The French smoking ban

On Jan. 2, the ban on smoking in public places officially begins in France. There is much speculation that the French will ignore this law as they often do laws that inconvenience them.

England adopted the no smoking policy in its pubs and restaurants last summer and it is being obeyed and not noticeably affecting business. People still smoke, but it's less convenient. They have to take trips outside. So, when someone disappears you now have two guesses -- either out for a smoke or to the loo.

Since I'll be in Paris next week when the smoking ban goes into effect, I'll report back.

Brits react to too much control

There are cameras all over the place here, including on the motorways where they are used to enforce traffic laws. Apparently this isn't setting well with some people who are rebelling against the camera boxes mounted on the motorways and are setting them on fire. The group says they have more in store, including a National Cover-Up Your Number Plates Day."

Nike + iPod

I've had this gadget for months, but never bothered to set it up. So, the new iPod Nanos came out recently and they are cool enough that I got one. I figured it would be much easier for my commute on the tube AND I could finally give the Nike + iPod gadget a try.

I popped the module into the Nano before my Saturday run and bingo, it just worked. Very cool. No much set up unless you want to calibrate, which I won't be doing here because I have no premeasured distances to benchmark against. Besides I believe it did a very good job on distance.

During your workout, you can hit one of the buttons on the iPod and it will give you a verbal update of your time, distance and current pace. Then, when you're done, you dock the iPod and it will upload your workout(s) to a Nike website that is quite well done and attractive. I'm used to listening to the radio, but am accumulating so much Podcast material that this will be an excellent chance to keep current. If you have an iPod and you work out, it'd be a crime not to try this.

This is also a great example of the synergy of technology and the importance of partnerships. Nike and Apple, two design and category leaders, get together to produce an elegant solution that plays to each of their strengths and makes the whole greater than the sum of the parts.

Brits react to too much control

There are cameras all over the place here, including on the motorways where they are used to enforce traffic laws. Apparently this is setting well with some people who are rebelling against the camera boxes mounted on the motorways and are setting them on fire. The group says they have more in store, including a National Cover-Up Your Number Plates Day."

Merry Christmas!

Leigh and Bart arrived last night after a nine-hour delay in Chicago. They were able to catch a flight out early Sunday morning after missing their connection Saturday night. This despite new blizzards in the Midwest and cancelled flights at Heathrow due to fog.

So, we're all set and ready to enjoy the next couple of days. We are all planning to go ice skating today at one of the many London outdoor ice rinks that go up this time of year. The weather is looking beautiful . . . somewhat milder than recent days. I got out for a run this morning and very little traffic. I'm working part of the day and making traditional Tom & Jerrys as my treat to the office. Maybe St. Paul's tonight!

Tomorrow is a big Christmas dinner with Scottish forerib and Lynne's family favourite, trifle. I'm sure we'll gorge ourselves, but isn't that what Christmas is for? Should get going to start all the festivities.

Merry Christmas to all!

Where the Big Guy is investing

FYI, Bill Gates just put $392 million into the Mexican brewer of Tecate beer. You've gotta respect Mr. Gate's business acumen more than a little, so this is a "take notice" moment.

Tony Blair converts to Catholicism

I saw this news tonight and it's not surprising. I'm somewhat empathetic with the former prime minister. This had been rumoured for some time. I have thought for many years about becoming a Catholic though I've pulled back in recent years as the Catholics have become more associated with the radical right. But, I do appreciate the discipline. The doctrine I don't totally agree with.

Right now, we're attending Holy Trinity Brompton, a C of E church, and thoroughly enjoying it. We love the worship at HTB and the staff, led by Nicky Gumbel, who is a legend in the church of England. But, our vest friends here are Catholics. We took them to a carol service at HTB before Christmas. Maybe I visit their church in Hampstead.

Anyhow, this provides an opportunity to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. Yesterday, we attended the Christmas Singalong at the Royal Albert Hall, which is an impressive facility. It was wonderful with great music and really brought Christmas home.

To all our friends, Merry Christmas from London.

David Beckham and the Armani pose

The media here is all atwitter over David Beckham's latest product endorsement for Armani underwear. Beckham's provocative pose is causing quite the stir among the British press and beyond.

Beckham the former England football captain and international football (soccer) superstar, is pictured on his back, legs spread, showing off his nether bits as they say here. Today's Guardian had a thoughtful piece in its Media section.

Writer Naresh Ramchandani takes a tongue in cheek look at Beckham's maturity over the years. According to Emporio Armani, "He is considered as one of the world's most talented soccer players and a former captain of his national team, but his image (groin) has come to stand for more than this. He (it) represents a notion of modern masculinity." In other words, writes Ramchandani, the groin has come of age.

Beckham's wife Posh of Spice Girls fame spoils things a tad with her less thoughtful description of her husband's impressive attributes to Perez Hilton.

Meanwhile, the rest of us worry about global warming.

Nifty trick

Thanks to my friend Ged, I'm now posting my blog to both my Spaces and Blogger locations. I'm using Windows Live Writer to do this. I write the blog and publish the same content to both sites virtually as quickly as I was doing just one before.

Portland restaurants in today's Guardian

We take two newspapers at home -- the Financial Times and the Guardian. Today's Guardian featured a nice story on Portland that focuses on the growing reputation Portland has as the home for a number of great restaurants.

Among the restaurants mention is Montage, one of our favouries. It concludes with a note on groceries: Oregon is famous for its agricultural bounty, and its groceries reflect this: the produce is cheap, varied, usually organic and always local, from blackberries to honey to homemade soap and artisan-made bread. I pretty much wept at the thought of returning to my paltry old Sainsbury's.

My favourite gadget

Saw this online and thought it was pretty cool. It's a vibrating bluetooth bracelet that works in conjunction with your mobile phone. The bracelet subtly buzzes your wrist whenever you have an incoming call or text.

If you're like me, I often don't hear my phone ring when I'm outdoors or in a crowded area.

England's hot football Premiership

Forbes has declared Manchester United as the most valuable football team in the world, outranking Real Madrid, primarily based on superior growth prospects for the English league. ManU is given a value of $1.4 billion. The highest paid player is Barcelona's Ronaldinho at $29.5 million, followed closely by England's David Beckham, now playing for the Los Angeles Galaxie. Wayne Rooney is the highest paid ManU player at $17.5 million, though many people here would question that value since he's been often injured and has not turned into the kind of goal scorer anticipated a few years ago.

Favourite Christmas commercial

Not sure if this is UK only or if it's being shown in the US. I think not because I saw another Christmas ad for Garmin that looked more US centric. Anyhow, enjoy . . .

Blog returning to Spaces

Alas, I had one unique request and have moved my blog back to Spaces.

How to train your brain

Today's Sunday Observer carries a story on how to train your brain that bucks common wisdom. Among the three best things you can do are, two sound pretty good -- eat more dark chocolate and have plenty of sex. The third isn't bad either, but more of a European habit -- eat cold meat for breakfast as the Scandinavians do.

All of this advice and more is contained in a new book, Teach Yourself: Training Your Brain. Personal happiness is also important and the book recommends that instead of trying to find perfect happiness, people should seek a new concept the authors have called BLISS -- Body-based pleasure, Laughter, Involvement, Satisfaction and Sex.

Meet Jackie

This is our friend Jackie. She runs a sort of resale "shop" in Hampstead. But, there's really no shop. She sets up her wares in an alley just of the High Street across from Steele's Meat Market, which incidentally is sadly closing after the first of the year.

We "discovered" Jackie shortly after arriving in Hampstead and fortunately before we bought a lot of hosuehold essentials elsewhere. Jackie sells used household items ranging from rugs to silver tea services. You never quite know what you'll discover when you go rummaging through her boxes. Our friends bought a 12-piece setting of fine china in fantastic condition for steal.

We've bought everything from household essentials (an oak end table and rugs) to wonderful pieces that we will cherish the rest of our lives (crystal vases, silver trays). Whenever friends come, they always buy things from Jackie to remeber their trip. Her items are sometimes a bit dirty and needing TLC, but always beautiful and unique once you get them home and cleaned up. Lynne got a really cool ceramic basket of lemons made in Spain that looked terrible when she bought it, but is gorgeous in our flat. And then there's the wooden stool with character we use around the house. Much more attractive than what we'd find at the hardware store.

Jackie also has become one of our best friends. She sets up shop 2-3 times a week and Lynne never misses going by to say hello if not purchase something whenever she's there and we are also in town. The early bird gets the worm, so it's important to take a pass by early in the mornings when she's there. That's how our friends got a solid silver tea set for about half the going price in antique shops.

We like Jackie because she's a regular bloke. She can roll with the punches and give as well as she takes. I guess that's the sign of a true friend.

Tsk, tsk America

Just reading in Forbes Magazine that of the three top selling vehicles in the US are three pickups and no hybrids. I guess I shouldn't be shocked. Living in Europe is definitely starting to color my point of view on the environment and social justice. Increasingly, it's apparent that America just doesn't get it.

I was lucky enough to attend a conference last week on corporate social responsibility in which Al Gore was the keynote speaker. The man who used to be the next president of the United States was brilliant as they say here. If every person in the country could personally hear his message, we would solve the global warming problem tomorrow. Very inspiring. And, he hinted that there may be some surprised form the WH later this year. He was there last Monday to be honored for his Nobel prize.

Best commercial on British TV

This is cool

Geek Alert: What does the future hold

This may be a little too much inside baseball for some of you, but this is an interesting discussion from some top US tech business journalists. Of course very insightful to me, but probably has some interest to anyone else who has any money invested or thinks about the US economy.

What will they do next?

Yikes, the Brits are making wine. It's mostly white or sparkling white and it's mostly awful. I had a glass of red something last night and couldn't drink it. I went for the white and it wasn't good either -- tasted a bit like cider (which they do know how to make), but still weird.

Now I read in this morning's Guardian that they are making a pinot noir of all things. Well, it's a sparkling pinot, but still it sells for £23, so it's right up there with a very good Oregon pinot. I will try to get my hands on some, but I'm not super optimistic that it'll be worth the price. I'm sure it won't be able to hold a candle to the Carabella we had last Saturday with our turkey dinner.

Al Gore's amazing performance

I attended a social innovation conference today in London that included some amazing speakers headlined by Vice President Al Gore. Yes, he introduced himself with, "Hi, I'm Al Gore and I used to be the next president of the United States." After everyone laughed, he said he didn't consider it funny.

It was an amazing presentation. For two hours, he rattled off statistics and commented on piles of information that left no doubt that we are in serious trouble if we don't start making changes now. He was also inspiring like he never was in his presidential campaign. It was almost as if he was ordained to do this work he is so passionate about rather than be president. He was just at the White House this week to be honored for his Nobel Prize and hinted that changes are on their way from the ostrich approach taken up until now by the current administration.

Other speakers included Timberland CEO Jeff Swartz, an amazingly convicted and energetic speaker, and Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farms, America's third largest producer of yogurt.

I'm convinced global warming is no longer something we can afford to ignore. There is much each of us can do and the sooner we all begin, the sooner we can save the world for our children. His theme was that we've done tough things like this before (save the world from the Nazis) and we can do it again.

Great commercials

The TV commercials here are great. I particularly like this new one from Artois.

Portland and Seattle both in best housing markets

According to Forbes, both Northwest cities are still among the top 10 housing markets in the US. Several California cities are also on the list, but several are also on the worst housing markets.

Explaining England's football shortcomings

With all the speculation over why England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 finals, this article in this week's Economist provides an interesting perspective. The article argues that it's really a skills gap, not the number of foreign players playing in England's Premiership. The article cites France as an example. After failing to qualify for the World Cup in 1990 and 1994, the French won it all in 1998, in part due to an intensive focus on improving the skills of their younger players.

Wembley's turf comes up short

Following Wednesday's near quagmire at Wembley where England were eliminated from Euro 2008 by losing to Croatia, stadium officials are re-examining the turf in the $1.5 billion stadium. They are actually considering a blend of real grass and artificial turf. Apparently this is being used in some other stadiums, including Arsenal's new Emirates Stadium.

The problem is related to the fact that most big modern stadiums in England have roofs which cover most of the seats. Wembley has a retractable roof and it may not allow enough sunlight to promote the kind of healthy grass needed to play football on. The NFL played a game here in October and players also complained of poor footing.

Grass and football go together and tradition would never allow the use of artificial turf even though Russia does use what the Brits refer to as "plastic turf" on their home field in Moscow. The turf reinforcement system is made by Desso Sports Systems, which uses synthetic fibers to reinforced natural grass. The Denver Broncos of the NFL are using the system as are Arsenal, Reading and Tottenham in the English Premiership.

King Tut does London

We went to the King Tutankhamun exhibit today at the O2 Arena in London. Even though it was in the Northwest during its first tour in the 1970s, we never made it around to going. The exhibit was really well done and well staged and was somewhat special because Tut's tomb was discovered by Briton Howard Carter. Of course, none of the really good stuff was there. I don't think the Egyptians let that out of their sight anymore, especially to the English whose British Museum is crammed full of artifacts from Egypt.

Still, we were amazed by how incredibly well some of the pieces are preserved, considering many are made from wood and are thousands of years old. They were obviously super well preserved and undisturbed for that whole time -- almost hard to believe. The exhibit goes from London to Dallas in October 2008.

Thanksgiving in London

Today, Lynne and I spent our first ever Thanksgiving just the two of us. And . . . we survived! Just kidding. It was a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving.

I took the entire week off and we went to Wales on Monday to visit some long lost relatives. We had not been there in 20 years. Lynne's father, Roy, was born in Swansea -- Dunvant to be exact. We left flowers on the grave of Lynne's great grandmother and grandfather and visited the graves of other members of the Davies and Brayley families. The weather was cold and rainy, but we had a great time and met two new members of the family, 7-year-old Brython and 5-year-old Talaith (in photo). See all photos here. Both are bright youngsters who had no problem accompanying Lynne, me and their grandmother Anne on a five-mile hike. I can't imagine American kids doing that at their age.

Today, we did some shopping and got all the things we needed for our planned, bespoke Thanksgiving dinner. Lynne outdid herself. We planned it yesterday and I have to say, it was one of the best Thanksgiving dinners we've ever had. Of course, I missed Margie's deviled eggs! but all in all can't complain. We got a turkey breast from the butcher because we learned last year that a whole turkey won't fit into our tiny oven. With the turkey, we had Brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes with pecans, stuffing, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie (still in the oven). The Brussels sprouts were made with balsamic vinegar and pancheta. Yuuuuuum. We bought chestnuts actually roasted over an open fire on Oxford Street for the stuffing, but they fell out of our bag on the bus, so we substituted the pecans. One of the shortcomings of living in London and being reliant on public transportation. Danged, that was going to be our touch of London. At least we had a nibble of them and they are very good. Maybe for Christmas dinner!

All-in-all, we have a lot to be thankful for despite being away from our family on one of those days when you really miss them. But, hey, Lynne made an outstanding dinner -- one of the best I can remember ever -- the NFL is on TV and the pumpkin pie is in the oven. Who can not be thankful with all of that?

Speaking of wine . . .

Speaking of My Vineyard, I just started reading a new business biography that chronicles the rise and fall of the Mondavi wine family in California. The House of Mondavi is a great read so far, especially if you've spent time in the Napa Valley and are familiar with many of the wineries and characters in the book. Author is Julia Flynn Siler, WSJ reporter.

Paul Anka

He's on the BBC Breakfast show right now. Wow, he looks pretty good. Apparently, he's doing a series of concerts in England. He is on a European tour and will do a concert at the Tower of London on 11 July. Hmmm, talk about timeless.

Am I back?

First post on my Blogger blog in about a year. I switched to Live Spaces some time ago, but with switching to Vista, have had problems uploading photos. So, I've decided to give Blogger another go as they say here. I'll likely just use Smugmug or Flickr to provide links to photos of relevant activities. I also have a place on Facebook that I maintain.

P.S. Thanks to John for suggesting that I return to Blogger!