We woke up yesterday morning to a frost covering nearly everything outside Emma’s parents’ house.

The lawn was crunchy underfoot.

I took a very muddy hike up to where the header image of this site was taken. The wheat fields were fallow. But this right here is the same hilltop you see at the top of this page. From lush wheat fields to a Martian landscape.

Somehow the English farm this ground. It’s rife with round stones. I don’t know much about farming, but the farm soil in the Hudson Valley is like coffee grounds, and here the English are toughing it out, farming what is essentially a rock field. First Brighton “Beach”, and now this.

There will undoubtedly be wheat here again next summer, though next time I see it in all its glory, knowing the state of the ground underneath, I’ll be far more impressed.

When I first heard the term, I thought it was “tripping the colors.” It all sounded very hippie to me, very un-royal. In fact, it’s trooping, and whatever you call it, it’s about the least hippie, most royal thing I could possibly imagine.

So here’s the deal: Centuries ago, when many of the troops were illiterate and needed to know what their regiment’s flag looked like so they’d be able to rally to it on the battlefield, soldiers would line up to have their “colours” paraded before them.

These days the colors are trooped to celebrate the Queen’s birthday (which is actually on April 21st, though due to crappy English April weather, the official celebration of her birthday is the 3rd Sunday in June). It’s an incredible display of the Queen’s Guard marching in huge formations in their red coats and massive bearskin hats, royals rolling by in Victorian era open-top horse-drawn carriages, and tight, diamond formations of fighter jets flying low overhead.

All of this runs the half-mile or so from Buckingham Palace to the Horse Guard’s Parade, where King Henry VIII jousted in his younger, leaner days. Anyway, below is a quick video I shot of the proceedings. Watch for the guards’ feet. They’re put into position by the regiment leader, who you’ll see measuring out precise distances with his walking compass. The guards then do hilarious James Brown-like shuffles and sidesteps to get into place.

So here she is, the Queen, who passed not thirty feet before us. I didn’t think I’d be that impressed, but the pageantry of the thing was overwhelming. As my friend Michael said, “No country in the world does this sort of thing as well as England does.”



Amazingly, up until the 80’s, the Queen would ride down the Mall on a horse. Sidesaddle. I sure wish I’d seen that.

The bad news is, Em & Lo’s show is not airing tonight on the UK’s Channel 5 as planned. It’s been delayed for a few weeks—most likely until late June. The good news is, the filming of the studio portion has begun, and our girls are doing brilliantly.

Sadly, the poor image above (marred with a scrolling black bar due to the digital camera and television not getting along) is all I was able to capture from the monitor in Emma’s dressing room, where I watched yesterday’s taping along with Emma’s parents.

The viewing was great until the show moved from Em & Lo interviewing guests on the soundstage to a pre-recorded segment about tantric sex featuring two intrepid sex reporters (not Em & Lo). The segment itself was very good, but it was seriously not-safe-for-work, and even more seriously not-safe-for-viewing-with-your-parents-in-law.

Just at the point when we found ourselves viewing a very Full Monty (you would not believe what they can show on TV in England) I gave a few loud, distracting coughs and asked the Taylors, “So… how about that cricket?” Malcolm pounced on the opportunity to give me the far less sordid details of England’s latest match with New Zealand.

Fortunately for all of us, the Taylors were more than good-spirited about the whole thing. And then Emma came by to say hello a few minutes later. We snapped a few photos of her in her glamorous TV get-up while she held little Evie, the only one in the room who hadn’t just learned all about this tantric business Sting’s been blabbing about for years.

It’s killing me not being able to post more about the Em & Lo show, but as soon as it airs on June 5th in the UK, I’ll be able to post lots more pics and some video. Doing so beforehand will get me relegated to the couch at night. Maybe worse.

In the meantime, I can show a few shots from around the studio, and say in general that the girls appear to be knocking it out of the park. Everyone at talkback Thames (the production company) and Channel 5 (the broadcaster) are thrilled. Emma and Lorelei have been learning how to read from teleprompters, getting coached by one of the top TV host consultants, and basically adding a whole new skill-set to their brand. I can’t wait to see the final result.

On the first day of shooting in the studio, Evie and I stopped by Emma’s dressing room, where Evie was stunned by all the lit mirrors.

While Evie works on her camera face (it’s original, but maybe a touch too starey), we’re eagerly awaiting her mom’s first appearance as a TV host.

We went down to Brighton on the last day of this trip to England. Em & Lo were filming some outdoor segments for the TV show, so Joey and I came along to take care of the little ones.

Here’s Evie, missing some of England’s finest countryside on our 90-minute train ride from London. I was thinking, if we’d missed our flight to England altogether and camped out in the parking lot at Newark International Airport for the past three weeks, as far as she’s concerned there would’ve been no difference at all.

As for Brighton, my expectation of the English seaside was that it would be overcast and chilly, with piles of rocks here and there along the beach. I was close, but instead of there being piles of rocks, the beach was actually just that: rocks. Here I am running my fingers through the sand.

It was a stark and beautiful setting, though. I enjoyed the gloominess and desolation of the place.

Fortunately, it wasn’t entirely desolate. Em & Lo were able to convince a few brave beachgoers to take part in their show.

A gaggle of French teens stopped throwing rocks at seagulls for a few minutes, and looked on as a two of their classmates took part in the shenanigans. I’m not allowed to reveal too much before the show airs, but the shenanigans involved a French maid outfit (or perhaps in this case, as it was worn by a Frenchwoman, it might simply be called a maid outfit—I’m not sure.)

I maintained a safe distance, as there’s nothing like a baby crying in the background to make a sound man go apeshit.

After a few successful hours on the rocks, the TV crew moved inland to a great little café district. Here there was a much steadier stream of willing participants. This part of Brighton reminded me of some combination of Key West and the East Village. (Note the three successive organic cafés in the first shot.)

By all accounts, the shooting in Brighton was a great success.

I’ve skipped over some significant moments, though, where early in the morning I forgot Evie’s bottles and all of the breast milk in the car on the way to the London train station, then bought the wrong kind of bottle (twice) at the pharmacy in Brighton, and subsequently dealt with a hungry, exhausted, hysterical Evie, who screamed for several hours straight. I kept wanting to move cafés to start fresh with a new batch of fellow patrons, but it was no use. The worm had turned, as Emma says, and as the cameras rolled outside, Evie was inside, shrieking holy hell while people sipped their organic soups.

At last, Evie gave me a short break, by which point I was in a mood. Joey found the whole affair incredibly amusing, as his little girl Elliette was an absolute dream for the entire day. (Then again, he didn’t leave all of her bottles and milk behind in London.) Here’s me with a tiny Winston Churchill popping up at the bottom of the frame.

So, Evie won’t remember any of Brighton, but she tried her best to see that Brighton will remember her.

Evie spent the first few minutes of her first plane trip trying out various high decibel, high frequency screams. Emma and I tried in vain to calm her, flashing the occasional apologetic smile toward our neighboring passengers. We’d only just started taxiing, and the flight was already shaping up to be a nightmare.

Just as we left the ground, however, the rumbling of the engines and the slight rocking movements of the plane calmed her instantly.

The flight attendants suspended a little cot from the bulkhead, and Evie proceeded to sleep for pretty much the entire 7-hour flight. If I had any sense, I’d probably have slept too, but I was too tired to have any sense, so I stayed up all night watching movies and making myself even more tired and less sensible. (It’s worth noting that they had all three Godfather movies, No Country for Old Men and Spinal Tap.)

Evie maintained this exact expression for a good eight or nine hours…

… culminating in a very startled meeting with her UK grandparents, who surprised us at Heathrow to celebrate Evie’s first time on British soil. Everybody but Evie was thrilled.

On Christmas Eve, 2004, I brought Emma to her favorite place in Oxford: St. Mary’s Tower. I had a ring in my pocket, and plans to propose minutes later at the top of the tower, surrounded by incredible views of the surrounding colleges, hills and spires. My nerves were positively singing.

As the fates would have it—and contrary to what I’d read on the website—the tower was closed for renovations; a chain across the steps barred our entrance. This stroke of misfortune was punctuated by the sudden onset of freezing rain.

“Unbelievable,” I muttered. “This is just completely unbelievable.”

“Stop being such a baby,” Emma said, and suggested we head to Marks and Spencer to finish our Christmas shopping.

All worked out fine, as I eventually cajoled Emma into taking a walk with me (in the rain) into the hills behind her parents’ house later that afternoon, where I proposed on the hilltop pictured in the header of this site. The rain broke when it should have, and Emma responded as I’d hoped she would.

In any case, I had a score to settle with the tower. We returned to St. Mary’s on this last trip to Oxford, and had the main turret all to ourselves.

It was a different set of circumstances this time: a pregnant Emma climbing the steps in front of me; the ring on her hand instead of clutched nervously in my pocket; no fanfare, and no single moment more important than the rest—just a long, beautiful, unforgettable afternoon.

We’ve been in the U.K. for the week, hence the lack of posts recently.

Last night we came across a street hustler in Covent Garden who had a great little game going. £1 bought two attempts to ride a bike from one line to another (about a ten foot span) without touching the ground. Anyone able to do this would win £10. The hustler glided across the distance with ease, then handed off the bike, which immediately turned into wet noodles when anyone else hopped on for their turn.

Here’s a quick clip of Ilan (Pump’s UK Director of Sales), Becky (my sister-in-law), and me giving it our best shot. I’m convinced that the guy has some hidden lever on the bike somewhere, as I know the first rule in street games is that they are 100% unwinnable. We knew this going in, but still had a great time trying….