Off to Paris at noon on nEUROstar, booked through Elgar (booking system).
Back - grudgingly - on Monday.
Counting the days until October 30, time of the permanent move from London.
Friday, 19 August 2011
Saturday, 13 August 2011
OMG!
OMG!!
We've been called "posh" this morning in Holland Park!
Get in!
Surely a sign it's time to leave England for higher ground...
Current Music: YACHT – Dystopia
We've been called "posh" this morning in Holland Park!
Get in!
Surely a sign it's time to leave England for higher ground...
Current Music: YACHT – Dystopia
Saturday, 6 August 2011
London Weekend
Togetherness in London Town -
so little time, so much to do... when you're happy
Current Music (Spotify enabled): YACHT – Tripped And Fell In Love
so little time, so much to do... when you're happy
Current Music (Spotify enabled): YACHT – Tripped And Fell In Love
Saturday, 23 July 2011
R.I.P. Amy Winehouse
Sometimes the truly gifted are fuelled with an energy that
burns twice as bright, but only half as long.
Friday, 22 July 2011
Monday, 27 June 2011
How Sweet It Is (to leave England behind)
It was a relatively nice weekend: Saturday was spent on the South Bank for a proper Spanish festival and half the night on board of the Hispaniola, rounding out a day fully in the realms of Latina culture.
Sunday, with the ominous weather forecast warning of a scorcher day (88F and 90% humidity), we fled from the city at 6am, heading for Brighton. Once there we boarded a friend's sailing yacht and spent a glorious day on the open sea, at times even out of sight of drab Angleterre. When we got home around 9pm, foresight paid off: I let the AC humming away all day to return to a nicely cooled home, in contrast to the sultry humidity outside.
- - -
FAST FORWARD:
It's vacation time, starting tomorrow. We'll hop on the Eurostar to Paris, and travel down south to Villefranche-sur-Mer, where the big day - OUR big day - will be on Sunday. We heard from Emily's parents that guests are already flocking in, making a mini-vacation out of the event.
On Monday we board a plane to Rome and on to Cape Town. The excitement builds, the travel plans there all set in stone, to show Emily the lure of Africa. Beautiful days ahead in the African winter, when the morning greets us with 40F and shrouds of fog, only to burn off by noon and revealing SA's undiluted beauty in bright sunshine and pleasant temp's. Fuck England, eh?
Back around July 17th...
Sunday, with the ominous weather forecast warning of a scorcher day (88F and 90% humidity), we fled from the city at 6am, heading for Brighton. Once there we boarded a friend's sailing yacht and spent a glorious day on the open sea, at times even out of sight of drab Angleterre. When we got home around 9pm, foresight paid off: I let the AC humming away all day to return to a nicely cooled home, in contrast to the sultry humidity outside.
- - -
FAST FORWARD:
It's vacation time, starting tomorrow. We'll hop on the Eurostar to Paris, and travel down south to Villefranche-sur-Mer, where the big day - OUR big day - will be on Sunday. We heard from Emily's parents that guests are already flocking in, making a mini-vacation out of the event.
On Monday we board a plane to Rome and on to Cape Town. The excitement builds, the travel plans there all set in stone, to show Emily the lure of Africa. Beautiful days ahead in the African winter, when the morning greets us with 40F and shrouds of fog, only to burn off by noon and revealing SA's undiluted beauty in bright sunshine and pleasant temp's. Fuck England, eh?
Back around July 17th...
Saturday, 25 June 2011
(London) Weekend
We're at this festivity from 2-4pm:
RIOJA TAPAS FANTASTICAS
A spectacular variety of red, white and rose wines from some of Rioja's most famous vineyards will be at Potters Field Park (South Bank) to taste while we make make our way around the wine and tapas stalls. And we'll savour a selection of tapas from London's finest Spanish restaurants who will recreate the famous tapas streets of the Rioja region where you can go from bar to bar sampling a speciality dish and glass of delicious local wine in each. Plenty of entertainment – live Spanish music, cookery demonstrations, wine tasting workshops and wine walks and an unforgettable eating and drinking experience.
Evening/night plans are in flux, depending... ahem... how illuminating the mini-España turns out...
Evening/night plans are in flux, depending... ahem... how illuminating the mini-España turns out...
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Friday, 17 June 2011
Let Greece Go Under!
Eurozone better off without Greece
A Plea Against a Bail-out
I am only peripherally involved in the deliberations over a possible bail-out of bankrupt Greece, yet in the eye of the hurricane regardless. As part of a team of experts in the OECD delegation, and soon to be permanently residing in Paris, I am a known hawk, supporting the idea to let Portugal, Greece, Ireland and Belgium go under, force them to declare bankruptcy and be kicked out of the eurozone immediately. With its sovereign debt rated already on the level of Somali, Comoros Islands and Chad, Greece must not be bailed out by anyone else but France and Germany - providing their taxpayers embrace Sarkozy's and Merkel's fantasist plans. The bail-out of Greece would cost about $400 Billion, a sum only the Paris-Berlin axis powers should shoulder.
After all the papering over, the fudging and the hopes that defied experience comes the day of reckoning. Just over a year ago Greece was bailed out with a fund of 170bn dollar. Paris & Berlin were enthusiastic and content that the amount would suffice. It did not, by a long shot.
The country's problems were adjudged to be ones of illiquidity. They were not. Greece was, and is, insolvent. All that has happened since is that Greece's debt burden has risen. There was a slight reduction in the budget deficit but targets were missed. In the meantime the economy - apart from the tourist industry - has gone into freefall. The austerity prescription has not worked. Since the bail-out, 400,000 have joined the unemployment lines.
A year on it is impossible to disguise the reality of the crisis. The tensions are tearing away at the fabric of Greek society and at the foundations of the European Union. President Sarkozy, dubbed a miniature Napoleon by the media, betrayed the tension when he said: "Without the euro there is no Europe and without Europe there is no possible peace and security." Can't get more idiotic and absurd than that!
In raising the stakes to make this a crisis about peace in Europe he is trying to frighten European leaders. The French president's fear is almost certainly exaggerated, definitely delusional. There is no threat to security!
The euro would survive - even strengthen - the exit of Greece; the European Union existed before the euro and no doubt would survive a contraction the euro-zone. Would there have to be a re-think about where the EU was heading? You bet, but many would welcome that anyway.
The likely proposition will involve a bail-out mark 2. More austerity will be imposed with the hope that somewhere down the road Greece finds the growth to reduce its debt burden. But, as I have written before, almost no economist believes it is possible, which does not prevent the rampantly madmen of the eurozone, from a daft EU commissioner down to the PM of pea-size Luxembourg to believe that hell is about to freeze over.
Even if Greece were to deliver on its proposed privatizations, even if it were to discover growth of 3% (currently -5%), even if there was to be a voluntary restructuring by private investors, even if the government were to deliver on savings, it would only dent the $465 Billion debt mountain.
So a default will be postponed now but will be back on the agenda later; a replay of the past 12 months. In the meantime private investors will shun Greek bonds, leading to interest rates for new debt 15%.
When (not if) the default comes, it will be European governments and their taxpayers who will take the hit.
A Plea Against a Bail-out
I am only peripherally involved in the deliberations over a possible bail-out of bankrupt Greece, yet in the eye of the hurricane regardless. As part of a team of experts in the OECD delegation, and soon to be permanently residing in Paris, I am a known hawk, supporting the idea to let Portugal, Greece, Ireland and Belgium go under, force them to declare bankruptcy and be kicked out of the eurozone immediately. With its sovereign debt rated already on the level of Somali, Comoros Islands and Chad, Greece must not be bailed out by anyone else but France and Germany - providing their taxpayers embrace Sarkozy's and Merkel's fantasist plans. The bail-out of Greece would cost about $400 Billion, a sum only the Paris-Berlin axis powers should shoulder.
After all the papering over, the fudging and the hopes that defied experience comes the day of reckoning. Just over a year ago Greece was bailed out with a fund of 170bn dollar. Paris & Berlin were enthusiastic and content that the amount would suffice. It did not, by a long shot.
The country's problems were adjudged to be ones of illiquidity. They were not. Greece was, and is, insolvent. All that has happened since is that Greece's debt burden has risen. There was a slight reduction in the budget deficit but targets were missed. In the meantime the economy - apart from the tourist industry - has gone into freefall. The austerity prescription has not worked. Since the bail-out, 400,000 have joined the unemployment lines.
A year on it is impossible to disguise the reality of the crisis. The tensions are tearing away at the fabric of Greek society and at the foundations of the European Union. President Sarkozy, dubbed a miniature Napoleon by the media, betrayed the tension when he said: "Without the euro there is no Europe and without Europe there is no possible peace and security." Can't get more idiotic and absurd than that!
In raising the stakes to make this a crisis about peace in Europe he is trying to frighten European leaders. The French president's fear is almost certainly exaggerated, definitely delusional. There is no threat to security!
The euro would survive - even strengthen - the exit of Greece; the European Union existed before the euro and no doubt would survive a contraction the euro-zone. Would there have to be a re-think about where the EU was heading? You bet, but many would welcome that anyway.
The likely proposition will involve a bail-out mark 2. More austerity will be imposed with the hope that somewhere down the road Greece finds the growth to reduce its debt burden. But, as I have written before, almost no economist believes it is possible, which does not prevent the rampantly madmen of the eurozone, from a daft EU commissioner down to the PM of pea-size Luxembourg to believe that hell is about to freeze over.
Even if Greece were to deliver on its proposed privatizations, even if it were to discover growth of 3% (currently -5%), even if there was to be a voluntary restructuring by private investors, even if the government were to deliver on savings, it would only dent the $465 Billion debt mountain.
So a default will be postponed now but will be back on the agenda later; a replay of the past 12 months. In the meantime private investors will shun Greek bonds, leading to interest rates for new debt 15%.
When (not if) the default comes, it will be European governments and their taxpayers who will take the hit.
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
FACEBOOK FACES MASS DESERTIONS
The anti-social platform Facebook has reached its pinnacle and is on a steep decline. Last month nearly 6mn Americans were driven away from FB, and its spying intrusions into the lives of its members, often in clandestine and deliberate circumvention of privacy laws. The drop of membership, also spectacular in countries like Norway, Russia and Britain, will put a damper on FB plans for an IPO, cutting the expected profit of FB by more than $2.2 billion. Good news for users, if FB faces the endgame soon.
Already, to admit FB membership has evolved into an act of humiliatio, self-flagellation and embarrassment, as FB has mainly become the favourite platform of geeks, nerds, welfare recipients and criminals on the prowl. Educated and economically savvy users are deserting the site in throngs, leaving behind a low-class group of aimless and purposeless insomniacs and heavily sedated or otherwise drugged rodents with an attention span that can be measured only in nanoseconds.
Gallery of typical FB users (who also happen to be AOL members):
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Friday, 10 June 2011
Sunday, 5 June 2011
Saturday, 4 June 2011
(London) Weekend
Things are moving along splendidly: recovered from one-day nightmare in Edinburgh (what a friggin' dump that!); frolicked during lunch breaks in the sun (naturally it's gone as the weekend approached), had fun with BJ and the crew last night - outdoors, in 25 degrees! - and enjoyed tremendously the event and concert at Elgar's birthplace on the 2nd. 't was brilliant!!
Emily returns to Paris tomorrow, and things will quickly heat up then. All plans are iron-cast, the guest invites mailed (and in some cases hand delivered) and the stage set for July 2. The countdown to turn my back on this 3rd World reservation mockingly called Great Britain has commenced.
Emily returns to Paris tomorrow, and things will quickly heat up then. All plans are iron-cast, the guest invites mailed (and in some cases hand delivered) and the stage set for July 2. The countdown to turn my back on this 3rd World reservation mockingly called Great Britain has commenced.
Saturday, 28 May 2011
Weekend
Envying HER for "being stuck" near Nice, while I'm lingering for the Memorial Day weekend in decisively less Nice London.
Reluctantly I follow her recommendation and will spend Sunday with (French) friends in Edinburgh. It is well known that I despise and hate, hate, hate Scotland and the tribes up there, Europe's most deranged and ridiculed fuckwits allowed to fornicate under the Animal Rights Act. I shall subjugate myself to the hands and cuisine of the French couple who live and work for the EU liaison office up there. Scotland and the Soviet EUnion - what a match!
Tonight I was supposed to see Melissa Auf Der Maur, but gave the ticket away this morning; I can't be arsed, I need rest after this week. Monday is also chilling-out day; the shortened week will be hi-lighted on Friday, taking my familiar seat on the Eurostar, Paris-bound. So fed up with England I don't even know where to start. Come November 2nd, come quickly!
Discovered a cool band I dig: Marina and the Diamonds (CD "The Family Jewels")... check them out!
Current Music: MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS - I Am Not A Robot
Reluctantly I follow her recommendation and will spend Sunday with (French) friends in Edinburgh. It is well known that I despise and hate, hate, hate Scotland and the tribes up there, Europe's most deranged and ridiculed fuckwits allowed to fornicate under the Animal Rights Act. I shall subjugate myself to the hands and cuisine of the French couple who live and work for the EU liaison office up there. Scotland and the Soviet EUnion - what a match!
Tonight I was supposed to see Melissa Auf Der Maur, but gave the ticket away this morning; I can't be arsed, I need rest after this week. Monday is also chilling-out day; the shortened week will be hi-lighted on Friday, taking my familiar seat on the Eurostar, Paris-bound. So fed up with England I don't even know where to start. Come November 2nd, come quickly!
Discovered a cool band I dig: Marina and the Diamonds (CD "The Family Jewels")... check them out!
Current Music: MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS - I Am Not A Robot
Saturday, 21 May 2011
(London) Weekend
Emily spends a long weekend (Fri-Tue) in Villefranche-sur-mer with sis, and making preparations for the life-changing Big Event July 2+3. So, while connected through MSN, phone, text and/or mail (mostly for getting reassurance of various details and items surrounding the Big Event that they have arranged for), I will have one of the last weekends reserved to myself.
This afternoon I will be with friends in Regent's Park - weather with its typical British caprioles and trademark unpredictability, naturelement. I'm getting so sick of Britons and their weather that I ache already for the day when our occasional weekend trips from Paris will become rare, and we instead will seek out places such as Brussels, Lyon, Geneva or Nice.
Ahead of July we have lined up (and got tickets for) a few more events, which include Marianne Faithfull, Sons & Daughters, Melissa auf der Maur and - a true gem - Elgar's birthplace in Worcestershire on June 2, included a concert of Chinese pianist Di Xao for the master's birthday celebration. June 18th we'll be in the Barbican for a performance of the Pina Bausch modern ballet performance. Seen them years ago in NY (SUNY, Westchester Co.), and they've only gotten better, I am told.
Signing off for the weekend,
This afternoon I will be with friends in Regent's Park - weather with its typical British caprioles and trademark unpredictability, naturelement. I'm getting so sick of Britons and their weather that I ache already for the day when our occasional weekend trips from Paris will become rare, and we instead will seek out places such as Brussels, Lyon, Geneva or Nice.
Ahead of July we have lined up (and got tickets for) a few more events, which include Marianne Faithfull, Sons & Daughters, Melissa auf der Maur and - a true gem - Elgar's birthplace in Worcestershire on June 2, included a concert of Chinese pianist Di Xao for the master's birthday celebration. June 18th we'll be in the Barbican for a performance of the Pina Bausch modern ballet performance. Seen them years ago in NY (SUNY, Westchester Co.), and they've only gotten better, I am told.
Signing off for the weekend,
Monday, 16 May 2011
IMF Boss Nabbed and Charged in NYC
I am gobsmacked over the arrest of IMF President Strauss-Kahn, also a Socialist candidate for the French presidency next year. While I applaud the quick action by NY police on a complaint of sexual assault against him - regardless of the person involved - , which allegedly had taken place earlier in the day in a midtown hotel, I am in disbelief that the 62-year old actually attacked a hotel chamber maid. It would be so insane that I rather smell a rat: a set-up, instigated and concocted in Paris.
We shall see. But for now I find the action, to drag Strauss-Kahn from an Air France plane in handcuffs and whisk him into a Manhattan police cell rather excessive. He was subjected to a microscopic search of his body, which he consented to, and his clothes were checked for DNA evidence. Apparently he left his $3,000 Sofitel suite in a haste, forgetting personal items in the hotel room, among them his mobile phone. It was his phone call to the Sofitel's front desk asking about his cell phone that tipped off NYC police of his whereabouts: in a 1st class seat of an Air France jet about to take off at JFK.
If proved guilty, Mr Strauss-Kahn deserves no sympathy; but for now the incredible accusation of attempted rape sounds just too difficult to believe.
Current Music: THE WHITE STRIPES - I Smell A Rat
We shall see. But for now I find the action, to drag Strauss-Kahn from an Air France plane in handcuffs and whisk him into a Manhattan police cell rather excessive. He was subjected to a microscopic search of his body, which he consented to, and his clothes were checked for DNA evidence. Apparently he left his $3,000 Sofitel suite in a haste, forgetting personal items in the hotel room, among them his mobile phone. It was his phone call to the Sofitel's front desk asking about his cell phone that tipped off NYC police of his whereabouts: in a 1st class seat of an Air France jet about to take off at JFK.
If proved guilty, Mr Strauss-Kahn deserves no sympathy; but for now the incredible accusation of attempted rape sounds just too difficult to believe.
Current Music: THE WHITE STRIPES - I Smell A Rat
Saturday, 14 May 2011
(London) Weekend + some sad shite
We'll be off to Somerset House (Ai Wei Wei), the Tate (more Wei Wei), The Barbican and finally the Trader Vic's (food, drinks and music and company) today. Interrupted by a Starbucks Happy Hour because we love their Frappuccino and it's half price. Not that we want to be thrifty, but to drink twice as many as usual.
We will miss this atrocity against culture and good taste: the Eurovision "Song" Contest.
I just don't get it: in a frenzy of self-flagellation and masochism, Europeans will watch the Eurovision tonight, a pathetic and shitty event that - despite its redundancy - still puts the EU to shame! For, the Eurovision allows people more democratic rights than the EU and the eurozone. (Elected) European leaders and (unelected) commissioners & their underlings, must feel shame and embarrassment that the world's shittiest entitity, the Eurovision fan community - exercises more profoundly civil rights than citizens of the EU will ever enjoy. Sad shit, that!
Current Music: LAND OF TALK - Summer Special
We will miss this atrocity against culture and good taste: the Eurovision "Song" Contest.
I just don't get it: in a frenzy of self-flagellation and masochism, Europeans will watch the Eurovision tonight, a pathetic and shitty event that - despite its redundancy - still puts the EU to shame! For, the Eurovision allows people more democratic rights than the EU and the eurozone. (Elected) European leaders and (unelected) commissioners & their underlings, must feel shame and embarrassment that the world's shittiest entitity, the Eurovision fan community - exercises more profoundly civil rights than citizens of the EU will ever enjoy. Sad shit, that!
Current Music: LAND OF TALK - Summer Special
Wednesday, 11 May 2011
LSE and its Arab patrons
During an acerbic exchange at the LSE yesterday a Muslim thug - guest in this country - hissed at a forum participant:"I'd rather be called a Nazi then a Jew!" To which I retorted that 1) he hasn't achieved yet the status as a decent human being on the ladder of evolution to be taken seriously, and 2) that I haven't found yet a weapon worthwhile to try on him and kill him. Tossing the Arab wanker into a swelter of liquid iron might be a suitable option.
Posted via BlackBerry
Posted via BlackBerryTuesday, 10 May 2011
Eurozone Clown: JC Juncker
Jean-Claude Juncker is to the eurozone what Comical Ali was to Saddam Hussein's regime:
a buffonesque, tragic pawn in the service of an unelected junta, posing as a spokesman with an oratory filled with lies, half-truths, grotesquely delusional and in denial of reality. The eurozone is bound to implode but the captain from tiny Luxembourg (it fits on a stamp) presses on, reinvoking the image of the Titanic when its skipper boasted, "we just pushed an iceberg aside."
"There is no crisis in Greece," the pompous Juncker blarred into microphones in 2009; a few years earlier he signed off on a presentation from the Greek government, full of book-keeping tricks and shady maneuvres at best, but outright misrepresentations and deceit in reality, in order to "qualify" the Hellens for the eurozone. In 2010 the vicious cycle of tax & spend exploded with the realization that Greece is virtually bankrupt. "Bankruptcy in the eurozone is an impossibility," lectured the representative from one of the smallest countries in the world last year. Only to be succeeded by massive downgrades of Greece by leading rating agencies - last time was yesterday. Fact is that government bonds issued in Athens are of junk bond status.
"Restructuring of Greek sovereign debt is ruled out," Juncker meowed in Brussels 2 months ago; just as Greece leaving the eurozone, according to the EU's Comical Ali.
And so the world laughs heads off while glancing at the EU, and a defiant Juncker, with most of his limps hacked off, tumbles up and down the continent and challenges financial markets with his daft "Pull my finger" mimics.
a buffonesque, tragic pawn in the service of an unelected junta, posing as a spokesman with an oratory filled with lies, half-truths, grotesquely delusional and in denial of reality. The eurozone is bound to implode but the captain from tiny Luxembourg (it fits on a stamp) presses on, reinvoking the image of the Titanic when its skipper boasted, "we just pushed an iceberg aside."
"There is no crisis in Greece," the pompous Juncker blarred into microphones in 2009; a few years earlier he signed off on a presentation from the Greek government, full of book-keeping tricks and shady maneuvres at best, but outright misrepresentations and deceit in reality, in order to "qualify" the Hellens for the eurozone. In 2010 the vicious cycle of tax & spend exploded with the realization that Greece is virtually bankrupt. "Bankruptcy in the eurozone is an impossibility," lectured the representative from one of the smallest countries in the world last year. Only to be succeeded by massive downgrades of Greece by leading rating agencies - last time was yesterday. Fact is that government bonds issued in Athens are of junk bond status.
"Restructuring of Greek sovereign debt is ruled out," Juncker meowed in Brussels 2 months ago; just as Greece leaving the eurozone, according to the EU's Comical Ali.
And so the world laughs heads off while glancing at the EU, and a defiant Juncker, with most of his limps hacked off, tumbles up and down the continent and challenges financial markets with his daft "Pull my finger" mimics.
Monday, 9 May 2011
Where It's At
OK, the concert was disappointing and I left after an hour. The Howling Bells are better on CD than live... lesson taken.
BUT!
BUT!
Event
I'll be at the Scala (no, not that one in Milan) near King's Cross tonight for a musical treat: the band from Down Under, The Howling Bells.
Posted via
BlackBerry
Posted via
BlackBerry
007
Katrina's Goldeneye Impression:
Monday morning, back at work... and things have changed: mood's up within the Tories, LibDems reduced to irrelevance and the AV thrashed for good. Eventually the coalition will turn to dust - long before the planned dissolution in 2014 - and the bloody Scots can soon crawl to Brussels for handouts and bail-outs, rather than to burden the English. All's well in the - still - Queendom of Britain. And I am stirred rather than shaken.
Monday morning, back at work... and things have changed: mood's up within the Tories, LibDems reduced to irrelevance and the AV thrashed for good. Eventually the coalition will turn to dust - long before the planned dissolution in 2014 - and the bloody Scots can soon crawl to Brussels for handouts and bail-outs, rather than to burden the English. All's well in the - still - Queendom of Britain. And I am stirred rather than shaken.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)