Posted 6:17 AM by Paul
So That Was Christmas

Christmas day had a Scandanavian feel as we opened the presents well before dawn. Outside all was still dark as the first wrapping paper was eagerly torn from the boxes.

Emily woke up at 5.40 a.m and stood outside our bedroom door asking " has Santa come yet?" I told her to hop in bed and snatched a little extra sleep by tranferring inot her bed. Emily was followed by Alice at 6.15 a.m and we all went downstairs. It's always a relief to see the presetns stacked under the tree because there is always the lingering fear that a burglar will have made a visit and cleared the lot out. A burglar or The Grinch.

Emily was greatly impressed by her new watch and doll who she has christened Fiona. Alice was well pleased with her beat box and new clothes. Added to this they had piles of dolly clothes and games. Emily got one of those robotic dogs from my sister Dianne. Starnge to think that only a few years ago they cost severla hundred pounds. We also bought a small classical guitar for the kids to share as part of my plan to get them interested in music. I used to play in a band years ago but most of the little skill I had has left my fingers. I tried to master a few Beatles songs and Christmas Carols and failed. I will have to practice more so that I can start teaching the kids.

Heather liked the silk nightie and silk pyjamas I got her. I was well pleased with my new charcoal grey woolen roll kneck, book about the London diarist Samuel Pepys and fitted green shirt - very 70s retro. I should buy a medallion and a chest wig. Heather's sister Mary bought me a huge tome on the private life a Stalin. Ideal Christmas reading. When he wasn't deporting millions to Siberia or assasinating his rivals Joe seems to be quite a congenial figure. Camping trips with his friends, sweet love letters ot his yuong wife and kindness to his adopted son. It reminds you of the old cliche about "the banality of evil." Hitler was kind to animals and Saddam like children.

I managed to recover from sleep deprivation by taking a 2 hour nap on the sofa in the late morning. Heather then snatched 45 minutes whilst I prepared a small Christmas dinner. There is no point doing a big spread as the kids only want to eat for 15 minutes before returning to games TV and stuffing their face with chocolate and sweets. We spend the rest of the day lounging in front of the fire and playing games.

On the 26th we took the kids ot see a new film of Peter Pan which was much truer to the J.M Barrie original than the Disney cartoon. My friend Steve from Baltimore came over in the evening with his wife Leslie, two kids, and his remarkably energetic mother Artis who is an 86 year old Southern lady. Steve is working over here as a railway consultant and is hoping the rest of the family will come over in summer to join him. We'll see. It's a big move and a got the impression that his tennage son was already missing his friends back in the States.

A whole bunch of American executives are making an impression on the business community in London including Barabra Cassani who is heading up the 2012 Olympic bid. Several are working on the London undergrounds and the railwaywork. This is an interesting phenomenon as the American solution to decay on the railway network has been to replace it with freeways.

Tomorrow Heather is going in to work whilst I take the kids out to Central London and the Tate Modern which has a huge installation by an Icelandic artist who has created an artificial sun in the huge turbine hall. The Tate has been the success of the millennium in London. Whilst other projects funded with millions of National Lottery money have crashed, the Tate goes from strength to strength attracting millions of visitors every year. Most of the gallery is also free and the whole enterprise is funded from revenue from the shops and restaurants in addition ot entrance fees to the special exhibitions. Their recent Warhol retrospective attracted nearly a million visitors

This proves that sometimes you need to have faith and not let the focus groups and market testers rule the roost. Spending around $100m on a huge modern art gallery by the Thames in a renovated power station is the kind of idea that would have got you laughed out of Government funding meetings across the world. But someone took a risk. It's as difficult a pitch as making a movie which is an allegory of the life of Christ about a freaky alien who comes down to Earth and is befriended by small children. I mean who is going to watch that?