Duty & Booze

 Madeleine plays it cool (Auntie Katie's sunglasses)

David an entrepreneur in the drinks business, introducing the UK's benighted and blinkered boozers to exotic imports like "Poison Brew" from Sweden. We have a case of "Carnaby Brown" coolers in the pantry.

Since cheer a big business here not surprisingly government wants a piece of the action.  The duty on beer, for instance, is £19.51 per hectolitre per alcohol content.  So 15 beers or 7.5 litres at 5.3%  would raise a tax of £7.75 (.1971 * 7.5 * 5.3).  The tax per bottle , then, is 51p  - interesting as I see a case of Becks (20 bottles) at Tesco going for £12, or 60p a bottle. Loss making and also cheaper than water.

Last year a movement towards a minimum price on liquor snuffed out by both parties afraid of losing, well, the entire voting public. Britain enjoys its bender.

Get Lucky

This cool kid reminds me of Daft Punk.

I lunch with T, who is in town to attend Hg Capital's AGM and to meet with some venture funds and tech guys, which is where his interests are since he is a "recycled entrepreneur", as he once liked to say.  Since 2000, his tech portfolio, which includes Benchmark, Index, Apax, BlueRun, Correlation and Industry Ventures, is 30% net IRR based, in part, on several early exits. We agree : the timing of cashflows has a mighty effect on performance - obvious, but nice to see it confirmed in real numbers (the median vc industry performance over this period 3%).

Sonnet and Madeleine make it home in one piece. Back to work and school tomorrow.

Bounce And SAT

Eitan takes a break from revisioning - tomorrow begins his exams, which last one-two hours per discipline, all day, all week.  Today he puts in six hours compared to six hours over the last seven days.  I try to stay out of it as, his teachers' tell us, part of the learning is learning how to learn.  This year for practice, a goof, but from year eight, it is a mark on the boy's permanent record.

US universities, unlike England, look for the fuller picture : grades, teacher recommendations, extra curriculars and, of course, test scores.  My second SAT exam, for instance, in '84 and I had the flu and did not want to go - Grace got me fed and into the car, which broke down four blocks from our house. She raced up Euclid, in the rain, and swapped for Moe's difficult-to-drive 544 and off we went to the test center, me arriving late but allowed access to the exam hall. I improved and got into college but, if this were the only data point, I would have been f***ed.

Big Tree

The tree out front that we hope won't fall on the house.  It has grown, like, 20% since we moved in.

Eitan and I have dinner at The Plough (fabulous local gastropub converted from the neighbourhood boozer for the over 50s) and discuss the usual stuff : school, sports, goals and expectations .. girls, though nothing new or on the horizon here - or that he would wish to share, anyway. He's never around the opposite sex as Hampton School all boys but (I learn) Joe and Shaheen have gone on a movie double date, while the counter parties unidentified. It still kinda counts.

Crazy Frankensteins

The backyard in first bloom and it is payback for the long winter, particularly hard this year as we adjust to the kids' early morning schedule. Can I take another? But for now the sunrise is 4:30AM and sunset at 9PM.  Amazing what a little extra light does.

Another reason to appreciate this time of year: Roland Garros. And soon, Wimbledon.

And The Chocolate Factory

New York Day

MOMA

Madeleine Katie

Central Park

Katie and Madeleine have an Upper West Side morning, starting off with a jog/walk around the reservoir followed by the Silver Moon Cafe for croissants and pastries. From there it is a smoothie then down town to Katie's offices and an afternoon at a chocolate factory in soho "that takes up an entire city block."  Sonnet visits the Met. Eitan does his revisions.

Me, on speaker phone: "So do you miss your brother?"

Madeleine: "Not really."

Me: "Guess who's right here?"

Madeleine: "Um, Eitan?"

Eitan: "Hi Madeleine!"

Manhattan

Sonnet takes Madeleine to Manhattan for half-term break to visit Auntie Katie.  Today Katie will take Madeleine to her offices.

Eitan and I were going to go to Thorp amusement park to ride "The Saw", "Swarm," "Stealth" and the "Nemesis Inferno" but foul weather keeps us home. Instead we watch "The Dictator" which seems about right for his age. Or ours.

Me: "How are the revisions going?"
Eitan: "Fine. I did Geography today."
Me: "Oh, what?"
Eitan: "Like how to take temperatures using a thermometer."
Me: "By sticking it up your ass?"
Eitan: "Ha ha! Dad!"

Conservatory

We get some w/e sun which means only one thing for the Shakespeares: chores. The front and backyard require weekly work and, since it has been two weeks, a job for idle hands (or, at least, two kids on half-term break).  They grumble but I hold a few cards in my pocket : Eitan wants to watch the men's EUFA Champions Final with Joe and Madeleine wants an iPad.  The work gets done.

Our conservatory painted inside black, a gutsy decision which somehow brings the garden closer.  Eric made the right call.

Ava

Ava is a crack footballer so no surprise she makes to trip from Devon to see the women's EUFA Champions League at Stamford Bridge.  The final between Lyon and Wolfsburg, who win 1-nil, preventing the defending champions from three in a row. I have known this kid her whole life and she is a good one.

Fondu Enchainé

A 'fondu enchainé  ' is when, in a movie, one image fades while the next one already appears.  This is often what I think, today, of Eitan and Madeleine - they are both still kids who want to climb things, sleep late and slack on their chores or homework. Watch television and eat a candy bar when the mood strikes them. Read comics. Yet, their bodies and personalities subtly shifting before us, in preparation for the next stage. Sonnet and I wonder : what ?

Disco Modern

Daft Punk is an electronica duo of French musicians Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christon and Thomas Bangalter who hit the euro club scene in the 90s and came to popular attention from the soundtrack of the Tron remake in 2010.

I listen to a review of their new song 'Get Lucky' on Radio 4 - described as a disco retread, the equivalent of cat nip for the middle-age male, who make the tune No. 1 on the charts.  I would wish to report that I hate it but I love it.  Daft Punk nails the song, too - some KC And The Sunshine Band, a bit of Earth Wind And Fire and (of course) Donna Summer whose "I Feel Love" changed everything when it arrived in 1977.  I also hear shades of Cool And The Gang and the Gap Band. A fine vintage tune for the ages.

Bank Holiday Bunk

Eitan, Shaheen and Joe at Palewell Park

We head in to a 'bank' holiday weekend and that can mean only one thing: crap weather. It pisses down, too, and my friend Justin, in California, happily informs me "it's 45 degrees in London but feels like 39."  I wear  my winter coat.  Sonnet takes a hot shower to warm up, 8:40PM.  It is late May for Christ's sake.

"It gets your blood circulating."
--BBC presenter Steve Bradley psyches us up from the Chelsea Flower Show

Summer's Day (Almost)

7:45AM from Barnes Bridge, facing East

Sonnet and I share a walk this morning. I observe the tide is 'out' (some difference between low and hi tide).

Britain has always looked like a cloud to me, drifting from the continent, while my earliest thoughts of the country formed by Beatles' psychedelic: Gentle billowy floating across riverbeds and green fields. Today it lives up to that first impression.

Munir And Exams

Our friend Munir, with flag, who joined us along the KKH in '97. Munir is from Pakistan and, at the time of our trip, responsible for small business and commercial development along the highway.  Here he visits Silver and and Stan, who accompanied Munir along Alaska's Dalton Highway.

Some things Eitan will require for his year-end exams, which take place after the half-term break (Katie always suffered the Xmas holidays because Harvard insisted on having its finals post holidays) : a pen (and spare pens), pencils and a pencil sharpener, a ruler, a rubber, colouring pencils, a calculator, a protractor, a pair of compasses and a set square; the items " should be contained in a see-through pencil case or plastic wallet."  King Jr High was never so anal.

Aneta And A B'Day

Aneta's carrot cake

Here is Aneta, who joined us in September after an 18 hour bus ride from her small town in the Czech Republic.  Without her, our lives would be near impossible as she shuttles the kids to swim practice, jogs with Rusty, helps around the house and baby sitting and always with a smile.  In short, she keeps us running. God bless.

Sonnet turns a year and begins the day at Bikram yoga, 6:00AM.  She was to take the day off - why not ? - but decides there is too much to be done for her Italian exhibition and so reports to work. Yes, she's a worrier.

Watching Sonnet age is a joy. Not getting old, mind you, but knowing that we have shared this special time together in the vastness of it all. None of it makes sense but the continuity helps.

The Fonz or Eddie Hascell?

I love Eitan's long hair but he likes it short, so there you go.  There was a moment when Sonnet and I discussed the kids' hair : mostly because Madeleine wanted to cut most of it off.  We decided that, what the hell, it's theirs so they can do what they want with it. Even Brill cream.

Me: "Are you playing games on the computer?" (Dad's note: Madeleine plays games on the computer)
Madeleine:
Me: "Well, turn it off.  Why don't you be that kid who is always reading a book?"
Madeleine: "You always want me to be something I don't want to be."
Me: "It has nothing to do with that. I just want you to read."
Madeleine: "You're always trying to get me to read something I don't want to."
Me: "Never so."
Madeleine: "Yeah well what about that book about the bunnies?"
Me: "Watership Down?"
Madeleine: "It's about rabbits, Dad."
Me: "Fair enough."

"Experience The Exceptional"

The ugliest buildings in London?

The remarkable thing about One Hyde Park, with its Arabic scrawl and Rolex/McClaren showrooms not that it is the most expensive residential property in the world (in 2010, a penthouse went for £140 million). No, what is extraordinary is that it is empty.

The building replaced a ghastly 1960s urban concrete affair that blocked Knightsbridge from Hyde Park. An obvious place for the billionaire Candy Brothers to re build, which they did from 2006 creating a snarling traffic mess at the doorstep of Harrod's and the beautiful Mandarin Oriental making Central London and me miserable for five years. But what did they care ?

1HP comes with all the modern-day conveniences - bullet proof windows, 24 hour armed security, lock-down procedures and secure private access for the RR. In short, a military bunker for the nine residential addresses actually registered with the Westminster City Council for Council Tax.  The remaining units purchased by offshore corporates or Guernsey tax shelters as investment, never to be inhabited and leaving an otherwise vibrant neighbourhood empty.

"When council spending is under unprecedented pressure, it is scandalous that residents in luxury apartments can avoid their share of council tax liability."

--Westminster North MP Karen Buck

Harry's Voice

Me: "You are in our house every day."
Stephen Fry:
Me: "I am so grateful that you have made Harry Potter come to life in such a wonderful way. My children just love your voice." [Dad's note: There are 99 CDs covering the 7 Harry Potter books read by Stephen Fry]
Stephen Fry: "Well that is kind of you to say so. Thank you very much indeed."

Me: "Do you have a Harry Potter book?"
Eitan: "Is it for your blog?"
Me: "That damn wizard has been with us for ten years, putting a cold steel knife in to the heart of Spider Man and my bedtime stories."
Eitan: "Do I have to do this Dad?"