Cliterati and DeepMind

Laura, Sonnet's first flatmate post-college in San Francisco's North Beach neighbourhood, now lives with husband Chris in Bernal Heights following a long-tour in Lower Manhattan. Laura took an academic route - PhD in British Literature from Columbia, professor of literature at Yale and The New School (NYC) and, most recently, teaching courses on Ulysses and the MeToo movement at Stanford.  She also writes about culture, gender and sexuality - a few of her academic papers include 'The Cult of the Clitoris', 'Stein's Tickle' and "Third Rail Erotica: Anais Nin's Auletris" (independent.academia.edu). She recently engineered Harvard's acquisition of an extensive collection on women, gender and sexuality in American History as part of Harvard's Schlesinger Library, collected, in part, from San Francisco's sexual underground movement beginning in 1970s.

Chris, meanwhile, is a Senior Director at Google's DeepMind where he leads teams in Information Quality, Media Integrity, DeepFakes, Cheapfakes, VFX Tech, AR/VR, Human Pose and Face Analysius & Synthesis with launches in Google Search, Ads, T&S, YouTube, DayDream, Phots, JigSaw and other product areas.

Katie Protests

Brooklyn

There is plenty to protest in 2025 and, for posterity, it must feel like 1968 or the year the US revolution did not happen. Could there be a civil war in the United States? No, but it's not impossible either. The 2024 elections failed to save us from Trump 2. Will the 2026 mid-terms see us through ? If the Democrats take the house and the senate Trump will be impeached and removed from office, straight to the Manhattan Court House who owes him a sentence on 34 criminal convictions for falsifying business records and payments to Stormy Daniels.

James Murphy Live

Brixton

LCD Sound System

Pre-concert

Eitan, Rachel, JC and I see LCD Sound System at the Brixton Academy on a Sunday evening. I am the hero for navigating, mid-concert, a packed crowed, from bar-to-front with four times 1-liter open-containers of beer. Try it.

Afterwards we have a dinner and the only joint to serve us at the late hour is a local Jamaican restaurant, which stays open for us, serving their house specialties, to the delight of the Jamaican lady-owner.

Post-concert

Simon in Full Bloom

Simon and daughter Sophie

Simon turns 60, celebrated with a party at a Soho Italian. Over dinner I meet Sam (attorney working on criminal investigations), Fran (Cambridge PhD earned in her 50s now teaching english literature at .. Cambridge), Nick (investing public equities at Al Gore's Generation) and Andrea who is a classical  recitalist, piano, and technology banker and solar industrialist. This, mind you, at my end of the table.

Sophie, meanwhile, pursues her career as a serious gumshoe journalist when not doing stand-up work at the London comedy clubs. 

As for Simon, he invests in the climate transition and is active in climate policy and the geopolitics of energy. He chairs the Octopus Energy Climate Ventures Advisory Board and, before that, was a vc (founder, Fidelity Ventures and Generation) and the CFO of a startup from business plan to $1bn IPO. Simon's books include 'Terror Vanquished - The Italian Approach to Defeating Terrorism' and the Center for American Progress blueprint for defeating violent white nationalist extremists. He was Chair of the Foreign Policy for America in Washington D.C. and now chairs the board of the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

Gibraltar

Rock of Gibraltar; Jade and Tim 

Following Eitan's marathon and S of France, I head for Tarifa, Spain, the wind- and kite-surfing capital of the world, to swim the Gibraltar Straight with three friends from the Croatia camp plus our Red Top coach Tim. Alas, the beautiful spring sunshine during the week is matched by windy conditions over the channel putting a cork in the bottle.

Sub 3

Eitan at mile 19

Eitan runs his first marathon in Paris in April, opening the summer in style with a 2:56 effort. An Orenstein has finally broken three hours and I can go to my grave in peace.

Eitan informs that the last several miles of the race was hard-going but he persevered across the worst of it. Sonnet and I catch him at several points along the route rewarded with a small wave and a big smile. From here to here.

Sonnet and I arrive in Paris in time to meet Eitan and his wonderful friend Fleur for the pre-marathon carbo-heavy dinner and to see the David Hockney paintings at the FLV in Bois de Boulogne. We visit Guy and Jeanine in the 7e joined by Marshall and Veronique who is a trustee of the Centre Pompidou and on the acquisitions committee.

In real time, Sonnet proof reads her book on Elsa Schiaparelli that will accompany the 2026 exhibition; Eitan continues his work at Legal Aid and prepares for interviews with law firms; Madeleine works for October Films researching serial killers and other compelling subject matter.