This summer London became the setting for more than 20 giant sculptures inspired by the DNA double helix by some of the biggest names in the world of art and design, including Ai Weiwei, Aston Martin, or Zaha Hadid. Last Wednesday my wife and I were invited to the auction of those pieces at legendary art auction house Christie’s.
I was surprised, or rather “appalled”, to see that Ai Weiwei’s sculptures went for only around £20,000 each (he made two).
Last week I visited the Imperial War Museum of London with my father-in-law and my son.
I am a pacifist, and I believe the military-industrial complex is a very scary and abominable reality. So anything related to military makes me cringe. But I must admit I was pleasantly surprised by this museum. It did not glorify the military, nor it played the over-sensitive card of victim’s suffering. It was detached enough to be “objective”, while human enough to transmit the horrors of war.
[More pictures here]
Last Saturday I had the pleasure to attend Oxford’s Alumni Weekend with my son.
I knew he would not be the only teenager there, but I was surprised to see kids even younger than him accompanying their parents. The truth is that I wish I had brought him earlier. I’ll try to bring my daughter to the next one.
Besides the obvious networking opportunity, the true pleasure was to attend interesting lectures delivered by top academics, and to see my son actually interested in those lectures!
Everybody is too busy. It’s the “toxic work world” we live in, according to the New York Times. But some days are more ridiculously packed than others.
Last week I had so many meetings, it was hard for me to keep track of them. Some that I remember off the top of my head: meeting with a General Partner of Google Ventures, meeting two executives from the National Health Service (NHS), an executive from Accenture at their posh London offices, being interviewed by an Editor from The Times, being picked up by a driver in a hybrid car with wifi who took me to a media event (Haymarket Group’s Create 2015) to present and participate in a panel along two other accomplished “entrepreneurs” from TechHub, and minutes later participating at another event (Connected Health) at Simmons & Simmons.
These past few days have been quite “playful”.
On the one hand, I have just discovered, right around the corner from our apartment by London Bridge, a free and public playground that has an artificial grass hockey field, half a basketball court, 3 pingpong tables and even a beach volleyball court with sand and all! So obviously, the next day I went with my son to a sports equipment store and bought a soccer ball, a pingpong set, a basketball, a volleyball and a badminton set.
I have been invited to yet another cruise, this time the 7-Day The Baltic & St Petersburg on the Seabourn Quest 14-21/05/2016. This is the itinerary: Copenhagen (Denmark), Tallinn (Estonia), St. Petersburg (Russia), Helsinki (Finland), Stockholm (Sweden).
Thank you @Cruise_Curator
