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I just discovered courtesy the Times Sunday Cryptic crossword that Britney Spears is an anagram of Presbyterians.
That has to be one of the supreme ironies of Christianity.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Rude? That's news?
My beloved city has just been voted the rudest city in the world. Worthy citizens have sprung to its defense claiming that Bombay/Mumbai has a heart of gold.
Well, that's as may be, but it certainly has a tongue of nettles and the patience of a viper.
Anyone who has experienced the cacophonous impatience of our roads, or the heedless viciousness of the train-boarding stampede, or the deliberate disdain for others manifested in the bhajan-singing or card-playing commuter groups, or the middle-finger-in-your-face attitude of the hawker who displaces the pedestrian and the pedestrian who encroaches on the motorist's road and the motorist who weaves into another's lane, or any of the million babus sitting in their Kafka-esque labyrinths awaiting the unsuspecting mortal who dares to enter their domain...
Heck, you know what I'm talking about. We are the rudest city in the world. And probably proud of it to boot.
That ain't news.
Well, that's as may be, but it certainly has a tongue of nettles and the patience of a viper.
Anyone who has experienced the cacophonous impatience of our roads, or the heedless viciousness of the train-boarding stampede, or the deliberate disdain for others manifested in the bhajan-singing or card-playing commuter groups, or the middle-finger-in-your-face attitude of the hawker who displaces the pedestrian and the pedestrian who encroaches on the motorist's road and the motorist who weaves into another's lane, or any of the million babus sitting in their Kafka-esque labyrinths awaiting the unsuspecting mortal who dares to enter their domain...
Heck, you know what I'm talking about. We are the rudest city in the world. And probably proud of it to boot.
That ain't news.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Colour complex
As I get older I find myself striving to simplify my life. The less mundane decisions one needs to take, the more one can focus on the things that matter. (Like food.)
I thought I had one such decision licked.
White shirts are a wonderful solution to the matutinal problem of what to wear to work. They go with anything, they suit any occasion, they can look smart or scruffy as the situation demands.
However, they are unequal to the task of coping with the rigours of the wash and iron cycle. On returning from a recent vacation I took an inventory of my white shirts and discovered that all save one of them have acquired the ugliest of spots in the unlikeliest of places. I could understand this if I made a habit of feeding my shirts while feeding myself. But the blemishes appear at the collar-tips, the cuffs, the back and other places normally inaccessible.
So, with great sadness, I have given up one simple solution in my life and have reverted to coloured shirts. And my mornings are sartorially confused.
I thought I had one such decision licked.
White shirts are a wonderful solution to the matutinal problem of what to wear to work. They go with anything, they suit any occasion, they can look smart or scruffy as the situation demands.
However, they are unequal to the task of coping with the rigours of the wash and iron cycle. On returning from a recent vacation I took an inventory of my white shirts and discovered that all save one of them have acquired the ugliest of spots in the unlikeliest of places. I could understand this if I made a habit of feeding my shirts while feeding myself. But the blemishes appear at the collar-tips, the cuffs, the back and other places normally inaccessible.
So, with great sadness, I have given up one simple solution in my life and have reverted to coloured shirts. And my mornings are sartorially confused.
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Would-be poet, get thee hence!
I may trouble many with this post.
But that's small cause to yield the ghost.
A dead ear turned for months on end
To lots of those I would call a friend.
My ear is dead not deaf, I say,
It seeks to die again each day.
Maimed and killed, a hundred times,
Revived in hope of hearing rhymes.
Revived in vain by fraudulent verse,
Murdered again with a devilish curse.
It seeks for rhyme, it seeks for metre,
A phrase that would inspire St. Peter.
It needs the salt of wisdom and wit
Sprinkled on words that rhyme, that fit.
It yearns for fruity turns of phrase
That sparkle like wine in college days.
But all it's fed is mangled prose
Snorted out through someone's nose,
Devoid of rhyme, bereft of grace,
Masquerading as beauty's face.
Missing commas, misplaced ends
Are uglier when lost by friends.
And every word is friend to me,
So treat them fair, or let them be.
If you'd arrange them to a plan,
Make sure they rhyme, ensure they scan.
The metre is a veil, not shroud,
It should sound right when read out loud.
If these tests fail, perhaps you should
Abandon thoughts of writing good
Poetry, and stay with words
That don't need coralling into herds.
You cannot rhyme? You have no wit.
You cannot scan? You are not fit.
The metre's lost? Ah, woe is me,
What passes these days for poetry!
But that's small cause to yield the ghost.
A dead ear turned for months on end
To lots of those I would call a friend.
My ear is dead not deaf, I say,
It seeks to die again each day.
Maimed and killed, a hundred times,
Revived in hope of hearing rhymes.
Revived in vain by fraudulent verse,
Murdered again with a devilish curse.
It seeks for rhyme, it seeks for metre,
A phrase that would inspire St. Peter.
It needs the salt of wisdom and wit
Sprinkled on words that rhyme, that fit.
It yearns for fruity turns of phrase
That sparkle like wine in college days.
But all it's fed is mangled prose
Snorted out through someone's nose,
Devoid of rhyme, bereft of grace,
Masquerading as beauty's face.
Missing commas, misplaced ends
Are uglier when lost by friends.
And every word is friend to me,
So treat them fair, or let them be.
If you'd arrange them to a plan,
Make sure they rhyme, ensure they scan.
The metre is a veil, not shroud,
It should sound right when read out loud.
If these tests fail, perhaps you should
Abandon thoughts of writing good
Poetry, and stay with words
That don't need coralling into herds.
You cannot rhyme? You have no wit.
You cannot scan? You are not fit.
The metre's lost? Ah, woe is me,
What passes these days for poetry!
Saturday, June 17, 2006
New Love
If anyone has been wondering where I've been, the answer is: with my new love.
I have dumped Windows and embraced the Mac.
When I purchased my new MacBook Pro recently, I met a long-time Mac user who proudly welcomed me to the fold and proclaimed, "You will feel liberated!"
In many ways, he's right. It's great fun to use and most of the software I've used on the Mac so far is so infinitely superior to anything I've used on Windows that I felt the need to share my love with the world.
I'm doing that via my new Mac topics only blog, Why Mac. Pop in and see what the fuss is all about.
I have dumped Windows and embraced the Mac.
When I purchased my new MacBook Pro recently, I met a long-time Mac user who proudly welcomed me to the fold and proclaimed, "You will feel liberated!"
In many ways, he's right. It's great fun to use and most of the software I've used on the Mac so far is so infinitely superior to anything I've used on Windows that I felt the need to share my love with the world.
I'm doing that via my new Mac topics only blog, Why Mac. Pop in and see what the fuss is all about.
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