Boomerang

The dog is focused

When I was a kid I had a pretty cool boomerang which I would take to Coordinices Park and throw-about until I lost it in a redwood tree (I still wonder if it is there, 35 years on).

So I buy a boomerang and, today, Madeleine and I head for Richmond Park to give it a go, me warning Madeleine not to get her hopes and "it's going to be a disappointment."  And it is, accept for the dog, who does indeed retrieve the boomerang but only after a long chase.  We have a good laugh nonetheless.

Me: "Boomerangs are physics at work."
Madeleine: "Why do you always have to ruin it like that ? "
Me: "Well, without knowledge, we would be like Rusty. Unable to drive a car nor program a VCR."
Madeleine:
Me: "You have now idea what a VCR is, do you?"
Madeleine: "No. Is it some sort of radio or something ?"
Me: "You win."

And off to Paris in 30.

Hoop La

At the Connaught 

I arrive from Paris, Friday evening, same as it ever was, and lovely weather, so Sonnet and I to the local for a drink (me, vodka martini with a twist; Sonnet soda water), Eitan joins us since I forget my wallet.

For the first time, as a parent, I feel more like a parent than like, well, myself. Work, money, home, DIY . the garden ..  Rusty . all this responsibility who can lead (as Eitan would say), the care-free life?

Dog Day

Rusty takes it in.

So I am with Paolo Scaroni the other night - Scaroni the CEO of Eni, Italy's largest industrial company with multinational operations in oil and gas and a market cap of €65bn as of this writing.  He is also on the Board of Overseers of Columbia Business School.

Scaroni is direct about sovereignty - without energy independence, a nation cannot rule its destiny. Europe, for instance, imports 30% of its energy needs in Russian gas but some European countries require 90%.  For Ukraine, who lost coastal reserves perhaps greater than the North Sea last month, gas is life-or-death as temperatures reach -30 in the winter.

Ukraine owes Russia about $3bn on last winter's deliveries and Russia is threatening to go pre-pay for gas while raising prices. Since Ukraine broke, Europe (me, the taxpayer) will have to foot the bill of €8bn, give or take. And this is the best-case scenario. Should Ukraine (Europe) refuse to pre-pay and Russia turns off the gas, the Ukrainians would surely tap the Russian pipelines and Russia would plug the spigot at the source. Since those very same pipelines go to Europe, Europe would be crippled.

This is why the West's hands are tied when responding to Russian aggression. Putin's deal, announced today, to supply China gas for the next 30 years valued at €400bn, strengthens Russia's position further. Ruthless, cunning.

One Year More Beautiful

Sonnet is 46.

Eitan, for the record, not quite Sonnet's height but it is coming.  I stick by my prediction that, based on the doubling of his height at age-2, he will be 6'4''.

London Garden Suburb

East Sheen

Sometime in 1994 Roger, Greta, Sonnet and I went to a cartoon festival at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco on one of those never ending late-summer Sunday evenings.  One feature presented a typical English neighbourhood where a put upon middle-aged (suppressed) bloke (a dentist), on his birthday, dances naked on the coffee table. His wife doesn't have the heart to tell him that all his friends are hidden in the house for a surprise party.

Anyway, the feature depicted a dense garden suburb not dissimilar from what I walk by every day.

Sonnet: "Madeleine, how was your chemistry exam today?"
Madeleine: "It was OK, I guess."
Sonnet: "Every time I think of chemistry I think of Andrew's PhD experiment. He blew up the building."
Madeleine: "So did he get his PhD?"
Sonnet: "He went home then came back the next morning and the building wasn't there. It's just so funny."
Me:
Sonnet: "He's a banker now."

All Come To Look For America

T3

Our resident teenager off to see the world. Aneta will spend her summer as a camp counsellor in Western Mass then a month of travel freedom. Her whole life ahead of her.

Eitan and I go for a hard run in Richmond Park and I fall back for the last half-mile. No way am I keeping up with the bean pole.  In college, when racing, I weighed 155 pounds or about 30 pounds less than today. My friend Greg Whiteley, also about six feet, weighed 150. Yep, bean pole.

In a drugstore Eitan contemplates a wall of deodorants and goes for the Lynx Effect or, as the advertising notes, where love and attraction rule supreme. My fatherly advice to the boy (fully ignored) : keep it to one grooming product that smells.

"Will inspector Sands please report to platform 20 ?"

--From a speaker at Waterloo train station

"So I looked at the scenery,
She read her magazine;
And the moon rose over an open field.
"Kathy, I'm lost", I said,
Though I know she was sleeping.
"I'm empty and aching and
I don't know why."

All come to look for America,
All come to look for America.
--Simon & Garfunkel

Pre Party

We celebrate early summer with drinks and about 70 friends who joins us on a perfect evening weather-wise, how unusual. We move the furniture from the living room into the den or garage, prepare for the caterers etc.  I do the usual yard-work, with Aneta , made interesting when my ladder, while pruning the backyard conifer, collapses taking me with it. Three summers of painting and doing stupid things in college and never a ladder fall. This time I am pretty darn lucky to walk away more or less unscathed. Two closes shaves in the past couple of weeks. I had better start listening.

Christian sends the play list and off we go.

I do a dry run on the living room Linn Keilidh speakers.  Eitan: "Turn it down. Jesus."

Self Portrait XXXIX

Zurich Airport

I visit a few friends in Switzerland - Luzerne and Baar Zug - and end my day at a beautiful 50m outdoor pool only recently opened for the summer.

I time myself for the 100m freestyle hitting the wall, panting, thinking 1:10 or 1:15 but the clock does not lie: 1:25. No fighting middle age but, man, do I sometimes wish I had my 20s back.

Good Day, Sunshine

Chelsea from Battersea

A few days each May bring a sea of puffy cotton which fills the blue sky as lazy as the early summer. A Beatles song.

Race On

First bend

Madeleine has an inter-school competition at the Battersea track by the Battersea Power Station and our gal cranks out a gritty 800m coming in first place in a time of 2:43 - a PB of two seconds. Dramatically, she collapses at the end of the race in need of her inhaler but fortunately the officials aware of this and problem solved (me, unaware all the while).

Madeleine also competes the high jump finishing in a tie for fourth (of 20) 1 meter 16 cm.

It's a gorgeous day, too, and Aneta and I play hooky, watching the racers, sun bathing and making a few calls (me). Sure beats the office.

Strapline

Temple Bar

Since I always get in trouble for my descriptions of The OpEd project here it is, officially:

"The OpEd Project is a community of journalists and thought leaders committed to diversifying the world's conversation.  Our Public Voices Fellowship program is a national initiative, undertaken in partnership with leading academic institutions and foundations, to dramatically increase the public impact of our nation's top underrepresented thinkers. "
--From the materials

Dublin Good Bye

Katie treats me to dinner in Dublin 2 and we drink draft Guinness and Katie (at my insistence) orders a Tusker beer, which brings back memories of Kenya, Africa, or the last time I enjoyed this brew.  She will be in Zanzibar later this year. But this this evening we enjoy Ireland's finest oysters and recount family stories.

Katie's business is going great-guns (recently she received a substantial grant from the Ford Foundation with fellowship programs in place with 12 universities) and her conference is buzzing on the Twitter-sphere.

In the hotel room I am asleep by 9PM while Katie watches The Avengers. Today we have lunch with Nick, the Deputy Head of the Irish Pension Reserve, and now the airport.

"How can a country that gave us Joyce not be able produce a road map?"
--Moe, somewhere in Ireland, ca 1998

Self Portrait XXXVII and XXXVIII

Photos by Katie

Katie Broadcasts

I fly to Dublin this morning to see Katie at the Women On Air conference, which is broadcast across the UK.  Katie is the Key Note speaker, "Who narrates the world," at a conference that brings together media and political figures. It fills the St Georges' Hall at the Dublin Palace.  I arrive midway thru and catch my sister's eye as I seat myself in one of the front rows. Pretty cool moment.

"Passion and credibility are both important but should be used at different times. Credibility first."
-Katie, Women On Air

Meanwhile At The Track

 pre 200m

We enjoy a family outing at the Andover Young Athletics Meeting where Eitan and Madeleine aim to qualify for the London Youth Games this summer.  It is a windy sunny day and we spend most of it outdoors, on the overlooking grassy hillside, watching the Shakespeares compete.  In between, some homework is done and I read the new car-manual [Dad's note: we bought a new family car - a Honda]

Madeleine runs the 200m and 800m making the finals in the 200m and finishing 3rd of 18 girls competing in the U13's. Her time: 30.14.  She also takes 3rd in the 800m (no finals) in 2:45, or a six second pb. She is proud as punch, as are we.

Eitan runs the 1500 in 5:09, off his best of 4:55.

200m

Me: "Would you rather do homework or read a car manual?"
Eitan: "Car manual."
Me: "You would rather read a car manual then learn about maths and physics and the wonders of the world? I would give my right hand to have somebody teach me stuff like that."
Eitan: "Definitely car manual."

Graduation Day

Marcus receives his masters in business from Niagra University, earning his place in the Kappa Gamma Pi honor society. Bravo !

The Wall Of Tears

Goal!

Surrey Cup Final U13's

Hampton School take on the Whitgift School in the Surrey Cup U13's school finals. The prize, the Therfield Trophy, has exchanged hands for 70 years.  Last year Eitan's Elm Grove won the Surrey Cup U12's.

Hampton the under-dogs given that four or five of the Whitgift boys play for the Academies including the brilliant No. 10, Callum Hudson Odoi, who is signed with Chelsea and selected the best Surrey U13 player for the 2014 season. Eitan assigned to mark Callum and the fist-half Eitan on his ass more often than not but by the second half he has him figured him.  It's an intensely physical game, too: loud brutal crunching that we hear 30 meters downfield; a number of collisions that stop the action and I think at least one boy concussed but no way is he coming out.

The game starts in good form with Hampton up 1-nil but we trail the rest of the match, equalising in regulation play and then again with a two minutes in over-time.  Us parents bounce along a roller coaster of highs and lows . ..  It comes down to the dreaded penalty kicks and anyone who follows English football knows that PKs mean one thing: defeat.  I have my "everyone is a winner" speech prepared for the ride home.

Hampton misses the first PK and Whitgift hit the next three. Then they miss. And miss again. Louie lines up to win the game or go down in sweet infamy.

So, the giant cumulous clouds frame the pitch as the sun sets.  Louie drops the ball on the spot and I can tell he's anxious - no shit.  One step.. then two and away she goes : all net! The boys erupt in joy and relief and fall on top of Louie. Several of the mums burst into tears. Wow wow wow.

Tiles

Ceiling, St Mark's Basilica

The St Mark's basilica constructed from 1084-1117. 

The five domes have golden tiled ceilings - to install them, the artist began at the centre and worked downward, all the while neutralising the gradient "distortion" for the viewer below.

By my simple calculation there is approximately 8000 sq meters of tiled ceiling or about 86,110 square feet or 12,400,000 square inches. If the tiles average a quarter inch on each side, well, there are about 49,600,000 tiles. 

St Mark's Camanile

St Mark's Campanile is the bell tower of St Mark's Basilica in the Piazza San Marco. 

The tower is 98.6 metres tall and stands alone in a corner of St Mark's Square near the front of the basilica. It has a simple form, the bulk of which is a fluted brick square shaft, 12 metres wide on each side and 50 metres tall, above which is a loggia surrounding the belfry, housing five bells. The tower is capped by a pyramidal spire, at the top of which sits a golden weathervane of the archangel Gabriel. It was built in 1514.

Venice is literally stuffed with tourists and I hear accents from around the world and mainly from America. One can always tell the Americans who are loud and unafraid with their opinions: "I was disappointed with the Campanile maybe because I'm from Los Angeles and the buildings are taller." And so on and so forth.

Madeleine: "Will you bring me a gift?"