Saturday October 24th.

The 21 “Club” in New York apart from being a meeting place of the movers and shakers is known for its jockey statues which dates back to the restaurant opening as a speakeasy in 1929. Many of the customers were major horse owners and the jockeys featured their colors. Well over time the poor little lads lost their luster and looked a tad sad so the “club” has just had them restored to their former glory … and updated including the colors of American Pharoah.

Very good friends of ours way back then used to be regulars at 21 and “somehow” got hold of one of the statues, or so they told us. When they moved down south they gave it to us and it now stands adjacent to our garage badly needing TLC. The gate shown behind the lad is the back entrance to our quite large garden, the roaming preserve of Didier, the itinerant dog, and also where he’s supposed to do his business. That was one of the reasons I acquiesced to being one of his itinerant owners, no need to walk the mutt and entreating him “to get a move on” … pun intended! I was also assured his breed never did it in their home. Well, he’s now decided that the whole garden is like his bedroom and just can’t bring himself to defecate there … so, guess what he needs to be walked every day. “Not my problem” I proclaimed. Well, you can guess the rest!

The “Best Yet” market has big plans for its new flagship which includes gutting the existing space, taking over the adjacent building, having both a beer and cheese “world” and closing for a “few months.” Few months! I guarantee it will be at least six which at least will get us in the habit of going further afield and planning a shopping list with more discipline. Big news of the week was the Mets sweeping the Chicago Cubs 4 – 0 and advancing to the World Series against the Kansas City Royals. I came to the U.S. before satellite TV and the Internet and coverage of British sport was non existent so I had to learn American sports. I was a diligent student and was soon a loyal and knowledgeable fan of the Mets, Jets, Rangers and Knicks. The ad agency where I worked had season tickets for them all and it became known I was always available if tickets were available, even at very short notice … before I met my trouble and strife. The one aspect of all the sports I found most difficult to understand and accept was the playoffs. Everywhere else in the world you play all season to establish the winner, the team on top of the standings, and that’s it done and dusted. In the U.S. it’s merely the beginning. Not only do the top teams start from scratch they play best of seven. Seven! That’s two more than the best of five played by cricket nations … mind you they also go on for up to five days, each one. However over time I’ve come to appreciate a playoff series, getting to know the players, all the one on one battles and the drama. Of course I understood early on it was all about money as is most aspects of U.S. life.

Our son was in Las Vegas this week and flew back wednesday as the Mets were playing game four against the Cubs. He called me on landing, said he watched every inning on the plane and he, and everybody else, were now glued to their phones watching the rest of the game. That took me back to 1986 when we had just returned to New York from Asia, the last time the Mets won the World Series. The crucial series was also the National League Championship Series against the Houston Astros and the Mets were up 3 – 2 going back to Houston. Popular wisdom was they had to win game six as the Astros pitching ace, Mike Scott,  was at the time almost unhittable and he would go in game seven. It was played on the day we were scheduled for our interview with the admissions committee at the co-op we were buying. 4.00 game time so no problem. Wrong! The game went 16 innings and there was no way I would be “allowed” to miss or be late for the “grilling.” We took a cab and slowly, and I mean slowly, meandered uptown listening to the game on the radio as did everybody else. The moans and cheers were simultaneously shared by all. Technology has changed.

Watched all Daily Show episodes this week and my view remains the same. He’s good, funny and intelligent, the writing, graphics and correspondents all help but he still struggles with the interview. Colbert was off all week a bad habit he learned at Comedy Central. I don’t recall Carson, Leno or Letterman ever being off except in the summer and he needs a rest after six weeks! Jimmy Kimmel was on the show the last night before the break, and he was personable and good as was Jimmy Fallon when he was on. And that’s the point. Colbert, Kimmel and Fallon are competitors of course but they like and respect each other. Not the animosity as with Leno and Letterman.

 Went to see “Bridge of Spies”, excellent as one would expect of a movie starring Tom Hanks, directed by Steven Spielberg and written by the Coen brothers. Good period piece back to the good old days of the cold war, Mad Men era when Nescafe was the king of coffee. [wonder what they paid for product placement!] Didn’t realize the U2 only flew 435 miles per hour. Recommended. Went to see the Steve Jobs movie last night and was disappointed. Had read and enjoyed the Isaacson bio, Jobs effectively commissioned that and gave the author unlimited access and had no control over content. I thought the book gave equal balance to Jobs’ genius and narcissistic personality. The movie certainly showed the bad side of Jobs, weirdly mostly depicted through his relationship with his illegitimate daughter and her mother, but not his genius … that was supposed to come through with his attention to detail. To me it didn’t. And nary a mention of his lasting legacy, the iphone.

Big story of the week, again, was Benghazi. First Clinton’s long time aide Huma Abedin, the poor lass married to Anthony Weiner, was grilled by the House committee for eight hours trying to uncover some dirt before Hillary testified on Thursday. Then Hillary was grilled from 10.00 a.m. until 9.00 p.m. and they get zippo. Partisan witch hunt and a disgraceful waste of taxpayer money. Summed up by Republican Representative Mike Pompeo of Kansas who drew a comparison between Mrs. Clinton’s emails and Watergate, “But this is worse in some ways … Right?” No wrong, nitwit. Good column from Gail Collins on this. Here Other news from the Democrats included Webb pulling-out, and now also Chaffee, helped along by Wolf Blitzer cruelly telling him to his face, he was polling an asterisk. Joe Biden decided, at last, not to run. Nice guy but good decision. Bernie Sanders has a dilemma. His policies are liked but his Socialist moniker is to many, far too many, akin to leprosy. He is in no way a stereotypical socialist but has done a terrible job of explaining this. Bill Maher pointed this out to him trying to be helpful but it remains Sanders’ big blind spot.

Trump continues to dominate the airwaves and he and Carson are clear frontrunners, indeed Carson now ahead in Iowa. Fiorina is sliding, predictable once more attention was paid to her. Bush is tanking. Trump seemingly sticks a pin into the Bush voodoo doll every day and Jeb can’t resist digging himself ever deeper into the mire. Trump said if he was Prez 9/11 wouldn’t have happened, “I wouldn’t have let them in”, as if he would have been the immigration officer on duty at JFK. Admits of course that it was terrorists who were responsible but it happened on GW’s watch, “not blaming him but he was President.” Jeb went ape, “My bro kept us safe.” When asked what was the difference between that and Benghazi where the terrorists did the dirty deed and Hillary is being castigated for letting it happen he has no answer but to mumble. Tough to gauge who is going to win but sooner or later the clowns will tank and it will be interesting to see who is left standing. I sense Rubio is in with a real shot and Cruz will fight to the end. GW certainly thinks so and at a fundraiser for little brother called Cruz, “cynically opportunistic and self-serving” and “I just don’t like the guy.” A sentiment shared by many. Christie continues to put his interests ahead of those of New Jersey vetoing a bill on mental illness and gun ownership, so egregious that even Republicans voted to override the veto. Bad guy. Looks like Saint Paul is galloping to the rescue of the Republicans agreeing to become Speaker on his terms, including demanding time with his family which got him much favorable ink [sorry, tweets.] However, it also created a cascade of criticism accusing him of hypocrisy due to his numerous votes and policies against measures to allow Americans the opportunity to spend time with their families. Behind the cutesy smile and abs is a conservative fiscal hawk who leads the fight against “entitlements’ … sorry, earned benefits. Time for some brevity. I’m grateful to a “subscriber” for sending me this old but still so relevant clip of John Cleese talking about Fox News … could just as easily be Freedom Caucus. Here 

I just love this picture. The latest technology, a car I lust for, next to a horse going into its garage. Taken in Norway where 22% of new car sales are for electric vehicles because of government encouragement of clean air emissions … kinda different here. Article a few weeks back about how Tesla drivers in California are behaving badly because there aren’t enough public charging stations. Now for a generalization. Tesla owners tend to be rich young techies who believe they are entitled and certainly won’t wait for a charger to become available … they simply unplug the other car and juice-up. Fortunately any fight will be with smartphones at 20 paces not with guns. Then the nonsense of the week is “Consumer Reports” announcing it no longer recommends the Tesla … and that sent its stock down 10%. Why? Because they paid attention to reviews from 1,400 finicky entitled drivers complaining about minutiae. They still say the Model S is the best performing car they have ever reviewed and, according to their own survey, 97% [97%!!] of Tesla drivers would buy their car again. This is ridiculous and dangerous and yet another indication of the disproportionate power of social media reviews.

I’ve been meaning to write about coal for a while but [believe it or not] ran out of space. The abbreviated version, triggered by two unrelated stories this week. Firstly Marco Rubio detailed his energy policy focussing, no surprise, on drilling, fracking and rolling back existing environmental regulations. Then there is the case of Donald L Blankenship who ran the company that operated the mine where 29 miners in West Virginia were killed in a 2010 explosion. There’s tons of evidence on how he encouraged his managers to just “run coal’ and not worry about regulations. He was courted by politicians, especially but not exclusively Republicans. The Republican party is continuously on the wrong side of history and supports dying industries rather than embracing the future … indeed they try real hard to delay new developments. They say it’s about jobs. That’s crock. There are many, many more jobs in clean energy than coal but their paymasters are the titans of the fossil fuel industry.

Sometimes the New York Times amazes me and not for the right reason. Last sunday it ran a four and half page story, starting with a huge picture and lead-in on the front page, about the death of one George Bell … an anonymous guy with no friends or family who lived alone and died alone. The reporter went to great lengths, and I mean lenghts, to dissect Mr. Bell’s life and gave us all the, I’m sorry, boring details. He was of course making the point that there are many more George Bells out there and I give him A+ for effort but it just wasn’t worth the ink, paper or time of a venerable institution like the Times.

I was just going to show this and comment that one thing I do agree with Jim Webb on is that China’s claim to just about all of the South China Sea is going to be the major strategic challenge facing the U.s. in the future. Then yesterday news to show just how the values of both nations differ, the awarding of the Confucius Peace Prize [their equivalent to the Nobel ] to Robert Mugabe the tyrannical despot from Zimbabwe. Just mind blowing.

As ever there are other issues worthy of mention:

• Pride of place goes to the Texas student who was arrested and put in cuffs for bringing his hand made clock to school, although he certainly didn’t help his case by refusing to explain what it was. He’s accepted a scholarship and is moving with his family to Qatar where both high school and college will be covered. What isn’t mentioned is how his family will make a living.
• Like many countries Brazil is facing ever increasing public pension liabilities, intensified because pensions are passed on to spouses and children until they die. Many are married to much younger women … they call it “The Viagra effect.” Cute.
• As I’ve said many times Benjamin Netanyahu is not on my Christmas card list. He exceeded even his low standards this week by saying it was a Palestinian, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who gave Hitler the idea of annihilating European Jews. Nice one, Benny.
• One of the Cubs pitchers is Justin Grimm. Reminded me of a client I had in my Bangkok days, an industrial company of German origin … B.Grimm. Honest to God that’s what they called themselves … and they lived up to the moniker/
• Rugby World Cup is now at the sharp end, semi-finals this weekend and only southern hemisphere teams left standing … New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Argentina. Not going down well with the locals, famed hospitality and stiff upper lip seriously challenged,
• Always intrigues me how some folk make their living. Researchers in the U.K. have determined that with howler monkeys there is a distinct correlation between deep voices and size of testicles … counter-intuitively the deeper the voice the smaller the cojones.
• It’s estimated that by year end there will be 700,000 drones in the U.S. and there are minimal regulations in place. The F.A.A. is struggling to catch-up and as first step is saying all have to be regulated. The reaction is akin to the NRA …” the government is coming for our drones, let’s unite against this tyranny.” Obviously helpful technology for fighting fires, screening crops and stuff like that, problematic when flying over celebrity houses, and downright dangerous when flown in close proximity to commercial planes. This could well end in tears … lots of tears.
• Another story of folks getting screwed because monies can’t be dispensed until State legislators and the Governor agree on a budget. Winners in the Illinois lottery are unable to collect their winnings because of this stupidity …. 29 winners and a total of $288 million. This is something that is self-funded for goodness sake. Whoever negotiated States Rights back in the day should be retroactively shot.
• Story this week about a 1978 robbery at JFK where all of $2 million was lifted by a Mafia gang … oh so yesterday. Talked about other robberies conducted by the gang. My favorite was a raid on “Filene”s Basement” where the target was minks … slight error, they got bras and shoes instead. The “strategist” is probably enshrined in concrete with Jimmy Hoffa.
• Ten years ago we, and four million others, were mesmerized by a book written by an escaped con from Australia who made his way to Mumbai and lived an extraordinary life depicted in “Shantaram.’ We have good friends in Mumbai who came across the author, Gregory David Roberts at Mumbai parties and said conventional wisdom was that the book was about 70% accurate … not bad for a novel. Well he’s just released a sequel, “The Mountain Shadow”. I chastised my Mumbai friends for not giving me a heads-up and they pleaded total ignorance. Either they are no longer invited to the parties or Mr. Roberts has kept a low profile. Regardless it’s on my have to have list as soon as I get another Amazon gift certificate from my daughter.

Last week a few “subscribers”, rather small mindedly I thought, pointed out I had called Lamar Odom, Larry. I thought I was being kind, surely anybody married to a Kardashian would want to change their name, and there is precedent. Well the bad news for Mr. Odom is that now he’s recovering and out of hospital he has to explain why he was in a brothel and chugging down herbal viagra. I don’t think arguing it was a pilot for the next family reality show will cut the mustard.