Stoned is Bel-Air Dead

The novel #20 in the Stone Barrington series is ‘Bel-Air Dead’.  It is a good fast read and has a few unexpected twists this time.  Stone Barrington flies down in his own plane (how else?) to the aid his one time mistress and mother of his son, Arrington Calder and protect her investments.

There is the usual litany of airplane characteristics, and a sideline into the how’s and what’s of owning an airplane - fairly uninteresting to us common readers as also is the gobbling of fine food by Stone Barrington and Dino Bacchetti.  Not to forget what has become a compulsive inclusion in a Stone Barrington novel - lurid sex scenes.

If we disregard all of those, which never contribute anything to the story at large, the stripped down part of the novel is a good read.  This story has also characters from Wood’s Ed Eagle series, who do contribute to the fast paced storyline.

It might not make someone’s list as a must read, but in my opinion is a good book to relax with on a journey or waiting for the flight.

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Confession of an air conditioner cleaner

On 22nd of May, when Chennai weather hit 38 C (100 F) in the day and the night temperature refused to drop below 28 C (82 F), my air conditioner decided to act up.

It is a Window model, as there were no Split Air Conditioner models in the market when I bought it eleven years back and hasn’t given me much of a problem.

Trouble should have been foreseen as no maintenance has been done on the unit for last 3 years.  The only maintenance done over the last 3 years was a cursory brush off and a perfunctory vacuuming of the cooling coils. 

The guy who used to give me a hand in lifting and moving the unit from the bed room to the balcony, had moved on; for that reason, I had neglected the maintenance over the last few years.  A typical, office going, bike riding middle class madrasi male either cannot lift such weights or considers it below his dignity to attempt it.  Heavens help whoever requests such ‘menial’ help from them.

For those of you who do not know what cooler and evaporator coils in an air conditioner are, here is a model of air conditioning unit from Wikipedia.



So on Monday, I managed to collar a guy to help me lift out the unit and move it 30 feet to the balcony for a thorough wash.  To my horror I found the cooling coil fins totally clogged - no wonder the unit gave up.  Here is a front view of the condenser fins, yipes!



Last year, when the air conditioner performance deteriorated at the fag end of the summer, I removed the air filter placed before the cooling coil fins - the air filter which is in place to prevent such clogging.  And here is the result.

The price for that over smart, short sighted move was to spend more than 2 hours bent over the air conditioner, cleaning the fins with soap, water and toothbrush.  Yikes!

The fins did clear up but the tight space also managed to place a couple of fine ‘fin cuts’ on my hands.  Looks like some one used a fine toothed metal comb on them.
:-)

Here are the cooling coil fins after tooth brushing and soap, water and a bit of hosing down - the cooling coils (tubes) are shining through.



The blower fins too had a lot of dirt deposits and removing them gave me a few more ‘fin cuts’, but after about 3 hours, the unit was ready to be boxed back.  Just have look at the muck removed from the air conditioner.  This one was what was left underneath while cleaning the unit up.



And this is the total muck deposit; the drain clogged up 15 minutes into the cleaning. Yuck.



A neighbours son gave me a hand to move the unit 30 feet back and set into its mounting and Viola! the unit was as good as new.

After an year or so, the unit is humming and the air delivery is great.  At 55% capacity (being 11 years old, the unit has calibrations running from 1 to 10 and is generally run with the knob pointing between 5 - 6 but doesn’t have digital displays), while the Chennai ambient topped 39 C (102 F) yesterday, the unit managed to give me chilled hands while in the bed room and fogged glasses I came out.

A nice lesson learnt:  Never, ever, remove the air filter from the air conditioning unit.

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Who should be the next TN state Congress Chief?

After the fiasco in the state elections of Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Pondicherry or Puduchery, the question today for the principal national ruling party is to decide on the persons who can and will lead the party to recapture the political space it has lost.

The question is best tackled on who should not.  Obviously whoever recommended and supported the current leaders in the 2 states/UT should not have a say -

• seeing that in my home state of TN, the party has lost pathetically and could manage to get its 5 elected legislators, courtesy of the principal national opposition;
• in the UT of Puduchery the fact that the man who was ousted from being the Chief Minister, forms a party and storms to power winning 50% of the seats;

talks much loudly than anyone can comment on the nature of the leadership and the people who encouraged this line of action.
:-P

Whatever, I am not going to talk about Puduchery (PY), as it is beyond my understanding as of present.  But I can and will express my opinions on the state of the Congress party in TN, my home state, as a concerned citizen, who craves for political alternates from the 2 Dravidian parties - the DMK and ADMK.

Ordinarily, personal wish would be to see a person, who pushes the interest of the Congress party and who has no ‘interests’ to further by being nice to the ruling party (whoever it is) - an ideal choice.  Thus the party cadre would like someone like E.V.K.S. Elangovan to be the next state party chief.
But going by the example set by the last state chief, Mr. Elangovan would not meet the standards.  By the standards set by the actions of Mr. K.V. Thangabalu, like -

• wrong choice of constituencies for the candidates, maybe unintentionally,
• fiasco of the candidature of Ms. Haseena and the muck-up in filing the nomination papers of the alternate candidate,
• incompetence in filing the nomination papers of his own wife for a Chennai constituency,
• not to talk of other fiascos, like debarring party workers and officials without even a show cause notice

- the next Congress TN state chief should behave like a clown.

And the candidate is there all for to see:

• a man who shoots his mouth about formation of Telengana and creates a turmoil at home, when he is entrusted with the responsibility to do the opposite, to keep peace at home,
• a man who hustles to send a list of 50 most wanted to Pakistan, while 2 of them are in India, and one in Jail,
• a man when he was finance minister was instrumental in bringing Commodity Exchange and thus speculation in food items to India and the violent fluctuation in food prices.

This is the man whose actions are witness to the fact that he can be callous about goodness and wellbeing of the people, push whatever agenda is upmost in his mind, and in a rash manner without doing his ‘Home’ work (pun intended).

Such a buffoon is indeed, needed to be the next TN state Congress party chief.  If not him, at least, one whom he recommends - with the hope that the anointed  can out do Bozo the clown in being a buffoon.

And if so, may the Indian National Congress, Rest In Peace in my home state of TN.

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Recall Governor, Shut the Generals up and Send away the Planner

The present administration of India is of late known for its faux-pas in much about everything it does.  In my opinion, it is due to to people in positions of authority, shooting their mouths off or deciding in an intemperate manner.

Recall the Governor
First it is the Governor versus the Chief Minister fracas in the state of Karnataka.  The Governor has suddenly woken up to the fact that disqualification of MLA’s by the speaker of the Karnataka Assembly has been termed ‘not per rules’ and overturned by the Supreme Court of India.

Personally, (then and now), the original disqualification was ultra vires of the Constitution and the Supreme Court has ruled it so.

But does that give the Governor to insist that the state government existing since the act doesn’t have legitimacy?  In matters of constitutional propriety, does anyone have the authority to impose conditions or rulings with retrospective effect? Effectively neutralising all actions of a Government in power during the ‘ultra vires’ period?

I am not sure.  If the Governor, Mr. H.R. Bharadwaj was so sure that the original act by the speaker was ultra vires, he should have suspended the state Assembly then, not now. 

A Government of the ‘day’ has to stand and fall on the ‘floor of the house’ - whether in Parliament or in state Assemblies.  It seems the Governor is not clear about his powers, prerogatives or his constitutional authority - or rather when to impose them and when to back off.

So recall the Governor.

Shut the Generals up
Almost all of India is in clamour on the bravado of the ISI chief on the floor of Pakistan parliament that ‘targets in India have been identified and attacks (on them) rehearsed, for a retaliatory action, if ever India ventures an Abbottabad like raid’.

Whatever we in India may or may not like, ‘(Going to) War is too serious to be left to Generals’.  BTW, that statement is not my contention, by Le Tigre’s and oft repeated and proved over the last hundred years.

Not to be unpatriotic, but if Shuja Pasha’s contention was alarming to us Indians, then the contention of the our own Army and Air Force Chiefs that India is capable of carrying out Abbottabad like strikes in Pakistan, should have been equally terrifying to Pakistan.

It was absolutely galling to me, to see such statements by people who should know better.  More than anything, I hold the Defence Minister for not inviting them to tea and giving them a severe talking to.  For, in a democratic setup,

• it is not for the Generals to tell the civilian leadership what can or should be done.
• it is for the Generals to do what has been decided by the civilian leadership.

For all of those who read this and disagree and hold that because the Americans have done it, we should ape them -
Let us also do what the US did when one of their top Generals tried to tell the administration what it should do - it sacked General Stanley McChrystal.  Mind you the Americans sacked one of their top Generals in the midst of the war, not a General who was trying to start one (a war).

So, tell the Generals to shut up.

Send away the Planner
Of all the best news over the week, I rejoiced most at the news that the IMF chief has been arrested on rape charges.  It is the answer to the prayers of all the multitude of Indians who are slogging in poverty.  Not that they, or any Indian, including a loose-nut like me, would ever wish misery on anyone, leave alone Dominique-Strauss-Khan, but being believers in Karma, can only marvel at the fortuitous turn of circumstances.

For it gives us, the multitudes who suffer, the hope that we can see the last of our persecutor Montek Singh Ahluwalia, whom the other day someone commented to me, was the economic Rasputin of India - to see him off as the next IMF Chief.

On behalf of all suffering multitudes, I personally bless him that, ‘May he live long, have no similar controversies (like Strauss-Khan), be good to his IMF masters and on completing his agenda at IMF, go on to better prospects, far away from my Motherland’.

So, bless him away.


Amen
Here is the animated GIF version
:;-)

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Castled is the Fort; Can it be held forever?

The state elections of Tamil Nadu has showed up every pollster pre-poll forecasters or exit-poll analysts.  Included too are bloggers like me, who were as much in the dark as the psephologists.  The only saving grace is that some of us could suspect that all these surveys and projections are off the mark.

Now that Junior Vikatan and Dinamalar (and whoever else) are patting themselves in the back, for ‘accurate’ forecast, time for me to boast about my ‘foresight’ (in the same vein):

• that “Congress, DMDK, PMK and VCK together would win a maximum of 40 seats” - they have 37.  WOW!  what an accurate prediction!
• Bull!  The prediction was 15 + 15 + 7 + 3, not a 5 + 29 + 3 + 0, combo.
• that “73 seats are too close to call and on 146 there is no info”.  The ADMK won a total of 146 seats.  WOW!  what an accurate prediction!
• Bull!  The post was that 146 are unknown not that ADMK will win the 146.
• that “ADMK will be in a position to form the government”.  WOW! what an accurate prediction!
• Bull!  The outlook was that the ADMK *combine* had an *edge*, not a landslide victory.
• that “no one knows exactly what is happening”
• True! Entirely correct
• that “the inaccuracy of election forecast seems to be directly proportional to the distance of the seat from the state capital”
• True! Entirely correct

So can Ms. Jayalalitha hold on to the Fort after 5 years?  Again, I know that I know not.  She is a very capable person and also has the extraordinary ability to set her mind to a particular target or course of action and achieve it.  All I can is just blog.

But one of her die-hard party worker has this to say to me yesterday, “If we don’t give good governance or act in an authoritarian, corrupt or disrespectful manner like administration under Mr. Karunanidhi, we too will be out in 5 years”.

To which his colleague added, “Ms. Jayalalitha is one of the most temperamental and mercurial leader and that is both her strong and weak point.  If she can control herself and put a reign on her close friend Ms. Sasikala (and her family), we are good for 3 elections.  Otherwise, it will be curtains”.

Later, a DMK party worker had this insight to offer. “There is a perspective that the Mr. M. Karunanidhi (M.K.) administration has done grievous harm to the people of TN, governed badly and failed to reign in corruption but Ms. J. Jayalalitha’s (J.J.) earlier administration wasn’t.  It is wrong because:

1. If M.K. played with Hindu religious sentiments by unilaterally changing the tradition of Tamil New Year, J.J. paid the price for banning animal sacrifices in temples.
2. If M.K.’s tenure saw 3 people burnt alive in Dinakaran office, J.J.’s saw 5 students burnt alive in Dharmapuri bus burning.
3. If M.K. is accused of allowing his family monopolising Tamil film industry, J.J. was accused that Ms. Sasikala’s associates (allegedly) owned distillery ‘Midas’ monopolising Liquor supply to TASMAC.
4. If M.K.’s ministers are accused of accumulating wealth, J.J. herself has a criminal case for accumulating disproportionate assets against her.
5. If M.K.’s regime has the stigma of physical attacks against political opponents like Mr. Pazha Karuppiah’s, J.J.’s regime also tried to slap a narcotics charge on Ms. Serina Banu.
6. If M.K. administration was in the habit of filing defamation cases against newspapers and magazines, J.J.’s tenure saw the standoff between ‘The Hindu’s’ editor Ram and the Assembly’s speaker.
7. If the Law College violence during M.K.’s regime was a breakdown of law and order then what about acid attack on Ms. Chandralekha during J.J.’s term?
8. If M.K. can be sneered at for promoting a self-aggrandizing felicitating events, J.J. could also be for the expenditure on the ‘Golden Star’ award.

He added, ‘J.J. regimes misdeeds include

• withdrawal of free electricity to small farmers,
• increase in bus fare and electricity tariff,
• hike in PDS food price,
• threatening posture during RWH implementation,

and could go on and on!”
8-0  Phew! 

To be frank, the above alleged misdeeds of M.K. administration along with the

• power crisis,
• inflation/food price rise,
• political strong arm tactics and corruption,
• 2G Spectrum scam, and
• Law & Order situation

are fresh in mind and probably why the people handed DMK a thrashing.

But until the DMK guy spokeup, the only alleged misdeeds of J.J. regime which came to mind were the disproportionate assets case and the Dindugal bus burning.

Today, the TN state Congress Chief may act like a buffoon, but in the past, Tamil Nadu had great, imposing leaders like K. Kamaraj, R. Venkataraman, G.K. Moopanar and others who stamped their authority not only on the state but also on the Nation.  You can understand why when you realise that K. Kamaraj once said, ‘DMK and ADMK are two sides of the same coin’, - in more vernacular terms.

Seeing the DMK cadre’s outburst, doesn’t it seem so?

Speaking of old times, here is a sketch of Fort St. George, (and Chennai Harbour or should we rightly call it an ‘anchorage’?) in 17th Century.



I wonder where the hills in the background have disappeared to?

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The Charge that will breach the Fort

A month long suspense will come to an end tomorrow and now is the time to actually back the horse.  The question today’s eve on which charge will turn our the winner for the state elections of Tamil Nadu is still open.

As blogger earlier on ‘who will rule the fort’, or ‘who will storm the fort’ and ‘who is charging the fort’, the picture is muddy and too close to call.

As of tonight, the ADMK supporters are gung-ho, as they always are and are, predicting a huge majority for their combine; going as far as to suggest that they would be in a position to form a government on their own, without needing support from their coalition partners.

Tonight, the DMK supporters are quietly confident, as they were in the last 2 elections, that their alliance would scrape through; though not going as far as to suggest that the DMK alone will be able to muster majority.

As for whom the people have preferred is up in the air or more precisely locked up in the Electronic Voting Machines.  As blogged earlier, there are about 73 seats (at least) about which no one has a clear idea.

People, including supporters of both alliance, have been asking who I would bet for or against.  Now, I am not a betting man, but even if, it would be foolishness to place hard earned money when no one actually has any idea of ground realities.

If ever (I bet), it would be that the winning margin would be slim and it could be either one - I would be really shocked if any one alliance manages a ‘landslide’.

Today morning, while fetching milk, the heated argument between two geezers, obviously from two sides of the political divide (and good friends) were like. ‘whoever wins, it is certainly not going to be Ram Rajya (benevolent administration).  If the DMK chief is Ravana, then the ADMK supremo is Surpanakha'’.
:-)

Such is perspective of each other’s political leadership from the sides of the political divide - which doesn’t bode well for a cohesive democratic political environment in Tamil Nadu.

But of 3 things I can rely on:

• whoever wins will call it ‘Peoples verdict is God’s verdict; the people of Tamil Nadu are politically mature and have shown extreme wisdom in voting for progressive, democratic forces and rejecting autocratic, divisive tendencies’ or something similar.
• if DMK loses it, the people of Tamil Nadu are likely to be be showered with ‘the people of Tamil Nadu have been misinformed and misguided by the dominant social and economic forces and the downtrodden have been once again denied their say due to the vile, reprehensible shenanigans of the dominant forces’ or something similar.
• if ADMK loses it, the people of Tamil Nadu are likely to be informed that ‘the people of Tamil Nadu have been swindled and blindsided by the dominance of money and muscle power and the unreliability of the Electronic Voting Machines and would have to unjustly suffer under oppressive, evil regime’ or something similar

The tone and tenor of the statements, unlike the poll surveys, would be 100% accurate because:

• if defeated, the DMK and its supporters can never accept that their brand of politics can become unacceptable to the people.
• if defeated, the ADMK and its supporters can never accept that their leader and party can be rejected by the people.

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Who is charging the Fort?

A month since the posts ‘who will rule the fort’ and ‘who will storm the fort’ regarding elections in my home state of Tamil Nadu.  The counting is due tomorrow (13 May) and the results confirmed by evening.

The earlier posts might have left you confused, as they’ve me, even today.  The magazine Junior Vikatan had projected a 141 seat majority to the present opposition ADMK combine.

While I cross checked the projection, constituency by constituency with the projection by the daily Dinamalar, the results were startling.

• Junior Vikatan had ‘called’ all the constituencies - none were termed ‘too-close-to-call’; 
• However Dinamalar had hedged its bets and called 52 constituencies as ‘too-close-to-call’;
• Also Dinamalar and Junior Vikatan had called ‘18’ constituencies, against each other.

Thus was born the Excel/Google worksheet tabulating the results. 

• Each constituency was given/marked with ‘1’ against the ‘winner’ as per Junior Vikatan.
• Each constituency was then cross checked with Dinamalar projection and differences were marked thus:
  • where it was declared ‘too-close-to-call’ the cell was marked ‘turquoise’
  • where it was declared ‘different-to-Junior Vikatan’, the cell was marked ‘brown’

On 10th May, after the 6 phase elections in the state of West Bengal was over (and due to which the counting was kept in abeyance in the 4 states of Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Kerala and Assam), the media was free to publish exit polls and here is the summary: 

• Total seats in TN Legislative Assembly : 234
• Half way mark : 117
• The Junior Vikatan and Dinamalar figures are pre-poll survey*

Tamil Nadu	CNN	Asianet	NDTV	Headlines Today	Junior Vikatan	Dinamalar	in 2006
DMK+	102-114	102-117	101	115-130	92*	88*	163
ADMK+	120-132	117-132	131	105-120	141*	145*	69

Meantime Dinamalar had continued to publish its evaluation of projections throughout the month and changed to its own pre-poll projections.  So it was back to the excel/Google worksheet and this time:

• the total number of seats ‘too-close-to-call’ increased to 73 (again all marked turquoise) - DMK+ 41 and ADMK+ 32;
• the seats exit-polls ‘changed’ the pre-poll call were 19 (and were marked with ‘red 1’) - DMK+ 14 and ADMK+ 5; 
• the seats exit-polls ‘confirmed’ the pre-poll survey were 68 (and were marked with ‘green 1’) - DMK+ 16 and ADMK+ 52;
• the seats where there were no additional information were left alone, which totalled a whopping 146 - DMK+ 61 and ADMK+ 84
• BTW I have misplaced the Dinamalar projections of 30th Apr and 1st, 7th and 8th May, which would have contained info regarding some of the 146 seats.
• Dinamalar did something even more bizarre - of the 19 ‘changed’ seats, only 4 were what they had predicted as different from that of Junior Vikatan. 
• rest 14, agreed that Junior Vikatan was correct. 
• then went on to declare a further 15 as different from the earlier call.

8-)
Personally I do not think that any of them got it right, like the last 4 elections.  I think that the winning margin would be small - perhaps as low as 10+ seats. 

Here is the Google spreadsheet. As the results are declared, I plan to keep updating the sheet with the cell containing constituency name marked ‘Yellow’ or ‘Green’ to see how good the Junior Vikatan and Dinamalar calls were.

BTW I requested 4 neighbours to loan me the missing Dinamalar sheets, and was stunned at their response, ‘Oh! those! they’re misplaced somewhere; will try to get them, soon’.  8 hours later, I am still to get a peep.  Au contraire, if they need something from me like -

• make good their screwed up PC
• look up something for their benefit
• look at something of theirs and offer advice
• locate digital documents they’ve ‘mislaid’ in their own PC
• try and locate a person whom they want to get in touch with

and so on and so forth; it has to be immediate.  They would stand on my head, my bollocks and where not, till their requirement is satisfied.
:-(

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If you know only Tamil, you cannot be a criminal

My home state, like many other states in India, has a policy of promoting the state language Tamil.  While such a policy in itself is not harmful, instead praiseworthy to the extent it nurtures the intended language, it does leave unintended consequences. 

If the policy of encouragement to Tamil morphs into discouraging the learning of English (or other languages), it would be harmful to the future economic development of the people. 

This logic needs no further proof than the economic development through the IT industry in the southern states, which had stressed on the learning of English vis-a-vis other states which abhorred English till a few years back.

However laudable an intention is, the implementation of such policies need to be balanced with the future prospects of the people.  Witness the fact that:

• 17 scholars of Tamil who received awards from the President of India were left high and dry at the Delhi Airport, due to the Air India Pilots strike.  While the report does not clarify what exactly they faced, to me it appears one of inability to understand or speak in Hindi (English?).
• Some years back, the Govt. of Tamil Nadu had announced annual Thirukkural recitation competition for the students with a winner’s stipend of Rs. 1000/- p.m. (~ $25).  Reports state that the stipend is not being paid out, due to paucity of funds.  Hardly a week back the same government could manage to scrape enough to award the winners of the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup Rs. 3 Crores (~ $675,000) and the TN player Rs. 1 Crore (~ $225,000).

OTOH, inability to speak any other language has a fantastic advantage as espoused by the country’s premier crime investigation agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation.

In a charge sheet filed on the 2G Spectrum allotment scam, the CBI has downgraded the status of Mrs. Dayalu Karunanidhi, a 60% shareholder of Kalaignar TV from co-conspirator to a mere witness, based partly on the fact that she does not know any language other than Tamil.
:-P

Well, the charge sheet was filed only on 6th of May, and hence Osama Bin Laden could not have adopted a similar argument to the Seal Team on 2nd of May.

Different matter whether this guy would have been in a mood to listen to OBL’s explanation.  (Picture courtesy, Navy Seals)


Wonder why the same investigation agency did not downgrade the now dead and gone lunatic of Lanka, Velupillai Prabhakaran of the LTTE as a witness in the Rajiv Gandhi  assassination case instead charging him as an accused?

Reportedly Prabhakaran too wasn’t fluent in any other language except Tamil, and Sri Lanka Tamil, at that.

Apart, isn’t there a legal principle ‘Ignorantia juris non excusat’ which means that Ignorance of Law is not an excuse from prosecution.

Wonder how it slipped the attention of both the Central Bureau of Investigation and the highest court of the land who is monitoring the investigation!

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The height of hypocrisy in Indians

We, everyone of us, do come across people who seem to be able to give good advice (to others), but are simply blind when they, themselves, face a similar situations.  Everyone of us, at some time or other, could be accused of a similar tendency.  Bluntly spoken, it is called hypocrisy.

A weekend before last, when the occasion demanded a visit to the Doctor, I happened to meet a good ‘associate’, also waiting to consult the doctor for some health issue of his own.

Now that guy is a namesake of a revolutionary.  As an aside, it is amazing to find Stalin, Nehru, Gandhi and others in my home state of Tamil Nadu.  The namesake fantasy includes such persons as Kennedy, Marx, Che Guevera and others.

I personally know of a Marx, a couple of Kennedys, including an Edward Kennedy (who borrowed a handsome amount of Rs. 1500 [~ 45 USD] in 1990 and hasn’t bothered to return it as of date), a Jinnah, couple of Bose (including a ‘Netaji’), a Che Guevera and a Pol Pot.  And most of them are Tamils with absolutely no connection to any of their namesakes - many of them are Hindus and there is no way that a Marx, a Pol Pot or Che Guevera can sound Hindu.
8-O

Thankfully there are no Chavez, Ahmadinejad and Gaddafis till now.

To get back to point, my associate, a religious, practising Hindu, for whom the thought of not voting in an election is akin to sedition, was also at the waiting room and absolutely disconsolate.  To find a guy who is always cheerful, outgoing and friendly so down-and-out was a strange.

Now, for a bit of background:

That revolutionary namesake in spite of all his good qualities had one, but one, character flaw.  He became quite good friends with a colleague, a married woman of class and became used to taking her for a ‘stroll’ almost every week.  Suffice to clarify that my knowledge of their ‘friendship’ is limited to their ‘strolls’.
Whatever, it seems that my friend could not accompany the good lady for her weekly ‘stroll’, due to his health but the good lady was upset about the missing stroll.

To get back to point:

He was so disconsolate that superseding my personal rule about not prying anyone at a hospital or doctor’s clinic, I commiserated.  He simply showed the SMS text message from the good lady, which said,
“Because of Your cheating, You’ve lost a Good friend”.

And I burst out laughing, “Tell me Che, is this is not the height of hypocrisy?  A married woman who enjoys her ‘strolls’ with you, obviously without her spouse’s indulgence, is accusing you, Che, of ‘cheating’!

And ran away before he threw the mobile at me!
>:-)

BTW, normally I don’t blog about these peccadilloes which often come across my way.  But this post lays a foundation for more serious issues to be explored further.

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Does going off the internet improve digestion?

It is not a ‘typo’ and I am not totally nuts; not yet.  It has been a week since the US Seal Team 6 swooped in on Abbottabad and put down Osama Bin Laden like a dog that he was.

Reports suggest that Osama Bin Laden was located with the help of a house which was an ‘electro magnetic hole’.

Over the same weekend, coincidentally my internet access was frequently cut off. Within a couple of minutes of logging on, the ‘Data’ LED in the modem would go off and the screen would display a ‘cannot display webpage’.

The connection was restored on 2nd April, after the technician replaced the splitter and changed the log-in server for good measure.

Thus I was forced off the net over that weekend.  In the bargain, I realised that Chennai is getting too hot - while surfing the net, the heat wasn’t noticeable - and something has to be done.  Inquiries revealed that the ‘cool roof’ solution is practicable and reduces the room temperature by as much as 5 deg Celsius.

For my 1500 sq. feet apartment the going rate was around Rs. 4,200/- (~ USD 90) and 2 man days.  Slightly being off the rocker, I decided to do the job all by myself.  After all,

• the net access was off;
• the weekend was free;
• the material cost would be less than Rs. 1200; and
• the work would be better than that of any ‘paid’ workman.

The goof up was that Chennai is really hot at this time of year.  To add misery to mindless actions, the terrace had acquired a thick coat of algae over the years and scrubbing it out has turned out to be a back breaker.

Here is the picture of the terrace on 1st May.  The 2 lighter coloured tiles are the wire brushed and cleaned tiles to offer contrast and an indication of what the job is about.



Turns out that it would be suicidal to work during the day in the open these days at Chennai, with the temperature hovering around 40 deg Celsius (104 deg Fahrenheit).

So the efforts were limited to about 2 hours in the morning and evenings - from 0530 to 0730.  It also became impossible to engage the contractor as they felt ‘offended’ that the job was not given to them in the first place and shirked away giving excuses.  Plus, there is also the embarrassment of abandoning the job as most of the neighbours ‘oohed and aahed’ when I so pompously started (and some of whom passed snide comments to my back).
:-P

Here is the terrace 3 days later, about 40% cleaned up - the view is from the far side of the earlier picture.  The algae has been divided into patches so that progress of work can be seen, to boost confidence and encouragement.



And prove it did,

• that ‘donkey work’ is still within my ability;
• that all the muscles hasn’t turned into flab;
• improved the appetite and muscle tone; and
• the inch and a half ‘spare tire’ has almost disappeared.

:-)

The downside?  Well I came down with a slight fever over this weekend and the doctor’s advice to lie low for a few days.  Thus what was supposed to be a two day job, stretched over a week, but now looks like a fortnight.

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ICC rather than FIFA is ‘not playing cricket’

There was a lot of angst when FIFA did not adopt ‘goal line technology’ and one if not more of the matches in the FIFA world cup turned because of the blunders of the referees.

Today, in the IPL 2011, in the match versus Deccan Chargers versus Delhi Daredevils, the umpires (actually one umpire), in my view, didn’t play fair cricket.

Twice in a spinners over, the Deccan Chargers batsman J.P, Duminy got a reprieve, because the bowler overstepped on a TV review.  Now, I am not very comfortable with what happened.  Twice within a space of 5 balls, the batsman, Duminy hit the ball and was caught, fair and square.  The Umpire then, called for a TV review on whether the bowler overstepped and thus was the delivery a ‘no ball’?  In both cases, it was, and the batsman was allowed to continue to play - to add insult to injury, the next balls - ‘free hits’ were a 4 and a 6.

Now, if the bowler oversteps and bowls a ‘no ball’, the umpire is supposed to call out immediately so that the batsman can take advantage (because, he cannot be caught out on such a delivery).  If the Umpire didn’t make the call, how can he call for a TV review, once the batsman has been caught out?  A question of ‘after the fact’.

My question to explain further, is if the batsman, Duminy had just not connected with the ball, then would the umpire have called for a TV review?  Because in both cases, if the batsman had not connected, they are still entitled to a ‘free hit’, and which might not have been awarded, if Duminy had ‘not’ got out.
:-P

If Football is at fault for not adopting ‘technology’ because it would not reflect the same playing conditions vis-a-vis a ‘club match’, Cricket is taking the other extreme - creating completely 2 different playing conditions for club cricket vis-a-vis professional cricket - and to a more extreme degree. 

By example, this match has set a precedent that every dismissal of a batsman can be called to review, ‘if’ the umpire so wishes.  Extending it further, every ball can now be called for a TV review on ‘legitimacy’ if the umpire so wishes - pathetic and not just cricket, in my view.

In both situations, both FIFA and ICC are at fault, but more especially, Cricket and ICC, by accepting such ridiculous happenings on the field - are just not playing Cricket!.

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