Patience.org

This was the first haircut I’d had done professionally for about 10 years. This was the first haircut the little man had had done professionally his entire life.

We chose Astor Place Hair, which has been in the same place since 1947. It’s just a large basement room with barbers and hairdressers renting numerous chairs – must be 30 at least down there.

Don’t worry, it gets better…

It used to occupy a ground floor shop too, but rent got too high so the family that owned it gave it up to become a Cold Stone Creamery, which was just as well as somebody deserved a special treat after being so good, allowing Hector to cut his hair like this (follow the ‘more’ link for the results).
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Given my first Fulham game was Fulham v Nottingham Forest, where Brian Clough was a month into his legendary tenure of what he turned into a great Forest side, his passing at the age of 69 today was noteworthy and sad. Hardly unexpected though, given all that’s he’s been through over the past 10 years or so.

Quite apart from having a team that had the longest unbeaten run in the League until Arsenal just surpassed it and winning two European Cups in the trot in ’79 and ’80 – in those great Adidas kits too – his record as a player was phenomenal.

That Fulham game was on February 5 1975 and we drew 1-1 in the first replay. We needed two more before we got through to the 4th round and of course eventually the FA Cup Final, but less said about the result of that the better.

There is something to be said about Britain that you can invade the grounds of Buckingham Palace and the chamber of the House of Commons and not be gunned down in a spray of bullets. Nobody got hurt in this week’s protests – thought they did outside Parliament of course – and they made their point.

So much utter nonsense and the usual invocation of Al-Qaeda has spewed forth that you’d think Osama Bin Laden’s next tactic would be thumbing through Marvel comics looking for that tight fitting suit that would be the basis of the next attack.

And the fact that one of the them was Brian Ferry’s son and another a member of the England polo team just rams home the absurdity of the situation. I do hope this doesn’t lead to a state of paranoia and government touting of the ‘terror’ card as a way of pushing real issues that effect people off to the side – as it has patently has here in the US – but I fear that is what will happen.

And it wasn’t the greatest attack on Parliament for 300 years as many have indicated – the Luftwaffe still retains that dubious honour, dating back to 1941.

This is pretty neat; the UK’s Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) has launched an online mapping tool showing noise levels on London streets and are going to extend it to the rest of the country eventually.

I’m always struck by how quiet our little bit of it is when I’m there, especially compared with NYC and this confirms what ny ears were – or were not – hearing. Insert your postcode of choice and give it a whirl.

A lot of pictures from our family trip to LBI on the Jersey Shore in August, finally posted here.

But it’s one for the family & friends only, so you’ll need a log-in to see them. Contact us in the usual way if you don’t have a username & password.

You go away for 10 days or so and lo and behold someone holds a political convention in your home town! Anyway, Eliot got into the Republican convention on the first day and took some great shots of the calm before the carefully-stagemanaged storm of vitriol that are well worth a peek.