Madeleine And Katie

Katie ("The Intellectual") profiled in Delta Sky Magazine - pictured - with Catherine Hardwicke ("The Visionary"), the director of the Twilight series and most recently Red Riding Hood which opened in the UK last week.

We attend King Lear at the Richmond Theatre with Shai and Ada.

I ponder three disparate facts from the news:

- In the year to March 1, US corn stocks fell 15% while the global price of corn doubled over the same period (USDA)

- Nevada house prices have fallen 58% since their peak in April 2006 (S&P)

- Barclays' assets are 100% of UK gross domestic product (Barclays)

"A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?"

--King Lear

"Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest."

--The Fool

Oscar And The Aesthetes

I attend last night's opening party of the wonderful V&A exhibition "The Cult of Beauty, the Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900." The reception in the main entrance under the magnificent Chihuly chandelier, which is now a permanent fixture (previously on loan). The Great and the good ensemble drinking champagne flutes while nibbling hors d'oeuvres. We are escorted into the gallery and treated to romantic bohemians Dante Gabriel Rossetti, James Whistler and Frederic Leighton and G.F. Watts. Oscar Wilde surely has a part to play and so receives a commemorative (from the V&A gallery):

"Oscar Wilde, the Aesthetic Movement and Satire

"The figure of the Aesthete, with his super-subtle sensibility and passionate responses to poetry, pictures and interior decoration, had first appeared in the 1870s. Associated with "unhealthy" and possibly dangerous foreign ideas, he was greeted with suspicion by critics and public alike

"However, by the 1880s the long-haired, velvet-clad Aesthete had become the butt of more affectionate satire. Targeted with extraordinary precision, the Aesthetes were ridiculed for what Gilbert and Sullivan called their 'stained-glass attitudes', overly precious speech and enthusiasm for 'pale lilies', sunflowers, peacock feathers, blue-and-white chine and Japanese fans.

"Oscar Wilde, inventing himself asa the first celebrity style-guru, astutely adopted the role of the Aesthete and rose to prominence through lecturing on Aesthetic ideals. His name and appearance became synonymous with the movement to such an extent that his fall in 1895 discredited the Aestheticism for a generation."

Mercury And Barney

NASA's Messenger spacecraft began orbiting Mercury on March 17, and will remain here for another year or so taking photographs and measurements. The Messenger arrived at its final destination after a 6.5-year loop the loop through the inner solar system. A 15-minute engine burn slowed the spacecraft sufficiently for it to be captured by Mercury’s gravity. By design, the Messenger circles around the planet on a highly elliptical orbit, dipping down as close to 160 miles to Mercury’s surface and rising as far up as 9,300 miles.

Says mission chief scientist Sean Solomon: "Mercury has had an exposed surface for at least 3.5 to 4 billion years and some of those surfaces are extremely cratered to the point where there are so many craters they start to obscure one another."

My genius friend Barney, who sold his search company to Microsoft and now the chief architect for Bing local search, tells me he is"moonlighting" as co-founder and CTO of Moon Express which is building an autonomous robotic lunar lander to support exploration and resource development on the moon (Think: mining platinum from the asteroids that impacted the moon). The company is now 8 FTE and has contracts with NASA.

Since Barney's bio on the web, here is a relevant interesting paragraph paragraph on Barney:

"

From 1993-1998, Dr. Pell worked as a Principal Investigator and Senior Computer Scientist at NASA Ames, where he conducted advanced research and development of autonomous control software for NASA's deep space missions. Dr. Pell was the Architect for the Remote Agent and the Project Lead for the Executive component of the Remote Agent Experiment (RAX), the first intelligent executive to fly onboard and control a spacecraft (the Deep Space One mission). Remote Agent is widely considered one of the top achievements in the history of Artificial Intelligence and was awarded NASA's "software of the year" award in 1999. Dr. Pell was also Co-Lead for the Autonomy Integrated Product Development Team for NASA's New Millennium Program, responsible for planning and managing technology maturation and demonstration of autonomous systems technology for future use by NASA."

Marc; Eitan Does Whitney

This one of my favorite photos : Marc in Singapore. He is a wheeler dealer in advertising media and owns a small agency.

Eitan at the Rose Theatre in Kingston to sing with his and other borough quires. I fail to get a ticket in advance and so do what my mother would have done: sneak into the circle box for the final song. Good lessons BTW. A couple hundred kids on stage accompanied by a orchastra. It takes a couple moments to identify Eitan then I spot him in a middle row and get a timid wave then the peace sign, which he has seen me do on occasion. They sing Whitney Houston's "One Moment In Time" which Whitney performed at the Grammy's where it won an Emmy. The song for the '88 Seoul Olympic athletes and equally appropriate for the little tykes on stage.

Eitan Butterflies

My photo from the school borough swimming championships last week - Eitan (green cap) places sixth overall in the butterfly.

Meanwhile, Cal held off defending champion Texas 493-470 1/2 to win its first men's NCAA swimming championship in 31 years Saturday night. The Bears' Graeme Moore, Josh Daniels, Tom Shields and Nathan Adrian clinched the title by winning the 400-yard freestyle relay in 2 minutes, 47.39 seconds. Je-sus that is fast. Adrian also won a third straight 100 freestyle in 41.10 and was named the meet's top swimmer. Cal's women's team took their second NCAA swimming in three year the week before. Holy Catfish.

“It's kind of like a funnel. Meets are just stops along the way and everything funnels down to that goal.”

--Nort Thornton, Cal mens head swim coach, 1974-2007

"My goggles came off and I couldn't really see anything."

--Eitan

Wars And Depression (1914-1950

(From the FT) In common with the rest of the world Britain suffered severe dislocation during the two world wars and the intervening years. The unemployment rate rose to 15% during the Great Depression, but in many ways the early 1920s were even worse, with deflation exacerbating the postwar recession. An inflexible exchange rate caused problems of adjustment throughout the period and the 30% devaluation of sterling in 1949 finally underlined that Britain was no longer a dominant power. The return to a peacetime economy after demobilisation saw a populace determined not to repeat the experiences of the past 30 years.

Rana - Darya - Madeleine

Somewhere in the 7th arrondissement.

French fund Astorg Partners closes last week at €1 billion. Otherwise it is interesting times for the 1,600 or so buyout firms worldwide raising $600 billion when cash-strapped institutional investors have already spent much of their allocations for 2011. Industry insider Prequin notes that only 33% of institutions have money for pe funds. Yet partnerships that raised in '06-'07 face the opposite problem: they can't spend their money fast enough. Buyout businesses reluctant to invest in '08 and '09 due to the economy and reduced borrowing now sit on a record $958 billion cash - which they either have to sink or give back to LPs, along with the fees.

Sea Snake

Snails In Paris

Madeleine leaps into my arms following her week-end in Paris. Snails! Post cards! The Eiffel Tower! Room Service! Here is our darling woofing down a snail at Terminus du Nord.

Last night I go to Lisa's 40th surprise party which is anything but. Without Sonnet, I fend for myself. It brings back the best of the old days when the cocktail party schmooz-fest sooo much part of the Internet. I meet a bunch of husbands, backs against the wall, nursing spirits and I jump in .. about the dog. Somehow this more neutral than the kids. Paul runs the UK and European operations of some company he describes as "an enterprise cloud computing company that distributes business software on a subscription basis." And: "we are known for its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) products, like Salesforce.com." I have never understood CRM. Maybe Roger can explain it to me. Paul's company floated on NASDAQ in '07 and has a market cap of "two or three billion" - you know, give or take a couple hundred million. He joined after the IPO which may explain his detail. Ah, the go-go years still alive for some.

Eitan sings: "Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don't. Almond Joy has nuts, Mounds don't."

Life Is Good

After the races we head to Bellini's, the neighborhood pizza joint. Madeleine reports from Paris that she has enjoyed "snails in butter and oysters."

Crystal Palace

Eitan and I are mano-a-mano as Sonnet and Madeleine in Paris to see Rana and her daughter Darya. Rana a London friend who lives in Brooklyn's Park Slope with her children; she worked for Newsweek (business editor) until poached by Time when Newsweek merged with The Beast in one of those weird new media meets old media deals.

So I have the boy and the dog. This morning we (me and the boy) head to the Crystal Palace National Sports Complex for the Surrey Swimming Championships. Eitan in two relays swimming freestyle and butterfly. The pool a proper 50-meters encased in concrete which must have been a marvel in '64, when it opened, but now dated. Soon the palace will be superseded by the new athletic complex for the 2012 games including a sw-e-et pool. Eitan tells me he's nervous before his race then looks at me suspicously when I suggest us middle-aged dads would kill to be on the pool deck, a part of the competition. This isn't really the encouragement he seeks.

Meanwhile the transmitting station above is (only) London's third tallest structure at 720 feet behind One Canada Sq (771) and Heron Tower (756); it was, indeed, the tallest when it went up in the '50s. Though hideously ugly without an ounce of the Eiffel Tower, the structure useful : it carries London regions of BBC One, BBC Two, ITV1 and Channel 4 in analogue, as well as all six digital terrestrial television multiplexes, with range of about 30 miles for DTT and 60 miles for analogue. The tower is also used for FM radio transmission of several local radio stations BBC London 94.9, XFM, Choice FM and Absolute Radio, as well as a low powered relay of the 4 BBC national FM services and Classic FM.

Notting Hill

I walk about Notting Hill before a late afternoon meeting at Electric. The sun is shining and this a lovely part of town where I have not been in maybe three years. We used to frequent this neighborhood following a stroll along Portobello Road from the flea markets on the Golborne Road side to the antiques in North Kensington. While the weekends draw crowds, it is otherwise a somewhat lazy, affluent, and fashionable part of London with attractive terraces of large Victorian townhouses (A Daily Telegraph article in 2004 used the phrase the 'Notting Hill Set' to refer the young Conservatives including David Cameron and George Osborne. It captured the idea perfectly). My friend tells me (with a twinkle) that he bought his house in '78 for 78 Grand and it is now worth around £8 million. This was not a certain bet given the IMF bailed out the UK in 78 and the Notting Hill race riots of '58. Notting Hill's fate sealed by Julia Roberts and her "Notting Hill" movie in '99. The consequences : Starbucks, Gourmet Burger Kitchen and American Apparel.

Nineteenth Century Pre-eminence (1850-1914)

(From the FT) Britain 160 years ago stood alone as the first industrial nation, with the highest output per head in the world. 1851 was perhaps the zenith - the Great Exhibition underlined the astonishing scientific and industrial innovation in the "workshop of the world", while the census of that year revealed that for the first time a major nation had most of its population living in cities and towns. Government involvement in the economy was essentially restricted to maintaining order at home and extending the empire abroad, with minimal social protection from the vagaries of the business cycle.

Painting by LS Lowry, "Canal and Factories"

The Brass And Liz Taylor

Madeleine performs and I dash home from Eitan's swimming gala (Late!) then across town (Traffic! Madeleine fidgets) arriving in a nick of time (Sonnet worried look; music teacher irritated !). Once seated, the brass plays Miles and we are treated to "Kind of Blue" including a wonderful trumpet solo by Madeleine, which she nails. The large dedicated audience cheers the kids - there are five or six ensembles covering various different instruments - and we stay until the very end including a synthesizer "display." All in the name of art and love.

Liz Taylor passes at 79 - the last of the Hollywood Greats from a bygone era. The kids have no idea. I recall a sunny morning at the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Blvd and Burt Reynolds lounging in the pool talking to three young bikinied women who, when given Burt's name, are like: "who is Burt Reynolds?" For all of us who have seen "Deliverance," which in 2008 selected for preservation in the US National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "Culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant," this comes as a blow. Worse for the actor.

Borough Finals

Eitan competes four events in the borough swimming finals following the trials two weeks ago. The gala opened to all local schools, state and independent ( US private), drawing maybe 600 kids. I see happy healthy faces at the finish line - no obesity here, which is fast becoming a problem with UK youngsters. Yesterday's 65 events cover years 4, 5 and six with finals in each discipline+relays. Eitan is sixth in the 33 meter butterfly (year 5) and second in the backstroke though I have never seen him actually train backstroke. Eitan's year-5 squad place second overall earning the boys a plaque - I overhear a referee: "you have done your school proud" she says. The Mall's year-six boys break the 4X33 meter freestyle relay record which has stood since 1983.

Aneta - Madeleine - Rusty

1965

Grace and Moe land in San Francisco following the Peace Corps and traveling around the world.

"I want a big career, a big man and a big life. You have to think big - that`s the only way to get it."

--Mia Farrow, 1965

200 PSI

I haven't held this much force since my painting days when I power-washed a house before the job. Back then we had a gas fueled machine that blasted 300 pounds per square inch and man, that could strip about any one's paint (often unwantedly). Oh how I recall hanging my bare ass off a soffit trying to hit some impossible spot on the third floor, live power lines everywhere and more likely than not, clinging to an aluminum ladder. If it had come to an end, it would have been quick. As for today, my rental just fine for the backyard stones which take seven hours to clean - six hours more than anticipated. The neighbors look at me curiously but walk quickly by when they see my half-crazed glare. Just any DIY Sunday.

Eitan completes the 200-meter freestyle in 2:38 at the Surrey Championships, "a personal record by ten seconds" he exclaims.

Eitan, over dinner: "I have to write one thing I learned about from the Roman visit."

Me: "What's that?"

Eitan: "The guy who came into our classroom dressed as a Roman. We have to say what we learned."

Me: "And?"

Eitan: "Well, I learned that there was a woman named Bouddica, who was a Celt, and when the Romans invaded Britain she got really angry and so she did horrible things to the Roman and Celts.

Me: "Why the Celts?"

Eitan: "Because she did not know they were Celts."

Me: "What did she do?"

Eitan: "She popped their eyeballs out. She peeled their skin off. And she slit them open and put burning coals in their stomach so that they burned from the inside."

Me: "Woa."

Sonnet: "They're teaching you that?"

Eitan: "The Roman guy was quite obsessed with the executing and stuff."

Sonnet:

And Here We Go Again

Madeleine adds it up.

"Today I authorized the armed forces of the United States to begin a limited action in Libya in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians. That action has now begun."

--President Barack Obama, from Brazil, March 18, 2011

“In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it.”

--Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, West Point, New York, February 25, 2011.

Bus

Eitan has a swimming gala so the morning logistics complicated. Sonnet up at 6:05AM to drive Madeleine to the pool then returns to get me and the boy, returning to the pool so she can pick up another swimmer then Guildford and me with Madeleine to bring her home on the bus, pictured. We take the the top of a double decker which, even to this day, thrills - look out, said the passenger, we're going to hit those tree branches. Busdriver don't care.

We visit Cafe Nero for a hot-chocolate and a chocolate muffin.

Last night Sonnet and I make an appearance at a school fundraiser themed "Robbie Williams" which means dancing and an open bar. The DJ plays Big Band a la Frank Sinatra - he's pretty good, too - while I watch Sonnet shimmy in front of me, high heels accentuating her curves. How lucky I am. Aneta remains with the kids and surprised - surprised! - when we walk in the door at 10:45PM. In her book, the evening just starting at this hour for Pete's sake and last weekend she tip toed upstairs, 6AM. If ever there was a reminder I am on the other side of youth it is her incredulous look: "you are home already?" she asks redundantly.