+ 33 (0)6 25 31 08 81 Uri Sluckin Tradwell uri@tradwell.com

Hello Neil,

You’re a major trend-setter, if there ever was one. In the day and age when correspondence means text or twitter, just a hundred or so characters strung out into a few meaningless phrases with no punctuation and mandatory misspelling to prove that one is digitally aware and in tune with one’s children, you actually went to a post office (it’s refreshing to know that they still have them in LA), inquired how many stamps would be needed to make certain that an envelope weighing 20 grams would be safely hand-delivered six thousand miles away by a Gallic postman doing his morning rounds in a yellow, electrically-powered mail van and slotted into a stone-chiselled letterbox of a sub-Parisian village property in a village where two museums (Maison Louis Carré, the only private house built in France by Alvar Aalto and Maison Jean Monnet where the now-crumbling Europe was devised in the early fifties) and Fondation Brigitte Bardot (the house where she swung in the seventies now legged to her own menagerie of cats with no tail and goats with no purpose) mark the time chimed out by the two sixteenth century bells (Marie and Martinne forged in 1555) of the Gothic church, erected on the ruins of a Byzantine worship.

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Licking the two stamps, you actually provided a DNA sample that would survive sub-zero temperatures and jetstreams to glide down on a sunny autumn morning and surprise its grateful addressee.

I assure you, your transcontinental DNA will live on as an exhibit in a stamp collection that hasn’t enjoyed an arrival for over ten years. Certain events, such as moving house or cleaning out the attic often come at an age when the passage of time made the road already voyaged longer than the one leading to the ultimate bus stop, Terminus as they say over here. Which, in turn, makes one ask the question often asked by one’s own children: “is that really you” when scrutinising a yellowing photograph showing a gorgeous young, limp-wristed couple (in the relaxed sense of the term) staring into the horizon and trying to fathom the rules of American Rounders.

When long-lost friends go over the rainbow, it’s time to tickle the sub-cortex regions, to see the stills that made us what we are. As the far-flung childhood memories are blurred, we fast forward to the time when reality often was as well but the senses made it into a sensual and solid. I have tons of photos stashed away. Nobody looked at them for at least 25 years. I am not ready yet to be that open with my boys and also not ready to see them alone. I was thinking of seeing them with Steve if he came over but it’ll have to wait, or rather he.

I’ll leave him with his celestial Becks and a promise to go and see him one day, many years from now. I enclose a couple, just to make a point. It’s great to know that your dreams are reality; a sloop in Sweden is worth two gondolas in Venice (beach). You have the Pacific with its Palisades and the sun setting over the westerly curve of the Planet with Rodney serenading your love of sailing while I inhale nature’s original fragrances, sights and sounds of the Versailles countryside waking up on my Sunday bike runs; rich yellows separating deep greens with centuries old spires poking out of the mist. Life’s flow and ebb don’t seem to alter the smell of freshly cut wheat or to attenuate the contrast between light and sombre when emerging from a primeval oak and beech forest into the blinding openness of the gently waving agricultural landscape.

I needed to cut a few branches off the majestic, couple of centuries old oak at the entrance to the garden. One of them was an old arm that the clever tree grew when still a teenager. At 5m long and 30 cm thick it took a long time to have it off. I sliced it into logs and split them in four using my Merlin axe (so called in French because when you hit even the biggest log right, it splits as if by magic). I picked one fireplace-sized quarter, looked at it with wonder and smelt it; the essence of old, juices drawn up a long time ago from deep in the ground…these are not bipolar ravings of an andropaused Chance the Gardener, I’m just applying Einstein’s relativity to joy.

Mind you I still don’t know why we’re here or at least yours truly. All I do know is that I am a recognised, yet not acknowledged catalyst with a gift to make destiny’s seeds sprout, at least for others. As we all know, happiness is a state of mind not wallet. Some of my dreams were wild and seemed unattainable, at least not without much investment. Yet many came true; when I was 15 or so, a paramilitary scout dreaming of expensive shoes behind the Iron Curtain, I dreamt of meeting Frank Zappa. Hot Rats’ Peaches in Regalia indented my psyche at a time when Smoke on the Water was the rage. I forgot about it, even though one of my first purchases upon setting foot on Her Majesty’s island was the entire, up to date set. At 23 I was running The coolest London nightclub, Maunkberry’s at 57 Jermyn St, W1 during the void after Trevor Clarke, the Jamaican gay Charlie lover. It was the haunt of everyone that was someone or wanted to be. Sylvester was belting out Mighty Real on stage dressed up in silver zip up suit, Rod Stewart was romancing Alana and Ginger Baker’s young wife was being gangbanged in the staff toilet whilst Freddy Mercury joyously shagged a boytoy on the emergency exit stairwell. All this would happen on the same night, practically every night. In walks Frank and possy looking for animated chillout time after the concert. I didn’t dare the first night, but brought my copy of Joe’s Garage on the second, walked up to his table and gushed out. We spoke for ten minutes or more, he autographed the sleeve and gave me a backstage pass for the final night. WTF?

But sailing is not far from our doorstep. We usually spend at least a week on an island called Les Embiez; it’s just off the coast near Toulon, a paradise that belongs to the Paul Ricard dynasty (the Pastis from Marseille). Crystal clear waters and no crowds, in the middle of August the small beaches scattered around the island and accessible by either courageous climbers or by boat are empty, with only the happy few snorkelling or drinking rosé during the sunset. Sophie’s brother (Nicolas) has a lovely old wooden yacht moored in the marina; we often go for lunch in a creek and children use it to sleep after a boozy night out. I bring them breakfast around 9 in the morning, just in time before they go to bed. He, like you, is what the French call “voileux”, roughly translated sail mad and has another boat in Marseille, bigger one for racing with crew of 8 or so. I am sure he could help should you need mooring advice etc. So, if you plan to visit a few Calanques, a wet meet is easy to envisage.

So, anchors aweigh…