World Running and European football

While Max recovers from whatever ails him from Costa Rica, I went running in two foreign but elss balmy climes. My London run was about 10K in 50 sunny weather around Regents Park to the edge of Lord's Cricket Grounds and then back to Bloomsbury. A few days later, run about the same distance in Rome in slightly warmer but rainier weather mostly along the Tiber and through a bit of the Borghese Gardens before descending the Spanish steps into a chaotic mix of people and cars that was too crowded to run. In between spoke at a very interesting brands conference at University College London and then presented my brands paper at University of Rome I (Sapienza). More on the substance later but wow do the Brits get brands in a way that I wished the US legal community did. We think trademarks, they see the bigger picture.

More importantly, saw my first European football match with Lazio defeating Navarro 3-0 on Monday night in the Olympic stadium just outside Rome. Even half full for a make up match on a weekday evening against an also ran team, the stadium was humming with energy and apparently quite vulgar chants and cheers as the meager contingent of Navarro fans were surrounded by security personnel and told to remainin their seats until everyone left and would then be escorted outside the stadium where I assume the real fun begins.