what to make of Children … the kids of Presidents, Senators, Governors and Congressmen are singed by the fire of politics … what might be a private failing, a transgression, a moral stumble … even a Crime … becomes grist for the Gossip Mill … so it is with Hunter Biden as he gets hit with a slew of new tax avoidance charges … I’ve run out of excuses for Mr. Biden, Jr. … drugs, alcohol, family trauma have blinded Biden family fans to the fact that Hunter is just a creep … sorry, I said it … but how to explain his 3 adult children seem quite normal, maybe even wonderful … I’m going to chalk that up to their Mom, Kathleen Buhl … as Hunter went a wondering, Kathleen kept the home fires burning, the door open, the heart full … Failure knows No Red or Blue … just this week, a Republican Senator from North Dakota saw his son involved in a high speed car chase that resulted in the death of a police officer … Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has an “adopted” son who is a serial miscreant … youthful family trauma only explains away a slice of bad choices … of this I have had a very personal education … when a close family member decides to choose always the wrong way … and there is nothing you can do to save them … President Joe Biden needs to make a difficult decision … let his adult son face the music and pay the piper … Love is Love … Honor is Honor … Responsibility is Difficult, but Essential

Even Helen Keller and Stevie Wonder could have seen this coming … German Socialite Vanessa Wurm is suing her ex lover Kash Amini in a London court for £3.2 million, saying that Kash was a wastrel, a fraud, a good for nothing scoundrel … Kash has long had a fondness for the luxe lifestyle … the self described entrepreneur with a high living taste for Bentley convertibles, Rolex watches and Designer Duds claims that Ms Wurm and her 80 year old Mum have pulled the plug on his finances, keeping back several of his watches and badmouthing him all over London and the usual posh places where the high rollers like to layabout … Kash has dabbled in Bitcoin, hospitality, tech and fashion … his newest concept, certain to slay the World, is an mindfulness App that combines “personal financial advice with yoga techniques to create a positive and healthy mind” that will then lead to greater riches … he claims this new gentle calm allowed past debts of over £1 Million disappear into the Universe above … when times were good, they were good for Vanessa and Kash … a party here, a yacht there … private jets and 5 star hotel stays in all the chic-est joints along the Amalfi Coast and the French Riviera … but somewhere along the way Vanessa arose from a night of golden slumber to realize that she was putting her money down the proverbial rat hole … Kash found his designer duds in a pile on the other side of the door frame and Old Lady Wurm wanted back the £350,000 do-re-me she lent him to buy his treasured Ferrari 812 sports car …. As Aunt Ethel might say “If it’s too good to be true, it really is too good to be true” … we’ve given some thought to hiring Kash on this side of the Pond … yoga stretches and Bitcoin trading on scrubby Georgia Avenue might just be the best thing that our Avenue of Dreams has ever seen … but I don’t think Kash would get a giggle out of my 2018 Mitsubishi and lunches at Pollo Tropical where a white tablecloth has never been known to adorn a table top

I’ve seen it a dozen times … 4 or 5 tourists in a Venetian Gondolier using selfie stick cameras to get that very best picture of the ancient Island City’s iconic architecture … as the old saying goes “don’t rock the boat” , but this past week a group of Chinese tourists did just that and they all ended up in the drink, taking the gondolier with them … cold and dank, the tourists only had one collective objective and that was to save their precious cameras and phones, not much displaying any common bond of human care … it’s a sad state of affairs when our camera phones become our “raison d’etre” … all the tourists & the boatman were fished out of the drink, wrapped in warm blankets and sent off to their accommodations … what drew my attention was the new motto adopted by local residents and preservationists alike … VENEZIA NON DISNEYLAND … that about sums it up

Some days it’s harder than others to find a bit of humor in today’s World … God doesn’t give us a character like former Congressman George Santos every day, but I keep on looking for something to laugh about … saw this little bit in one of the New York tabloids … a 4 year old pig that goes by the name of Albert Eineswine escaped from his comfortable pen on a farm in DeptfordTownship, New Jersey … the Deptford boys in blue were soon on the chase and Albert led them around hill and dale for four miles before they finally corralled the freewheeling porker in a neighborhood cul de sac … Albert’s flight for freedom ended peacefully … the cops didn’t have to use their taser, nor handcuffs, and instead of a ride off to the pokey in the back of a black & white, a farm pick up truck served nicely to assure Mr Eineswine’s homecoming

Sourcing pendant bronze lighting in England … Container loading on Monday

A lovely refuge from the cold and the gloom with a fire crackling and mulled wine on offer … @thelambinn_shipton