Merry Christmas beautiful Joshua

November portraits

Flying Kites

We went to the kite flying area near our house - here's the pagoda at the top, with a top-gear style vignette. Our kite was poor - and crashed into a tree. I managed to retreive it. We came back on aother day with a different kite. This one made short work of the line on my old reel - but pulled so hard that it was a nightmare to get back in - so no pics of that I'm afraid.

Seventy Five!

I think its quite a thing to reach seventy five - particularly in really good shape. We had a cake - cheating on the candles of course, and I had to marvel at how lives diverge; born on armistice day in 1934 in the tiny Eastern Cape dorpie of Alice, followed by a life lived on three continents, and reaching this point, seventy five years later, with a fabulous sixteen year old young man as a grand-son, a family living on two further continents, two Australian grand-children, two other grand children who will grow up learning Chinese. The 11th of November 1934 was a Sunday - considerate of Granpa George. Mao Tse Tung was busy with his long march - this having started in October 1934 - an event that is interwoven into the existence of modern China; the bank robber Baby Face Nelson was shot by the FBI (if you've recently seen the movie Public Enemies - with Johnny Depp); Katherine Hepburn was on the cover of Movie Magazine, which cost 10c - the same price as one gallon of petrol - that's four litres. In my new line of business, it's also the year that President Rooseveldt signed the law that gave rise to the US Securities Exchanges Commission.

SuperEv

AMR and the Tokyo Motor Show

This is Aston Martin's (AMR) Le Mans series winning race car. Serious stuff, it needs to be said. One piece monocoque (no chassis), rear suspension bolts directly to the gearbox - which essentially acts as the subframe. It sounded very very good.












I thought this was the best pic I took - Mazda's concept car, seriously flowing lines, very cool doors - gullwings that don't need the space.

There were a lot of amazing cut-aways, this one spared no effort, including a cut through the run-flat tires

Honda's new 1200 sport tourer - lovely bike, clearly, but I thought it looked a lot like the BMW K1 of 1991, without the seat back and rear side panels (which I think is the coolest raod bike ever built).

Subaru's B4 race car - nicely presented, and literally 2cm of ground clearance throughout. Must generate phenomenal downforce - but at the expense of comfort you'd imagine - like zero suspension travel.

Nice detail of the Nissan GTR race car - tasty ceramic brakes and beautifully machined rim.

Subaru's concept car - nice idea - but how practical? Can't really imagine parking and getting that door open in Menlyn.

A BMW GT3 race car - cool lime green I thought, and about the same ground clearance as the Subaru.

I thought this was particularly funny. Not sure how intimidating your average South African cash in transit heister would find either the police car or woman. The pose was ... menacing.

I thought this was an interesting company - called Suposse (not sure how you'd pronounce that) which builds small hi-performance stuff in the Lotus Elize sort of market space. They also did a Cateram looking thing (and Cateram had a stand there - and the likeness was disturbing). This thing looked pretty good to drive.

This must be the rarest car in the world - there is one of them - and it goes, its a 1970 Mazda RX500 - a rotary engined supercar. I loved it - highlight of the show for me - it had gullwing doors long before the first Countache came out from Lamborghini.

Lots of people were living their dream - and in Japanese style - super chilled out and friendly, and very happy to be part of someones pic.

Honda's GP bike, nicely presented, and all business looking. Must weigh nothing, and put out scary power. Not a subtle orange rim, it needs to be said.

There were a lot of design stands of one sort or another which I thought would have interested you. Here is the clay mock-up of the new Yamaha V-max. I liked it because they had the bikes actual front end bolted onto it - which looked cool - and the back end only partially finished.

This groovy coloured Lambo was actually part of a tyre stand - shows how not to do it though - I cannot remember which tyres they were.

A very big component of the show was alternative energy - hybrids, electrics and hydrogen cell stuff. Lots of electric bicycles and mopeds - like this one. Cool design I thought - clean - perhaps the future has two wheels?

One of the Subaru's - I liked the lighting.

Lexus's concept car (I thought - no, not exactly - actually this: http://www.motoring.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5229152&fSectionId=1566&fSetId=381- and my second best shot I thought. Not sure if I go for all the air scoops (but now I understand why it needs them).

A note on impressions of Tokyo

[18 million people - the city goes all the way to the horizon - have a click and a look]

I'm loving Tokyo, and its great to be here with a colleague too, especially a very very nice colleague which Patrick is. I think this is without doubt the tidiest, politest, most civilized and refined place that I've ever been. It's indescribably fantastic, and the people enormously cool, and friendly, and hugely groovy (Japanese clothing, for example, and this is not something that I particularly notice, is fabulous, and stylish - so many styles - so many combinations of styles). The politeness of people is stunning, and lifting. I never thought that something like that would make a real impact on me, I suppose I've just found most places to be quite similar (perhaps if ruder in driving, then more polite in supermarkets... that kind of minor difference) but Tokyo is outstanding. To illustrate, just one example from many: we went to a meeting, the man we met was lovely, sharp, and very gentle. We really enjoyed the meeting. At the end of the meeting he took us back to the lifts to say goodbye, we got in, and you know how you get into a lift, but then turn around and face the doors, and he stood outside the lift and bowed when the doors were closing. Where on earth are people like that elsewhere? And it's my impression of the way people everywhere talk, and buy things and interact - all super-polite, lots of bowing, and 100% zero aggro. I had read that it's considered rude to talk on a mobile phone on the subway platform, in the train, basically in public places other than walking along the street. OK, but how truley observed is that? Well I've not seen anyone talking on a phone in any of those places. I went into a Starbucks to get a coffee fix before coming up here to write you this note - no one in Starbucks is talking on their phone (you are with people, pay attention to them). This whole thing has made me think a lot about what it means to be a man, and how this is interpreted differently in different places, and not just the big pitcture (like different cultures) but also within places. I'm mindful of the sort of man that different schools see one becoming, for example. So there was a particular set of things that encompassed being a man when I was at school, and some of them were quite at odds with each other. So there was a formal politeness that being a man meant; you had to stand up when a woman entered the room; you had to greet people (who were in positions of authority - which was generally conferred by age - so "Good morning Sir", walking past a teacher in the corridor, or "Good morning Ma'm". But then, peversely, it was also a culture of bullying and power, where might was right, and matric boys had "skivvies", junior boys who acted as servants, and who were in many instances mal-treated. And there was a lot of conquering sort of stuff, and sport was very much interpreted this way, where you had the people who were in the first team elevated socially, particularly with rugby, that most conquering of sports, where the rest of the school had to go and watch first team rugby matches, and sing war cries (such aptly named things, in the context of this). And the subtext of all this, played out off the rugby field all the time, was also that might was right, and the mighty held sway over the rest (some of the mighty were mighty good with their fists; some mighty because they had authority conferred apon them (some prefects, for example) and interpreted this authority as might. For me, this brand of maleness, the way of being a man that involves control and conquering and being right about things, being respected, and holding others to account is so unhelpful to this planet and this species of ours going forward. It seems that we need people, and that means men who are communicators and contributors, who worry about respecting rather than being respected, who ask questions rather than impose answers, who try to offer accountabilty rather than demand it of others. What has made me think about this particularly is seeing you in South Africa, and now coming to Japan. It seems you are at a great school, that offers opportunities to grow into yourself, rather than telling you what to be; it seems that you are making such good use of that; you seem to me to be gentle and gracious, and thoughtful of others. And coming here to Japan, I can see a collective of gentility and graciousness, and I like the way it feels; it seems to make sense. So, this little city of 18 million people (it is just HUGE) has the feel of something much gentler to me, as an early observer. And why not. I'm told the Japanese have the smallest carbon footprint per person in the developed world, for example. How's that for not conquering, and instead contributing.

Something that I think you would have liked ...

Monochrome expressions of Evan - thinking of you

Let me start by saying that while these photos are of Evan (they seem to be a set) what's written here is about you, and how I perceived you on that fantastic night of the sixteenth of October, 2009. It was amazing, a delight, a terrific fascination seeing you Josh. You felt to me so calm and strong and grown, with a fabulous balance of seriousness and humour (one of lifes engrossing challenges, it seems: what to take utterly to heart, and what to see the funny side in). If indeed this is how you are increasingly feeling, I really hope that it is something that you are proud of (in the positive sense of the word - not the sense that it is warned against by at least two major religions; I mean it here as quietly confident, humbly satisfied, reassured, self-affirmed) because yours has been very much a journey against the grain, uphill, windswept. And that is why I said to you, your mom would have been so delighted, so utterly delighted by you, indeed amazed, I'm sure. I talked to my beautiful friend Steven D recently. We laughed that we are at this forty age, which in it's own way means so little and so much; so little because you know if you are fortunate enough to live to be something older than that - you might look back and think how young you were, and how much you had still to experience and learn (this has happened to me throughout, so I see no reason to think that it would abruptly stop now in recognition of a particular calendar point). But it means so much too, because there is this nagging sense, a hint, a whiff of suggestion on the air, that maybe you have become everything that you are going to become, and my god is it not so entirely unexceptional? So for me to see someone as young as you are, and again it's all perspective, and so from my perspective, going on sixteen is young (it must be, because you got there so fast) but yet you have such an ease about you it seems to me, such a purpose and quiet wisdom; an increasing comfort in your own skin. And I think that is something profound, and something worth working for and thinking about and jelously guarding - self knowledge and confidence - the jet fuel of opportunity. And in case you think I've got depressed or defeatist - Ive not at all - and I think (certainly hope) that discovery and reinvention of purpose and potential does not stop at forty, or sixty, or eighty for that matter - because I think it is the real business of living, rather than just existing. And one of the things that I like and admire about little Ev at the moment is his unposed authenticity, and hence my choice of this set of photos for my note to you here (I could however shoot myself for not taking a thousand pictures of you - they would be such treasures to have).

I feel it has been much too long since I saw you, and I'm sorry about that. And this was far too short, and in many ways an artificial setting - but I am so thankful for those moments too. I saw briefly some special people in my life in Jhb and Cape Town - some of them for the first or second time in 8, 10, 15 years. And experiences change all before them - no doubt - the longer the time the greater the wealth of experience.

Booming heat, jungle, crystal cool

Courtney five years apart

Lunch time in Central

I took this a while back - in April - and forgot that I had - this is lunchtime in Central where I work; not exactly the place to go for a bit of peace and quiet.

I love the Shing Kee Store at the circle on Tai Au Mun Road

Great to get an update

I spoke to GR and she said she'd seen you over the weekend, and how delightful you were and well, and lovely, and looking great and it was a lovely piece of news to get. I'm never endingly amazed at how together you are, Josh - well done.


These pics are us waiting for Ev's first bus ride to school. He's such a little pikkie I was worried he was going to freak out.






Instead he was cross it was a people mover, one of those seven seaters and not a proper bus, and it was white instead of purple and yellow (which is standard school bus colours for Hong Kong, and which he was set on). His delightful towelling outfit is the school's PE uniform, which he wears once a week. I had to go to work after this, but Ange wasn't that day, so went back to wait for the "bus" home after school, and when it arrived he was fast asleep in the seat, so obviously not too troubled. He's managed to get over this though, and now when he gets home Ange tells me he jumps off with a little "mgoisai" (thank you in Cantonese) and a wave to his mates.

Love from all of us, Dad.

Amazing Graze 3 - Sheung Sze Wan Village Party 2009

For the last three years, Brett Free and Simon have organised a Sheung Sze Wan village party they've named Amazing Graze. And it is completely fantastic, a good good idea. The way it works is that teams of people "host" at one of their members' houses, for one hour slots, all around the village. Each couple/participant is given a schedule, which tells you where you have to go at each round - by way of a house number in the village. The whole thing kicks off at 5pm, and the hosting team provides drinks and snacks for their gang of visitors, during their allotted time. Every hour all the groups rotate to their next venue. So if you're hosting you have around forty people arriving at your house, a number of whom you won't know (if you're new in the village - this will be the majority), they'll have a little party for an hour, and then everyone will head off to their next venue, you included, but this time drinks and snacks will be provided for you, and so it continues. The first venues hosting are high up in the village (like us) and then progressively things move down to a big all-together bash in the parking lot at the end. It's a lovely lovely thing this, you meet a lot of people, people have a great time, those who feel like having a few too many (some of them many many too many) can do so, because no-one has to drive anywhere, and inevitably going home uphill is much safer than going downhill. The late afternoon, evening and night of the party were snorting hot and humid. However composed people were when they set out, they soon lost that, and took on that ultra-shiney-sheen more typical of the faces of your hard-dancing club accolite. I set out with a camera at about 10pm before things descended into the kind of fracas that people regret having captured on film the next day. I really like these pop art finishes, as you may have noticed in so many posts, but they are just perfect for the night look. Some of the pics I think have a slightly wild-happy-mad look to them. I love the one at the top of a couple that I met for the first time, Jon and Rachel, I think he's got the best smile ever, and she's so photogenic in her quaint elegant dress. She told me that she's a bit homesick for Ireland from where she comes, and they'd previously been living in London, which is so much closer to home. Hopefully Amazing Graze will have helped ease that, and she'll have met some people that she likes. I think the best one in terms of form is the next one down, which is of Simone and Fiona (who's called Poss, for some reason, "positive" perhaps - she certainly is a really lovely person) who were hosting a gang in the next couple of minutes and had nipped home to set up a bar with some (actually quite tasty) cocktails called sea-breezes. Simone is one of those people who you just feel warmed up by when you meet - and her daughter India is a friend of Aiden's, and we think someone who is really fun, kind, outgoing and good for him. Her dad, Steven, is the guy in the orange shirt laughing to the left, who is terrific, though in that moment, must have a dual personality I think, because he manages to be this way while still being a heavy in the investment banking world. The pic directly above is of Lorette, who is amazing. She's half Russian, and speaks (very capably) about seven languages. She's really tall, and quite imposing, with the longest, thickest hair I know, and I think posessed of a significant wit and intellect. She's also great fun to talk to - someone who for me is perfectly ironic. I took all the pics using an off-camera radio triggered flash, to avoid that nasty flat flash quick snap look, and give some depth to the pics instead. On the right are the ageless Cher and Carrie, down below, in a moonlight styled port is Brett Free who is the guy behind the whole thing. Despite the somewhat unconventional dress and the odd tat' he is a significant person in the Hong Kong Government, and I think a very good, community minded, authentic and contributing person. The whole thing really is a great event. It's at this whole thing that I had the conversation with the guy about the two shark attacks that I texted you about last weekend - so there is no telling who you'll meet and what they might have to share with you. I wondered why people don't organise in places like the one you live? It's really nothing more than a well organised neighbourhood party. I remember bashes like that where a street would be closed off when I first went to Cape Town in the late 80's - but that's suddenly 20 years ago. (You could have a village party too, just think about it? Pretty manageable to organise if you can do a bit of selling of the idea).

Cheers mate, hope you're having a lovely weekend.