The mighty, the wonderful, the forever excellent and rightfully looked up to Harrow International School

I'm afraid it's more football photos.  Ev did not have a game (but did have a party at Luca's house).

Aiden on the other hand, played at the truly wonderful (yes, the forever excellent and rightfully looked up to) Harrow International School; wonderful because having paid all that money for the name, they waste no time in assuming their rightful place at the top of the social pile (as it happens, looking very much down on all that goes on far below).

Leaders in largess, followers in manners

So for example, here at Harrow, we like to make our less well heeled guests stand outside the gate and wait, unneccessarily (in the road, the entire other side of which is a building site). Never mind that they were told to arrive at 9am (and did so) for a 9.30 kickoff - because ... WE THE MIGHTY HARROW INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL are only opening the gate at 9.25am.

Yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen, as is proper, the proletariat should learn their place by being kept waiting until they are called.

To make the point, we ensure that there are people standing right at the gate, inside, telling the proletariat that they can only come in at 9.25, so they actually get the full message. (look, there we are in the white shirt in the centre of the picture).  Otherwise they might just think that we were, oh I don't know ... running late or some such, and not get the point!  So yes, unfortunately, that is what you must do with the proletariat - you must remind them at every given opportunity of the differences between them and us.

We also have the very best words to go with the name ... Leadership for a better world ... and ensure these are visible for people to see.  Of course the better world is really our better past - you know the one where we sat on our horses right at the back and sent the cheeky unwashed devils off over the top; that better world.

Not the sort of reception that you want after getting up early and driving an hour to get there.  Just because I can, I will be giving the headmaster a little call to tell him how much I admire their whole approach to cohabitation with the other people of Hong Kong.  It's important that he gets congratulated, so that he does not soften into some kind of pinko, or falter further down the road.  I only wish the fees (at today's rates R571 299.44 per year) weren't so high, because then I might be able to send Aiden and Evan off there.  Alas, alas.

Good eyes, looking up, seeing the space...

... power and pace, fit, fast, running hard...

Aiden's team won 1-0.  It should have been more, but all credit to the opposition keeper who was excellent.

The Darkness in Paris

I called Jacques to offer my condolences for the travails his home city Paris experienced over the weekend.  He sent me this comment from the letter pages of the New York Times, which I thought were lovely and likely quite true:

France embodies everything religious zealots everywhere hate: enjoyment of life here on earth in a myriad little ways: a fragrant cup of coffee and buttery croissant in the morning, beautiful women in short dresses smiling freely on the street, the smell of warm bread, a bottle of wine shared with friends, a dab of perfume, children playing in the Luxembourg Gardens, the right not to believe in any god, not to worry about calories, to flirt and smoke and enjoy sex outside of marriage, to take vacations, to read any book you want, to go to school for free, to play, to laugh, to argue, to make fun of prelates and politicians alike, to leave worrying about the afterlife to the dead.

No country does life on earth better than the French.

Paris, we love you. We cry for you. You are mourning tonight, and we with you. We know you will laugh again, and sing again, and make love, and heal, because loving life is your essence. The forces of darkness will ebb. They will lose. They always do.