Some Tittilation And The Economy

Since I seem to be on a roll with racy photographs of fashion models, here is another taken at the Courdault exhibition.


Unlike the US, Britain is trying to bring its deficits to balance and announces government cuts of £175 billion - no small beer this.  Most of the roll backs to come from the military and Super Gee argues down the Trident from four to three submarines saving us £22B right there.  Why we need more than one beyond me but the military knows our protection best.  Some of the savings BTW will be re-channelled to the war in Afghanistan, where it should be,  as the troops suffer from lack of modern equipment and, in some cases, the right clothing and gear for the mountainous terrain. Shameful.  Our new found discipline comes inside striking distance of the next national election which will happen June 2010, unless Labour calls a snap-poll which seems unlikely given their lack, ahem, of popularity.  The Tories regain the plank with their no-nonsense approach to fiscal responsibility.  The problem, as I see it (and in agreement with my hero Paul Krugman), that we are not at the end of the Western World's recession - we may not even be near the middle.  Today, for instance, government announces that US employers fire 263,000 workers in September making unemployement 9.8%. Yet the Dow touches 10,000, Ben Bernanke suggests the recession over, and the economy recedes at a slower rate .. all positive indicators, no doubt, but I do remember the ugly '90-92 which really ended in '96 .. I was working on a number of banking m&a's and, as my old mentor Dick Bott used to say: "A bank like an oyster - as pure as the water around it" (or something like that).  While the official recession may have ended by '92, it took another three or four years for the US to recover. Bank balance sheets told us this beforehand.  And today, our financial institutions remain dire, despite American tax dollars, while no money lent.  Bank analysts not in the business of forecasting yet any schmo can see we have a ways to go before terra firma.

Self Portrait XII

Here I am today, white Michael Jackson glove from Katie.


Walking to school, I ask Eitan how he feels about being nine and he shrugs non-chalantly - same as it ever was.  Madeleine, on the other hand, knows all about it: "I would be bigger. And I would have more money. To buy buddies. And my work would be easier."  I note some melancholy in the boy and so, when nobody around, I ask how he is feeling - it turns out, blue for no particular reason.  I recall feeling the same around his age and especially by seventh-grade when I had days I could not go to school for the tears and only wanted to be with my mother.  I tell Eitan we all feel sad sometimes for no reason and note that I still feel the blues in my stomach.  He absorbs this a bit as we stroll to the playground.  At separation, I look Eitan in the eye and tell him how proud I and Sonnet are of him and, unusually these days, I get a nod and a discrete hug before he bolts for his friends.

A Mirrored Room

Yours truly, yesterday afternoon. I will shortly pick up Madeleine from swim team and then we to wish the birthday boy his happy number nine.

 I drive Madeleine, JJ and Oliver home from swimming.  Me to JJ and Oliver: "What are you studying in Year Five?"

Oliver: "The Romans."

Me: "Tell me one thing you have learned about the Romans?"

JJ: "They are boring."

I ask the back seat if they know how to find the area of a circle?

Madeleine: "Excuse me, Dad. They really aren't enjoying this conversation."

Me: "Eitan, say one thing about being nine?"

Eitan (some consideration): "I don't really feel any different."

Claudia + A Birthday

Another display presents a fashion models including Kate Moss, Jane Seymour and Claudia Schiffer (pictured) stationed in repose for two minutes.  Most of them fidget, lose their confidence, regain their composure, pout, look angrily at the filmer, giggle, go blank.  Fascinating that these women are examined with a microscope and yet when left under the camera's eye, they cannot compose themselves.  Profound, I think.


Schiffer, BTW, from Germany and Erik's favorite - he had a poster of her by his desk at the mighty First Boston (this was 1980s after all).  She has appeared on over 500 magazine covers. 


My little boy turns 9 years old - how can this be?  He requests home-made pizza for dinner, knowing this to be Madeleine's favorite+the Manchester United game which will keep him up well-past his bedtime.  Easily done.  Dana and Nathan give him a metal detector, Aggie a lego set and Natasha a £20 gift certificate at Pandomoniam. Hew whoops for joy.  I make him a member of Fulham FC so we can see the Premiere League without flying to Manchester.  They, in fact, will come to us.

SHOWstudio

Waiting to meet Sonnet at the Courdault at Summerset House, I check out super-cool exhibition "Fashion Revolution" put on by SHOWstudio, an "online fashion broadcasting company operating in live fashion media." SHOWstudio founder, photographer Nick Night (whose first publication in '82, 'Skinheads,' caused some controversy) is about experimental interactive projects, films and live performances and this is what I see - pictured (shot from my  mobile phone).  SHOWstudio, meanwhile, has worked on over 300 projects inside the fashion industry including John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Naomi Cambell and Kate Moss and top designers and models like Aitor Throup, Gareth Pugh, Agyness Deeyn.  Their collaborations extend into music, food, architecture, art, design and performance with Bjork, Brad Pitt, Leigh Bowery, Heston Blumenthal and Tracy Emin.  


Not surprisingly, the space filled with light and glow while costumes and media displayed everywhere.  A lot of set pieces I don't like but several I love - including an invitation to watch a 'live fashion studio' but instead a picture-reel of a famous model at work. There is no sound.  The viewer becomes a voyeur and the black and white images become color and erotic.  Cool. In the next chamber, a powerful movie short of movement while techno-beat blasts and the models fall into step, displaying their accoutrements 

Happy Birthday!

Katie turns another year - and bravo! Life is hard to find one's place and make a go of it.  And keep it interesting.  Her Op-Ed project effecting thousands of contributors and millions of readers.  


Last week I had dinner with Nick, who is now 64 and my first boss at "the mighty First Boston" as he likes to say. He founded First Boston's financial institutions group (or FIG) which became the firm's profit centre by the time I arrived - each of us producing several millions of fees per year and, from my perspective, all blood, sweat and tears.   Nick and I re-connect around his son (also named Nick) who is a writer for the New Yorker magazine covering mostly financial and business subjects.  I wrote to congratulate him and - bang! - Nick Sr on the phone. Nick one of the few remaining old-style bankers, putting his clients above all else and not driven by fast, easy gains like today's trading floor. Fuckers.  Nick was an unusual fellow even back in those 80s .. he was once told (or so rumour has it) not to roller-skate to work since "this unbecoming of a banker's profession."  He was one of the few guys who seemed to care about us Analysts and we all wanted to be assigned to his projects.  Nick left the clipper in late-1990, calling us into his office and noting "it's time to tell the kiddies" and so he went to JP Morgan to set up the Corsair funds, which today oversees billions.  I recall a discussion in 1990 - on 59th Street and Fifth in a black town car - as commercial banks like JPM granted limited regulatory permissions to be investment banks for the first time since '33.  "It is all over" he said gloomily. "this is the beginning of the end for all of us."


Nick and I swap memories of people, parties, deals and the last twenty years.  How unusual that I first met him when he my age now.  The last time together, I asked for  money for my non-profit Help The World See or '94.  Of all the things I have done, he exclaims, HTWS interesting:  "It is not easy to do things differently, and I am proud of anybody that does."  

War Of The Conker

One last shot from Berlin.


The kids have been in an all-out war to collect.. conkers (a "conker," Dear Reader, the seed of a horse-chestnut tree and ubiquitous in London this time of year).  And should we think the competition only with us, I learn that contestants in the Pulton International Conkers Tournement, held annually in the small village of Cirencester, Gloucestershire, were warned Friday that they face new security including searches and police-style checks to combat possible cheating.  Only conkers, you see, collected and checked by the organising committee may be used - each conker marked (of course) with a special flourescent pen similar to a police-marking on stolen goods.  Were that not enough, the winning conkers checked afterwards to ensure that they have not used substitutes which might have been soaked in vinegar or baked in an oven.  Event organiser Phil Heneghan notes: "we may also check contestants' footwear."  He adds further: "It is truly incredible what lengths some contestants will go to in their attempts to win the championship."  Watching the near fist fights in Eitan and Madeleine's simple competition, I can only imagine if the stakes high.


"I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office." 
--George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., May 12, 2008

Sunshine

Madeleine, around noontime, Sunday.

We have a busy week end, starting Friday evening at the V and A where Sonnet hosts a panel on "Fashion Education in Britain" which brings together Wendy Dagworthy, Head of Fashion at the RCA; Richard Sorger, Middlesex U; Maria Alverez, founder of Fashion Awareness Direct (or "FAD"); and Cally Blackman, Fashion Theory at Central Saint Martins.  One fellow in the front row, dressed in black with black glasses and black barret covering his pink shaven head, insists London has lost its "fashion swing" and only the Japanese "doing things of any interest" (his companion a Jap). 

He further insists that Britain's schools not giving students confidence nor the bleeding edge and one astute panelist notes that perhaps it is his fashion askew.  Touchee.  Afterwards Sonnet and I have dinner in Barnes, which we haven't done in a way long time and it feels like a date-date.  Kids at home with reliable baby-sitter Lauren (teenager, studying for medicine) and it is after 11PM.  Given the busy ahead, I skip the martinis though, since Berlin, I have been thinking about our reunion.  Instead I keep to red wine.

So the rest of the weekend weather like the Bay Area, which is hot and dry while the sun's lower horizon suggests the season's change.  Indian summer is here and may she last.  And Saturday: Madeleine swimming, Eitan football, Madeleine birthday party, evening family dinner party. And Sunday: Eitan football match (KPR wins 6-1; Eitan scores twice), lunch with Dana and Nathan, Richmond Park then Madeleine and Sonnet to the Barnes Wetland Centre. We are now going to watch Mad Men then in bed by 10PM.

I stay up late Saturday to listen to the #6 Bears magical season end after three games - Oregon crushes Cal 42-3.  What happened?

I give Eitan a box of cupcakes and ask him to put them away.

Eitan: "Where do they go?"

Me: "You know where they go."

Eitan: "What (pronounced 'wot') - in my mouth?"

Prenup

We listen to Coldplay, which Sonnet went to the other night with Lorena and Puk.  

Prenuptial agreements in Britain are on the way up - about tenfold over the last five years, Radio 4 reports. In the UK, prenups legally binding in Scotland but not in England and Wales though taken into consideration by the divorcing judge. And why, I wonder, should there be any interpretation? Others agree and the Law Commissions examines: is the contract enforcable? Tories say if elected, yes.  Prenups would seem to introduce an awkward start to (presumably) one's happiest years. Perhaps newly weds experience a depressing pragmatism in today's media .. or maybe Britain's inheritors get a lot that they want to keep.  A more likely reason, I think, the highly visible instances like the horrible Heather Mills. A contract, updated frequently, may take an unpleasant event and remove the emotional distress somehow. This cannot be a bad thing.

Despite prenups as an indicator of nastiness, 2007 divorces in England and Wales fell to 12 per 1,000 married or the lowest since 1981 according to government. For the fifth year, men and women in their late twenties had the highest divorce rates or 27 divorces per 1,000.  Since '97 the average age at divorce in England and Wales has risen from 40.2 to 43.7 years for men and from 37.7 to 41.2 years for women, partly reflecting the rise in age at marriage. One in five men and women divorcing in 2007 had a previous marriage ending in divorce. This proportion has doubled in 27 years: in 1980 one in ten men and women divorcing had a previous marriage ending in divorce. Sixty-nine per cent of divorces were to couples where the marriage was the first for both parties. For 68 per cent of divorces in 2007, the wife was granted the divorce.  And there you have it.

KTO

Here is Katie, pinched from the Echoing Green Foundation where she is a Fellow.  Since a lot of people ask me about her work, here is a piece of the blurb: "Projecting new diverse voices into national conversation by providing channels for women experts to be published in the op-ed pages of top newspapers, online sites, and other key forums of public debate."  The problem she aims to correct: more than 80% of US editorial content male (and mostly white too) (here is the full story+interview http://www.echoinggreen.org/fellows/katie-orenstein). I like the photo BTW - we all know Katie is determined and when she focuses her intellect - look out.

" Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world: indeed it's the only thing that ever has."
--Margret Mead

Pond Life And A Walrus

Madeleine especially has taken to the pond in the backyard - pictured. She is fascinated by the skuttling creatures sometimes visible, sometimes not, who wiggle about between the water plants alongside a few goldfish and Frank (black fish found by her and housed privately).  I told her once the pond 24 feet deep with a shark. She asked her brother if true. Fair enough. We have a little net which, until said net disappeared at the pond's bottom, she scooped up the whatever and put them into plastic shelving bins which otherwise are meant for .. shelves.  With pal Nathaniel the other day, the children get down to the bottom of things and Madeleine explains to me breathlessly: "they live down there, dad. In a house."

Me: "What was your challenge in school today?"

Madeleine: "I was drawing a picture of a human killing a walrus."

Me: "That doesn't sound very nice."

Madeleine: "He has to eat, you know."

Models And Pigeons

Here's another one from the cat-walk, the pretty dears.

So I learn today: to remove the Trafalgar Square pigeons ("flying rats" says former mayor Ken), Government spends £60,000 a year on birds-of-prey, which are flown daily for up to four hours above and around the area.  The scheme has been successful, too, reducing 4,000 pigeons to 120 or so, reports the new Mayor's office.  But in these times of strife, the cost of success questioned: "A hawk that costs the taxpayer more than £50,000 a year is a staggering amount" screeches Lib Dem Mike Tuffrey.  "Alternative ways must be found."  But my favorite resistence from Julia Fletcher of the Pigeon Action Group, which campaigns for the birds' welfare.  Says Julia:  "What it (the scheme) is doing with taxpayers' money is actually performing blood sports in Trafalgar Square."  I had not thought of it like this - but fair point.  Now I actually want to visit the square and maybe other tourists also.  Julia could really be on to something - imagine the extra tourist dollars?

"Animals In War" memorial, across the street from Speaker's Park, Hyde Park

"This monument dedicated to all the animals

That served and died alongside British and Allied forces

In Wars and Campaigns throughout time."

Fashion

Sonnet scores me a ticket for the Jonathan Saunders show in an old warehouse somewhere in Westminster.  Sanders an up-and-comer who, Sonnet assures me, is the flava of the moment.  His spring-summer 2010 collection dreamy - all chiffon and loosey hangy things.  There are as many models and wanna-be's in the audience (I am most certainly the latter) and over there is Anna Wintour.  The cat walkers tall and composed with extraordinary bone structure - so this is what we strive for as a society.  Many of them a bit too thin and hard not to consider "malnourished."  They also look dreadfully bored with eyes focused on something anywhere else.  This is the look that exclaims oh so lucidly: "you are nothing."  But we love it.  Saunders takes a brief bow and like that, it is over.  I bump into a number of the girls on their way into London and they are simply so young - I might guess 15 or 16.  Maybe a few years older. They have bad complexion.  They smoke and talk on their mobile phones.  Sonnet says the show soon off  to New York, Milan or Paris.  A weird existance these gals enjoy and what every American teenager dreams of.

"The leading cause of death among fasion models is falling through street grates."
--Dave Berry

Dinosaurs And Sunday Recap

 

Here is Madeleine's line-up.  How her mind races about on things I may only guess at.

Sonnet sends me the below email regarding the week end missed while I in Berlin.  Here it is:

" 
Aggie helps kids with their homework while I make Sunday dinner. We have pork chops, sweet potatoes, greens and salad, plus Aggie's Polish cheesecake for dessert. We have dinner and recap the weekend. Eitan describes the weekend as 'fantastic' (still high after the Man U win against Man City-there were tears of joy in his eyes after the winning goal) but could have been improved on if he played for KPR today. Madeleine satisfied with her mom time, but would have liked to have had an ice cream. I took some time to talk to Madeleine about friends, about how people treat her in class (fine if you stay away from the barbie girls) and about asking for help to reach her goals. She has nothing specific at the moment she says. I got to run while Eitan was swimming at 7:00 this morning so all is well.

We called the grandparents tonight and had good conversations with your parents and mine. Moe tells us is days away from getting the go-ahead to put weight on his foot if all has healed properly. Silver has one last round of chemicals on Tuesday and then gets a six month break. Stan is experimenting with an apple tart.

Madeleine and Eitan both made a good effort with their home work. No complaining and everything complete by dinner time tonight. Kumon and chores done too (though I can't figure out how to get the hoses back in the casings).

The big news is Madeleine found a tiny black fish in the pond and went to the moon with happiness. She wants to add it to her fishtank but in the interim has  put it in a plastic tub in the back garden and named it Frank.
"

BOE

Since the Bank of England ever present on our minds, especially recently, here she is (I take this photo from  the Royal Exchange).  I visited the BOE in '97 to meet Ian Plenderleith, a senior fellow of the bank and on the Board of Overseers of the Columbia Business School.  My memory of inside a soothing calm and gentle light, which contrasts sharply with outside - dark, crowded and gloomy.  It is easy to imagine harried bankers rushing down back allies with papers crammed into over-filled carry files and armpits; or deal makers eating oysters and drinking dry martinies while deciding the fate of the many. Always a fog or overcast menacing.  In short, London's "City" a serious place with its own history, culture and experience.  I was once told, quite seriously, that one never wears anything other than black shoes in the City.  To do so uncouth.

So... the Bank of England is the central bank for the whole of the UK and the model on which most modern, large central banks have been based. It was established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and still acts as the banker for the Government. From foundation to '46 BOE was privately owned and operated; from 1946 to 1997 it was state-controlled and in '97 it became independent under New Labour. The Bank, you see, has a monopoly on the issue of currency (though not in Scotland or Northern Ireland). While the Bank's Moneteary Policy Committee has devolved responsibility for managing the monetary policy of the country, the Treasury has reserve powers to give orders to the committee "if they are required in the public interest and by extreme economic circumstance." This has been the case since September '08 when Lehman failed and Super Gee came to the rescue of the Western World.  There is some truth to this as we learn that the US Fed under Hank Paulson in a state of fear and panic in those scary three weeks when the world on the edge of it.

Freeing the BOE of politics in '97 may be Gordon Brown's singular best contribution to Britain. He was Chancellor of the Echequer at the time.

A Good Ending

So after throwing up in the hallway of my fancy hotel, crawling into bed with chills and cramp, legs sending warnings like: "I will fuck you up," my good sense returns and I register a sense of .. accomplishment. I did not bail on the race nor catch the subway or a taxi - and boy, a taxi looked pretty good around 18KM, 22KM, 25KM, .. . . I got to see ALL of Berlin. The race course BTW from Brandenburg Gate, then Charlottenburg (slight twinge in achilles), around Tiergarten, along Moabit (achilles angry) and Mitte, and then south to Friedrichshain (legs now hurting). After that, it winds west between Kreuzberg (definite problems) and Neukolln (the misery begins), through Schoeneberg, over to Steglitz (first walk) and Zehlendorf (second walk. Agony), before turning north back toward the city's center (one foot in front of another). Looping above Schoeneberg (neausea), the course comes full circle as it comes out by the gate (over and out).

Thank goodness, then, for warm weather and an afternoon for somber reflection: indeed, I am no longer 30. My ability to break three-hours for the race - if, in fact, ever there - now certainly behind me.  This a punishing realisation, Dear reader.  Watching thousands of (over weight, sloppy, funny looking) people pass by a humbling experience.  So Berlin my twilight marathon.  Although I do understand Rotterdam pretty fast .. .

Post Marathon - Shyst!

-->

Sunday morning I’m up at 6AM (5AM London) following a restless night. My mind and spirit ready to run 26+ miles and my body seems reasonably Ok. Even my achillies being agreeable – perhaps it is the adrenaline that makes their irritation go away. So .. after breakfast I spill onto Potsdam Platz and enjoy the luxury of walking to the start-line – no subway or bus or weird logistics, which is a good way to begin.

The sun coming up but still dark yet 1,000s of runners head in one direction: to the starting gate. Oh, the humanity. I pass beside the famous Brandenburg Gate along with everybody else then sit for an hour on the steps of the Reichstag. A park takes the inflow and bag checks just beyond. Soon later, I make my way to the course. Temperature warm for a marathon – maybe 17 or 18 degrees – and the excitement palpable. As always, the toilet lines forever and I feel sorry for the women, who comprise maybe 80%. Us dudes just piss wherever like the dogs. 

I’m in stall “C” or three from the front where the magnificent Haile Gabreslysee most assuredly lined up with the elite runners. My group anticipates sub-three hours and a fit, healthy lot. Many, I notice, have shaved their legs. Maybe this a German thing. With ten minutes to go, the loudspeakers play Wagner and announce “welcome” from every language on the globe. Then it is all 10-9-8 ... and we are off!

So the first thing I have to say is that A) one knows inside ten miles if the day is The Day; and B) you cannot fool the marathon. Unfortunately for me, a rythem never found hold, which is what the first half of the race about. At this stage, I would expect to enter a painless, gliding state – I could just as easily be reading a book or watching TV let alone doing a long run. And then the challenge to simply tune out all else. Well, by 10K I knew I was in trouble and at 20K, self-loathing. I got through that stage by 30K and then it really became miserable.

Once off my 3-hour target, I decided to walk if need be and boy did it need be. My Achilles returned with a vengeance and then nails into my upper legs and calves. After 20, I was focused on one-foot-in-front-of-the-other and even hummed this to myself for a bit. Then the wheels came off and there I was in an Aid station (same as London) and then a bar when I couldn’t find a water station. I had to lay down and put my feet on a chair – which the Sunday morning drinking-smoking Krauts thought pretty funny. Fuckers. Traumatic. Surreal.

And then finally it is over.

Beginnen

Here she is - the start.  Tomorrow morning, 9AM sharp, me and Haile will be here.

I jog to the Branderburg Gate and the mood festive.  The inline skater competition underway and the athletes pass by with good cheer.  The crowds out and the warm weather rewards our being alive.  Berlin shines.  In the far distance the Fernsehturn, or "television tower," which is visible from everywhere and built from '66-69 to be the symbol of Berlin.  It is memorable for the large bulbus towards its top and then a red-white needles reaching 365 meters.  The Soviet footprint everywhere.

Yes, This Fears Got A Hold On Me

Title from the White Lies song "Death," which I listen to while counting down the hours.  I am mostly in the hotel despite beautiful weather and Berlin around me.  I have forced myself to sleep ten hours the last couple of nights and taken naps.  Eating too much pasta which I am now sick of.  I will go for a short jog this evening to the front-line start-line around sunset to check out the vibe and take a few more photos when the light good.  I am strangely emotional, isolated from everything, having chosen not to bring Sonnet and the kids (Kurz: "I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight... razor... and surviving").  I have never run a marathon to my expectation and all of them have ended in tears.  I am not sure about tomorrow either since my achilles are letting me know they are there.  They are none to happy either.  Still.  And yet.  I am in Berlin, having put down the mileage, sacrificing every Sunday for the last six months.  The weather is perfect.  40,000 runners to compete - the greatest marathon ever - and Haile going for a World Record.  I have been thinking about this day for the last ten years since London '98 when I ran 3:11, walking the last two.  I may not break three hours tomorrow but at least now I remember the thrill of it all. Join the race.

"and when I see a new day
Whose driving the same way
I picture my own grave
This fear's got a hold on me

Yes, this fear's got a hold on me
Yes, this fear's got a hold on me "

--White Lies

Compensation - Microscopes - A Quote From Geithner And Horton

This housing complex typical and fascinating - it is near the Tempelhof Airport and one can  feel the goose stepping. 

We know Big Government to mess with Wall Street compensation and here is what Treasury Secretary Geithner says: "The simple proposition should be that you don't want people being paid for taking too much risk, and you want to make sure that their compensation is tied tolong-term performance."  This quote everywhere today, including front-and-center in the New York Times.  I think Geithner has the second half right - compensation should be connected to long-term results.  His opening statement, however, wrong: any entrepreneur knows that one's reward intimately connected to a risk (I learned this lesson first hand from 1999-2002 when my millions of equity became worth almost zero pretty quickly).  Wall Street is capitalism and people should be rewarded for taking risk and the more the better, as long as they somehow cannot flip their exposure onto an institution, another entity or a clueless public.

I get Madeleine on the phone who tells me, rather breathelessly I should add, that she has caught a bug from our pond: "I put it in a jar and named him 'Bugsy.'" Madeleine loves all creatures great and small and Sonnet and I muse upon her future, which could be as a vetrinarian.  I do feel she would love such a profession.  So my first stop after finishing this blog to buy a good, solid microscope by Bausch & Lomb, just like the one I had as a youngster. It was heavy and felt scientific.  I remember the week end hours creating slides of blood, saliva, pond or lake water.  While my attention span always short, I managed the lens and - wow! - seeing the micro-flotsam awesome.  A totally different world before me. 

"A person's a person, no matter how small."

--Horton