San Quintin

A large portion of the BBC news concerned with America and maybe 15% of reporting concentrates on the United States.  Let there be no doubt about the fascination our countries enjoy with each other's business. Today, on Radio 4, a lengthy piece on US prisons, which have swelled four-times between 1975 and 1995 and incarcerate 2.3 million people.  The US has less than 5% of the world's population and over 25% of its jail-mates. Go figure.  What's more, prior to '75 the US presented itself as a progressive country avoiding terms for rehabilitation.  Thanks, in part to the 1960s and Nixon+the rise of the moral majority and conservative right, Uncle Sam got scared and went towards a zero-tolerance policy. It is also Big Business.  The UK and Europe contemplate this as crime rates and drug use mostly on the rise during the same eqoque.  I often note the UK's 'soft' punishments compared to America - a murder might get nine years or a violent rape less than five. Still, Europe's capital cities no more violent then Chicago or New York or Los Angelese and in most instances, much less violent.  

California enacted the Three-Strikes Law in 1994 when I returned home for my extended summer - in a state vote, 72% in favor and 28% against.  Simply, anybody convicted of three crimes went to jail for life, regardless of the crime's severity.  Federal judge Mike Ballachey who married me and Sonnet disgusted by California's inhumanity - he was forced to sentence minor offenders, and often poor and usually black, to their end without opportunity of rebuttal.  The BBC sure picks up on this and a law officer notes how his jail includes a man sent up for stealing a pair of socks.  Does not make America look good, sir.  And the result: in 1993 California had 336,381 incidents of violent crime.  Slightly less than the year before of 346,524. In 2000,  violent crime 210,531, while crime generally down across the nation.  In 2003 the Supremes weighed in, holding 5-4 that such sentences do not violate the 8th Amendment which prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment." By 2007, California state prisons held 170,000 in a system designed for 83,000.

My photo, uncredited, from the WWW.  I drove by San Quintin about every day on my way to Sonoma and Help The World See.

Louvre+McDonald's

Well, McDonald's is opening at the last place one might expect - the Louvre, where it will be found at the Carrousel du Louvre or the underground mall adjoining the museum.  The French have finally caved - McD's has been lobbying this location since the late 1970s. And wisely so: the French, despite their public distain of Americana, privately make the Big Mac number one- France the largest market for the Golden Arches outside the US.


When I was in Geneva, McDonald's the hang-out of us teen-agers.  There was no competition either - Burger King, KFC or Wendy's not yet arrived - if they ever have or will as I have never seen them in Switzerland.  McDonald's in center-town, nearby rue d'Italie where College de Candolle located so an easy stroll (during or) after school. Kids filled the restaurant Friday and Saturday evenings sometimes sitting on the floor for space, eating their french fries and smoking cigarettes (1984, after all).  Today, Starbucks across the street and, from my last visit, it barely dents McDonald's traffic. 


Here, in the UK, the first McDonald's opened in 1974 and continues to expand daily: today, there are over 1,200 restaurants in Britain feeding about 2.5 million people a day (source: McDonald's filings).  In short, the burger more British then fish and chips.  And so with some sadness I report that Ronald moving his London European HQ to .. Geneva by year-end to avoid  tax.  Full circle, dude.  British government better wake up to this as McD's joins Kraft, Procter & Gamble, Colgate Palmolive, Yahoo and Google who also now reside in Suisse.  But this for another blog.  For the ex-pat community, McDonald's a nice warm cozy feeling of home (even if we never actually touch their food).

The Team And A Cocktail

Here are the lads Sunday, seven months on.  They have developed into a pretty good squad, too - Wils, front row left, a bruising defensive player; goalie Maxime (yellow shirt) has single-handedly saved the team's bacon.  Strikers  Fred (back row, left) and Robert (behind Fred) have racked up hat-tricks.  And Eitan sets everybody up as a competent mid-fielder.  Most importantly, coaches Jon (right) and Dave excellent - they care about the boys and appreciate that the competition secondary to the values and fun of the game. 


Our first dinner-party at 45 includes Nat and Justin, Lars and Puk and Lorena - Sonnet prepares lamb shanks while I serve wine (here is your blog, Justin). We finally have an adequate dining room to entertain our friends and I look forward to the return of the .. pre-dinner cocktail.  I recall my courtship of Sonnet who somehow seemed like an adult in '93 .. this meant her own place with new towels, a brass bed and afternoon sherry and maybe kalamata olives (if I was lucky).  Plus she had a real job at William Sonoma and a view of Alcatraz from the near-top of Russian Hill.  I went all-in.  Sonnet also had the confidence to host dinners at her place including the correct cutlery and clean wine glasses. This all new to me then. Fast-forward to business school where we were one of the few engaged/married couples so most of our entertaining done at home on Riverside Drive.  Sonnet's wonderful cooking skills invaluable and cemented friendships we honour today.  My contribution - a proper martini which, according to my deceased mentor and colleague Dr Wayne Cannon, the only drink worth knowing. Wayne and I downed many while setting up eye-clinics in developing countries and I happily passed along his spirit to our MBA friends and those lost Californians living in the Big City.  Those were good times.  Today I may be a bit older and in another country, but I am happy to say that the recipe stays the same.


Madeleine: "I really don't like it when you come to wake me up."

Orange

And let us not forget Madeleine yesterday - so here she is.  I love her orange track outfit BTW - oh boy, she is going to be a great teenager and I cannot wait to know her then.

Sunday Pattern

Here is the English sky Sunday morning.  Eitan has a match, this time vs. Hampton Youth, and the blues win resoundingly 7-1. Eitan gets in a cracker.  There is some discussion amongst us parents about the squad being promoted to the next level, but for now it is all good - let them have their cake and eat it too.


Concluding the No. 9 festivities, Eitan's slumber party a success and the boys up until at least Midnight when Sonnet marches upstairs to tell them to pipe down (I've already done my share of trips).  In the end they crash at 2AM, or so they tell me this morning.  Beforehand, it is non-stop giggling leaving me and Sonnet to wonder - what on earth so funny?  Ok, I ease drop a little bit and it is all football this or school that; some kid did something silly or a girl made a face.  Uproariously entertaining somehow and God bless.  Madeleine, meanwhile, to bed by 10PM and I make sure she is not too glum being today's second fiddle.  She is, and I assure her I have noticed what a terrific sport she has been allowing Eitan his day.


Cal is annihilated by USC 30-3 at Memorial Stadium.  I cannot listen. 

Secret Wish

Here is today's birthday shot.  After the party, Luke and Joseph (left in photo) joins us for a sleep-over watch "Beverly Hill Chiwawa" as I write.  The remarkable thing, really, is that Eitan and Madeleine watched "Chiwawa" last night and at least once again in the last week.  The movie pretty stupid - lip syncing dogs - but they love it.  Madeleine remains mad at me since earlier today during a game I tickled her to sneak the ball and horribly embarrassed her before the boys (she being a Tom Boy).  She sulks and I tell her to take a lick on my shoulder and be done with it. She wacks me hard enough hurt yet remains sullen.  I tell her if she does not shape up, she can take the bus home and fish inside my pocket for some change.  She is sceptical.  Sonnet and I now silently finish the birthday cake and soon to bed. And I better not have to get up later, I might add.

Madeleine, while driving home: "Dad, you would never put me on a bus. He wouldn't even know where to go."

Me: "I would tell him - 'take her to Richmond and drop her off.'"

Madeleine: "You would not do that for a million pounds."

Me: "A million?"

Madeleine: "Not even five million."

Me: "Don't test your luck, kid."

Madeleine: "Mom, tell Dad he would not put me on a bus for five million pounds."

Checking out the college scores on ESPN, I am momentarily stunned and elated to see Cal 24, USC 7 .. but realise this their rankings+game time not for another several hours.  A fine moment spoiled.

Concussed

Sonnet and I have a break while the kids work themselves out.  To pass the time, we play a game of "stix" using wood coffee mixers.  Sonnet stressed about the responsibility of the party - which is 17 children needing food, transportation and entertainment. Now that they are here and provided for, she relaxes a bit - until Cyrus trips over Harry at full speed and runs head-first into a wall.  I witness the carnage and if not so scary, it would have been funny.  Cyrus momentarily stunned then tears let me know Ok - he will have a large bump on his forehead and the side of his face imprinted wood.  A good thing, too, if it had been inflexible brick his crash would have been serious.  I hold him for a moment as the kids surround us to make sure he is all right -- Harry and I do an instant replay which gets a grin and off Cyrus goes, back into the action.  Brave lad. Sonnet makes sure to telephone his mother and I double-check to ensure he is not concussed somehow. Cyrus' dad BTW from Iran while his mother British, making him a pretty interesting youngster. All good.

The Crew

Another year, another football party. This time at 'Goals' in Tolworth somewhere off the A3. Eitan whoops up his nine with his pals, including three girls - the ratio, I note, in decline. He tells me yesterday in the car, rather dramatically, that "it is war" between the sexes. The girls in Year Four, I observe, advanced - Imogen can barely contain her boredom today - and into dresses and frilly things, including make-up and cell phones. They are 'clicky' and sometimes mean to each other.  The boys, meanwhile, play Legos and Star Wars action figures - they have no idea about the truck soon to hit them.  But all that for the future and today a boys affair.  On the pitch, the captains chosen and teams drawn leaving the weak and the female for last - same as it ever was. Brutal. From then, it is a calorie-burn broken by the intermittent joyful huzzay! when a goal scored (Orlando pulls off his shirt and races around the astro pitch).  Eitan gets to show off his skills but, for once, he is not the best - that honour goes to Jack who is also Sheen Mt year-four but in the parallel class.  Jack plays for Wester Park and scouted by Reading, which is the feeder for Chelsea FC - big time.  Later, I ask Eitan what makes Jack so good, and he shrugs: "He always knows what he wants to do and is able to make it happen."  Eitan will have his chance, I am sure.  And the party? Contentedly he nods: "thumbs up."

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."