible Miss Trunchball, who is played with gruesome awesomeness by David Leanard : a highlight visual gag when Trunchball grabs an eight year-old by the pig tails and twirls her round then releases her into the audience. . . the kids howl with delight, as do we.

Afterwards we stumble upon food stalls behind The Hayward Gallery - a new thing, which offers some of the best creative new food in London.  We pick up some rice balls for the ride home and Sonnet buys salamis and cheese (I think fondly of Brown's "Silver Truck" where half the Freshman class lined up for an egg and steak sandwich at 3 or 4AM, post night out, lonely to bed)

Covent Garden Opera

Eitan orders a lemonade at the opera house

We join the Clarks at the Covent Garden opera house to see Donizetti's 'Elixir of Love' - the kids first full opera while Stan treated them to half of 'The Magic Flute' in Santa Fe. Ease them in, we all agree.  "Beautiful music in a grand setting" Sonnet says (she now sings una furtiba lacrima or 'the silent tear').  Michael (who gave us a tour of the Capital Building in DC when he was interning for Senator Shaheen) prepares his application for the Naval Academy. Since Michael aims for the Oval Office one day, and I think he will be a contender, he wants to beef up his military credentials. Smart kid.

Robot Love

Chrome Dinette a San Francisco synth band from the early 1980s or right about when I was tuning into music.  In 1982 they put out a 12” single (Robot Love and Can’t Live Without You) and tried to get a record contract. When the label didn’t come, the band broke up, never to be heard from again.

Chrome Dinette played Berkeley's long-gone Key Stone theatre, which I consider whenever driving along University Ave towards campus and my parent's house.  It was a big night when the band in town, across the bay, no ID for alcohol.  Robot Love a pretty good song, too, which holds up even now : there are traces of the Police's Zenyattà Mondatta or the Comateens.  But I was too young for permission to concerts so I listened to my friends' enthusiasms (they being sophomores and juniors in HS). Getting older couldn't come fast enough.

And now, thx to the Internets, I can listen to Chrome Dinette again. The music hasn't changed, either, but everything else has.

Sonnet, Friday night: "This is the centre of excitement. 45 York Avenue, rock'n out."