Culture Czar

A Lifetime of Work, One Moment In Time

2006-12-17T00:05:00.000-08:00

It is with an overwhelming feeling of joy (and a touch of surrealism) that I must let the world know about my selection as Time Magazine's Person of the Year.

When I opened the Time website just minutes back, I was the last person I expected would get chosen. This may sound like my usual fake modesty, but the thought had seriously never crossed my mind. You can imagine my shock when I opened this page, and found that I had won.

It is with a deep sense of humility that I must reluctantly accept this. This is as much a tribute to me, as it is to the many people who have made this possible. If I name just a few persons who have contributed to this, it would be an insult to the many I may not recall immediately, so I shall refrain from praising even a single person. I am sure they will understand.

Of course, a lot of hard work has gone into this, and I refuse to single out a single achievement. Who am I to judge what brought more joy to people, whether it was my painstaking, gritty (and matchwinning, dont forget matchwinning) 78 in the Finals of the Intra-University Tournament at College or my frenzied, last-minute piece of inspired guesswork that went into spelling "chamois" , a feat that clinched the 9th Standard Spelling Bee at school? How can *I* decide whether the effortless cracking of the Guardian Crossword one evening was more meaningful than my finally managing to complete Kafka's "The Trial"? What IS my greatest achievement? Was it the adeptness with which I managed to reserve lahar@metallica.com as an e-mail ID (alas, now defunct), or was it the culinary perfection that my Maggi Noodles has been known to achieve?

Different people will have different viewpoints on this, and I respect this diversity. My work must speak for itself. In my victory, I shall also be gracious- I shall not talk about any of you losers who weren't selected.

Thank you, I once again thank you from the bottom of my heart for this rare honour.

Misinformation, Disinformation

2006-12-11T07:31:00.000-08:00

Once in a while, a news item comes along that can manage to make me amused and pissed off at the same time. This gem joins that august list. (If you want a write-up on the ICICI-Sangli Bank story, this is a decent place to go.)

For those who are too lazy to click, the piece is short enough to copy and paste:

The Communist Party of India deplored the reported move of the ICICI Bank to take over the Sangli Bank Limited and said such "clandestine moves'' was not acceptable.
"It is very distressing to see that foreign banks are allowed to take over Indian banks. This will adversely impact the job security and other rights of the employees,'' the party's Central Secretariat said in a statement.
It said that when the Left parties and the United Progressive Alliance were discussing banking reforms and other issues "such moves are clandestinely allowed to take place." "It is not acceptable.''

Hmmmm. I know that ICICI Bank is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Either that's enough to make it a "foreign" bank, or our friends in red tend to associate good "Indian" banks with half open iron grills, threadbare red carpets, chaiwallahs scurrying to serve the DGM's Guests, and rude tellers with iron tokens.

Which means that any bank that markets itself with any kind of flair (Read: Snazzy ATMs all over town, Neon-and-Orange billboards, and an unfamiliar in-your-face slickness) is assumed to be the local arm of one of those huge multinational banks. Which leads to the logical conclusion: They didn't think Indians had it in them to do it so well.

As I said- amused and vaguely irritated.

Meandering.

2006-11-14T20:12:00.000-08:00

I just thought up a cool title for my blog.

Unfortunately, "Children of a Lesser Blog" is taken.

Meanwhile, I've started a cricket blog. But since I've been unusually busy lately (or, paradoxically, unusually lazy), I haven't found the time to post much.

Maybe I should just post a para a day. By 2046 I'll have a book ready.

The Sad Tale of a County Cricketer

2006-09-11T20:22:00.000-07:00

I don't normally post "news stories", but I couldn't resist this one.

Richard Green played a handful of matches for Lancashire, was a right-hand medium fast bowler, made his county debut with Andrew Flintoff, no less, and was a recipient of the Denis Compton Award. Your normal county cricketer, one would think. Till the Net made him a Superstar.

He dabbled in property maintenance, and even set up a now defunct website. However, he decided on a rather unusual way to get traffic to his website. To cut a long story short, he announced that if his site got 5 Million hits, his girlfriend would allow him to do a threesome. He even announced it on his blog, with photo of him and grinning girlfriend. The LSE puts it better than I ever can.

And it came to pass that the site got 5 Million Hits. Wonderful, which meant that the promised threesome happenned, with an "exotic dancer" called Holly, no less.

But, alas, what happenned next? Cricketer gets jealous of girlfriend, girlfriend turns to exotic dancer called Holly for solace during this "difficult patch", and then, guess what, girlfriend and exotic dancer called Holly are suddenly seeing other!! Ah, the joys of young love....

News of the World also has a touching piece on this.

Fraudian Slip

2006-09-07T07:19:00.000-07:00

I was speaking with someone the other day, and the topic somehow veered around to books. I dropped the usual hints about how well read I was, and then did a mental checklist, to remind myself of my vast erudition.

For those who came in late, I'm, as far as books go, a complete stud. I own books by authors ranging from the surprsingly Italian Wu Ming Clan, to the Trinididian Marxist historian C. L. R. James, from the Must-Own Vladimir Nabokov to the Own-It-Or-You're-A-Loser Tom Wolfe. One day, I promise myself, I'll even read them.

So, getting back to my vast erudition, I try and figure out how many "Classics of English Literature" I've read. In the original, of course. And get the answer pretty fast.

Disclaimers: This is only "English", as in Tea and Crumpets, With a Little Milk, Thank You, literature, and not American/ Indian/anything outside the British Isles. This excludes anything written before 1900. And this, obviously, only includes books read in the original text.

Back to the point. 4 Books. Four. The number between Three and Five. Listed out below:-

Wuthering Heights, forced down my throat by the ISC Board
Far From the Madding Crowd, mom's library
The Mayor of Casterbridge, see above
David Copperfield (and maybe even Nicholas Nickleby)

Shocked? Don't be. Most of my reading in my formative years revolved around these cute pocket sized titles which went by the name "Jaico Abridged Classics" or something. Really nice books, especially for a 7 year old. They cut through the clutter, and tell you in about 280 pocket-sized large font pages what the book is all about. In case you're a dumbfuck, they also have a large picture on each page so that you know what is happening. Engrossing stuff.

I'm a little better when it comes to Shakespeare, though. I've read two of his plays, Julius Caesar and Twelfth Night being prescribed texts for the ICSE and ISC exams.

What about the rest? Ah. Comics. All of Shakespeare's plays, I've read all of them in comic book form. Highly reccomended, especially if you're an 8-year old kid. I can still quote extensively from Macbeth, Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice and the rest. (Incidentally, another excellent source of Shakespeare quotes is PG Wodehouse).

I am still wondering whether I am now a symbol of our appaling cultural degeneracy, or just a really lazy reader who took a short cut to bibliophilia. Maybe it's a sign of the times anyway. As Shakespeare should have said, "All the perfumes of Araby cant hide......"

Football Fewer

2006-07-18T08:06:00.000-07:00

Once every four years, the Love of My Life gets discarded for a significantly more global mistress. That awful line over and done with, the Soccer World Cup, also known as The Greatest Show on Earth, has come, thrilled, and gone.

Normally, I avoid football. I honestly can't tell the difference between, say, a Lampard and a Gerrard, or even between a superb tackle and a blatant foul. As for the EPLs of the world, it's something I'm quite indifferent towards. Yet, there is something seriously addictive about thirty days of non-stop football. Even England vs. Sri Lanka had to take a back seat to matches involving countries I didnt know the capital cities of.

Football has never moved me in the way cricket can. Laxman's "coruscating, series-turning 281", as (Wisden put it), Dravid's outstanding 233 at Adelaide, even last year's maddeningly tense Ashes series- these are all memories I can take with me to a desert island. It follows that I haven't the faintest clue about what's happenning in the world of football, save an ocassional Beckham-secretary scandal.

Yet, come FIFA World Cup and I am hooked. It's the whole idea of "country against country", for one- definitely something I can relate to. I really can't get emotionally involved with clubs battling it out for random trophies. Soulless corporatized artifical clusters of footballing talent never did it for me. Now, country against country- that's something that's easy to follow. No information overload, no keeping track of too many things, and most importantly, something concrete to support. For ninety minutes, I pick my team of choice on the spur of the moment, and cheer them on.

Then, there's the thrill of seeing a rank underdog gun down a fancied, flat-footed "potential champion". Senegal beating former colonial masters France in 2002, for one. Ghana upsetting the Czechs, for another. And, famously, Cameroon putting one past a stunned Argentina in 1990- the year that started it all for me. The joys of discovering that strange teams like Ivory Coast and Chile and Liberia have players who are, quite frankly, studs. (Note to nit-pickers. Yes, I know Liberia didnt play in any World Cup for the last 16 years, at least.) The scanning the league tables every day to see who needs to beat who by how many goals to qualify.

Of course, I also enjoy watching a good, well-fought game of football, and where do you watch the best, if not at the World Cup? I've had my share of moments of magic- Zidane against Brazil (two World Cups, not one!), Australia vs. Japan, that otherworldly Ronaldinho goal against England, Oliver Kahn's brilliant saves last time around.... top quality stuff, the thrills of The World Game distilled to perfection.

Another four years to go, and it's back to cricket, back to arguing with my wife that Yes, I know it's not India who's playing, but it's important that I watch Harmison bowl to Inzy, watch Pietersen bat to anyone. Life has resumed normal service.

Bookstuff

2006-05-16T07:56:00.000-07:00

Some authors I like. At least one book of. And yes, this is a self-indulgent post. There will be enough authors I've forgotten to add :-)

Nice No-Nonsense Thrillers

Alistair Maclean (literature, really)
Matthew Reilly
Frederick Forsyth
Colin Forbes

Westerns

J. T. Edson

Pseudo, Make Me Drip with Vicarious Intellectualism, But Decent Reads

Umberto Eco
Salman Rushdie
Orhan Pamuk

Contemporary Literature Quote Unquote

Bret Easton Ellis
James Ellroy

Science Fiction and etc

L. Ron Hubbard
Philip K. Dick
Robert Heinlein

Oldish Stuff But Lovely

Dashiell Hammett
H. Rider Haggard
John Buchan

Books with Pictures

Gary Trudeau (Doonesbury)
Scott Adams (Dilbert)
Batman

Cricket

Ramachandra Guha
Neville Cardus

Any more? Let me know.

Lahar

Jamshedpur Diary....

2006-02-22T02:07:00.000-08:00

I am currently on a two-week " break" in the heart of the Tata empire, Jamshedpur. I'm on a "break" instead of a Break, because I keep getting interrupted by phone calls from work, and by my (self-inposed) relentless checking of mail. Ah, well- that's why they made broadband.

For those wondering why I am in erstwhile Bihar (it's now Jharkhand- land of the Dhoni), this city is where The Wife was born and brought up. My father-in-law spent some 30 years or so with Tata Steel, the company that dominates life in Jamshedpur. But, more on that later.

Jamshedpur is a wonderfully laid-back change from fast-and-furious Bangalore. One wakes up to the cheerful twittering of birds, stretches out lazily, gets out of bed, greets one's in-laws, takes the proferred tea-with-Marie biscuits, goes to the balcony, gets some sun, speaks for a while with one's father-in-law, takes the paper, does two crosswords and one sudoku, finishes off one's ablutions, has a wonderful breakfast comprising buttered-toast-with-ham-or-sausages, and then starts checking mails.

One then breaks for lunch, goes back to the mails, mails, mails....

I've also been driving a lot around Jamshedpur- things like going with Anjali and my father-in-law for vegetables and shopping, and going to XLRI every now and then to meet Anjali's aunt. The roads are nice, wide, and above all, clean. Driving is just as chaotic as everywhere else, but there are not many vehicles on the road, so its a very relaxing activity. There is also a fantastic place which makes some divine mixture- it's called Fakira Chanachur, and is best had with chopped onions and some lime juice sprinkled on top .

This morning, we had gone to the local hub of all activities, Bistupur Market. I ended up weaving a huge car through some narrow by-lanes of the Fruit Market, thanks to Anjali and her " Oh, I'm sure we can take a short cut here" :-). It was thrilling stuff- here a wayward scooterist, there an orange, everywhere a cyclist, and all the while, Lahar struggles to keep car on road and away from anything else. After a while, there was enough place for car AND cycle in the same stretch of road, so I managed to heave a sigh of relief. As my father-in-law remarked in awe, he had never thought it was possible in the 35 years he had been in Jamshedpur!!

I've been catching up on some reading- I'd brought along Orham Pamuk's My Name is Red, but I'd abandoned that for my usual Alistair MacLeans. I'm right now reading a rather nice Dashiell Hammet- The Continental Op, a bunch of short stories. I've also managed to watch some cricket, and have been having lots of short, lovely naps.

I'm also being thoroughly pampered- I've been living on Thums Ups and Sprites and Bacardis and chips and this fantastic preparation called Madarasi mixture, which has tasted better than anything I've had in 27 years of living in the South. Anjali has been threatening me with martial law and strict diets and all that once we are back in Bangalore, but for now her parents are pampering me royally.

One observation that is rather easy to make is how integral Tata Steel is to everyday life in this part of the country. Everyone one meets either works there, or used to work there, or has close family who works there. The train from Calcutta is called the "Steel City Express", the railway station is called Tatanagar, the toniest club in town specifically says "Membership for employees of Tata Steel and for permanent residents of Jamshedpur", and so on. It's impossible to overhear a conversation between two people without Tata Steel coming in at some point. It's easy to see why they command such respect- they built this city from next to nothing, and they used to take care of its maintenance for years- until they set up a private company to run the place!! It's called the Jamshedpur Utilities Company, or JUSCO, and must be the only private company in India that is in charge of running a city!!! If you want to see a model of corporate social responsibility, look no further than JUSCO...

We head back for Bangalore in 3 days, back to the grind- this has been a wonderful couple of weeks, and I cant wait till I'm back here again. Small warning, though- if you're ever lucky enough to come here for some time, make sure you bring along your own books!!!

Ennui

2006-02-09T07:27:00.000-08:00

One sign of growing up is that I no longer have qualms about listening to allegedly girlie music like Air Supply any more. I currently have a playlist that comprises Goodbye and Makin' Love Out of Nothin' At All, (both by the Messrs Supply), So Young by the Corrs, and Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now by Starship. Nice, wonderful background music while one tries to sift through, and somehow magically reduce, one's emails.

Oh, and I have Informer by Snow for nostalgic cheap thrills. And some Shaggy, and even Lick it by 20 Fingers. My credentials as ex-rock journalist and wearer of heavy metal T-Shirts are taking a beating.

The Songs I Have Loved (And Lost)

2006-01-04T19:27:00.000-08:00

Have you ever heard this song somewhere, really liked it, and been searching high and low for it ever since? Worse, have you owned the audio cassette, but now have no way to play it? You are not alone.

Here are some of the best songs I have ever heard. Hardly any of these are available in India, on CD. And they are all fantastic songs, so if you have any idea where I can get them, let me know!

1) Blood of the King by Manowar

Brilliant, thundering, richly operatic heavy metal, epic in scope and intensity, this is one of their most famous songs. If you thought Rammstein was Wagnerian, then listen to Manowar!!

2) We Will Remember by Saxon

I have this thing for melodic harmonies wrapped in blazing guitars and throbbing drums, and nothing exemplifies that style better than this Saxon masterpiece. With an incredibly addictive chorus, this is a tribute to all those rock stars dead and gone.

3) This Flight Tonight by Nazareth

Yet another anthemic barnstormer. Originally sung by Joni Mitchell, Nazareth totally reworked it and made it a pounding, foot-tapping hard rock number. If you ever wanted to hold up your arms at a concert as the band launches into the chorus, this song is the perfect number for that.

4) Run Away / Another Night by the Real McCoy

These two were dance staples for much of the 90s- I still remember taking a break from watching MTV's European Top 20, to study for my I.S.C. (Std. XII) exams. The official term for the genre is the scary-sounding Eurodance, but as far as catchy, addictive and hummable dance numbers go, The Real McCoy have no equal.

5) Video Killed The Radio Star by The Buggles

The first song ever played on MTV, but then everyone knows that by now. Covered by numerous bands, including The Presidents of the USA, the original version is a catchy jingle that has you swaying and singing along to it. Nostalgia bottled, distilled and sung to perfection.

There you go. There are many, many more songs, and just writing about them makes me nostalgic... if you can find these anywhere, they are worth a listen!!

Damn.

2005-12-25T20:17:00.000-08:00

I just wrote a post about some of the songs that I'm looking for, and then forgot to save it. Life is vicious indeed.

Brevity Is The Soul Of....

2005-12-24T21:21:00.000-08:00

Lingerie.

My posts are too long. I shall make them smaller, more succinct and easier to read.

Twinge For Alien Game (7)

2005-12-23T01:06:00.000-08:00

There was an interesting article in The Guardian, by their crossword editor, Hugh Stephenson, on cryptic crosswords. The full article is here, but what set me thinking was this quote:-

"cryptic crosswords are like cricket. Playing the game is more important than the result. Hours, days even, can end in a draw, with everyone still happy. Perhaps it is no accident that the flowering of the cryptic crossword in the past 50 years has been in the English-speaking, cricket-playing world. It has never taken hold in the US..."

Interesting, most interesting. I love cricket, I love cryptic crosswords, and I do know enough people who share the same noble interests. And yes, we all know that those Americans think cricket is a character in a Disney movie. As for their crosswords, anyone who has been brought up on stuff like The Hindu or the Guardian crosswords would recoil with horror on seeing the New York Times Crossword. Think about it- Dog (4) is ASTA, and Medieval Slave (4) is ESNE. Straightforward, direct, and soulless.

I ran a quick Google search for cryptic crosswords, which turned up some rather interesting results- most of the first few entries were British or Australian websites. India starts to come in around Page 2 or 3... and what sport do England, Australia and India all play?

Of course, there isn't enough hard evidence (which, in this case, would mean Google) to show a direct link between cryptic crosswords and cricket, but a minute of intellectual circumambulation and you can come up with enough reasons to link the two. Of course, most would be contrived, but does that really matter? One of my favorite academic theses of all time is this masterpiece, which links that Bruce Willis classic, Die Hard, with classical music. It's even called, rather grandiloquently, "Collage and Subversion in the Score of Die Hard". And it's a lovely read.

Back, however, to the job at hand. Take Mr. Stephenson's premise, i.e. "playing the game is more important than the result". Half the fun in cryptic crosswords DOES lie in participation, not in finally completing it. Yes, the satisfaction of seeing a fully completed crossword is something else again. But, so is victory in a cricket match, isn't it? The fun here doesn't come from knowing that the match has been won- it comes from watching the match, from the emotional involvement that comes from seeing the ups and downs, the insurmountable obstacles, the sudden flash of inspiration, the brilliant breakthrough, that old cliche about the journey being more important than the destination- extrapolate all this to crosswords, and you would start to understand what I mean.

Of course, you can argue that this is airy fluff, and you would have a point. So, lets get our hands dirty.

It's, for one, about the layers. Cricket as a game is infinitely multi-layered, and understanding and appreciating it would mean delving into each layer, getting to know it intimately, and then moving on to the next. Which is just what we do with crosswords, isnt it? Understanding the nuances, the complexities, the layers, and mastering them...

And it's all about working, working, working on cracking that next one. Getting closer and closer, each time, getting that little bit nearer the target. Just like cricket- watch Kumble, for example. Watch him working on the batsman, one lazily floating through the air, another hacking through it, a third skidding uncomfortably. Watch him push fielders around, push them around like so many letters as you struggle on that anagram, watch him experiment, try new things, try old things, hoping they will work. Watch the anticipation, the sense of everything being almost-there-but-not-quite. Then, watch as one suddenly hurries through, as the batsman thrusts his bat forward, ball thuds into pad, jumps, brushes past bat on the way out, and drops into the waiting hands of silly point. All the waiting, all the thinking, all the myriad combinations that have been tried in that quest for the solution, above all, the immense SATISFACTION that comes from cracking it- the similarities are uncanny.

Neither cricket nor cryptic crosswords are fast-food pastimes. Both require long hours (preferably with favorite beverage), lots of leisure time to languidly savour it all, and lots and lots of mental gymnastics as permutations, combinations and results fly thick and fast inside your head. Both, above all, are filled with " What-Might-Be's", as you try and play Soothsayer and participant at the same time. Should Australia have accepted the light that early in the final Ashes Test, or just have played on, desperate for that win? Does that word end with " ING" or " ION" ? If it ends with ION, then the last unsolved clue has "N" as the fifth letter; if not, the fifth letter is " G". Delicious Agony, never finally resolved until the end. No McCrosswords for me, thank you very much.

Both also require more than just a functional knowledge of the game. I might sound like a pompous ass or even an elitist snob, but the intellectual stimulation that solving a good crossword or watching an enthralling game of cricket gives you is, as mentioned elsewhere, unsurpassed. Chances are, if you like cryptic crosswords, you should love cricket. In fact, think of it- keep a good newspaper ready before the next match, and work on the crossword between overs, or even when the game starts to slow down a bit!

One last point- most people would agree that Chennai has some of the most erudite and knowledgeable fans of cricket in India, people who still talk about Vishwanath's famous 97 against West Indies 30 years back, people who stood up to applaud the Pakistan team after they defeated India in a Test match. Is it a coincidence that Chennai is also home to India's most popular cryptic crossword, from The Hindu?

Lahar

PS- For those baffled by the heading, 'twinge' is 'crick'; 'alien' is 'ET', from extra-terrestrial. crick + ET gives you the Game..

This was first posted on the Cricinfo Blog, Different Strokes, and is cross-posted from there.

Self-Promotion...

2005-12-06T00:21:00.000-08:00

I now have another place where I can inflict myself on the world. Cricinfo, bless their souls, has let me post on their page. Different Strokes, one of their blogs, is where you can occasionally find me now. I already have a post up, on why I love to watch Test cricket over one dayers. Please watch my future progress with considerable interest, as a wise gentleman's gentleman would have said.

Stan, Ollie and Alice

2005-11-23T19:09:00.000-08:00

I remember how I started reading " books". Those big, fat things without any pictures. Until then, life was simple. The Tinkle came home, I opened it, and went through the panels with relish. I also read the words, those little text balloons that gave the story coherence and a " plotline". But I was a bit like Alice, wondering "what was the use of a book without pictures".

Life changed one evening, when I accompanied my dad to the Air Force Traning Command Library, at Bangalore. I went straight to the comics rack at the end of the library- and found that I had finished reading all the Asterixes (irrelevant diversion- are they Asterixes or Asterices?) and Tintins.

Looking around desperately, I found a thick book, all of 200 pages or so. Emblazoned across the top was a huge front cover equivalent of a neon sign, screaming "Hardy Boys"!!!

In the most pleasurable mistake of my life, I immediately thought of Messrs Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, God rest their souls. A Laurel and Hardy show, even in book form and without the obvious benefits of motion picture or even little panels with text boxes, promised to be a laugh riot.

And so it came to pass that five year old Lahar picked up the book, took it to the check out counter, and took it home with the greatest of felicity.

Of course, the book was a commercial as well as a critical success, once I started reading it. It was about two cool dudes who went around the world chasing down bad guys and having thrilling adventures. At that early age, I learnt that pictures weren't everything.

Since then, books have been an integral part of my life. There have been "Bad books", and these have come into my life and left it with equal ease, and there have been "Good books", which once found, have been firmly held on to. Even today, twenty two years after that first evening at the library, there are few things I find more pleasurable than curling up in bed with a packet of chips and a good book.

And to think it all started with Laurel and Hardy....

My Pseudo Bookstore Self

2005-10-24T20:51:00.000-07:00

I hate those entries that start "I have a confession to make". So very melodramatic, so very anticlimatic. So, when it's my turn, I have resolved, I shall start my little piece with a sentence that goes "I hate those entries that start..."

My little bit of mental Moibus strip over and dustbinned with, here comes the chase.

I own some of the greatest literature ever written. Not my personal view, of course. The collective opinion of thousands of critics, reviewers, " all-time lists", back-cover blurb extracts, you name it. On whether or not that view is deserved, I am silent.

I haven't read them, you see.

Not through lack of opportunity. I have forgotten the number of times I have glanced, longingly, at Midnight's Children, wondered whether I should actually make another attempt to start it, then decided to give myself three hours of unabashed pleasure, and picked up an Alistair MacLean instead.

Now, don't get me wrong. Alistair MacLean was one of the greatest authors ever to pick up a pen, while Rushdie, though a critic's darling, is, well Rushdie. His Moor's Last Sigh was a delight to read, while his collection of essays, Step Across The Line, is one of my favourite non-fiction books. However, reading Rushdie (or Umberto Eco, for that matter) requires a certain degree of reader involvement, a certain exercise of the intellect, and a certain emotional involvement. Reading an Alistair MacLean, on the other hand, is pure adrenalin rush, reminding you that you can be, albeit vicariously, Boy Scout and Blade Runner and Luke Skywalker and Marine all rolled into one. Thrilling, simply thrilling.

My long suffering wife would undoubtedly disagree with this, but I am dangerously close to concluding that books are meant to be bought, not for their intrinsic literary value, but for their bookshelf value. Bibliophilic sex-appeal consists, in large part, of owning the right books, and most people would assume that if you own the book, you have read it.

Therefore, in a move that I have deemed masterly, I have got in my possession large volumes of some of the allegedly finest "literature" on the planet. Nothing new about that, everyone has a decent collection of books these days. However, I have taken this one step further, and have stopped bothering to actually read these books.

Obvious Question: Will I get caught out as a fraud? Here is where my stunning "Do-Not-Read" model comes into play.

The trick is to actually read one book by a particular author, and then own lots more of his/her works. Thus, I have read the stunning LA Confidential by James Ellroy, but I own a couple of his other works, carelessly strewn about my house.

Umberto Eco- I have dog-eared his Name of the Rose, cursed his Foucault's Pendulum, but have read both many times. I now own other books of his- Baudolino, some non-fiction essays which I cant remember the name of.

There are manyof them- the list of authors whom I've read a single book, or a few books of, and have then picked up other works of theirs. Hanif Kureishi, for instance, Amitav Ghosh, Graham Greene, Anthony Burgess, John Steinbeck, even the wannabe intellectual's best friend, Jack Kerouac- the list could go on and on.

Of course, I do intend to actually read all those books some day. War and Peace, Heart of Darkness, The Bell Jar, Rabbit, Run....but until I actually get down to it, I may as well assuage my conscience by using them to prop up my carefully constructed bibliophile image.

Duck, Sir Donald?

2005-10-17T11:29:00.000-07:00

There is a fantastic urban legend which has been around for years, but which I havent been able to verify at all.

First, the facts.

In 1931-32, Australia toured the United States. One of the places they stopped by was Hollywood.One of those people who MAY have watched the game was a prominent member of the Hollywood Cricket Club.

Now, speculation....

So enamoured by Sir Don Bradman was the prominent member that he named one of his creations after the master batsman. Some theories say that the name was a reference to the score Bradman made in that match.....

Urban Legend:

That is how Walt Disney named Donald Duck.

Google, of course, has nothing except people discussing this endlessly....

Grievous Bodily Harmison..

2005-10-16T00:47:00.000-07:00

I love to watch some bowlers in action. Today, I feasted.

I had switched on the TV in the morning, prepared to watch a soulless, insipid "Super Test", or whatever the ICC's new marketing brain child is called. Bastard child, more likely- I can go on about the stupidity and emotionlessness of having a six day masala match and giving it official status, but enough has been said about it already.

Getting back to the point, the ICC World XI was bowling. Steve Harmison, none less. And as I saw him bowling, I remembered the thrill of last month's Ashes.

Harmison in full flow is really a joy to watch- he seems to smoothly glide into the crease, and then there's that lovely full-o'-limbs leap, with one arm going one place and the other arm going somewhere else, and out of the chaos emerges a vicious, middle-of-the-pitch missile that climbs and climbs and climbs..... watching him bowl is thrilling, taking you back to a time when cricket was fun and fiercely played, and very, very enjoyable....

And the man isnt about sheer pace. Today, he bowled a brilliant slower one to dismiss Hayden, yorking him when he was looking invincible. A lot similar to the delivery that removed Michael Clarke at the Edgbaston Test, leaving Australia at 175-8.

When he first came on the scene, during India's tour of England in 2002, I didnt think much of him. He was a replacement for the perennially injured Simon Jones, and he looked raw. Fast, yes, but the ball sprayed about, and few of our batsmen had any trouble negotiating him.

Cut to 2004. 7-12, Grievous Bodily Harmison, West Indies 47 all out. You can read about that on enough websites, so I shall get to the point.

Not since Shoaib has there been a fast bowler that I have enjoyed watching. Who I have rushed home early from work to watch, who has had batsmen hopping, ducking, who has made cricket fun again.

Those pedants who bother about results and statistics, you can take your Glenn McGraths and your Shaun Pollocks and burn in hell. Take your perfect bowling analyses, your 8-6-7-3, your 41 for 4, and go and rot. Oh, and take your boring, metronomic line, your corridors of uncertainty, your soulless, robotic, "perfect" deliveries with you.

Give me Shoaib any day. Charging into the crease, breathing smoke and fire, closing in with vengeance soaring high, faster than a lazer bullet, louder than an atom bomb, brighter than a thousand suns... (Painkiller, Judas Priest).

And better still, give me Harmison. Loose limbed, gawky, lanky, they've called him all that. But, oh, the joy....5 wayward balls in one over, who cares? That one ball, landing in the middle of the pitch, going for the batsman's throat....missing it by millimeters.... and maybe, missing wildly flailing bat too, as the fielders go up in unison...that catch in my heart, that whistling sound as my mouth forms a perfect "O" and my breath stops, then releases in awe....and then does it again as I watch the replay.

Beautiful. Simply beautiful.