A Virgin mobile lands about 100 yards from where I am sitting in Green Park on a lovely Tuesday morning. The bird does a low circle, brushing back a maple or two, then lands on the green attracting several curious Japanese tourists and a raised eyebrow from the local morning sun seekers. Out jump two yellow-attired medivacs, complete with O-2 and moon-boots, who cross the common to Mayfair. I stroll over to the pilot who munches a sandwich and refuses to take my question.
Madeleine at Climber's and Creepers. This morning on the school run I respond to a Madeleine-ism saying "sheesh". She tells me to "shush!" and I say: "Are you shushing my sheeshing?" And around it goes.
Eitan's bad behavior loses him the Chelsea-Liverpool UEFA cup semi-final televised on Sky Sports. Both kids excited to wear their new football colours and my punishment comes as a startling blow. Feeling sorry for the kid (and wanting to watch the game with him), I propose that Eitan swap Chelsea-'pool for Sunday cartoons. He accepts the deal and draws the contract, signing his name in black ink.
Stan and Silver at Kew Gardens. Eitan is a bit grumpy being forced to pose for the photo, which he doesn't. We play tag whereby the winner earns a "double ice-cream" for not being "it". The kids run with an urgency reserved for, well, nothing else. Both are fast and slippery and I can still scoop up Madeleine on the fly. From the park to home where Sonnet has prepared a roast beast and three-berries tart. The weather is spring-like and the bluebells are in bloom. Not a bad Sunday spent.
Sonnet at the National Gallery in Berlin, artist unknown by me. Sonnet studied art history at Smith College which she puts to good practice here or in London. The night before we join our friend Dr Frank Albrecht for dinner at the Borchardt restaurant. It is a local and we each order the weinerschnitzel and potato salad and bottle of rieiling wine (white). Frank was born in Berlin shortly before the wall and there to see its end. After receiving his PhD and re-unification Frank worked for the Treuhand which privatised the East's national enterprises. He now works for CAM, a substantial private equity investor.
At the antiquities museum, Sonnet and I see Queen Nefertiti or translated: "the beautiful woman has come." This is one of the most famous and beloved of all ancient Egyptians and here is her bust. Nefertit's orignis and life are shrouded in mystery but the speculation has kept many a PhD program going. She surfaced with King Akhenaten during his fourth year at el-'Amarna 2500 years b.c. The city was dedicated to the god Aten. In the sixth year of his reign, Neferiti's name was changed to Nefernefruaten, which means "Beautiful in beauty is Aten". This we know. And too that she was a lovely.
Thinking of last night's opening, I use my mobile to snap this strange horse-manequin on rue due Faubourg St-Honore in Paris where I am staying in the 8th. The shop is Levan and other window-displays show a well presented gentlemen with a rooster's head. And a dressed-to-the-nines goat with a snake on his lapel. Go figure. But hey, if it sells it sells.
Eitan is sad that I am away tonight but cheers up when Aggie takes the kids to McDonalds and Mr Bean, a new movie showing at the Richmond Odeon. Sonnet arrives home at a reasonable hour with plenty of sunshine to focus on Eitan and Madeleine and unwind from New York Fashion Now. Me, I have a drink at the swank l'Hotel Costes surrounded by models and the uber attractive then head back to Le Faubourg to have dinner and finish some work.
This morning on Radio 4 Eitan heres about Virginia Tech where 33 are murdered. While we filter most adult news, the outside world encroaches and he is curious.
Sonnet at the V&A. Her dress by Osman Yusefada, London.
Sonnet's Big Show last night opened without a hitch. The press and celebrity arrived in high spirits for the museum's fashion and sipped vodka fizzies under the Chihuly chandelier. In the house were Tom Ford, Ya Ya Yas and David Furnish. Sonnet was interviewed by Suzy Menkes of the International Herald Tribune. Of importance to Sonnet, many of her designers made it to London happy to see their couture in bright lights. Bravo.
Katie at Kelly Flynn's wedding last month at Barney's, New York.
Did you know?
Over 80% of those working in central London travel to work by public transport compared to 14% in Great Britain as a whole.
Over three million trips a day are made on the London underground system. Over 5.4 million trips are made by bus each day in London.
Overseas visitors spend over £100million on London's tubes and buses and account for 25% of taxi fares.
A CCTV camera that can detect potential criminals, then follow their movements, is being tested in shopping centers in the U.K. This following the recent announcement that CCTV will be hooked up to bull-horns. The so-called "Bug" is fitted with a ring of eight cameras which record a panoramic view of the street below. The footage is scanned by software that "identifies 50 behavioral traits" and determines whether someone is acting "out of the ordinary." When a suspect is spotted, a ninth camera automatically locks on to them and follows their movements. Their are 4.2 million CCTV cameras in Britain, or one-fifth of the world's total. Comments Simon Davies, director of Privacy International: "We do not know what the psychological impact will be on the population."
A sunny afternoon yesterday and Eitan must decide what he wants to do: backyard gardening, football at the common, quiet play in his room... he chooses none so I drag him to the drug store. He is clearly pissed off and I tell him: "In life, if you don't decide somebody will take the decision for you."
Mitch and I go to quasi metal band The Deftones at the Brixton Academy in South London. The Deftones are from Sacramento, cA, and influenced by hip hop. Their music is loud and satisfying . I get home around midnight buzzy and tone-deaf. Sonnet takes a pass on this one - which is just as well as she would have bolted for sure.
Katie enjoys the Upper West Side sunshine with a neighborhood friend. She has received a considerable positive feedback to her New York Times profile and the Women Op-Ed project. Last week she dined with Phil Donahue and his wife Marlo Thomas, the creator of "Free To Be You and Me" which Katie and I listened to as kids and Madeleine and Eitan experience now.
Madeleine is in a good mood this morning as it is is spring and Silver and Stan are in town with presents and attention. Yesterday we play in Hyde Park with the grand-parents and Uncle Anthony sporting the latest cool facial hair. The only downer occurs when I exuberantly push Madeleine on the swing and... she falls off! The tears. The pain. The guilt. The playground's mums are like meercats: heads pop up and point directly at me. Madeleine hams it up and is only placated with a hug and promise of ice cream. For shame.
In this photo, she counts her coins separating Euros, pounds and US. She knows the equation: money = candy.
This image is the cover-page passport of Heyman and Catharina, the parents of my French instructor and friend Suzette, who has been kind enough to share a copy with me and allow me to poste it here. Heyman and Catharina are Jewish and their documents date-stamped to expire January 7, 1941. It allowed the family to leave Antwerp for, eventually, Britain and the remainder of the war. The Benelux countries were invaded by the Nazis on May the 10th 1940 and Antwerp Jews shared the same fate as the other Jewish people in Nazi-occupied countries: many were transported to the concentration camps. The Nazis were frequently angered by the 'soft' attitude of the Belgians towards the 'Jewish Problem'. Indeed, a lot of Belgians managed to save Jewish children by hiding them in schools, monasteries, sometimes by 'adopting' them into their own families.
"PVC and steel" by Anish Kapoor was on display at the Tate Modern from October 2002 to April 2003 as part of the Unilever Series. Looking like a giant cochlear space-ship, the thing occupied the entirety of the museum's turbine hall or 200 meters by 35 meters. This image from a post card and photo taken by John Riddy.
Stan and Silver arrive today and Madeleine is up at the crack-of-dawn and full of anticipation. I note that this is the first time that she has seen the sun-rise, which she contemplates for a moment: "but I have seen the sun-set and that is like the same thing." Smart kid.
Madeleine with my presciption sunglasses.
People often confuse the names for this country, and frequently make mistakes in using them. United Kingdom, UK, and Britain are all proper terms for the entire nation, although the term Britain is also often used when talking about the island of Great Britain. The use of the term Great Britain to refer to the entire nation is now outdated; the term Great Britain, properly used, refers only to the island of Great Britain, which does not include Northern Ireland. The term England should never be used to describe Britain, because England is only one part of the island. It is always correct to call people from England, Scotland, or Wales British, although people from England may also properly be called English, people from Scotland Scottish, and people from Wales Welsh.
This year we get a new £20 banknote in pretty purple and Adam Smith to boot. I learn that the Bank of England has been issuing notes for 310 years and the first were security documents, handwritten, providing the bearer with evidence that they had a claim on the Bank. Only in the past 50 years has the design of the banknote attempted security. For instance, to prevent counterfeiting, Shakespeare became the first historical character to appear on a banknote in 1970. Other notables include George Stephenson, Charles Dickens, Michael Faraday, Elisabeth Fry, Charles Darwin, Sir Edward Elgar and Sr John Houblon (I know four). The banknotes have a contoured edge on its metallic thread and windowed metallic thread, an ultraviolet feature, a strip of holograms, micro-lettering and a "see-through" register that, when held up to light, produces coloured irregular shapes that combine to form the pound sterling symbol. In 2006 among £38B worth of notes, £8 million worth of counterfeits found, most of them twenties.
The kids take their hard earned dough to Woolworths to do some shopping (the next two weeks are school holiday). Eitan is forced to make a decision: to have ten pounds in his pocket or to not have ten pounds in his pocket. Of course he decides the former so Aggie has to coax him into buying something, which he does reluctantly purchasing a plastic torch, some papers and a crayon. Madeleine does not hesitate: Mr Potato Head is hers with £1 to spare. She has been in love with Potato for some time and simply glows having him and the Missus in her possession. This morning she shouts: "Come see! I've put the feet where his ears should go!" Today Aggie takes the kids horse-back riding in Richmond Park.
Sonnet and colleague Mark arrange New York Fashion Now for the 16 April opening. In all, cutting edge from 20 NYC designers will be on display and Sonnet has brought them together.
We end the Easter weekend with our friends Scott and Cindy Burns and Mike and Molly Beauregard for dinner then a late night drink at Claridges. Scott I know through Brown as he is a member of the Board of Trustees. Scott is also on the acquisition committee of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). Mike is a partner at Huron Capital, a private equity firm in Detroit and Molly is a professor of psychology. All of us at various stages of parenting or careers and it is fun to compare notes.
Angus MacNeil, 36, and the Scottish National Party's anti-sleaze champion and credited with blowing the whistle on the cash-for-honours affair now dogging Tony Blair was forced to issue a public apology Sunday after having a "drunken romp" with two teenagers. Otherwise Mr MacNeil is a sheep farmer in the the remote outer Hebrides. One of the un-phased girls Ms Morrison says: "We both kissed him and there was heavy petting. He was excited but we did not have full sex - we were all too drunk" saving, I might add, Mr MacNeil's political career if Washington DC is the standard. Morrison, and her female partner Ms. Watt, now study at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music in Glasgow. Ms Morrison's father is (of course) the daughter of a Church of Scotland minister who is one of the Queen's chaplains. What fun!
This being Easter and England, the country shuts down for a four day bank-holiday weekend to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. Amen. Our ambitions our a bit more modest and Sunday finds us at the Hampton outdoor pool for some fun-in-the-sun once the morning chill burns off. Madeleine spends no less than two hours in the H-2-O until I drag her out, fingers white and pruney. We sun-bathe and Eitan finds a couple of new friends to play make-shift footie. From here we go to Dana and Nathan's for an afternoon BBQ. Before the meat, Dana hides Easter Eggs in a private garden nearby her house in Primrose Hill and the kids go wild for it. We say our farewells to Mary and Amado who return to New York the next day. Eitan declares that Devon is his best friend.
Our good weather this weekend prompts a flurry of bets on a record-breaking summer. The book maker William Hill reacts by trimmming the odds of temperatures exceeding 100F in 2007 from 10-1 to 8-1. Further, Hill offers 12-1 that the higest record temperature of 103.5F will be beaten this year.
Having recently declared celery a "prohibited item" within their Stamford Bridge ground, last week Chelsea FC banned three supporters who were seen in possession of the vegatable at a recent FA Cup game against Spurs. Chelsea supporters, you see, have been singing a ditty about celery since the early 1980s when the club was so poor that the fans had to make their own entertainment. This disgruntled the ruling powers and hence the ban, which states: "The throwing of anything at a football match, including celery, is a criminal offense for which you can be arrested and end up with a criminal record. In future, if anyone is found attempting to bring celery into Stamford Bridge they could be refused entry and anyone caught throwing celery will face a ban." When queried, the Royal Society of the Prevention of Accidents notes "I do not think we can find any instances of people struck by vegetables at sporting fixtures."
Photo from the WWW.
It is reported today in the Herald Tribune that the British government will attach loud-speakers to the country's already ubiquitous CCTV cameras. If the idea of being blasted by an over-head bullhorn for dropping chewing gum were not so funny it would be sad. Or frightening. We Brits are the most photographed in the world with one camera per 14 citizens. In London, on average, I am snappped and stored over 300 times per day. Soon this data will connect to the Identity Card now fiercely debated in parliament. Add my medical history, credit scores and other personal data and presto - my private life ends. Young people battle this intrusion by going the other extreme exhibiting themselves on MySpace and other community websites. For them who live the Internet this is freedom.
Eitan and Madeleine are bored and push me to the end. Madeleine: "Are we there yet dad? Are we? Are we there yet dad? Dad! Are! We! There! Yet!" I receive dirty looks for nearby passengers and one who tells Madeleine to "pipe down" which gets an immediate negative reaction from me. I split the kids up. Bribe them with treats. Threaten them with no-TV. We are all relieved to pull into London Waterloo where another train ride to Richmond awaits us. "Aw dad, this is the longest trip of my life" says Madeleine.
Mary, Amado and Mia yesterday in Paris. Mary, Amado and I met at Columbia then trekked with Sonnet and classmates Holly and Marc to Morocco where we climbed the High Atlas. We reached the peak Jbel Toubkal which is 4,167 meters and the highest in the range and Africa's second highest after Kilimanjaro. On the way, we visited Fez, Marrakesh and romantic favorite Essaouira on the Atlantic coast. Since those high travels, Mary has pursued strategic consulting at Boston Consulting and Amado teaching at West Side schools. Before graduate school, Mary and Amado taught in the New York Public School System, which is how they met.
Maya is a joy and spreads cheer with her never-ending smile.
The Little Dudes re-unite at the mid-section of the Eiffel Tower following an unanticipated 2.5 hour weight in line. Not to worry though - the children play footie with a deck-shoe, climb the Eiffel Tower's concrete base, play with themselves and mostly avoid the grouchy adults. Mostly. Mary decides that the line is unfair as large groups receive priority over single payers: "this does not sit well with the entrepreneur in me" she says. It is a chilly morning which turns into a warm spring afternoon for our picnic in the nextdoor park. Afterwards we catch a merry-go-round and it is a perfect day.
I learn that maintenance of the tower includes applying 60 tons of three graded tones of paint every seven years to protect it from rust. On occasion, the color of the paint is changed — the tower is currently painted a shade of brownish-gray. However, the tower is actually painted three different colors in order to make it look the same color. The colors change from dark to light from top to bottom, but it looks the same because of the background (the sky being light and the ground being dark).
The kids and I cross the channel to visit Paris Monday and yesterday, where I took this photo of Madeleine (Sonnet stays in London to work on her exhibition). We stay in Montparnasse or the 14th arrondisement with the Marry and Amado and their crew who continue their European Family Holiday. Our room is cozy and requires a roll-out which Madeleine and Eitan fight over until the bed collapses missing Madeleine's foot by a fraction. Disaster deflected. We get an early start on the day at a crowded cafe with chocolate croissants, hot chocolate and chocolate crepes before visiting the Eiffel Tower.
Sonnet in the Daily Mail
2nd April 2007
SAY the words New York fashion and what springs to mind (for me anyway) is one big yawn. New York design is wearable and well-made, classic, a bit sporty. But exciting? Oh dear me no.
You need only glance at the assembled members of the American fashion press in the front row of the shows - all supersmooth blowdried hair, French manicures and kitten heels - to realise that while American women can do polished, they can't do funky.
The famous names in New York, from Calvin Klein to Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan, produce predictable clothes in various shades of taupe for women who like to look slick but safe.
For anything remotely innovative you have to go to London. For impeccable craftsmanship, Paris. And for high-end luxury labels, Milan.
But all these preconceptions are about to be overturned with an exhibition, New York Fashion Now, opening at the V&A museum in London next month.
The work of 20 young designers has been gathered together over the course of two years by the curator, Sonnet Stanfill, who, when I her for a sneak preview, told me that New York is enjoying a fashion moment not seen since London was swinging in the Sixties.
And the reason for this renaissance? The after-effects of 9/11.
'The terror attacks happened during New York Fashion Week,' she reminds me. 'It meant all the shows were cancelled and many young designers were hit hard. Everyone was thinking: 'Who needs fashion?' It seemed irrelevant and frivolous. But it was also the best time to start a business: the only way was up.'
New York designers have always risen to a challenge. For the first three decades of the 20th century, well-heeled women in America looked only to Paris. Two world wars changed that for good.
Unable to get hold of clothes from Europe, women had to look at home-grown designers, such as Geoffrey Beene (the first designer to appropriate men's tailoring for women), Clare Potter and Claire McCardell, who was among the first to dress women in slacks and unstructured, sporty clothes.
In the autumn of 2001, keen to shore up the economy, the press and fashion buyers were behind the new young designers who emerged out of the ashes and whose work we will be able to see next month.
Some names will already be familiar. There's Zac Posen, whose clever draping and supple fabrics are beloved by movie stars. Proenza Schouler, who designs luxurious, feminine sportswear. Behnaz Sarafpour, the Iranianborn designer who was inspired to start her business by the events of 2001 and has since become most famous for her miniskirts.
And finally Derek Lam, who has been hired to inject edge into the Italian luxury brand Tod's and is one of the very few designers to address the issue of very young, very thin models.
But while you may not be familiar with the rest of the names on show, rest assured many are bound to become the Marc Jacobs and Narciso Rodriguezes of the future. Surprisingly, there is even the occasional Alexander McQueen in the making, in a section entitled Avant Garde.
The names here include Slow And Steady Wins The Race, a label designed by a female designer who wishes to remain anonymous; Three As Four, whose designs, as well as being hung in art galleries can already be found in Barney's, the Manhattan equivalent of Harvey Nichols; and Miguel Adrover, a radical designer (his clothes were sometimes made to be worn inside out) who sadly went out of business in 2005.
Another even more surprising is entitled Atelier. New York fashion has never been about craftsmanship and bespoke tailoring, but there are a handful of designers who have made a name from intricate, beautifully made and hugely expensive clothes.
THERE'S Maggie Norris, who learned her trade at the coat-tails of Ralph Lauren and whose evening gowns can cost £25,000. For his label Lost Art, Jordan Betten makes intricate pieces in leather and suede by hand for celebrity clients including Lenny Kravitz and Britney Spears.
Korean-born designer Jean Yu, who opened for business only three months after 9/11, makes simple but sumptuous dresses; and finally Costello Tagliapietra, who tailors deceptively simple double-knit jersey or bias-cut satin dresses.
Menswear, too, will feature heavily, with new labels Thom Browne, which is all about retro tailoring and cropped trousers, Duckie Brown, which gives tailoring a slightly whimsical twist, John Varvatos, who has been known to send men down the runway wearing ponchos, shawls and carrying a handbag, and Cloak, a label (since closed; being an up and coming designer is nothing if not perilous) renowned for tough, masculine clothes.
And, of course, an exhibition on New York fashion wouldn't be complete without a section on designers who rely most heavily on celebrity endorsement. Here you will be able to see outfits by Zac Posen (Gwyneth Paltrow wore one of his dresses to this year's Oscars) and Sean 'Diddy' Combs, whose label Sean John is hugely successful in the U.S. because it is both affordable and cutting edge.
•NEW YORKFashion Now, sponsored by Ecco, is at the V&A from April 17 to September 23. Entry is free.
Dana and daughter Dakota on the Edgware Road in London Sunday evening. Dakota is one cute kid. When not full-time mom, Dana is a Managing Director in JP Morgan's private equity funds group. Dana, Mary and Sonnet each juggle time-commitments and parenting while maintaining their family-work balance. Not easy I observe and imagine but happily there is a support group of each other which does help it all along.
Mary and husband Amado and children Devon, Simon and Maya visit London from Friday to next Sunday. Eitan and Madeleine giddy by the prospect seeing their friends and their joining matches all expectations. We are also delighted to see our New York friends and spend the day kicking about London starting at the Tate Britain and ending at the Beirut Express for an early Lebanese dinner - family style. This photo of Sonnet, Mary and Dana taken next to the Millennium Bridge connecting the Tate Modern to the City.
Michael Phelps wins seven gold medals at the World Swimming Championships in Melbourne, tying Mark Spitz's '72 Olympic tally. Phelps would most likely have collected eight if not for the DQ of the US 4X100 medley relay in the preliminaries. Overall 15 world records were established of which 12 by Americans and four by Phelps excluding relays.
Madeleine tells me what she thinks. To be honest, I ask her (and Eitan) to pose so often that she has a canned-response and the sillier the better. I mis-time the neighborhood birthday party at the the lawn and tennis club giving us an hour outside and so here we are on the nearby common. We play tag and home-base and sample the early spring. Classmates Alex and Sue turn five.
Brit gals in the armed forces:
Eitan and I share a moment at the local ice cream parlor. His cone is mint chocolate-chip and chocolate-chocolate cake which, I am told by the proprietor and maker of the ice creams, is "by far" the favorite for the under-sevens crowd. Our Mano-a-Mano during a Madeleine birthday party and I use the time to get Eitan clipped at "the Turks", our local barbershop where one simply states a preferred razor number. Eitan is number three.
Peter Brookes is the British Press Awards Cartoonist of the Year and Political Cartoonist of the Year with a body of work puncturing the pomposity of politicians.
Photo from The Times
This photo from May 2003 has Eitan in the tub following his nightly routine: swim goggles and dinosaurs followed by a dry-off with his Spider Man towel then Spidey PJ's. And Spider Man bedtime story... and Spider Man bed-sheets, socks, comic books, socks and terry-cloth robe. And Spider Man slippers. Spider Man pillow cases. Spidey posters. Spider Man trainers. A Spider Man comforter. Underwear. T-Shirt. A Spider Man sweat-shirt. Spidey cartoons. Then, one day - it stops. The Boy's mind was done with the thing.
This rather serious and urban invitation is to the Sonnet's NY Fashion at the V&A. Tres cool.
I drop the kids off at school this morning and remain for a real treat: Springtime Assembly. The school children have been practicing their lyrics for songs including "Doe a deer, a female deer. Ray, a drop of Golden Sun..." and other seasonal classics. The school hall fills to capacity and media recorders fight for position above the head-line. As I sit in the front row, Eitan studiously avoids all eye-contact. Madeleine, on the other-hand, lights up when I look in her direction and waves away.
When I threaten the kids last night with the "nuclear option", ie, take the television to the dump, Eitan squarely rebuts: "Yeah, so, you watch more television than anyone. Dinner, weekend, sleeping!" Madeleine cries just thinking about it.
Three world records are set today in Australia: Natalie Coughlin (100m back stroke), Aaron Piersol (100m back stroke) and Michael Phelps (pictured). Phelps becomes the first swimmer under 1:44 in the 200 meter freestyle, touching in at 1:43.86 and robbing Ian Thorpe of his 2001 standard. I still follow this unusual sport from my youth - a memory water-logged from the hours spent in a pool at Berkeley, Walnut Creek and finally Brown. Swimming allowed me an exchange with Genevé Natation when I was 16 during the Olympic year 1984. I trained with Dano Halsell, who owned the World Record for the 50m freestyle, broken by Robin Leamy 24 hours later. My friend Etienne Dagon earned Switzerland's first swimming medal - a bronze - in the 200m breast stroke. Theo David was ranked seventh in the world in the 200m butterfly though did not make the Olympic finals. For a small non-swimming nation those were good times.
Photo by Rick Rickman.
Katie and I this Sunday kicking around NYC. Here we have a pedicure. From the West Side we walk to mid-town and Sean Jean's - also known as P Diddy's store. All the brothers who give us directions know exactly where it is. Sonnet is displaying designer Zak Posen in her upcoming collection "NY Fashion" and wants a Sean Jean baseball cap as Zak is Diddy's business partner. Inside the store there are lots of colorful styles vibrating to Diddy and other video rappers who rap. While I feel ultimately square in the coolest hip-hop style shop, it does not escape me that my fellow shoppers are, without exception, white.
Here I am on Madison Avenue at Rockefeller Center. Katie and I spend yesterday walking Manhattan and recovering (at least me) from a few cocktails and a late night capped by the re-run "Jerry Maguire" on late-night t.v. Behind me is 30 Rock -the centerpiece of Rockefeller Center at 70 floors and 266 meters. Once known as the RCA Tower, the building was renamed in the 1980s after GE re-acquired RCA which it helped found in 1919. The skyscraper is the headquarters of NBC and houses most of the network's New York studios, including the legendary Studio 8H, home of Saturday Night Live. The Rainbow Room is on the top floor. Unlike most Art Deco towers built in the 1930s, the GE Building was constructed as a slab with a flat roof, where the Center's observation deck, the Top of the Rock is located, which was first built in 1933. It spans from the 67-70th floors. On the 70th floor, reached by both stairs and elevator, there is a 20-foot wide viewing area, allowing visitors a unique 360-degree panoramic view of New York City. It's a good place to impress a date.
Photo of Katie taken at Kelly's wedding (Kelly can be seen at the left side of the photo). The two were friends at Harvard and now share New York City (Kelly always asks me: "JO how is your little sis?"). Today Katie chases down opportunities from the New York Times story of her including book agents, think tanks and foundations. After the wedding Katie, Todd and I head to the Mandarin Oriental for a late night drink and New York moment.
Todd and I re-union at Kelly wedding Saturday night at Barney's in New York, where the reception is held. Todd, Kelly and I worked together at The First Boston Corporation in the early 1990s and share war-stories that are re-spun whenever we are together or by email. Suffering in the Financial Institutions Group doing mergers and acquisitions our first job out of college was often "de-humanising" as Kelly would say. We faced grumpy bankers, 80+ hour work-weeks, unusual stress and little training. Hence the potential for high comedy and life-time bonding. Since FBC each of us has gone our interesting ways and Todd is a General Partner at the buy-out fund Thomas Lee Partners.
Christian Wright at his pad in San Francisco with the Bay Bridge and downtown behind him. Christian and I catch-up Friday night at our favorite restaurant Delfina's where he knows the waitresses who, it is fair to say, adore him. Between five courses and two wines we gossip about our childhood memories, England football, various Brit-bands and other equally important things. Christian's short hair is a surprise but the look is fresh and he is always styled to perfection. After dinner I crash at his place to catch an early next morning flight to New York and Kelly Flynn's wedding where Katie is my date.
"If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear a flower in your hair."
Scott Mckenzie
"Sock it to me."
Richard Nixon
In the UK, the total burden of drug misuse, in terms of health, social, and crime-related costs, has been estimated to be between £10 billion and £16 billion per year by the government. What is interesting is how each is classified from the most addictive/ damaging (class "A") to the least. Legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco are not classified. A new ranking system (pictured) proposed by a team of British scientists draws controversy as it places alcohol as more dangerous than the Class "A" drug ecstasy, which kills 10 people annually of the one half million regular users (most freaking to Moby). This is hard to argue when one includes drink-related road accidents.
Natalie and I re-union at the Mandarin Oriental in San Francisco
for breakfast. Otherwise, she lives in St. John's Wood with her husband and three healthy and happy children. She is in town advising her high-tech start-up company and today will be in Napa for an off-site. Rough life. From breakfast I head to 750 Battery and Industry Ventures to catch up with them generally and discuss secondary deals.
I'm in Paris for meetings tomorrow. It is windy and cold with a storm arriving tomorrow (snow in London? the cabby asks). This photo taken as the river winds by Place de la Concorde in the 8th arrondisement.
I learn that the average depth of the Seine at Paris is about eight metres. Until locks were installed to artificially raise the level in the 1800s, however, the river was much shallower within the city most of the time, and consisted only of a small channel of continuous flow bordered by sandy banks (visible in many illustrations of the period). Today depth is tightly controlled and the entire width of the river between the built-up banks on either side is normally filled with water. The average flow of the river is very low, only a few cubic metres per second, but much higher flows are possible during periods of heavy runoff. A very severe period of high water in January 1910 produced extensive flooding throughout the city. Until the 1930s, a towing system using a chain on the bed of the river existed to facilitate movement of barges upriver.
Madeleine outside the local toy store Friday. Aggie has the kids on a sugar-free diet but one can see that I am a sucker. The condition of Madeleine's treat is that she must chose a lolly for Eitan too.
Yesterday we discover the German braut-house Stein's on the river in Richmond - the food is legitimate and the owners krauts. We meet our neighborhood friends Rhonda and Ed and business school friends Thomas and Margret who share a three month old. The day is picnic-weather and we sit outside on the late winter sun while Eitan and Madeleine race up and down the river looking for lady bugs, which are out early this year. In the afternoon Madeleine helps me clean the car and Sonnet heads north to Primrose Hill for a farewell dinner to dear friend Rana Faroohar who moves to Park Slope, Brooklyn.
I pick Madeleine up from school for a date at Pizza Express. She, and the rest of her class, wear red noses in support of Red Nose Day. Red Nose Day is a UK-wide fundraising event organised by Comic Relief every two years which culminates in a night of comedy and documentary films. It is the biggest TV fundraising event in the UK calendar. On Red Nose Day everyone in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is encouraged to cast inhibitions aside, put on a Red Nose, and do something a bit silly to raise money - celebrities included. It is an event that unites the entire nation in trying to make a difference to the lives of thousands of individuals facing injustice or living in poverty.
This photograph of Richmond Park I took with my mobile while "power walking." At 0700 there is little disturbance other than the jogger or dog-walker. The park occupies 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) and is the largest Royal Park in London. It is home to around 650 free roaming deer which is quite a site the first time but then grows normal ("they're just DEER dad" Madeleine protests). The pastoral landscape of hills, woodlands, ponds, gardens and grasslands set amongst ancient trees offers a peaceful place for life's meditations. The Park is otherwise designated as a National Nature Reserve, a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Area of Conservation. Best of all, it is a seven minute walk from our house.
This groovy picture of the Stanfills taken in Boulder, Colorado, in 1969.
I have a sit down conversation with Eitan and Madeleine regarding garbage or, more specifically, how to make less of it. I ask for ideas and both hands shoot up: recycle! finish our plates! use both sides of the paper! Madeleine gets a star for the most creative: "if the mirror is broken, use bark to fix it."
Whatever other reasons may explain the lack of women’s voices on the nation’s op-ed pages, the lack of women asking to be there is clearly part of the problem. Many opinion page editors at major newspapers across the country say that 65 or 75 percent of unsolicited manuscripts, or more, come from men.
The obvious solution, at least to Catherine Orenstein, an author, activist and occasional op-ed page contributor herself, was to get more women to submit essays. To that end Ms. Orenstein has been training women at universities, foundations and corporations to write essays and get them published.
Uproars over the sparse numbers of women in newspapers, or on news programs, in magazines, and on best-seller lists regularly erupt every couple of years. A doozy occurred in 2005, after the liberal commentator Susan Estrich and Michael Kinsley, then editor of The Los Angeles Times’s opinion pages, got into a nasty scuffle over the lack of female columnists. That dustup is what motivated Ms. Orenstein to take her op-ed show on the road, which she has done with support from the Woodhull Institute, an ethics and leadership group for women.
“It’s a teachable form,” Ms. Orenstein said recently over coffee and eggs. “It’s not like writing Hemingway. You show people the basics of a good argument, what constitutes good evidence, what’s a news hook, what’s the etiquette of a pitch.”
Over the past 18 months several hundred women and men (though in fewer numbers) have taken the seminar, which can cost a group up to $5,000, Ms. Orenstein said (although she has also donated her services). She has not kept records, but said about two dozen former students have sent her clips of their published essays to say thank you. Suzanne Grossman at Woodhull didn’t have comprehensive statistics but said that the first pilot session for a dozen women at a Woodhull retreat produced 12 op-ed articles. (Some participants wrote more than one.)
“I try to convey the idea that there is a responsibility,” she said. “Op-ed pages are so enormously powerful. It’s one of the few places open to the public. Where else is someone like me going to get access? It’s not like I can call up the White House: ‘Hello?’ ”
About 30 women who also are not in the habit of calling up the White House gathered Monday evening for one of Ms. Orenstein’s seminars. Eighteen, mostly from nonprofit organizations, sat around a large conference table in Manhattan against a dazzling backdrop of New York City’s skyline at sunset, while a dozen or so listened in through a speaker phone in Washington.
They had been invited by SheSource, an online database of women experts, financed by the White House Project, a women’s leadership organization, Fenton Communications and the Women’s Funding Network.
Ms. Orenstein asked: Could every woman at the large rectangular table name one specific subject that she is an expert in and say why? The author of “Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale,” Ms. Orenstein began by saying, “Little Red Riding Hood” and writing the words in orange marker on an oversize white pad.
Of the next four women who spoke, three started with a qualification or apology. “I’m really too young to be an expert in anything,” said Caitlin Petre, 23.
“Let’s stop,” Ms. Orenstein said. “It happens in every single session I do with women, and it’s never happened with men.” Women tend to back away from “what we know and why we know it,” she said.
Next she asked the participants why they thought it important to write op-ed articles. Women shouted: “Change the world,” “shape public debate,” “offer a new perspective,” “influence public policy.”
“You are all such do-gooders,” Ms. Orenstein said laughing, “I love this.” She then proceeded to create another kind of list that included fame, money, offers of books, television series and jobs.
The Rev. Dr. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, an Episcopal priest and the executive director of Political Research Associates in Boston, frowned. “It’s not why I do it,” she said.
That, Ms. Orenstein declared, is a typically female response: “I never had a man say, ‘That’s not why I do it.’ ”
This photo taken in Richmond on the toe path. Not far West is the Teddington Lock, which is the limit of the tidal Thames but the three miles between Teddington and Richmond are only truly tidal for about two hours before and two hours after high tide. That is when the three separate vertical weir gates (one in each navigation arch) of Richmond Footbridge are raised. At all other times the weir gates are lowered into the water which means that there is always a minimum depth of 1.72 metres of water between Teddington and Richmond.
When the weir gates are lowered, three red discs (red lights at night) in a triangular shape are displayed under each arch to indicate that navigation through them is not possible. There is a lock that can be used when the gates are down. High tide at Richmond is about 1 hour after high water at London Bridge with low tide being between 3 and 3½ hours after low water at London Bridge.
"Hoist up sail while gale doth last. Tide and wind stay no man's pleasure."
Robert Southwell
