It's just how much I know about the Guardian's complaint process (esp the role of reader's editor). Read his (there'll be a new 'him' soon) articles, theyre illuminating.
This revelation was brought by this and this becoming essential and entertaing reading at 'Manning Central'

Feliz Navidad! Prospero ano y Felicidad!
Festivus soon and I can't hardly wait, break out the oil and let the feats of strength begin.

Careful now! Gods save the Queen!
iel

Imagine there was a finite amount of information in the world

and you're using it for thundercat slash fiction?

In case you were wondering A C Grayling is your new personal Jesus

Somedays I get the scary feeling Im an adult

I have an ex-girlfriend who has a child, I know people who are married and I've just been offered stock options in the place I work. The world grows scarier.

In which Roy Orbison remains unclingfilmed

In the intervening (sic) months, people have had birthdays; happy birthdays to them. A special Message to Salter: There are an increasing number of women in the world who I describe 'as if salter had been beaten in the face with a frying pan' among them...Starbuck and various BBC WORLD presenters, feel proud that you're not one of them.

In Manning news...have met a tall man who enforces 'best practices', great guy and genuine fun to work with. Also met pro-thatcher, near-hippy yoga, buisnessman/dreamer and interesting chap.
That manomahn (sic) singh is an amusing chap, I love to hear him on the telly; why do people treat him as though he were a kid?
Will I have a weekend? Who can tell
If anyone wants any websites/databases made, I'm very reasonable and increasingly standards compliant!

There were other greivances to be aired. Later....

iel
'God willing, weather permitting'

The continuing adventures of whitey

Been meaning to post these ramblings for a while but Im never sure if my thoughts on whitey will settle. I've had actual encounters now, rather than refusing to acknowledge people on the street. Last Friday we went to the bbsc quiz, which as I had guessed were full of middle-aged white men plus wives. I liked the table I was put on, decent people just looking for a laugh between the 12 highly important meetings/lectures they have to give tomorrow. A couple of hitches in the evening, when the talk moved on to day to day life... the jokes were just 'arnt the names quite odd','don't they speak awfully fast'...just a little too patronising.
Places to find whitey: Just about anywhere, they suprise me sometimes...typical places are spencer plaza (metro centre crammed into 1/4 the area), mahabalapurham (the beach/stone carvings place where EVERYONE asked me if I liked the karma sutra then shoved tacky plastic carvings of various positions into my face)
There is a definite interest in skin colour though, a pretty victorian attitude. I've seen women walking down the street with umbrellas for the sun. Theres been this. National adverts tend to have extremely pale women on, eventually they turn up in some gold threaded sari and then they look indian. Near certain avoidance of the everyday man on the street, though south india seem very sunny, further research needed.
Cooking for myself is cool, I try not to hang around the spice shelves to long or the supermarket girls start giggling. Its tough when you have no clue what half of them are known as outside of india, the 1000 types of dhal for a start. I've mastered the masala omlette though and a few quick paneer dishes (paneer is the majority of my diet)
In other news it wont stop raining. Everytime matthew writes to someone and says it has stopped it starts again while Im walking home..he will pay. Still refuse to own a coat or umbrella, it has to stop sometime. TV continues to enrage me, though pat robertson has become my personal saviour. I defy you to watch his report on 'Intellegent design' and not be convinced. The evil 'SCIENCE' is brutally supressing people who just want to point out that darwin was wrong and evolution is a crime. This is also clearly persecution of christianity, a minorty group. Watch the 700 club its on some christian broadcasting channel in the uk. Theres enough on there to make you giggle every day.
Is that enough consciousness streamed into your thought space? I thought so, for now at least. Catch you soon! Keep safe. Have you lost weight?

Empire based fun

The greatest headline that never was: "Chinamen fear savage beating by Longwang" BBC World told me that a typhoon called Longwang was moving through the pacific, I'm not proud to say that I hoped it eventually made the newspapers.

Overheard in the office the other day: "If you're going to wear poo in your hair, make sure it's fresh". Poo ofcourse mean flowers but you all knew that, I giggled like a little schoolgirl though. Its Onam at the moment, a harvest festival from Kerala. I'ld tell you more about it but I wrote that ages ago and will post it when I find it.

Down the road from me is a "Gujarat handicraft cum-sale" yet more giggling.

Too tired now, next time: A guide to whitey and whitey spotting. Bring your eye-spy book of whitey, you'll need it!

Hello again

I'ld tell you hello in Tamil but it's not used outside Tamil Nadu. There is no official language of India, everytime Hindi is suggested the tamils block it. I know yes and no, which helps for negotiating all the autorickshaws.
A little about my situation. Work is developing the website out here. Small company, very nice people and work wouldve had a very nice beginning if it wernt for the NYTimes. Thomas Friedman, NYTimes columnist and author wrote a piece about American kids being left behind in education, mentions us and our server fell over for a while. After about 2 weeks we've replied to almost all enquiries and people have got evaluation accounts if we think they'ld like to sign up. Incidently, this is my first Sunday off and I cant think of much to do that isnt ramble here.
India is great but I don't know how to describe it. There are many, many shops but theyre not very big. It seems like everyone has some kind of stall be it fruit or tea or the girls making strings of flowers. Just down one street you'll find maybe 5 or 10 of the same sort of shop, I have no idea how they keep in buisness. There are so many autorickshaws buzzing around the city (or atleast the parts Ive explored). Autos are small 2 seaters that'll take you around the city, you negotiate the price before or after but its significantly easier beforehand. There are so many of them that they'll pull up to block you crossing the road, if you catch their eye they'll try and stop for you to get in. Cars honk their horns merely to show that they're driving, there are less lights and travel tends to be quite slow because of the number of cars on the road.
Food varies from mediocre to amazing. TN is predominantly Hindu so restraunts are 50/50 veg based, which makes for some good eating. A good meal with juice too comes to maybe 80rps which is a quid. The nice thing about Chennai is you can go into a hotel with the money in your pocket have a good meal and a beer. Local beer is water and is sold in wine shops or Hotels and comes with a good warning: Alcohol ruins Country, Family, Life. Seems alcohol is one of the most serious things here and can lead to being disowned. Its just TN though and doesnt spread into Kerala, just to the west of here.
I'll leave with that and add more soon. Daljit dhaliwal.