Dan Quayle or George W Bush?

You decide:

"I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy - but that could change."

"Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child."

"What a terrible thing to have lost one's mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is."

"People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history."

"The future will be better tomorrow."

"[It's] time for the human race to enter the solar system."

"Illegitimacy is something we should talk about in terms of not having it."

"If we do not succeed, then we run the risk of failure."

"Lookit, I've done it their way this far and now it's my turn. I'm my own handler. Any questions? Ask me ... There's not going to be any more handler stories because I'm the handler ... I'm Doctor Spin."

"Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things."

"We'll let the sunshine in and shine on us, because today we're happy and tomorrow we'll be even happier."

"We're going to have the best-educated American people in the world."

"Don't forget about the importance of the family. It begins with the family. We're not going to redefine the family. Everybody knows the definition of the family. [Meaningful pause] A child. [Meaningful pause] A mother. [Meaningful pause] A father. There are other arrangements of the family, but that is a family and family values."


All quotes from Dan Quayle

Bonus! Bonus:

St. Louis, MO --(UPI)-- Vice President Dan Quayle today visited St. Louis, MO, which bears a heavy population descended from German immigrants. In order to show support for the newly-unified country of Germany, fatherland of many in the audience, he repeated John F. Kennedy's words of support 30 years earlier, but this time in English, "I am a Jelly Doughnut!" Political commentators agreed that something was lost in the translation. Dan Quayle explained his remark by saying that he had been told that those who lived in central America enjoyed jelly doughnuts.

Led Zeppelin

This morning, driving to swim practice, I introduce Eitan to The Greatest Rock And Roll Song Ever: "Stairway To Heaven." We cruise across an early morning Richmond Park at full blast and the boy takes in his legacy including the trip ("There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold - and she's buying a stairway to heaven"), its mystery ("In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees - and the voices of those who stand looking"), the pondered questions answered ("If there's a bustle in your hedgerow - Don't be alarmed now - It's just a spring clean for the May Queen"), life's choices ("Yes there are two paths you can go by but in the long run - There's still time to change the road you're on") and above all, the optimism ("And when she gets there she knows if the stores are closed - With a word she can get what she came for.") 'Nuff said.

George Bush takes one from Dan Quayle:
“Removing Saddam Hussein was the right decision early in my presidency, it is the right decision now, and it will be the right decision ever."
El Presidente - yesterday

“Happy campers you are, happy campers you have been and, as far as I am concerned, happy campers you will always be.”
Dan Quayle - 1990

Kew

Madeleine in the botanical greenhouse. Meanwhile at the Tate Modern, artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster has been commissioned to fill the Turbine Hall after Doris Salcedo's subterranean crack. Gonzalez-Foerster's works have included "performing shadows" and she is known for her "visitor participation, atmospheric" stuff. She will be the ninth artist to occupy the hall when her work is unveiled to us in October. Can't wait.

After pizza dinner, the kids go disco nuts and dance around the house until they are mindless. It is a joy to watch their energy which is endless, especially Madeleine whose today was swim team, football and performance class.

I ask Eitan, breathing over my shoulder, what he would do with a computer: Says he: "Play a few C-BB's (some game), write down notes. Make a blog." Anything else? "No."

Fit

Sonnet and I have a raucous dinner with the CIO of the Carnegie Foundation at The Ivy (no celeb spottings this time). Kim is in town for several of her funds and we are honored to have her to ourselves. Not surprisingly we discuss the wacko that is Elliot Spitzer and agree: WTF ? Kim notes that the risk assessment of being caught, however calculated by male, is quite simple for her: 100% busted. 100% I'm gone. We've experienced a number of divorces in our group from a reckless dick and when kids are involved there is no forgiving the mistake, if that indeed is what it was. People are just plain mean to each other and this is about as low a blow as one can strike - life is too hard anyway to fuck it up so terribly.

Madeleine is up-and-at-'em today, in swimming suit and almost out the door when Sonnet and I roll our eyes heavenwards and ask for ten more minutes of sleep. Last night Sonnet was at our school's "field of dreams" auction fund raiser, which brings in $20 grand I learn. Her contribution was a tour of the V&A's fashion gallery, which went for $500. The tops was a full-catered dinner for six by Eitan's teacher who, by-the-by, is quite "fit." Hers went for $700. Sonnet's plan to run the Fleet half-marathon Sunday in jeopardy as she has a nagging side injury - with a month to go before the London marathon, no taking chances.

Eitan, Madeleine and I dance some early-morning disco to Hot Chip, trying out a few new disco-moves. I show them the "wave" to their delight and Sonnet's bemusement. The beauty of your kids is you can be one.

El Presidente explains yesterday the mortgage crisis to the ROW:
“You know, these mortgages can be pretty frightening to people. I mean, there’s a lot of tiny print."

OP

Here is Steve on the Ocean Pacific. Steve is a child-school friend, fellow swimmer way-back-when and photographer par excellence who now resides in Dallas where he goes to Cowboys games when not with his daughter and family. Or maybe with them. Sonnet this evening attends the New York Ballet performing at London's ENO for the first time in 25-years - a real treat. She is with Dana and Tabitha for a gals night on the town (Dear Reader, ballet is not particularly my thing as my wonderful in-laws, who so graciously took me to the New York Ballet in '96, know from their experience). This morning I take the kiddies to early morning yoga then sit in Madeleine's class to help the "coconuts" table alphabetise their objects. Fun stuff for them and me.

Some more British slang used by the yoof:
Scabby - lucky
Snog - to make out, aggressive kissing
Take the piss (out of) - To mock. "Are you taking the piss?"
Fag end - the last part of a period of time. "Fag end of the show"
Scrote - Jackass
Slapper - slut (a personal favorite)
Nutter - crazy person
Git, twat - incompetent, stupid. "You little git"
Fit - good looking

Balls Up

England survives a bona fide hurricane that rolls across our island last night - these Brits twitter about their weather, a favorite subject no matter the calamity. On calamity, tomorrow Alistair Darling releases his first budget and we anticipate the so-called non-dom-tax which could cost some of us thirty-grand a year to live here. A real fall-out is the departure of friends and talent plus the message Britain sends to the world's young and motivated: "we don't want you fuck off." While this has always been the quiet attitude, the trade-off has netted jobs and increased living standards - recall England had to borrow from the IMF as recently as 1981. Before us ex-pats in the '90s England was on her knees; with the Americans and others, standards for professional services became world class leaving many of the lunchtime-pint drinking-blue bloods in the dust (so long BZW, Kleinworts, Natwest.. . .). Any case, it is clear London changes from tomorrow.

Here are some favorite often-used words:
balls-up - error, mistake
bog standard - plain vanilla, completely average, no distinguishing feature
butty - a buttered sandwich, often with chips, eaten at breakfast
gobsmacked - utterly astonished, openmouthed
manky - feeling ill, rough, out of sorts; filthy, dirty, rotten
nosy parker - a busybody
paki - Pakistan

You Look'n At Me?

I check in with Taxi Driver, a remarkable film from '76 and known for its shocking violence. Scorcese says that he, writer Paul Schrader and De Niro were in a bad place when the filming began in New York during the post-Viet Nam era - a time when the city was generally coming apart from crime, violence and racial tension (racism is an ugly theme explored in Taxi Driver). Schrader debates whether film blood begets street violence arguing socio-paths exist regardless of the art, "which explores and reflects culture and not the other way." Taxi Driver works on many levels but the realism catches one off guard - from the strange film work catching Travis Bickle's moods (alka seltzer, rear-view mirror, overhead shots &c.) to the concluding tour de force which almost netted an "X" rating. Scorcese believed he was making a niche film with little outside appeal and was "surprised" by Taxi Driver's acceptance and Oscar nominations. And is Travis somehow cured following his bloody heroics and media fame? Absolutely not - he will kill again...

... and in England this past month alone we have sentenced the Suffolk Strangler Steve Wright who murdered at least five women in Ipswitch; Mark Dixie who knifed repeatedly then raped the corpse of teenager Sally Ann Bowman; and Levi Bellfield who stalked young women bludgeoning them with a hammer.

"All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets. I go all over. I take people to the Bronx, Brooklyn, I take 'em to Harlem. I don't care. Don't make no difference to me. It does to some. Some won't even take spooks. Don't make no difference to me. "
Travis Bickle

Pizza

Eitan has a "football party" celebrating Sasha's seventh at the Bank of England club. During, I take Madeleine to her choice - Pizza Express - where I tell her a Spider Man story (her request) and we discuss school, friends and love mano-a-chica. My fund BlueRun Ventures leads Zivity's $7 million series "a" round with Founders Fund, the creators of PayPal and Facebook. Zivity is, ahem, an adult website that provides "a community powered showcase promoting female beauty." In other words, a sure-fire winner. Speaking of the flesh, Eitan - who watches Football Italiano - Milano v. Empou - shouts: "they're watching naked dad! Those people do not have any clothes on!" How Mediterranean.

Katie tells me her beachside photo taken in the Dominican Republic - "on the other side of the island" and presumably without tourists. She is surfing

Keep Off The . . .

The kids watch cartoons ("Johny Test") and Sonnet runs - her London Marathon is five weeks.

Our government, dear reader, intends to roll-out a camera that sees through clothing at 80-feet and meant to detect weapons, drugs and explosives. The maker, ThruVision, already offers a smaller device that scans clothing at 30-feet and used at Canary Wharf to target terrorists. Not surprisingly, the police expect ThruVision to be in shopping centres, on high streets and in airports or wherever without consultation with we, the people. No doubt ThruVision will also help police recruiting - line up, lads! - and welcome to our surveillance society.

Feets

Katie sends me her feet from the beach.

After swim practice today, the boys discuss Saturday's football results including loses by ManU and Chelsea to lower-division teams in the FA Cup knock-out round. I'm impressed by The Knowledge, from minute detail ("Joe Cole was definitely fouled inside the box"; "Drogba, Lambard, Ashley Cole and Michalaelie injured and out for Chelsea") to the strategy (Barnsely played six guys up front"). I have to hustle Eitan otherwise he would be content for the morning.

Finn

I return from Finland yesterday (in unison: "Dad, did you get me a present?") where I have a meeting and some free time. It sprinkled snow and the Finns worry about the winter (Finland is equally effected by changes in the jet stream, which keep the UK warm and moist). This is my third time to Helsinki in '08 which is no bother. The city's architecture is famous for its Art Nouveau from the early 1900s and more recently Alvar Aalto's "functionalism." Helsinki is often used as a Hollywood backdrop for the Soviet Union in many Cold War Hollywood movies like Reds and Gorky Park. The Finnish government, I'm told, secretly briefed its white-collar workers to make producing these, often clearly Soviet-negative, films in Helsinki as hard as possible due to diplomatic pressure from Moscow !

What's the most important thing in the world (asked over cereal)?
Eitan: My match attacks, Pokoman cards, Teddy and family
Madeleine: Family and doggy

Manchester United is eliminated from the FA Cup by Portsmouth. Eitan sheds a tear of frustration, becoming further irritated when I mention it is only a game.

Orange

Katie sends me her orange dress, which we all agree is pretty. Darn. Cool.

I'm enjoying London at the now while spring has arrived early with daffodils. Still nippy, the season is in the air and large white clouds pass overhead during mid-day run in Richmond Park. I pass aside a herd of antlered bucks who barely pay me a glance despite my being feet from their grazing. King Georg I's hunting lodge never looks as lovely as mid-week when the rest of the world is working away and I'm goofing off. Yesterday Sonnet and I visit Eitan and Madeleine's teachers for a brief update on their classroom progress and I am delighted to report that both children are exactly as they should be.

Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

Here is a photograph of Sonnet's Great Grandmother Blaine. Stan tells me that both the grandparents were teachers and had four daughters and Grandfather Blaine was the Superintendent Of Schools in Glenwood Springs and was Supt in Longmont, CO when he died in the mid 1930s. The Blaines descended from James G. Blaine the corrupt U.S. Senator from Maine who almost became President. This last bit of treasure is too good to be left hanging so I spend some time today digging online.

Grandpa G. Blaine was born in West Brownsville, Washington County, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh. He was the great-grandson of Col. Ephraim Blaine (1741-1804), who during the American War of Independence served in the American army from 1778 to 1782 as commissary-general of the Northern Department.

After graduating Washington and Jefferson College, Blaine settled in Augusta, Maine, in 1854, becoming editor of the Kennebec Journal, and subsequently on the Portland Advertiser.

Editorial work was soon abandoned for a more active public career. Blaine served as a member in the Maine House of Representatives from 1859 to 1862, serving the last two years as Speaker of the House. He also became chairman of the Republican state committee in 1859 and for more than 20 years personally directed every campaign of his party. Among his adoring admirers, he was known as the "Plumed Knight." Blaine was the unsuccessful Republican nominee for President in 1884; he was the only nonincumbent Republican nominee to lose a presidential race between 1860 and 1912, and only the second Republican Presidential nominee to lose at all. Republican reformers, called "Mugwumps" supported Cleveland because of Blaine's reputation for corruption. After heated canvassing, during which he made a series of brilliant speeches, he was beaten by a narrow margin in New York. Many, including Blaine himself, attributed his defeat to the effect of a phrase, "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion", used by a Protestant clergyman, the Rev. Samuel Burachrd, on October 29, 1884, in Blaine's presence, to characterize what, in his opinion, the Democrats stood for. "Rum" meant the liquor interest; "Romanism" meant Catholics; "Rebellion" meant Confederates in 1861.

Blained refused to be a presidential candidate again in 1888 instead becoming Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President Benjamin Harrison fromm 1889 to 1892.

His service at State was distinguished by several notable steps. In order to promote the friendly understanding and cooperation of the nations on the American continents he projected a Pan-American Congress, which, after being arranged for and led by Blaine as its first president, was frustrated by his retirement. (Its most important conclusions were the need for reciprocity in trade, a continental railway and compulsory arbitration in international complications.) Shaping the tariff legislation for this policy, Blaine negotiated a large number of reciprocity treaties which augmented the commerce of his country.

He upheld American rights in Samoa, pursued a vigorous diplomacy with Italy over the lynching of 11 Italians accused of being Mafiosi who murdered the police chief in New Orleans in 1891, held a firm attitude during the strained relations between the United States and Chile over a deadly barroom brawl involving sailors from the USS Baltimore; and carried on with Britain a controversy over the seal fisheries of Bering Sea—a difference afterward settled by arbitration. Blaine sought to secure a modification of the Clayton-Bulwer, and in an extended correspondence with the British government strongly asserted the policy of an exclusive American control of any isthmian canal which might be built to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Blaine resigned on June 4, 1892, on the eve of the meeting of the Republican National Convention. His name, when once again submitted for consideration by the delegates, drew little support.

Daffodils

After swimming we go to Kew Gardens to see the daffodils which flower a month early. We then goof by the river, pictured, and Madeleine shows her bouquet which, dear reader, was fallen from the stem before picked by her. The gardens remain a favorite place and with Richmond Park, the perfect fall-back should we not have weekend plans. Today we head to Kew to escape Madeleine's new toy "Noisy Putty" which simulates a "bronx cheer" (what a great name for a fart). The box says: "plunge fingers into the gunge to produce repulsive lavatorial sounds!" and of course Madeleine has been hooked and non-stop. We sing Hot Chip in the car: "Do it do it do it do it do it now! Show me show me show me show me show me how!"

"One swallow does not make a spring, nor does one fine day."
Aristotle

Blood & Gore

Here is Friday's concert, pictured. We're pretty close to the action and it is a rowdy crowd - at least for us old-timers. Last night we sleep by 8PM and Sonnet kicks me awake to take the boy to swim-team. Ug. Listening to Hot Chip in the car, Eitan refines his career plan to include a rock & roll band, which he names "Bloodhawks." I tell him great name but a bit gorey which nets a conversation about blood and guts. He doesn't come off his idea though - good lad. Madeleine asks if a fella would live without his guts: "will he dad? wil he?"

Hot Chip

Sonnet and I meet in Brixton to see Hot Chip, pictured, at the Academy. Beforehand, we have dinner at a family-style Portuguese restaurant complete with an old television showing Italian football and, surprisingly, Portuguese people. There's a real hustle-bustle with children running around the bar, a few tables with young couples smooching and the old timers drinking their whatevers watching the scene contentedly. Perfect. As for Hot Chip, the show goes on at 1130PM and is well worth a lost night's sleep (oh I suffer now). Hot Chip is from south London and plays techno-pop disco with quirky addictive songs using strange instruments and computer monotones. The lead singer is slight and nerdy, which ads to their geekiness. The sold-out crowd loves the vibe, as do we, and the noise from them and us is deafening. Sonnet prefers opera and again proves a trooper for humoring me - our last gig together was the Chemical Brothers when she told me flat that I had better find a music buddy. Christian, who introduced me to the Artic Monkeys and Hot Chip, is that guy but in California. Most dads in our neighborhood would never consider a live act and too bad for them.

Sports

Eitan realises the value of reading - here he is in the sports section and Manchester United.

Meanwhile, I have to threaten Madeleine with a consequence last night for her to bed. I realise that the Hand Of God is always on her forehead, the poor kid, and so I ask her how she feels: "like I'm in prison, Dad" she tells me. "I want to be a Bird or a butterfly. They can do what they want. We had a butterfly in class, who I named "Butty," that got its leg caught in the cocoon. He died." And, I might add, did not enjoy his freedom.

Sonnet and I are gearing up for Hot Chip tonight at the Brixton Academy. They are scheduled for 11PM and since it is a bit disco, I'm planning my outfit: something green and loud, I think. No pictures to be posted, I promise. Renata is babysitting, which earns a squeel of happiness from the peanut gallery.

Modigliani

Today I visit the Courdault Gallery where Renoir's "La Loge" is on display. These paintings, from 1874, are considered to be a master work of the impressionist movement and display the theatre boxes of Paris's cultural houses. The paintings present the social classes in various states from sexually beguiling to just plane board. Fan-taby-tosa, as Madeleine would say. Modigliani's female nude, pictured, reminds me of my wife.

I'm near Sommerset House (location of the Courdault) following lunch at nearby Christopher's, a cocktail-and-media haunt with my friend Matthew who is at the Economist. For the last four years we have engaged in a bet where the loser buys lunch. Bets have ranged from the fall (or not) of Google's stock price to David Montgomery going to prison (Dear Reader, I worked with David on a buyout several years ago and found him most unsavory). Next year the wager is on the non-dom tax and how many of us will leave. Matthew thinks small number while I think more than 18%. Stay tuned. A gentleman's side bet is Facebook losing 20% of its audience.

Catching up from Sunday: I return from Helsinki greeted at the door by the usual post-trip query spoken in urgency: "did you bring us any presents? Did you?" Ah, yes - familiarity. I'm in Nordea meeting with several investors and pursuing a secondary deal or two. Sonnet, the road-runner, recovers meanwhile from a half-marathon in Tonbridge Wells where she completes the hilly race in one-hour and 52-minutes. Bravo! This is the course I finished in 1:16.30 in 1998 while preparing for the London Marathon. I imagine I won't be going that fast again but oh well, I'm happy to be alive. Sonnet gives a press interview where she discusses feathers in fashion. Apparently they are making a come-back.

Coal Mine

Big Pit's winching mechanism - pictured - once dropped miners, horses and equipment into the coal beds, hauling out their efforts upon return. Today, we wear a plastic hard hat and ‘safety lamp’ and clip our re-breather emergency supply which, in an emergency, will filter foul air for approximately one hour giving us a chance for survival and escape. Contraband like my camera and blackberry are surrendered as anything containing a dry cell battery, which could spark, is prohibited. The dangers of the mine are real - the safety posters on the stages of Carbon Monoxide poisoning serve as museum pieces and reminders of the dangers of underground. Automatic gas monitoring systems are discreetly positioned around the tunnels as are emergency telephones. No wonder Madeleine freaks out.

Stan points out that my guess at Sonnet's age is off by a decade. It is more likely 1985, or perhaps highschool graduation in '86.

"To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukaemia with leeches."
Margaret Thatcher

Big Pit

We stop at Big Pit, a coal mine in Blaenovon, south-west Wales. Since 1983, it has been open to the public and designated a National Heritage Site. The pit was first worked in 1860, called "Big Pit" because it was the first shaft in Wales large enough to allow two tram-ways. In the late 1870s the shaft was deepened to 293 feet. By 1908, Big Pit provided employment for 1,122 people, but this number gradually decreased until 1970 the workforce numbered 494. It closed on February 2, 1980. We learn that the mines were worked 365 days a year in two twelve hour shifts. Until the late 19th century, children as young as six were used underground and a miner typically worked with his teenage son. Our guide tells us the comradery was special and generally the men could do whatever they pleased "but don't go bend'n over for your soap" he says (ar ar). Until electrics, welsh horses (small in size) were used for hauling carts and kept in the mines 50 weeks of the year, never seeing sunlight or green pasture. Safety was never an owner's priority and it was not until the early 20th century that the workers received government protections and unionised. As for us today pictured - we go down 400 feet - Eitan loses his safety belt - Madeleine hates it - I try to keep us up with the group having no desire to be left behind on this one.