Burlington Arcade

I occasionally walk the Burlington Arcade behind Bond Street connecting Piccadilly to Burlington Gardens. There are Rolex watches and cashmere sweaters and similar such stuff mostly for the Chinese and other tourists who can afford it.

The arcade built in 1819 by Lord George Cavendish, younger brother of then 5th Duke of Devonshire, who inherited the adjacent Burlington House, on what had been the side garden; the arcade built, reputedly, to prevent passers-by throwing oyster shells and other rubbish over the wall of his home.

In '64 a Jaguar Mark X charged down the arcade, scattering pedestrians, and six masked men leapt out, smashed the windows of the Goldsmiths and Silversmiths Association shop, and stole jewellery valued at £35,000. They were never caught.

Big Brother Is Now

The Lancaster City, PA, Council voted unanimously to begin near-constant aerial surveillance of its city from May 1. (Did you know that Lancaster is the oldest inland city in the United States?)

The surveillance will be done by a piloted Cessna 172 fixed-wing aircraft for 10 hours a day and will cost the city $300 an hour, or about $90,000 a month. The technology, developed by the Lancaster-based Spiral Technology, Inc., includes the use of infrared imaging. "The camera could spot a home invasion robbery or track unsuspecting criminals. It could note car accidents so patrol cars could get there more quickly," city officials told the Los Angeles Times. Lancaster will be the first city in the nation to use the technology, which has previously only been used by the military, NASA and a few other federal agencies.

Me: "How was your visit to [Head Master] Mr H's offices (for poor behavior)?

Madeleine: "I didn't have to go."

Me: "Oh? Why not?"

Madeleine: "Mr B forgot."

Me: "Maybe I should have a talk with Mr B."

Madeleine: "No! That is so unfair!"

Me: "How is your behavior, then?"

Madeleine: "Fine. You are so cruel."

Me: "It was not me mis-behaving young lady."

Madeleine: "It wasn't a Big Deal, anyhow, Dad."

Me: "You don't get to decide that."

Madeleine: "You just want to see me in trouble."

Me: "No, just the opposite, actually."

Madeleine: "Are you going to talk to Mr B?"

Me: "We shall see how it goes and that is the best you are going to get from me."

Photo from the movie "1984".

Fulham FC

The All Stars play a friendly against the Fulham Academy under-10s, pictured, on the Fulham FC grounds. Just another Tuesday night.  Me, I go running, then sit in reception to keep warm and blog and watch England vs. Sweden on the tele (England has not defeated Sweden since '68).

I listen to the ancient grounds keepers bitch about this or that but, man, do they know every blade of grass about their football: "Come on Theo, lad, put one in there!" and so on and so forth.  One offers : "I was was at John Terry's house last week" (John Terry being the England captain before he shagged his best mate's wife); the immediate reply: "On the job, were ya?" and so it goes. What really gets them going, though, is who is getting paid what for doing nothing.  I chip in my enthusiasm whenever England makes a strike or the goalkeeper Carson blocks something, anything (Eitan and I both agree: Carson a butter-fingers who kept us out of the '08 Euro Cup by allowing a clunker against Croatia. But who remembers these things?).

Then again, who would have ever thought that I would care about soccer, let alone spend half my waking life driving the boy to and from practice or watching games in my free time, as we do tonight, well past Eitan's bed time?  Not having grown up with a home team , I miss the passion of, say, a Liverpool or ManU fan, but I can appreciate the misery and joy having followed Cal from age three. Okay, Cal has been mostly misery but I still get it.  England wins, 1-nil. 

Madeleine's visit to Mr H gets a shrugged shoulder. More on this later.

Our Little Darling

Madeleine, March 2005, Kew Gardens

Me: "How was your day, Kiddo?"
Eitan: "Madeleine was in school assembly. And she got into trouble."
Me: "Oh? What did she do?"
Eitan: "She tied some girls shoe laces together and now she has to go to Mr H's office [school Head Master] tomorrow morning. 
Me: "Remember when I exploded that stink bomb on the school bus in 6th grade?"
Eitan: Yeah, so?"
Me: "I had to go to the principal's office, too, and I was crying like crazy. I bet she's terrified."
Eitan: "Are you mad at her?"
Me: "No. Not for this."

Later.
Me: "Hi Madeleine, how was your day?"
Madeleine: "I was in class. And I knocked a book over and it made a 'thump' and I lost two-minutes of 'Golden Time'".
Me: "Did that happen in assembly?"
Madeleine: "Um, no Dad, that was something different."
Me: "Yes?"
Madeleine: "I was sitting next to Billy and Zac and next to Billy there was Sarah. And I was absent-mindedly tying Sarah's shoe laces together. .. ."  
Me: "Absent mindedly. Then what?"
Madeleine: "Mr B looked over, and saw me, and he was furious. I lost another two-minutes of 'Golden Time.'  And tomorrow I am going to Mr H's office. It is so unfair."
Me: "What would have happened if Sarah had fallen and hurt herself?"
Madeleine: "She wouldn't have, Dad. Mr B should not have been so mad."
Me: "He has to keep a class of 29 kids under control. I bet he was mad."
Madeleine: "If you are trying to make me feel better it is not working."

Later.
Madeleine: "I have an idea. About going to Mr H's office.
Me: "Let's hear it."
Madeleine: "I will get hit by a car. Then they will put me in one of those things, a body cast, and I will have two broken legs and broken arms."
Me: "And a poked out eyeball? Or your left nostril torn open!"
Madeleine: "Yeah! And they will wheel me into his office and Mr H will be, like, 'Woa!"
Me: "No doubt."
Madeleine: "Then he will ask me what happened and I will tell him that I was hit by a car, thrown into a sharp shrubbery and then mugged and everything."
Me: "Diverting his attention?"
Madeleine: "Yes."
Me: "And he will let you off?"
Madeleine: "Of course. He will be crying so hard he won't remember the shoe laces."
Me: "Good plan but let's not do it."
Madeleine: "Why not?"
Me: "Just promise, Ok please"
Madeleine: "Ok, Dad. Whatever you say."

Self Portrait XXII

Madeleine: "Usually, if a couple of people are walking down the street, it is about the looks first."
Me: "True. But there are other things too of course."
Madeleine: "Then there is the personality."
Me: "I thought your mother the prettiest thing I'd ever seen when we first met. Still do."
Madeleine: "If you were walking down the streets of London do you think you would attract good looks now?"
Me: "You tell me."
Madeleine: "Um, no offense to you, Dad, but probably not. You would only have the chance if you had a purple shirt, white trousers, and that hair you had when you were younger that made your head look square."
Me: "That all?"
Madeleine: "And your other glasses."
Me: "That's very nice of you."
Madeleine: "Don't forget that it's the thought that counts."

Madeleine: "Guess what Alex is getting?"
Me: "How should I know?"
Madeleine: "He is going to get a tarantula and a scorpion."
Me: "Doesn't he already have a snake?"
Madeleine: "Yes."
Me: "You won't be going over there for a play date anytime soon."
Madeleine: "They're safe, Dad. They had their penises taken off."
Me: "They had their penises taken off? How does that make them safe?"
Madeleine: "Pincers, not penises."
Me:
Madeleine: "You know I can see the veins on your head when you laugh like that."

Epson Eagles

Our routine marches forward and today the All Stars in stride with a comprehensive win over the Epson Eagles whom, I am told, Elm Grove hold a grudge following last season's trouncing and a coach who tells his Eagles to run through our boys with hard tackles.  Final score : 6-2.

Sonnet and Marcus in Denver with Stan and their family.

Me: "What did you do in school today?"
Madeleine: "B and A and I played this game. Only I don't think I should tell you what it was."
Me: "Why?"
Madeleine: "Because it's gay."
Me: "Come again?"
Madeleine: "Well, it was. Gay, that is."
Me: "Do you know what 'gay' means?"
Madeleine: "Yes, Dad. It is when a man loves a man."
Me: "Or a woman loves a woman."
Madeleine: "No, that is when they are lesbians."
Me: "Either way, they're both laughing and smiling and having a gay time and stuff."
Madeleine: "Z is always like that, hugging the boys."
Me: "Yeah?"
Madeleine: "Do you think he's gay?"
Me: "Z gay?"
Madeleine: "What's so funny?"
Me: "I wasn't expecting this conversation that's all."


Madeleine points at a black, convertible Mercedes: "I know who owns that car."
Me: "Who, then?"
Madeleine: "He lives there [Madeleine points to our neighbor's house]. He's 72."
Me: "That's pretty cool."
Madeleine: "And he's a spy."
Me:
Madeleine: "I have this theory. See the side things that look like fish gills or something?"
Me: "Yes?"
Madeleine: "That is wear the machine guns come out."
Me:
Madeleine: "And the top, too. The machine guns come out of there as well."
Me: "Your imagination is really  going tonight."
Madeleine: "What do you mean?"
Me: "Oh, nothing, really."

Silver, 1935-2011

Silver Stanfill passed away following complications from heart surgery. My photograph of Silver from the summer in Montrose, Colorado.

I met Silver in July 1993 at Jeremiah Tower's restaurant Stars in San Francisco, an appropriate venue for a larger-then-life personality. I did most of the talking, I recall, having decided to defer business school for a couple of years to be in love with Silver's daughter. Silver listened patiently with a knowing smile as if to suggest : this is the one for my Sonnet. She gave me the same look when, two years later, Sonnet and I announced to our families that we were to be married and again at Eitan then Madeleine's birth.

Silver from a serious family : her father a medical surgeon who served in the Second World War which rendered him unempathetic, and three sisters , each of different generations, owning their respective movements of the '50s, '60s and '70s. It is not surprising, then, that Silver went to Vasser to study Latin and drama. Her friends and compatriots were Nancy Graves (first women to solo at the Whitney), Patricia Rakic (neuroscientist) and Jane Fonda. Silver's life changed again when she met, and married, Stan inside two weeks - Christmas Eve would have been their 50th anniversary.

Stan and Silver moved to Alaska in '61 for the work and the adventure - Alaska had become a state in '59 - just in time for the Good Friday Earthquake , measuring 9.2 on the Richter scale, which ripped Anchorage along the fault line. Silver described the city "melting" and 40 foot tree-tops whipping back and forth touching the concrete.

Soon following their arrival, Silver became a literature professor at the University of Anchorage, including a Fulbright to Split, Yugoslavia, and a teaching year in Sheffield, England; she took a sabbatical for her Masters in Boulder, Co, and a leave of absence to teach at the Lycee in San Francisco. With two children, and -40 degree winters, she graded papers, smoked cigarettes and hosted cocktail parties to know the other frontiersmen and women : like the Manhattan debutante who lives in a remote log cabin and can skin a moose.  Silver's course , "Women's Autobiography," contributed to the Feminist Movement; I have met alumnae in London and Paris who tell me this class changed their life's direction.

Silver had no time for fiction. She loved the New Yorker ("A cool bath on a warm day"), local crafts catalogues and any writing on women and artists , often supporting their work esp. if Southwestern or Native American. In Alaska, she made sure her children appreciated theatre, ballet, Europe and culture with frequent trips abroad when the jets went to London over the North Pole. Later on, Santa Fe became her favorite place and she and Stan went for the summer opera, a shared passion. She adored fashion and was remarkably proud of Sonnet's job at the V and A: Silver personally greeted 600 guests at the launch celebration of Sonnet's first museum exhibition, Ossie Clark, in '03.

Silver's last 12 years spent in Montrose in a home she and Stan designed , with views of the snow-capped mountains, and surrounded by art. Silver's influence on Eitan and Madeleine, limited by geography, profound : a hard-earned belly chuckle for a clever comment from either child left each glowing; a stern look sent them slinking away.

Me, I love Silver's eccentricity , which remains with me, her vitality and intellect. For the first five years of our relationship the latter made me, well, terrified. We looked across a great divide of age and interests. Once , however, we found our middle-ground, which included England, museums and family, I became able to appreciate her unique and particular qualities : Dusting the plants whilst wearing a gas mask. Eating salad and ice cream for dinner, nothing else. Reciting complete poems learned at Vassar 55 years ago. I posted her Royal bric a brac and she quoted me passages from Shakespeare. We enjoyed each other's company. I respected her. She was a special person. Erit ipsum.

now is a ship

which captain aim
sails out of sleep

steering for dream
--ee cummings

The Slug

Let's revisit Phil Gramm.

Many economist believe that the 1999 legislation spearheaded by Gramm and signed into law by President Clinton — the Gramm-Leach-Biley Act -was significantly to blame for the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis and 2008 global economic crisis. The Act is most widely known for repealing portions of the Glass-Steagall Act, which had regulated the financial services industry. The Act passed the House and Senate by an overwhelming majority.

Gramm responded in 2008 to criticism of the act by stating that he saw "no evidence whatsoever" that the sub-prime mortgage crisis was caused in any way "by allowing banks and securities companies and insurance companies to compete against each other." Case study #1: The S&L crisis, following industry deregulation, costing Americans $500 billion by 1992.  Case study #2: the collapse of the financial system, following industry deregulation.

Gramm's support was later critical in the passage of the Commodity Futures Modernisation Act of 2000, which kept derivatives transactions, including those involving credit default swaps, free of government regulation.

In its 2008 coverage of the financial crisis, The Washington Post named Gramm one of seven "Key Players In the Battle Over Regulating Derivatives", for having "[p]ushed through several major bills to deregulate the banking and investment industries, including the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley act that brought down the walls separating the commercial banking, investment and insurance industries".

In October 2008, CNN ranked Gramm number seven in its list of the 10 individuals most responsible for the current economic crisis. In January 2009 Guardian City editor Julia Finch identified Gramm as one of twenty-five people at the heart of the financial meltdown. Time included Gramm in its list of the top 25 people to blame for the economic crisis. (Wiki)

Plume

Photo by Celso Ferrer, a fashion photographer in Brazil.

Eitan's class assembly honours Remembrance Day , singing "Dona Nobis Pacem" and "Going Home."

The kids pick their room colour.
Me: "I thought you were going for Manchester United red."
Eitan: "Na."
Madeleine: "Plus you will go crazy if it's red."
Me: "Oh really?"
Madeleine: "Yes. They used it to torture people in World Ward Two with red rooms."
Sonnet: "The correct expression is 'the Second World War.'"
Madeleine: "Whatever, mom. It's true."
Sonnet: "I always had a red room and look at me."
Eitan, Madeleine:
Sonnet: "Blabidiblablabibla!"
Me: "That was funny. Look, guys, Sonnet made a funny. Let's encourage her: Ha ha ha!"
Eitan, Madeleine: "Ha ha ha!"
Sonnet cracks up.

Mutai

Kenyon Geoffrey Mutai ( pictured, from web), is 30-years-old and sets today's NYC Marathon alight in 2:05:06 , breaking the course record by over two minutes. Seven-months ago he runs Boston, known for its Heartbreak Hill and uneven course, in an unsanctioned world best of 2:03:02, which is 4:43 miling. Mutai the odds-on favorite for the 2012 Olympics and we will be there.

In 1999, the last time I am to Nairobi, I go to the African Cross Country Championships , sponsored by the military, which, I think, about equivalent of the Super Bowl. If you are an African. The games begin at 8AM which makes sense with the 30-degree summer heat but, upon arrival, the horse track , which hosts the event, empty. I sit around for a couple of hours contemplating how to get back to my hotel when I bump into a German exchange student who tells me not to worry it should get under way by noon, give or take a couple of hours. 

Kenyon President Daniel Arap Moi arrives at 1:30PM and the race starts shortly after. I see David Chelule, who runs a 27:55 in the 10K that year and Paul Kosgei, who does Chelule one better at 27.45. Also at the line:  The great Daniel Komen, whose 1998 indoor and '96 outdoor records for 3,000m still stand while he remains the only man to run back-to-back sub-four-minute miles;.Komen also the second man, after Said Aouita, to break both the 13-minute mark for the 5,000m and the 3½-minute mark for the 1,500m. Then there is Paul Tergat , who held the world record in the marathon from from 2003 to 2007. This isn't the All Stars, it is one of the fastest cross country races ever assembled. And there I am, front ringside seat.

So the exchange student I mention is an assistant cross-country coach for a nearby village and she introduces me to five or six marathoners who have gone sub-2:15. If you meet , in your lifetime, a runner under 3-hours for the marathon it is a Big Deal - this would put him in the top 2% in today's NYC race. I learn that, to join the military team, a paid position, a Kenyon marathoner must be sub-2:10 for consideration and these guys, all under 120 lbs, embarrassed that they have not made the grade.

At 3PM the race ends (I do not recall who wins) and I observe the masses, who arrive now ensemble - maybe 200,000 people - walking and dancing towards the stadium, beating drums and celebrating their athletes. It is a joyous occasion , too - so what if they do not see the race. It is the participating, not the winning, that matters.

Barnes

Elm Grove defeats the Barnes Eagles 5-2 in an exciting match with the lads down 2-1 before storming back in the second half and the game tied  at the middle mark.  Eitan assigned middle-back, a new position, and Jack (pictured) the sweeper. Together, they are the All Stars' defense and, with the job, comes the pressure:  The Dads yell and shout if a ball gets by and Alphie, the goal-keeper, quick to blame. Still, Coach heaps praise on the boys , and appreciates that the back-field cedes glory to the strikers and wingers, Eitan's natural position. I ask him if he wants to return to the left wing but he is happy to go with what Coach says best for the team. And , besides, his way not to question authority.

Me: "What time did Kamila come in last night?"
Sonnet: "5AM."
Me: "You heard her?"
Sonnet: "Yes."
Me: "Just like a mother..."
Sonnet: "I am a mother."
Madeleine: "Can I practice my trumpet?"
Sonnet: "Let's let Kamila sleep a while, shall we?"
Madeleine: "But I will play softly."
Me: "You'll play softly."
Madeleine: "I can, Dad. It's only the trumpet."
Me: "Like yesterday when you were blasting away at 8:30AM."
Madeleine: "It was not blasting. I was practicing Jingle Bells."
Sonnet: "We know, honey, but let's wait for a little bit."

Marcus, Madeleine, Billy and Doug

The gang over for a play-date, which finds them at Helen and Martin's trampoline. Billy's hat BTW on his head all year round including summer.

Last night, at a dinner party, Sonnet and I meet Doug, a tall, thin, bald dude with statement glasses. He is from eastern Ohio "near Pittsburgh" and none of this marks my attention other than another neighborhood American from a place I do not wish to know about. Over the course of the evening I learn that Doug graduated West Point, was an infantry officer and strategic planner for the US Army, then eight-years at McKinsey Consulting.  In 2009 he founded non-profit "The Challenge" which brings together 16-year-olds from diverse backgrounds , who design and deliver community projects of their making.  From the first program of 150 kids, The Challenge picked up the by the Tory agenda and now backed by government. Next year, Doug expects 30,000 kids to graduate from The Challenge.  Oh, and he is also a Rhodes Scholar.

"A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week."

--General George S. Patton, West Point '09

Brown Football

Rather then suffer Cal, I decide to follow a winning team: Yes, the Brown Bears are second in Ivy League football with a 6-1 record losing only to Harvard. Tonight they play Yale.

I spent some time at the Brown stadium, pictured, watching games or using the quarter-mile track for cross country with Greg Whiteley and Seamus. To be honest, I never cared for the football since, well, it doesn't compare to the Pac 10+the social anxiety accompanying the games tiresome. Somehow it brought out my deepest anxieties : You were either all in or all out. I couldn't compete with the Euro trash nor the frat guys.

Brown's stadium, dedicated in 1925, built completely by subscription. The stands expanded with new aluminum seats (opposite side of pictured) in 1978 marking the 100th anniversary of Brown football - this where the visiting fans located. The stadium's capacity 20,000, although a record crowd of 33,000 watched Brown face Colgate on Thanksgiving morning, 1932, with portable bleachers brought in for the game.

Seattle Coffee Co.

Richmond Park. Photo from Kamila.

We see Mary for dinner : she is now Senior Vice President, Global Strategy, at Starbucks reporting to CEO Howard Shultz. She made the transition from Boston Consulting and the East Coast, relocating her family to Seattle. Her intelligence demands a Big Platform and she has it : 17,009 stores in 55 countries, including over 11,000 in the United States, and over 130,000 employees.

When we first arrived to London, 1997, many of us newbies looked around and asked: what can be done better? Or, at least, what can we copy from the United States ?  Scott Svenson , who arrived two-years before Sonnet and me, founded the Seattle Coffee Company which was bought, shortly later, by Starbucks for a cool £55 million , setting the expat scene a twitter, believe you me.

Scott arrived in London with his wife, an i banker, and had to find a job so, being from Seattle, he asked Starbucks if he could open their first non-US franchise. Starbucks declined so he set up Seattle Coffee instead, borrowing heavily from Starbucks, and quickly reaching 19 stores in  London. The logos looked suspiciously similar. When Starbucks ready for Europe , Scott played hard-to-get and got all-he-wanted. By strange coincidence , the Head of Starbucks Intl a friend and, long after the deal, we clucked about how over-priced the purchase was.

And The Seattle Coffee Company today? Well, she still exists on a few chipped coffee mugs and perhaps in a memory or two like mine.

"China traditionally has been a tea-drinking country but we turned them into coffee drinkers. "
--Howard Schulz

Cooper

Gary Cooper, the guy every guy wants to be. At least I do.

Cooper renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, individualistic, emotionally restrained, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made. He received five Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, winning twice for Sergent and High Noon , which inspired me to perform Kit Kat Cowboy in Madeleine and Eitan's class, the poor dears. I can freely admit that dressing up as a gay cowboy is not very Cooper-esque, but still, Cooper's influence strong (for the cowboy, not the gay).  His frequent theme, of standing up to the enemy against all odds, resonates. It must have, too, when Cooper first becoming an actor during the Great Depression (Nb, he failed as a salesman of electric signs and electronic curtains).  There was no back-stop of home equity nor family wealth. Most women did not work. Men got on with it. Will they do so today in our Great Depression? Can they?

Cross

The New Zealand War Memorial , located at Hyde Park corner, pictured, honours the fallen soldier in WWI and WW2. The official dedication took place on Nov. 11, 2006 (Armistice Day) by Queen Elizabeth II, in her capacity as Queen of New Zealand.

From Nov. 1, inside the Commonwealth, red poppies are found on many lapels anticipating Remembrance Day , 11 November, to recall the official end of World War I on that date in 1918; hostilities formally stopped "at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month" of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice.

The red poppy is from the poem In Flanders Fields. These poppies bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War I, their brilliant colour a symbol for the blood spilled in the war.

Breakfast of Champions

Bacon bap anyone?

How fitting, then, that Sonnet purchases tickets for the Olympic swimming trails which will take place in March 2012 at the new pool. Despite being pre-registered and online 10AM, sharp, when the box office officially opens, many of the sessions sold out : secretly I am delighted to see the acquatics supported. Lord knows I appreciate how hard these kids train. Britain has some contenders too: Team GBR collected 13 medals at the FINA World Cup one-day competition in Berlin last week and includes Liam Tancock, the world champion and record holder in the 50 meters backstroke , and the great Rebecca Adlington, winner of two gold medals in 2008 in the 400 and 800 m freestyle, breaking Janet Evan's 19 year-old world record in the 800 m final (NB Adlington is Britain's first Olympic swimming champion since 1988, the first British swimmer to win two Olympic gold medals since 1908 and Great Britain's most successful Olympic swimmer in 100 years).  Family tx are a steal and the atmosphere as intense as the games (for us swimming geeks).

"To be
the eyes
and ears
and conscience
of the Creator of the Universe,
you fool. "
--Kilgore Trout's reply to the question "What is the purpose of life?", Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut

Fright Night

Madeleine, pictured, in costume #1. Underneath the mask, her "Chinaman Tache" for round #2 , when she hits the unsuspecting neighborhood for a second time.

Sonnet hosts Eitan and Madeleine's friends, who join us for dinner and to change into their costumes (I stay home for the 'trick or treat).

Eitan: "Somebody knocked over all our Candy Corns!" (bowl set out front so Dad does not have to answer doorbell)
Madeleine, matter-of-factly: "Teenagers."

Eitan sits next to me at the kitchen table counting up his loot as I blog: "Look, Dad, I got 12 chocolate bars, the big ones, too. Four Haribo's, one Dairy Milk Buttons packet. One packet of Skips crisps. Um, I'm counting my lolly pops .. I got eight lollies. One drum stick. Ten sucking Fizzer tablets. Actually make that 21. I got loads of these (Fizzer tablets). I hate these, I should have given them to Luke.  ..  Um, 11 Bon Bons Pinballs (small round candies that look like pinballs). Two Mayoan Fruit Strips. 11 chocolate Mini Celebrations. .. .
Madeleine: "Eitan! Do you want to do trades?"
Eitan: "Two Chewy Fruit Refreshers. . .. "
Madeleine: "I got a packet of raisins. Like, right."
Eitan: "Can you add another Fruit Strip?"
Me: "Sure."
Madeleine: "Can I have a packet of Skips?"
Eitan: "Add another three Fizzy Sherbets."
(Madeleine munches on her Skips, watches Eitan count his candy)
Eitan: "Two more Chocolate Mini Celebrations."
Madeleine: "They're horrible."
Eitan: "Three Chocolate Eyeballs. One pack of mint gum. One Zombie sucker. .. ."
Me: "We're on the drags now, huh?"
Eitan: "A wine gum. A piece of chocolate- I don't know what it is. And some Grape Nerds."
Me: "How about you Madeleine?"
Madeleine: "What?"
Me: "What did you get."
Madeleine: "Stuff. A lot of it."
Me: "So it was a good night?"
Madeleine: "Yes. The best Hallowe'en ever."

The Great Trade now in progress.. . .

Cafe Flesh

Madeleine gets busy with her pumpkin.

Both kids, and therefore all of us, have a sporty weekend starting Saturday in Epsom, Surrey, for the Wandsworth Swimming Club gala used to qualify for the Surrey Regional swimming championships.  Madeleine swims 200 meter breaststroke while Eitan competes the 400 and 200 freestyles, 200 individual medley and 200 backstroke, where he is disqualified for an illegal turn.  Otherwise the boy qualifies in everything while Madeleine inside five seconds on her race - she will get hers next year.

Elm Grove play Kingstonian Youth and the floodgates open for us: 7-nil, which is cathartic after the last three weeks of disappointment.  Eitan, playing a new position, defensive back, gets a header on a corner-kick which has everybody whooping since the team practiced this move yesterday. His first goal for the All Stars.  ManU chips in, defeating Everton 1-0.

Madeleine: "Look at all the flesh."
Me: "Gross."
Madeleine: "For a pumpkin."

Me, listening to Every Little Thing She does Is Magic : "You've heard of The Police, right?"
Kamila, our au pair, born in 1991. "No?"
Me: "You've never heard of The Police?"
Kamila: "No, who are they?"
Me: "Now I'm really feeling old."
Kamila: "They are good. I like."

Naked Yuf

I am as shocked , and titillated , as Bill Murray to meet Alexis Dziena, pictured, in the movie "Broken Flowers" - Dziena plays "Lolita", the daughter of an ex-lover with whom Murray re-connects (Murray BTW, upon seeing Dziena, freaks, leaves house). This has particular relevance as I research content-filtering programs (according to Family Safe Media, the average age of first Internet exposure to pornography is 11).

So how are things different from the '80s , or when I was about Dziena's age ? For one , young people know each other online , which takes care of the first number of dates. The web offers an enormous local sample size which is quickly screened and leads to an active portfolio of ten to 20 active , possibly sexual, "leads" . I know this from the Associate pool at one of my venture funds. Privacy, or its perception, stems from the anonymity and scale of the web+every young persons' bubble. Definitions have changed, too, thanks to Clinton : my idea of 2nd or 3rd base will be different from my kids. And how to react when "a significant minority of 13-14 year old boys schedule their social time around viewing porn with male friends" ? (Univ. of Alberta study, Online Pornography, 2007)

As with every generation, mine will be caught out when it comes to our kids. Our only defensive : open communication. While awkward for the Shakespeares , I pay it no mind.

Cardinals Win The World Series

The Cardinals win the 2011 World Series, defeating Texas in seven, which makes my Dad happy as he is A) from St Louis and B) A Cardinals fan, along with everybody else from there.  I have been to a Cardinals game , too, when they played at the old Busch Memorial Stadium (replaced, in 2006, by the New Busch Stadium) itself replacing Sportsman Park and where Moe would have seen games , if he could sneak in , on a week day afternoon.  It is an experience - baseball as it should be played , where it should be played : in the Midwest , without the glitz and glam of the East or West Coast clubs and their $8 hot-dogs and Jumbotron replays. Guys like Whitey Herzog, Bruce Sutter, Jackie Robinson and Ozzie Smith played for the Cardinals. Their rivalry with the Chicago Cubs goes back over 100 years.

The Cardinals joined the National League in 1882 as the St. Louis Brown Stockings, taking the name from an earlier National League Team, and known as the Cardinals since 1900. This city loves the team, oh boy, no matter what it's ups and downs. In recent years, it has been mostly downs so last night's World Series victory a nice thing to happen.

"Pressure is a word that is misused in our vocabulary. When you start thinking of pressure, it's because you've started to think of failure."
--Tommy Lasorda, Manager of the St Louis Cardinals

"My theory of hitting was just to watch the ball as it came in and hit it."
--Tommy Lasorda

Photo from the Associated Press, 2006.

Madeleine's Pumpkin

Madeleine and I sneak out to get a few pumpkins, pictured. "Sneak" , I say, as Eitan does a practice exam. The half-term week comes to a close.  These little people are a joy to be around.

Rocky

Last night we watch my all-time favorite film "Rocky" which I have been waiting for with Eitan and Madeleine. This the movie that inspired my entire third-grade to, well, be Rocky for Hallowe'en in '76.  Yet my hopes dashed as Eitan non-plused and Madeleine gives it a "Thumbs-up but sort of near the middle". 

How can it be?  Perhaps boxing not the central entertainment it once was : Mohamed Ali in the ring with anyone was a Big Deal and I remember the Leon Spinks fights, Ken Norton and Joe Frazier. Or perhaps the "underdog story" does not sell in Britain. In the US, any bum like Rocky thinks he can strike it rich, succeed, given his chance and hard work. In the UK, people accept what they got and get on with it.  Or maybe the kids have yet to face adversity, which they will, and cannot relate to the protagonists' struggles.  Who knows?

On another note, judging Stallone on his endless, horrible , sequels missing the point : he created two of America's most indelible characters with Rocky and Rambo.

Me, running, with Eitan: "Do you know what 'redemption' means?"
Eitan: "It's when somebody makes himself better."
Me: "Bingo. Do you think Rocky was redeemed in the end?"
Eitan: "Yeah, I guess so."
Me: "Was he the only one to be redeemed in the movie?"
Eitan: "We're not going in this direction again, are we Dad?"
Me: "Just tell me what you think."
Eitan: "I think only Rocky was redeemed."
Me: "What about his manager? What about him? Waiting 50 years for his chance?"
Eitan: "But he was only in the movie for like 1/100th of it."
Me: "It's not about the time. How about Paulie? The mean drunk, Adrian's brother?"
Eitan: "Definitatelyi not him."
Me: "But he let Adrian into the ring. At the end of Rocky's fight."
Eitan: "Yeah, so?"
Me: "So even people with bad knocks have redeeming qualities. They can be redeemed."
Eitan:

"It really don't matter if I lose this fight. It really don't matter if this guy opens my head, either. 'Cause all I wanna do is go the distance. Nobody's ever gone the distance with Creed. And if I can go that distance, ya see, and that bell rings, ya know, and I'm still standin', I'm gonna know for the first time in my life, ya see, that I weren't just another bum from the neighborhood."
--Rocky, 1976

Tourists

Hidy ho since we live in London here is a tourist shot on Parliament Sq near Big Ben,  Westminster and Abby Cathedrals , St James's Park, Downing St and the Churchill War Bunkers, where we visit the other day. The kids enraptured. Please print for your refrigerator.

Me: "So I understand you're going to a disco party?"
Eitan: "Huh?"
Me: "Imogen and Harriet's birthday. And there will be girls."
Eitan: "Yeah, so? They invited the whole class."
Me: "Well, are you going to dance?"
Eian: "No. I told mom, me, Cyrus and Joe are going to be standing in the corner."
Me: "Twiddling your thumbs no doubt."
Eitan: "What's that mean?"
Me: "Don't worry. You will figure it out one day."

Woman In White , Thameside

Beads

Me and Sonnet and that is all she wrote.

I take Madeleine to Covent Garden to buy some beads since I want to make a strap for my new camera.  She pulls over her hoody and follows me dutifully. My idea something 'native American' so I bring patterns for The Sun, Rain Man and the Dragon Fly.  Michael, the friendly gay dude with tattoo's , helps me out: "This ("thith) will take you ages." Since neither of us knows how many beads I need , Michael sends me to storage where I choose bags of black, red, yellow and turquoise .. beads.  I also buy a loom and Madeleine perks up: "We can weave together!" which I am all for assuming, of course, I can weave at all. My project becomes an expensive project but, hey, in for a bead , in for a . ..

Me: "What do you think is the most important decision you have ever made?"
Madeleine: "Me?"

Me: "Yeah."

Madeleine:  "I don't know."

Me: "You gotta have one. How about the dog??"

Madeleine: "I was thinking about that but it wasn't, like, life changing."

Me: "Oh, really?"

Madeleine: "I guess I had to tell everybody so it was an important decision."

Me: "Anything else?"

Madeleine: "Choosing Tommy."

"When I'm sampling from your bosom
Sometimes I suffer from distractions like
Why does God cause things like tornadoes and train wrecks?"

--"Swimming In Your Ocean", Crash Test Dummies, 1993

A T & T

I visit the V & A's exhibition "Postmodernism," a movement from 1970-1990 covering style, design, architecture, music and fashion from Italy to Las Vegas (meanwhile Sonnet takes Madeleine thru "The Power of Making" which Madeleine loves). This period, which covers a good part of my conscious yuf, includes David Byrne's over-sized suit in "Stop Making Sense"; Grace Jone's angular features and Annie Lennox's androgyny.  The ultimate expression of postmodernism : Ridley Scott's dark film "Blade Runner."  Manhattan's AT&T tower, pictured, gets a nod and, since I walked by it almost every day for four years, merits a missive.  The tower part of the new "Midtown" which, by the early 1980s, offered a sexy alternative to Wall Street's gloom and doom and ancient infrastructure.  AT&T, along with PAZ , the Rockefeller Center, Carnegie Tower, the Chrysler Building and the MetLife Building defined the money movement - financiers wanted to be closer to their lifestyle : shopping, theatre, museums, discos.  Usual stuff.  So here is the building :

The AT&T Building (now Sony), is a 647 feet tall, 37-story, highrise skyscraper by Philip Johnson , and completed in 1984. It became immediately controversial for its ornamental top (sometimes mocked as "Chippendale" after the open pediments characteristic of the famous English designer's bookcases and other cabinetry), but enjoyed for its spectacular arched entrance way, measuring about seven stories in height. With these ornamental additions, the building challenged architectural modernism's demand for stark functionalism and purely efficient design. The effect the building had on the public at large has been described as legitimizing the postmodern architecture movement on the world stage. Sourced: Wiki (edited)

Post card image by Judith Grinberg for Johns Burgee Associates, USA, 1978

Tash

Madeleine and I do"Party Palace" for Hallowe'en : She has been begging me the last couple of weeks. Madeleine will be a 'murderer' so we buy fake blood, a white mask, a plastic knife and "a scary mustache", pictured, or, at least, scary to a 'Chinaman' (I love the white dude who models the "tash" - I can hear him going "Ah - so").   Madeleine's goal to fill a pillowcase with candy and she has a plan: Two costumes, allowing her to hit the same block twice. Smart kid.

"If you bow at all, bow low."

--Chinese Proverb

Smiffy's "Chinaman Mandarin Tash" scanned from packaging

Katie Chillaxing In The Bahamas

Police Academy

An old stadium at Imber Court, pictured, on the training grounds of the Surrey Police Academy, where Eitan in action yesterday against the Esher Wizards.  The academy has pitches for rugby, cricket and football - all well maintained and ready for sport. The boy has played a couple tournaments here, before, and I am always struck by this particular stand, slowly rusting, on an unloved, outer , pitch, with hand-painted plates providing long-ago scores, posted on a lopsided shed.  Once, this was a modern structure, the pride of the compound I imagine.

Madeleine and I walk Sonnet to the bus station, 7AM.
Me: "Rusty cannot control himself. Everything is a new smell."
Madeleine: "What do you think he smells?"
Me: "Imagine if your smell was 2,000 times stronger, which is Rusty. He's probably checking out other dog's, you know, pee and stuff : 'woof woof woof : Fred was here last week...."
Madeleine: "Do you know who has a good sense of smell?"
Me: "Who?"
Madeleine: "A mole."
Me: "Yep."
Madeleine: "They can't see and so they use their smell to avoid predators. And a tree. Or a pole."
Me: "Good thing about that, huh?"
Madeleine: "Yeah. And pigs are really smart. Once, they put pigs in paint and they walked all over a piece of paper and made a painting."
Me: "Did anybody buy it?"
Madeleine: "Uh, no. But they really liked it. They only made one 'cuz it was an experiment."
Me: "What happened to it in the end?"
Madeleine: "It went on display at the Barnes Wetland Center."
Me: "Cool. Nice one, kiddo."

That's Rusty

Paolo Veronese depicts "Four Allegories of Love" which are on permanent display inside the National Gallery : here is 'Happy Union' that I happen to like because it looks a lot like Rusty in the lower right corner of the portrait. The other three (and far more interesting , really) are 'Unfaithfulness', 'Scorn', and 'Respect'. Veronese painted the set in 1575 for a private patron's interior walls (NB I got a dressing down for my photo since No Photos Allowed at the museum.  I chat with a friendly guardsman about this as I do not use a flash nor harm the painting.  He notes the rule for "security purposes" but agrees there may be a "commercial reason" as well so I buy a few post cards).

Jack And Eitan

Jack and Eitan before football practice and after the SM game v. Collis School, which SM loses 4-nil.  We have two hours to kill and end up at at cafe on the Thames across from Hampton Court.  The boys are a pleasure , too, wrapped up in , well, football and about nothing else. They can discuss clubs and stats for hours. I try to introduce something, anything, new and am shut down instantly.  I pry about class room gossips , who is going through their growth spurts and what the girls are up to. Eitan gives me a blank stair. Jack shakes his head - girls, right. They crank up the volume with hot chocolate and chocolate croissants.  I watch gratified to be in their presence and, while not really on the inside, not on the outside, either.

Sonnet and Madeleine spend an extra night in Oxford while Eitan and I return early so he can play the Esher Wizards (Elm Grove lose 2-nil this morning - bummer ).  The boy and I watch Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho' - he has been begging to see the film since Jaws, which left him non-plussed.  At the famous shower seen he covers his eyes : not from the blade nor fear, Dear Reader, but Janet Leigh naked. The end does get him, though, esp. Norman Bates : "I wouldn't hurt a fly." He asks me to join him upstairs, you know, not because he's scared or anything, then, later, I find him in bed, fast asleep. All the lights on.

"People always mean well. They cluck their thick tongues, and shake their heads and suggest, oh, so very delicately."
--Norman Bates

Rockets '78

A blast from the past. Me and Todd, pictured, my neighbor for eleven-years on San Ramon , and five-years older.  He was all that. Todd taught me how to to make a proper paper airplane. We spent hours watching Star Trek then drew posters of the Enterprise phasoring some Klingon or getting sucked into a worm hole. He built tree forts - serious ones, that covered two trees. Once he dug a deep hole, maybe six feet, in the backyard. Why not? We found large pupae with jaw-claws that we paired off against each other. We patrolled neighborhood backyard passageways unknown to adults and explored an off-limits canyon at the bottom of the road. We collected bugs (killing them in a jar with kleenex soaked w/ ethenal).

And, then, there were the model rockets.  Two hobby shops, one on Telegraph Ave at 45th in Oakland and the other on Salano Avenue in Berkeley (both long gone), provided the kit:  walking in was like the smell of napalm in the morning. I saved my allowance for months to buy the Big Bertha or Mercury V (which , the first time, ended in tears) , engines , igniters , wadding etc &c.  Todd and I built the launch platforms ourselves, which you can see , Dear Reader, painted black, in the prior blog.  Our launch zone Golden Gate Fields, a Berkeley horse track between the Bay and the 580 highway. The parking lot gave us plenty of room but on a windy day the lance might carry over the Bay's marshy bog which would require a search party (car parked precariously by the freeway).

Today Todd lives in Chico, California, where he is a fireman and father of two boys.

Pre Launch

We are at the local common to blast off Mercury,  Excalibur, and Tomahawk and I am 11 years old all over again.  The thrill of seeing these babies accelerate to 1000 ft/ sec. is , well, magic.  The Mercury by far the best launch : we put her up seven times and she falls to bits: first , the antennae needle gone, then the red tower, followed by a fin and finally, on the last launch, she goes up 250 feet then does a slow U turn for the ground , parachute ejecting on impact , tube snapped in two. I will fix her up new. The Tomahawk, meanwhile, my lightest , goes highest: : a C8 engine jammed in the rear takes her 2,000 feet : the parashoot fails to employ so that is that.  The Excalibur loses a couple fins and she, too, back to the shop. A top-ten day.

From some math book : A model rocket is fired vertically upward from rest. Its acceleration for the first three seconds is a(t)=60t, at which time the fuel is exhausted and it becomes a freely “falling” body. Fourteen seconds after the fuel is exhausted, the rocket’s parachute opens, and the (downward) velocity slows linearly to -18 ft/sec in 5 seconds. The rocket then “floats” to the ground at that rate. Find the position function s and the velocity function v for any time t, then sketch the graphs of s and v.

Jungle Gym

We are to Oxford to see Nita and Alain and the three Zs , pictured, in front of their new house which they are making over. I catch up with Zebulan , who "in to " maths which  is not surprising since Nita a math PhD and professor while Alain is a Professor of Mathematical Modelling and Director of the Oxford Centre for Collaborative Applied Mathematics.  Zeb is crunching calculus in the 8th grade.  I wish he was my Analyst when I was an Analyst. He would have been better at it. We talk about unusual planetary shapes since he reads Sci Fi:  if earth were a giant donut, he contemplates aloud, we could see China. Unusual thought and I go with it : could life exist on in our galaxy? Maybe. Universe? Most definitely. Zeb adds helpfully that life might be in our solar system now but we do not, you know, have the sensors to detect it.

Dead

Gaddafi meets his end.

"Badly injured but conscious, the former dictator, 69, was bundled on to the bonnet of a pick-up truck, his shirt stripped from his torso and his body dragged along the ground."

--The Times

New Friends!

Here is my new friend on Facebook, pictured. Who says technology cannot expand one's horizons, even @ my age ?

Eitan invited to join (yet another ) sports training thingy , this time requiring Tuesday afternoons for five weeks. He is adamant about joining, too, which Sonnet and I against given his many various after-school commitments.  Rather then argue , I shift tactics and pass the buck : Eitan's swimming / football coach can make the decision re Tuesdays. This raises the boy's anxiety , oh boy .  So, after some bedtime rumination, I relent : this is Eitan's year to do everything while next year's Hampton School will apply its own discipline .  The only condition : Eitan's exam preparations and sleep do not suffer. He agrees and I get it done.

Edwin Sprog Battersea

Rusty and I join Edwin who walks the sprog, also known as "Alexander" or  sometimes "spot", in Battersea Park on a glorious autumnal morning.

Madeleine Mac

We have a 'no media' rule , accepting homework. This includes facebook, online games, movies (excluding "movie night"), football (unless England or Sunday afternoon including game-recordings), wii's, xboxes, nintendos, nachos, fritos, and etc &c. Computers must be used  in a public place, usually the kitchen, with an adult present : screens facing inward, please (Madeleine breaking about three rules here). Eitan's mobile allows txts to family and (at most, so far) three friends+the emergency call, as needed and hopefully never. Madeleine promised a Kindle for Christmas/ Chanukah which is the kinda gadget I go for.

UK annual inflation jumps from 4.5% to 5.2% thanks to energy and commodity increases. This the highest inflation has been in 20-years. Wages not nearly keeping up , nor are benefits for pensioners. Not good for savers nor standards of living.

That Dress

September 1969 : Katie and Grace on San Ramon Ave where I spent the first 10-years of my life. San Ramon had a good crew, too : about 15 kids bracketing my age on a reasonably quiet street perfect for prison ball, hide-and-seek or some other such thing (NB note Eric Hieda in the upper right of the photo- holy catfish, where is he now ?). This the block where I learned how to ride a bike yet , beforehand, I snuck my Dad's cherished Velo 10-speed bragging I could get it up on two wheels. I couldn't but did make several spectacular ditch efforts which, if Moe had known, would have put me in the dog house. My mom's outfit+glasses work . Katie a nice accoutrement.

Given Madeleine's concern about bird-strikes, Eric points out US Airways Flight 1549 which ditched into the Hudson River on January 15, 2009 : the pilot heroically avoided Manhattan and all 155 occupants safely evacuated ; the incident known as "The Miracle On The Hudson." The cause: flock of Canada Geese.

Of course Madeleine not particularly concerned about the passengers. A little investigation suggests that there is one bird-related accident per billion flying hours that results in a human death. Unfortunately it is usually fatal for the bird. (source: wiki)

NY Minute

Photo from '79 at the Natural History Museum in New York. I wear an OP terry-cloth shirt and matching yellow shorts (NB missing, my "California Swimming" cap). Groovy. Cousin Kelly and cousin Susan holding Katie's hands.  I remember our visit, my first to NY, for the graffiti which seemed to cover everything from the subway trains to the giant rocks in Central Park. I also recall a trip to the top of the World Trade Center knowing, one day, I would come back to this awe-inspiring place.

We stayed with Larry and Marcia, who showed us around Manhattan and made us feel special - Marcia has never been out of place nor intimidated by New York's scale.  Me, my six years in NYC (including business school), barely dented the kettle. Without some memories and a few friends, my New York minute about just that. Maybe true for it all ?

i will put in the box
the clapping of thunder rolling off the sky
the reddest ruby on the earth
the first cry of a baby. the greenest eclipse in the galaxy

i will put in the box
the brown grain trickling through my fingers.
the scratching of a pen wizzing back and forth on paper
the loud snore of a man deep in sleep

the smell of a donut shop coming nearer
--By Madeleine

Obedient Rusty

A year's worth of dog training.

Madeleine In The Conservatory With The Pencil

Madeleine: "Dad, what would happen if a bird went into a plane engine?"
Me: "I don't know. Probably a lot of feathers, though."
Madeleine:
Me: "Something on your mind?"
Madeleine: "They are talking about building a runway where there are lots of birds."
Me: "Yes, Boris Johnson wants to put a new airport in the Thames Estuary.  We need another one, you know."
Madeleine: "Yeah, I guess so. But will the birds be okay?"
Me: "You can count on it."
Madeleine: "I wouldn't want them to get hurt just because we are going to California or something."
Me: "Me, too."
Madeleine: "Can I get a sweetie?"
Me: "You bet."

Richmond Park Fog

We have London fog and visibility 50 feet. Photo in Richmond Park, near Sheen Gate, whilst walking the faithful pooch.

We see Chelsea dis-assemble Everton 3-1 at Stamford Bridge and I learn a few new usages for words otherwise not said in public company (Everton, by the way, a district of Liverpool in Merseyside) . We are seated near the Everton section and, I note, the visitors entirely male and many of them look like, well, thugs.  I am sure they are not but at least one guy thrown out for taunting Chelsea. Otherwise the vibe is wonderful on a warm autumnal evening and we are priveleged to some remarkable football : in fact, the best football in the world.  Both kids, but especially Eitan, in enemy territory and I remind Eitan that last time we were here he sported his ManU gear until he took it off. Under duress.  The Shakespeares get into the home team and we buy Chelsea caps and jump for joy @ each goal. They have slushies, salt-beef sandwiches on some kind of weird pretzel bread, hamburgers and sausages (gross, why do people eat them?). Says Eitan: "Top tip Madeleine: support Chelsea if you don't want to get mobbed."

Sonnet takes the evening to see the Beijing Dance Theatre at Sadlers Wells in Islington with Lizzie.  She returns home to find me in front of "Die Hard 2" as Bruce Willis puts six bullets into some dude's head : "I'm not watching this after the theatre" she says, making an abrupt U-turn. Me, I have a late evening.

Eitan Studies

Eitan grinds away at a practice exam for St. Paul's Boys and the Hampton School, where he goes for an academic scholarship.

I am in Paris for a couple days w/ Astorg and have dinner with Leon in Montreuil, a Paris "banlieue" which, along with its ethnic make up (read: black) enjoys a young and growing artist community , according to Leon , who should know since he keeps a photography studio off rue Paris.  Last we were together at his wedding. Now he splits his time in New York (Leon's wife, Sunny, getting her Masters at NYIT), Paris and Asia where he is doing assignments for Gucci and various magazines.

Leon drives me home and we pass through the 20th, 11th, 4th and 1st arrondisements before arriving at my hotel in the 8th, on rue du Faubourg St Honoree. Paris has twenty arrondissements arranged in a clockwise spiral, starting in the middle of the city, with the first on the Right Bank (north bank) of the Seine. The 20th , or "Ménilmontant", the densest at 32,052 people per km, according to the 2005 census.

Harvest Time

We attend the school "Harvest Assembly" where the kids belt out "Conkers, I'm Collecting Conkers" , "Carry The Corn" and "If I Were A Seed" which, even Eitan and Madeleine admit, they hate.  Still, the sun shining bright and every body in a fine mood. The parents gossip, the teachers run around with a bounce in their step , and the children troop in the school auditorium, well behaved, hands in pockets and, mostly, disheveled. By chance, Madeleine two feet from me and Sonnet so I distract her and she rolls her eyes. Eitan actually blushes when he sees us.  Eitan's former teacher, Mrs. Q, leads the Year 3s in "Feeling Groovy" by Simon and Garfunkel so I lean into Sonnet to make a snide remark to find her in tears.  Yes, our child-raising years more than half gone.

Kooks and Knox

We join the Kooks at the Brixton Academy , pictured, with Justin and Natalie. Our pre-dinner conversation turns to Amanda Knox , recently acquitted for the murder of Meredith Kercher , and Justin nails me for assuming Knox must somehow be innocent given she is from a middle-class (white) family from Seattle. By implication , then, I must be inclined to condemn somebody who is not these things, which Knox plays to an advantage falsely blaming Diya Lumumba, a black man. No matter the acquittal, Justin says : "Knox is a piece of work." And I agree.

Here is what we know :

1. A partial strand of the Kercher's DNA discovered on the blade of a knife found at Raphael Sollecito’s apartment. While the size of the partial strand means prosecutors can’t prove that Kercher was the only possible source of the DNA, it matters that Kercher cannot be ruled out.

The partial DNA match is even more important considering that the knife had been scrubbed clean with bleach and an abrasive substance.

More telling is what Sollecito said to cops after they let him know they found the victim’s DNA on the blade. He said Kercher cut her finger while preparing dinner at his apartment. It was an important admission because forensic experts could not determine whether the DNA was from skin, blood or other bodily fluid. That Sollecito felt compelled to explain how blood got on the knife became an even more damning piece of evidence when cops subsequently proved that Kercher had never been to Sollecito’s apartment –– for any purpose –– ever.

2. Knox’s DNA was found mixed with the victim’s blood in many different locations at the murder scene where Knox had lived with Kercher for only a few weeks before the crime took place. Knox told cops there was no blood from either her or Kercher in any of the rooms where the mixtures were found prior to the night in question. Without an innocent way to explain this DNA evidence, Knox’s involvement in the crime cannot be doubted.

3. Knox changed her story several times, initially claiming she was at Sollecito’s apartment at the time of the crime –– until cops told her that other evidence, including phone and computer records, disproved her alibi. Knox then confessed that she was present at the murder and could hear the victim screaming –– but she couldn’t recall much because she was under the influence of drugs. Many of the details she could recall about the crime were correct and could only have been known by someone who was there because the facts had not yet been publicly released.

4. Knox falsely accused an innocent black man, Lumumba, of the crime and let him sit in jail for days until police figured out he had a solid alibi.

Zaha's Dream

Construction for the 'London Aquatics Centre' for the london 2012 Summer Olympics by Zaha Hadid Architects now complete, pictured. Capable of holding 17,500 individuals at one moment, the facility will be the venue for the swimming, diving, synchronized swimming and water polo events. Sheltering the sports events, athletes and supporters is an aluminum clad steel roof which spans 160 meters in length and 90 meters at its widest point. Three concrete columns support the 3,000 ton sweeping overhead structure. The double curvature parabolic structure visually evokes the form of an undulating wave. On the interior, 850,000 tiles surface the pools, changing facilities and and floors. The cluster of concrete towers including the three meter springboards and diving platforms were formed and cast on site.
Photo from hufton+crow