On December 4 I was lucky enough to be invited to visit Ai Weiwei`s exhibition at the Royal Academy.
I knew I would enjoy it since Ai Weiwei is one of my favourite artists. I knew even my son, my wife and my mother-in-law would enjoy it, since Ai Weiweis art is highly figurative and symbolic, even to the point of being obvious with his latest works (which makes its appeal that more far-reaching if slightly less elitist).
In the past few days I have had quite a few “interesting” meetings.
On November 26 I was invited to the Pre-Christmas Reception at HSBC corporate offices, along with other business owners/entrepreneurs: a weird mix of industries and interests (which I find a complete waste of business networking time). But one thing was completely homogeneous: wherever you looked, there were men. Middle aged, white, balding, dark suit-wearing men. Just like me.
Yesterday, after spending the day at a tradeshow in Düsseldorf, on my way by train to the hotel in Mülheim, I stopped in the town of Duisburg, which was on my way, because I heard they were setting up a Christmas market. The market was indeed being set up, but it was still closed, so I decided to go back to the station. To avoid the sprinkling rain I took the 901 tram at König-Heinrich Platz.
From Monday to Thursday I have been in Düsseldorf attending an industry trade show. It has been four largely uneventful days, except for one incident that was particularly disturbing. I will write about it in a separate post.
Lots of walking, trains, meetings, and random thoughts:
Why does the baker not let me take a picture of one of their St. Martin`s Day “Weckmann”? There was a time, years ago, when I could speak some German.
On Thursday, coming back home from a meeting, I run into the Million Masks March. While I assume I agree with most of their anti-system protests (the truth is I did not bother to read them), I think their choice of Guy Fawkes as an “icon”, even if a graphical one as proposed by the comic/movie “V for Vendetta”, is a very stupid one. Just read about what that historical figure had in mind and judge for yourself.
Last Thursday, on my way to a business meeting, I stopped by the Southbank Center, to view the World Press Photo 2015 exhibition. It was a great collection of pieces, but I particularly liked (or was most shocked by) the work of Tomas van Houtryve (2nd prize stories), Cai Sheng Xiang (1st prize singles), Turi Calafato (3rd prize stories), and Arash Khamooshi (3rd prize stories).
Definitely worthwhile visiting.
[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!
