Richmond

After morning swimming, we meet Paul and Camilla and Lars and the twins for a walk in Richmond Park than lunch riverside in Richmond. It is a beautiful, spring-like day in London and the masses fill our borough with their cars - the good with the bad. Lars retired last month at the ripe old age of 37 having founded a hedge fund Holte Capital four years ago. He and his family will spend several months "in the largest RV I can get my hands on" touring the United States beginning in the Deep South - a trip I have yet to do - lucky bastard. Lars's wife Puk is in Copenhagen for Fashion Week so he is solo with Anna and Sophia - both mischievous and two steps ahead of us adults, who are usually pre-occupied with whatever until some near catastrophe ("Eitan! Get down from that roof!"). After lunch we take in the sun on Richmond Common while the kids eat gelato and Paul, Lars and I exchange real estate pornography. Just your typical lazy Sunday, Oh, God bless England.

This old photo of the Kingston Bridge not far from us today. There is evidence that a wooden bridge has existed at Kingston since the 13th century. Until a wooden bridge was built at Putney in 1729, Kingston Bridge was the only bridge on the Thames between London Bridge and Staines Bridge. This contributed greatly to Kingston's success as a medieval market town (today I shop Gap, John Lewis and &c.)

The first masonry bridge was built in 1828 of Portland stone at a charge of £26,800 - the first stone was laid in 1825 and opened for tranport ion 1828. It became free from tolls in 1870 ending 650 years of charges (!) Celebrations including a fireworks show were followed a few days later with the burning of the toll-gates on Hampton Green, as one does. The most recent work was finished in 2000 to allow bicycle lanes, larger pavements and a bus lane. Photo from the National Archive and shows the first tram crossing.

From Russia

Here is the author whistl'n dixie at the end of a week. I meet new friend Brad from North Carolina this morning at the Royal Academy to see the Russians - a wonderful collection of paintings from the late 19th century to the mid 20th. The exhibit explores the interaction between Russian and French art during a period of profound social upheaval and political revolution, the program tells us. Works include many of the great pioneers of modern art from Realism and Impressionism to the abstract movements of Suprematism and Constructivism: Renoir, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Matisse together with Kandinsky, Tatlin and Malevich. The paintings are from four Russian Museums and opens with "Tolstoy In Bare Feet." Fantastic. The show almost did not arrive thanks to tense Russia-UK relations - Moscow demanded protection from descendants of former owners who have attempted to have the works impounded in recent past. In the end, the Ruskies are satisfied somehow and below is Matisse's The Dance, a centre piece of the show (image from the Matisse Archives):

Football UK

I and the kids watch England versus Switzerland last night in a "friendly", which we win 2-1. Joe Cole, pictured, sets up Jermaine Jenas for the first strike: Cole's footwork was masterful. When not with England, he plays with Chelsea - Eitan has his football card which notes: "Joe started his career playing for West Ham from an early age. He now plays fpr Chelsea as a high class midfielder. He made his debut for England in May 2001 playing against Mexico. Joe looks to be set to play for England for many years to come." The card trades pretty well at the schoolyard cards market (Eitan tells me).

The kids eventually go to sleep around 10PM and this morning is a drag getting them out of bed. Sonnet does the school run and runs ten minutes late (Eitan threatens not to go until I drop The Fury Of God on him).

Pre Fab Comes To London

While visiting the Tate Modern Sunday, I note a strange thing going up on the concourse. I now know it is the Maison Tropicale, designed by French architect Jean Prouvee (d. 1984) and purchased by hotelier Andre Balasz - it now stands proud on the Thames's south side, pictured. Maison is one of three designed by Prouve in pursuit of a demountable and remountable house. Ours was made in France and shipped by air to the Congo in 1951. If only houses could be made in factories like cars, Prouvee thought, then assembled in days, sitting lightly on the ground until moved elsewhere. How perfect for our mobile and unencumbered youthful world. His vision influenced Norman Foster and Richard Rogers and while Prouvee's dream remains unfulfilled, it has been revived in recent times by IKEA. In this line,Sonnet and I visited Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye at Poissy-sur-Seine in France pre-kids. It was equally groovy.

6 !

Madeleine turns a year and receives morning presents: "this is the best birthday ever!" she exclaims with her new watch, stuffed toys (thank you, Stan and Silver, for the cat) and pop up and other books and toys (this before the sun cracks the horizon). She marches out the door with two sacks full of Kit Kats for her class room and Sonnet observes the loving attention she gets from Mrs Reynolds who is no doubt equally excited by 25 kids on chocolate.

The Democratic primary has reached London and last night celebrates at the Porchester Hall with flags &c. for those who participated with a view. I can only image the coverage in the US but here the Obama-Clinton battle has received some considerable attention - a friend asks me why I would ever want a British passport given the sheer entertainment of the American presidency.

The older the fiddler, the sweeter the tune.
English Proverb

Ballach

Here is Adam in Southern California where he moved recently and bought a surf board. Adam and I have a lot of history going back to the seventh grade at King Junior High School. He introduced me to the cool crowd, then dubbed "the Benchies" and we have remained friends ever since. In 1995 when I returned to New York for business school, Adam crimped a room before Sonnet joined me with her cat. With Christian, Blake (at Columbia Law) and down-town artist Sarah all transplaced from the Bay Area, drinking martinis or having dinner parties was never more stylish. Even better was Katie nearby becoming a writer.

Cleavage

Here's another one from the Tate Sunday - The Kids Investigate. I'm excited by Super Duper Tuesday, which is getting its fair share of press in the UK. The British are entranced by the Democratic front-runners: a black man or a woman. Anyone in doubt of the the Great American Experiment have only to tune in today and November. The thing that irritates me though are the silly interviews with voters - I mean, do I really need to know what Sally, 32 and working at TJ's, really thinks? Or Fred, a paralegal in Memphis, who offers this: "after six years (!) of Bush, we want a motherly figure to lead us." Now there is some insight shared across Britain. Of better interest, the Demo party has united in London and there is a Obama celebration this evening in Notting Hill, U.S. passport required. Our friend Eric, who we saw for dinner Saturday, is advising Barack regarding the economy - Eric is a partner at McKinsey. He is also involved with the Obama campaign here in London and he has invited me to meet Michelle Obama during her fund raising visits.

"You know, my faith is one that admits some doubt. "
Barack Obama

Doris Salced

A giant crack spreads across the turbine hall - the work of Doris Salcedo who is the eighth artist commissioned to produce work for the museum . Her piece, Shibboleth, is a 167-metre-long cleavage in the hall's floor that Salcedo says "represents borders, the experience of immigrants, the experience of segregation, the experience of racial hatred. It is the experience of a Third World person coming into the heart of Europe". More generally, the artist was born in 1958 and is a sculpture from Colombia. She lives in Bogotá and teaches at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Pretty damn cool and we and everybody are transfixed.

Tate Modern

We arrive on the river's south side and have pizza overlooking the Thames and Shakepeare's Globe theatre. From there, we make the short walk to the Tate Modern where Eitan and Madeleine run about with glee in the turbine chamber. I chase them between "homey" and we are all perspired following several hours of this. As we leave, Eitan disappears to our great distress - happily, a family takes him to the information counter where I find him following a frantic ten minutes. Everybody, including the the helpful guards, is tearful at the re-union and we recover over gellato on the way home. I'm happy to report that Eitan remembered to seek adult help and call home, so he was never completely out of touch- but what a stress for sure.

Lambeth Bridge

Pictured, the (relatively) new steel-arch bridge linking Lambeth Palace to Millbank and Westminster. Built to replace an earlier design by P W Barlow (which suffered from severe corrosion and considered unsafe) Lambeth Bridge features five spans, some pleasing decorative iron-work and obelisks at either end topped by pine cones known to be a symbol of hospitality from at least Roman times (note to the wise: these pine cones have often been mistaken for pineapples part of the from the fact that pinecones were once called "pine apples"). The bridge is repainted every several years and the most conspicuous colour in the bridge's current paint scheme is red, the same colour as the leather benches in the House of Lords. This is in contrast to Westminster Bridge which is predominantly green, the same colour as the benches in the House of Commons at the northern end of the Houses of Parliament. The current bridge opened as a four laner in 1932, shaved now to three including a buses-only. The London Eye is in the middle of my shot.

Tate To Tate

Yesterday, after a considerable amount of whinging and whining, I take the kids to the Britain to catch the Tate-To-Tate boat to the Modern. Missing our connection by an instant, we explore the Tate Britain and the kids see some modern art - their first exposure BTW. 

We study Francis Bacon and Madeleine notes that the painter "must be a very sad man, dad" (a series of his paintings portray Bacon's lover, who committed suicide). 

They otherwise have little time for the galleries and it is futile for me to read the captions for myself or them - they race around earning the Evil Eye from the elderly security guard. Francis Bacon I learn was an Irish figurative painter who died in 1992 - his effeminate nature enraged his father who may have horse whipped Francis from an early age, resulting in the often nightmarish or grotesque imagery in the painter's work. 

Bacon is most famous, perhaps, for his Wound for a Crucifix which was blasphemous in the 1930s. Other shocking works include warped figures with small mouthlike openings and sharp teeth which reminds me of leeches somehow.

"You see, painting has now become, or all art has now become completely a game, by which man distracts himself. What is fascinating actually is, that it's going to become much more difficult for the artist, because he must really deepen the game to become any good at all."
Francis Bacon

Salty Old Dog

On Moe's recommendation and at age 25, I read Churchill's six-volume history of WWII (Moe finished the tomb in a high school month, while it took me a year). It is remarkable both for its sweep and for its sense of personal involvement - it ultimately earned Churchill the Nobel Prize in 1953 and secured his legacy for the ages. Before jumping into Churchill whole-hog, I read William Manchester's classic The Last Lion trilogy: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932 and Alone, 1932-1940. Sadly, Manchester was unable to finish the final volume - when Churchill reclaimed his poll position and guided Britain and the Free World to its finest hour. Manchester died in 2004 with about 200 pages, too sick to write following a series of strokes and bereft from the loss of his wife in 1998. Sonnet and I have visited Churchill's war bunkers next to St James's Park and nearby Downing Street; we have also made the pilgrimage to Blenheim Palace where Churchill was born and Hitler wished to live should he have succeeded. In a recent poll by the BBC, Churchill was voted the most important Britain of all time beating out... yes, you know it.... Diana. Gag me with a spoon. Photo from the Churchill archives.

Lady Astor: "If you were my husband, I'd give you poison."
Churchill: "If you were my wife, I'd take it."

Ray In The NYT

Here is our very own hero Ray Horton pictured in today's New York Times - he is at the back left in the red scarf. The re-union brings 10 curators from New York and around the US plus one from London though not Sonnet - at least not yet. Written in the NYT, the group is the inaugural class of the Center for Curatorial Leadership, a fellowship program founded last year to address what many in the museum world see as a need for curators to become better business people. In part, the goal is that business people — or at least those with far more financial acumen than art training — do not end up running museums. And it is also to help the next generation of museum directors cope with the growing financial pressures on art institutions as they compete for visitors with one another and with the pop-culture industry. The announcement is well timed given the problems facing Los Angeles museum community regarding ethical lapses regarding their collection sourcing. Ray is professor at Columbia Business School with whom Sonnet, Katie and I travelled Pakistan and Western China. I took his Modern Political Economy course, which was a favorite with me and many of my MBA classmates.

Guitar

Madeleine this morning at the school-drop. She's loaded down with bags and things, and the guitar has begun in earnest with evening practice (I goad them to play "Stairway To Heaven." Note to Moe: this is a famous rock and roll song by Led Zeppelin). It is a good morning and I help Mrs Reynolds in the classroom with administrative work - you know, cutting and pasting plus a little filing. Fun stuff, which allows me to participate in the classroom antics from the sideline. I remember visiting Grace's Montessori school in the '70s and how much fun it was to run around with the squeakers (me being the Big Kid, age 11+). The Montessori was in an Oakland Church and Grace converted the teaching area into a thing of wonder including a outdoor recreational with constructions using old navy piers and other timbers. The vision was hers alone and the kids were loved and worked out.

Otherwise afoot at the school, Music Week begins February 4th including a Jazz Concert, a Baroque to Rock presentation and numerous singing events - all open for the parents on different days. Stay tuned.

When the music changes, so does the dance.
African proverb

Yaqub

Yaqub Shaw

A Pakistani driver brings me home from the airport and we get to talking. He has four children from teen to six months and has lived in Sussex since age five with the exclusion of several years when he returned to Pakistan to study religion and engineering. He's otherwise 42 or 43 I would guess. We discuss being Muslim in the UK, and he says he is British first - "we all are." He says without question England is the most accepting place in Europe and the least concerned about his religious beliefs: "It is the best place by far." On radicalism and young people, he says the young are easily brain-washed and have nothing else but anger, which they do not understand. "I just want to live my life. I am too old to be angry." 

In the summer of '97 Sonnet, Katie and some friends with Columbia Professor Ray Horten traveled the 1500 kilometer Karakorum Highway connecting Pakistan and China a the Khunjerab pass or 17,500 feet. The road descends into the Taklamaken desert at the base of the T'ien Shan mountains. It was hard to do this trip then, and probably impossible now. My photo of Yaqub Shaw, who provided our security - Yaqub is a retired Lt Colonel in the Army and otherwise presents a menacing, emotionless presence which was used on several occasions beyond Rawalpandi where not a Westerner can be seen. Yaqub owns the Sky Bridge Inn in Sust, the last small village on the KKH before China. It is surrounded by sky touching and jagged mountains. He is proud of his property no doubt, and on this evening we light a bonfire on the roof and a friend plays the flute and chants long ago tribal songs which bounce off mountain walls and back to us.

Transpo

Here's another one from this weekend at the Transportation Museum. The lighting represents the London Underground's famous tube map. Very clever. The kids love the up-ramp, where they dash and slide until I holler: "Enough!"

A survey by the Office for National Statistics gives us this data on Britain's consumption, as percentage of weekly expenditure after mortgage or rent:

Fags: 5.6%
Fruit and Veg: 4.5%
Meals out: 3.1%
Alcohol: 2.9%
Bus fares: 2.2%
Biscuits and cakes, 2.0%

That was 1957. And in 2006?

Petrol: 4.0%
Council tax: 3.8%
Meals out: 2.8%
Alcohol: 2.5%
Fruit and Veg: 1.4%
Cigs: 0.9%

Of course, today the British make considerably more money so the significance of petrol, cigarettes and alcohol is understated in the recent data.

'90

Here is Katie with her fabulous crew from Harvard. The East Coast re-union includes almost all her freshmen year roommates or suite mates: Sharon, Steph, Joanna, Rachel, Laura, Gif, Kristin, Mary and me. Plus some random kids thrown into the mix. How interesting to think that I first met this crowd in the fall of 1986 on a college Road Trip with Steve Tapper and Roger Murff. If I dare recall, there was a lot of drinking and cavorting which remains lodged in my memory bank (for the record: we maintained our purity much to my present regret. I mean - why not?). In 1997, Katie, Joanna, Sharon and I travelled the Karakorum Highway connecting Pakistan and China.

Madeleine is doing a good job with Kuman, her maths program that she follows outside the classroom. The daily assignments build confidence and progress at her pace - Madeleine does her homework without cajoling and enjoys it. Today, she traces numbers from top-to-bottom and counts their corresponding objects.

Quattro Torri

Driving home this evening I pull off the A4 in Chelsea to take this photograph of the Battersea Power Station. Planes buzz across the sky to Heathrow leaving their jet tail. The kids remain in the car sleeping; afterwards we return home listening to The Kooks. Sonnet and Rana greet us at arrival - Rana is on her way home from Davos where she has been covering events as Economics Editor for Newsweek. Rana is a dear London friend who moved to Brooklyn's Park Slope last year, so Sonnet is thrilled to see her. On Davos and given the equities melt-down last week, the reunion of the world's economist, politicians and bankers is significant. Rana hangs out with the Good and the Great and is full of interesting stories to pass along to us plebians. The kids weasel some more T.V. and now sit transfixed in front of "Ben 10".

Covent Garden

Here we are looking serious at the Transport Museum in Covent Garden. I learn interesting factoids like the Underground has 276 stations and runs over 243 miles (408 km) of line, making it the longest underground railway in the world, and one of the most served in terms of stations. There are also numerous closed stations. In 2005 971 million passengers used the Underground and for the first time ever in 2007, over one billion passengers were recorded. Today, just over 3 million passengers use the Underground each day, with an average of 3.4 million passengers on weekdays. Swedes Håkan Wolgé and Lars Andersson set the Guinness Book of World Records for visiting each node in 18 hours, 25 minutes and 3 seconds in 2005. It is also a well known fact that the rate of train stoppage is directly correlated to the urgency of your trip.

Eitan enthusiastically relays that in 1890 horses dropped 1,000 tons of poo onto the city streets each day.

Madeleine to Sonnet: "You know, Eitan wants a pet more than he wants you."

Madeleine on growing up: "I want to be a swim-racer. I want to be a book writer. I want to a deep sea diver. I want to be a taxi driver." (she breaks into song)

Ketchup

I take the kids to Covent Garden so Sonnet can have the afternoon to herself. We park off The Strand and walk to Burger Heaven for - yes - burgers. And chips. Eitan follows his strategy of eating his least favorite first than the main event: in this case, the french fries before the hamburger. We discuss transportation as we are heading for the Transport Museum, which opened last year following a two year upgrade. On transportation, the kids belt out: "Subway! Plane! Car. Boat. A horse (Eitan) A snail! (Madeleine). We also discuss what goes on a hamburger and Eitan confides that he hates mayonnaise but loves ketchup, which he spreads everywhere until I stop him. If its green, Madeleine won't touch it.

Madeleine sees two boys on a doorstep: "Look Eitan - orphans!"