Blast Away

Eitan mans up

The boy does a chore, negotiated to £6.50 an hour, and better him than me.  He blasts away with aplomb, like father, like son, cleaning up the brickwork and sandstone like a seasoned veteran (I had the job quoted btw at £400). The first half hour or so pretty fun but, in the end, it is a job, and it takes six hours. He counts his money, task well done.

Eitan: "Is this how they clean prisoners?"

Hillary And John Hinkel Park

Hillary (far right) our earliest neighbour in Berkeley and often babysat for me and Katie (I re post Hillary's photo from 1978). She says: "I remember that day! It was filled with Beatles and Led Zeplin!"

John Hinkel Park (Hinkel a local capitalist and philanthropist who donated the land in the 1920s), where the picture taken, on a sloped four acres with magnificent oak groves and the usual teeter-totters and swings, picnic tables, a large fireplace and BBQ pit and, weirdly, an amphitheatre.  A good spot for hippies then and young people now to smoke dope in peace.

Becoming Picasso

Sonnet uses Easter Monday to take Madeleine to the Picasso exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery, which has Madeleine buzzing: the show presents Picasso's 'break through' year, 1901, when he exhibited in Paris for the first time.  

At first, Picasso mirrors his contemporaries Van Gogh, Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec. But in the second half of the year, Picasso changes direction, beginning his 'Blue' period when, inspired by the suicide of a close friend, he produced a group of profoundly moving paintings of melancholic figures considered to be among his first masterpieces. 

Afterwards the girls go to sushi.  Me, I am in Toronto for one meeting and an overnight at the Trump. With windchill, -8.

Madeleine's van Gogh

Madeleine: "Dad, how much is that painting [Madeleine looks at van Gogh's 'Clouds']?"
Me: "I don't know. Go and ask him."
Madeleine: "Can you do it?"
Me: "No, you want it. You ask."
Madeleine: "It's too expensive."
Me: "What did he want for it?"
Madeleine: "25,000 pounds."
Me:
Madeleine: "Do you really think it's worth that much?"
Me: "Did you try to bargain with him?"
Madeleine: "What do you mean?"
Me: "You know, make him a counter offer."
Madeleine: "Like what?"
Me: "How about starting at five pounds."
Madeleine: "From £25,000 to five pounds? I don't think so, Dad."
Later, Sonnet: "Did you get a picture, Madeleine?"
Madeleine: "Yep."
Sonnet: "How much?"
Madeleine: "Five pounds. Down from £25,000."
Me: "The kid is a natural."

Rocco

I meet Rocco who (his card informs me) is a "face furniture consultant."  He also refurbs eye glasses and recently did a line for Victoria Beckham.

Rocco otherwise a former rocker and now shop keeper in Notting Hill. He spent some time in Santa Monica until he saw somebody shot in the street - "I just couldn't live there after that", he tells me.

Lisboa

Sonnet at Lisboa

We visit our old haunt, the Portobella Road and the Lisboa bakery with its wonderful custards, to be consumed rapidly, with strong coffee, and a fried pork sandwich.

In the early days of London, when we lived in W9, to get to Lisboa Sonnet and I walked along the Harrow Rd (the equivalent of St Charles Place in Monopoly) then a cobblestone side street next to a few converted warehouses and an orphaned detached Victorian mansion, over the Grand Union canal by the A40 flyover and under the oppressive Trellick Tower's shadow next to the rail road tracks and, finally, Lisboa. Somehow sublime.

Potted History

Eitan in new trousers

The bank holiday weekend in full swing (it snows).

Sonnet and I do some yard work and, as a family activity, we re pot the plants which requires a major effort and some patience.  The root systems fill their vessels so, after extraction , I chop off the bottoms and shake them down; I fill the pots with compost and in the plants go+water.  Time will tell if I killed them - I give it 50-50.

Michael Costiff

Dover Street Mkt

Sonnet and I at Michael Costiff's book signing, following stops in Manhattan and Tokyo. The book includes photographs from Michael's club, the Kinky Gerlinky, which ran from the 1980s to '90s at the Ballroom in Leicester Square. For a time, the Kinky was London's hottest discotheque and favourite of minor European royalty and the cross dressing scene including Divine, Leigh Bowery and Susan Bartch. How unusual, then, that Michael born and raised in Grindleford, a village without street lamps, until he got the hell out.

Sonnet knows Michael as she acquired Michael and wife Gerlinda's Vivian Westwood collection for the V & A.

Chill Out

Madeleine four days into her three week half-term break.  

And this, the Easter Weekend, which England takes seriously - the banks closed today, Good Friday, and Monday. Of course it is freezing though springtime.  In our first flat, a top floor in Maida Vale, a young ish women would sunbathe, in her bra and panties, on her urban roof, the first weekend of warm weather, welcoming the new season for us all.

Truman Capote

My Crew

On the way to Passover

We are with the Clarks for Passover (Michael accepted to the Naval Academy); they are on the Upper Mall, mentioned in the first paragraph of Thackeray's 'Vanity Fair', overlooking the river, St Paul's boys school and the Hammersmith Bridge in the near distance. As per always, their friends interesting : the couple from Shoreditch via the East Village and LA where she invests in social enterprise and a Catto Fellow (having made a bundle selling her e-learning company IEC) and he a visual effects artist in the feature film world. The academics from New Zealand via Cambridge, MA, and the Hebrew school teacher who wows us with Moses.

Eitan impresses us all, quoting God (impersonating a burning bush): "I am who I am."

Via twitter.
Madeleine: "Do you want me to get you anything from the highstreet, like a snickers bar or toblerone?"
Me: "No thx but thank you for asking. Whatcha up to today?"
Madeleine: "Reading [Twilight], walking Rusty and thank you cards [for Passover]. When are you home?"
Me: "Ok, sounds like a good day. Home at 6 or so."
Madeleine, later: "Finished book. 459 pages in three days. 8-) "
Me: "You rock. How were the vampires?"
Madeleine: "Predictable."

Your Crazy Neighbor

North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong Un has ordered the army to destroy and wipe away any enemy who lands on their coast.

Man Down

Mortlake Train Station

Here is a dude in a hole. I ask permission to take a photo and his colleagues (six of them) cheer, handing over a walkie talkie for the pose; one fellow demurs probably concerned they will get caught out for over staffing or goofing around or something.

Me: "How about if we go to some museums over the spring break?"
Eitan: "Yeah, right."
Me: "Don't you enjoy museums?"
Eitan: "All they are is sitting around looking at some paintings and begging you for lunch."
Me: "Pretty rough huh?"
Eitan: "Yeah."

Madeleine hunched over her laptop playing computer games.
Madeleine: "Do you think I can be a game tester when I grow up?"
Me: "Seems reasonable."

One Nation, Under God

Gun deaths since December 2012. Source: Huffington Post

In the three months since the Newton massacre, 2,224 Americans have died from guns.

Yet support for new gun control measures has dropped 10 points from the days following the December shooting at a Newtown, Conn. elementary school, according to a survey released today by CBS News.

According to the poll, 47% believe gun control laws should be more strict, while 11% want fewer regulations on gun purchases and 39% say laws should be kept as they are.  In December 57% backed stronger new gun controls. 

The NRA does its work.

Biathelete

Poolside

Eitan competes in the British Schools Modern Biathlon Championships, representing Hampton School, at Crystal Palace : 50 meters freestyle+500 meter run qualified from the cross country champs and the Surreys swimming county finals.  He is 11th of 54 in Year 7.

Madeleine's football game, vs. Crystal Palace by coincidence but played in Croydon, cancelled due to freezing temps.

Surfer Girl

Alana Rene Blanchard

Blanchard (born 1990) a Hawaiian professional surfer and Bikini Model and part of the ASP World Tour.  She is sponsored by Ripcurl, Reef, Sticky Bumps, Spyoptic and Red Bull and designs Rip Curl bikinis. Blanchard best friends with fellow surfer Bethany Hamilton and was present when Hamilton suffered the shark attack that took her arm (photo from web).

It has been a long time since I have driven up HW 1 to go whomping at 4 mile point.

Spring, UK

Springtime in paradise.

We are at Andrew's 40th which keeps us out late. Andrew the Managing Director of Optalis, one of the first local authority-owned trading companies in the UK created to provide adult social care.  He was brought in to make the organisation more commercial and he has done so.

Snow and foul weather traps drivers in cars, closes airports and halts train services, and puts communities on alert for flood where 59 alerts in place.  Unlike a proper winter storm which, usually, puts people in good cheer this time there is a collective groan - what a bummer following an unusually long winter. 

Madeleine and I agree to 30 minutes of video games to my television then an afternoon of reading.

Slacker

These guys are probably founding Facebook

Following a morning at Somerset House and an LP meeting for Kreos Capital I stop by the Royal Festival Hall, with laptop, to do some work.  I learn this is where London's mid-thirties male spends his afternoon working or blogging or whatever he does. There is good comradery.

Holes

My offices

Justin and Will in town for a conference hosted by an one of Industry Ventures' portfolio companies - a €30 million ticket so they better show up.  We have dinner with a pension fund from the West Midlands. We are at the surprisingly good Institute of Directors (IoD) which is tres old school with a cocktail lounge and accompanying dining hall - perfect for our guest.  From there it is a drink at Dukes then home where I change in the hallway so as not to wake Sonnet (it is 10PM).

Madeleine: "I am reading such a good book. It's called 'Holes'.
Me: "is it about holes?"
Madeleine:
Me: "Ok, just tell me about it."
Madeleine puts her head on the counter.
Me: "Just try please."
Madeleine: "A boy is wrongly accused of stealing a pair of trainers. He goes to a juvenile camp. He has to build a hole in the desert with the other boys."
Me: "Cool."
Madeleine: "The people in the camp say it builds character and it can turn bad boys into good boys. You can also die in a matter of days if you are not careful because of snakes and scorpions."
Me: "Exciting."
Madeleine: "I am going now. The end. Bye."

College Pro Painters

Barrington, RI, 1987

My most responsibility, up to age 19 or 20, was the Rhode Island franchise of College Pro Painters where, following a weekend of training, I, and my fellow managers, were released upon an unsuspecting home-owing public.

CPP taught us how to do things like make cold calls and do job estimates but, really, it was swim as swim can.  I proved to be adept at signing customers and, with a full school load, lined up a bunch of houses before final exams and 'the production season.'

From there it was one calamity to the next : Spilled paint on front lawns . ..car break-downs . .over-budgets .. . a police warrant. Usual stuff. I had ten painters+$7,000 of equipment on credit. My pager administered a punishing blow at every notification.  The summer did, finally, end with a profit (ca. $10 grand) and 20 ladders stored in the basement of an unknowing building. I was relieved when it was over.

The following summer (my Jr year), with Chas and Eric returning and a crew of 30, I  painted 52 properties in ten weeks producing nearly $200K of turnover and was "Manager Of The Year."