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4 Years In India

I’ve been in India for exactly 4 years today! It’s a bit of a milestone, didn’t think I’d be here for this long, which is what a lot of foreigners who come here end up saying. Infact I’ve been talking to a few expats who used to live here and they are saying they miss the place and would want to come back sometime.

We went out to an arts and crafts fair yesterday and it’s very revealing to see how many more foreigners are coming here, everywhere we looked there were westerners, families, businessmen, groups of friends etc. I’ve read that more and more people are looking to get opportunities in places outside America and Europe and given the pace at which India is growing it’s not surprising so many expats are ending up here.

My New Year’s Resolution

I forgot to publish a New Year’s Resolution, I hope I’m not too late! I’m going to keep it simple this year, so here we go:

1. Learn English proper, like. I’ve been told by many people that I have a wonderful writing style (Naaw, thanks guys!), but I’ve also been told by an equal number of people that my grammar sucks, my girlfriend even told me that a little piece of her dies every time I use an errant “are” instead of “is”. To rectify this (and to save my girlfriend) by the end of 2012, amongst others, I will have finally mastered the common apostrophe, know the exact times when to use the semi-colon, the colon and of course the hyphen and be the foremost expert on the tricky difference between “which” and “that”.

2. Lose another 4kg. It doesn’t sound like much, it doesn’t need to be much, I just need to be lighter at the end of the year than I am now.

3. Turn 29. Well, I need to have at least one resolution that I’ll be able to stick to! I’ve now successfully turned 29

4. Go to bed early. If I’m going to turn 29 this year then I need to stop going to bed at 1am and stop writing blog posts at 12:30am like this one, even if it is a Saturday tomorrow.

That’s all I can think of at the moment, it should be good enough, I’ll see you in 2013 to see how we all got on.

Cow Theory

I was forwarded this wonderful (stereotyped!) analogy of the world’s cultures yesterday so thought I’d share it here for everyone. Yes, it’s stereotyped but I think it hits the nail on the head in most cases!

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away…

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyze why the cow has dropped dead.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.
You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows.
No balance sheet provided with the release.
The public then buys your bull.

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organize a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
You then create a clever cow cartoon image called ‘Cowkimon’ and market it worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb you and invade your country.
You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of Democracy….

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go to the pub for a few beers to celebrate.

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive.

A GREEK CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You borrow against the cows from the Germans
You kill the cows and make souvlaki
You can’t pay the interest so the Germans lend you more money
You can’t pay the interest so the Germans lend you more money
You can’t pay the interest so the Germans lend you more money
You can’t pay the interest so the Germans lend you more money…

The Winner

Yesterday I won a competition for a free privileged entry to an international social media seminar that is taking place in Chennai this week with the lead speaker from the famous SEOmoz company (which I’m really excited about!). You know, a lot of people say they never win anything and I am certainly one of them. My girlfriend asked me what the last thing I won was, I racked my brains and the best I could come up with was winning the Most Polite award at the annual Cub Scout (Great Bowden Cub Pack) summer camp when I was 9 years old. Apparently I always remembered to say my “please and thank yous” to Akela and Brown Owl. But I hardly mention that any more and might even take it off my CV under “Achievements”.

Humiliated By The City

Wow, where to start with this one. United have been looking shakey for the last few matches, first against Norwich and then against Liverpool, it couldn’t have been any more different to the first few games of the season where they were like a poor man’s Barcelona and looking awesome.

This 6-1 defeat is United’s biggest ever defeat in the Premier League and I guess Man City have made it quite clear that they intend to be a lot more than just the noisy neighbours – more like the new landlords of Manchester I would think.

First thing’s first. United were awful from the kick-off. There was no fluidity, none of the intricate passing we had seen in the earlier matches and Young and Nani could rarely beat Micah Richards and Gael Clichy on the wings. The defense was a mess, Johnny Evans had another calamitous match which culminated in a sending off at the start of the second half, Ferdinand couldn’t keep up with City’s pacey forwards and even the normally fleet footed Evra struggled to contain Milner.

By the time the game got to 80 minutes, United’s back line literally looked like it had given up or had no more energy left to run and City just went rampant, none of the defenders could keep up and De Gea was pretty much blameless for all the goals.

When Abramovich bought Chelsea the title by buying all the best players it was often said that you need to grow a team and not buy a team. Mancini has bought a team of individuals and somehow got them to play as a team. No doubt they’ll go through a slow patch like all teams go through during the season but on this performance I think City are the team to beat this year.

Oh, and of course, being more than a little bit bitter about the humiliating defeat, I can’t just say congratulations, so let’s not forget the amount of money being spent by Man City; any success they get is because they have taken shortcuts and bought it. The sooner the FIFA financial fair play rules come in the better, we can’t have foreign sugar daddies coming in and manipulating the game like this.

Good Job, Dave

Well done, Dave, you have come out victor in another conflict started without consent of the British public and at an estimated cost of £1bn give or take a few hundred million pounds. And I thought Britain was broke and we all (that is, the public at large) had to take it stoically on the chin. £1bn? That’s 5 new schools for you right there.

And now, the evil, but slightly comical goatee-bearded villain is dead. No more long rambling rhetorical speeches for journalists to be smugly condescending about and how comforting it is to know that the unelected Libyan transitional Head of State (who, not forgetting, was this time last year the Justice Minister in the aforesaid villain’s showpiece government) has publicly said that the bastions of humanity will not be forgotten when it comes to handing out those lucrative contracts to rebuild the bombed out country. A score for your party donators British business.

Now, Dave, how about this for an idea? Before we go gallivanting as the knight in shining armour in to yet another conflict with an oil rich state in the name of humanity (while of course neatly side-stepping the inconvenient issues present in non-oil rich failed states), why not ask the public if they want to send our (I’m searching for a better word here) defense forces in to a war zone thousands of miles away by conducting a democratic referendum?

Dave, I think I speak for a lot of people when I say I would rather see the hospitals, schools and council services be better funded rather than spending another £250,000 to send a plane to drop a bomb on Johnny Foreigner, no matter how much oil the country has humanity the people need.

Daylight Robbery On The British Trains

I just purchased a single train ticket to take me from Market Harborough to London St Pancras tomorrow morning at 9am. The whole journey takes about 60 minutes and East Midland Trains, the thieving robbing bastards that they are, see it fit to charge a staggering £50 for the pleasure. It’s not paying for the fuel or staffing costs, it’s more than likely paying for the station refurbishment at St Pancras.

If the Government want more people to take public transport, then they need to sort out the prices of it first because at fifty quid a go it’s only going to be the wealthy people who can afford to not have a car! What’s more, if Network Rail (or whatever the hell it is now) franchise out the lines it means money grabbing companies like East Midland Trains have got the monopoly on that route and have no competition or incentive to keep the prices down.

£50 pounds for a 60 minute train ride. Britain is broken. The country has gone to the dogs. I’m not going to be hanging round here.

£10 Haircuts?!

Every time I come back to England it seems to coincide with the urgent requirement to get a haircut and so once a year I head down to a local barbershop where I have been going for the last 10 years. Since I go during the day the conversation is always the same…

Hairdresser: You on holiday today then?
Me: Oh, no, I’m just back visiting my parents for a couple of weeks
HD: That’s nice, which part of the country have you come from?
Me: Err, India
HD: India?!
Me: Yeah, I live and work out there
HD: Really?! What are you doing out there?
Me: I work for one of those outsourcing companies
HD: You mean the ones that are taking all our jobs like the call centres and we can’t understand a word they are saying?
ME: Not quite, we build websites and don’t have a call centre
HD: Hmm, it won’t be long before they bloody well take all our jobs and no one has anything left to do here!
Me: Ah, but they can’t outsource hairdressers now can they!
HD:

What’s more is that as sure as night follows the day, the price has steadily gone up and I don’t know if I’m going to reveal my true age here or something, but I remember when a good, honest haircut cost £4.50. Every year the price has increased and now we’ve reached the ludicrous price of £10. I almost choked when she told me the price, ten quid for 15-20 minutes of work, if this carries on I’ll work out a way to outsource hairdressers myself!

The Lilliputians Versus The Brobdingnagians

Today it was the giants of the Premiership. Not in a figurative performance sense, but in a literal, oh my god they are fricking massive, sense. Stoke have forged something of a winning strategy by being bigger and stronger than any other team in the Premiership and with the arrival of Peter Crouch in the summer have raised the average height of the squad from 6ft 6″ to a lofty 6ft 11″. In a word, Stoke City are HUGE!

And that’s why so many teams struggle against them, which is what happened with Man Utd today. Stoke used Crouch as the point man to great effect. The football isn’t pretty, it isn’t technical but damn it caused problems for Uniteds back line. At every opportunity the Stoke keeper or defenders would literally hoof the ball in to the United box and hope that Crouch could get on the end of it, which since he’s a full head taller than even Ferdinand or Jones, happened quite often.

What’s more, Stoke closed down United so quickly, it was like the charge of the light brigade every time a United player touched the ball, Stoke’s giants would rush on in. In the past this kind of pressing play worked great for the first 80 minutes and then everyone dies and United said thank you very much, Goal. Now though, I’ve noticed that teams that have to press United can do so for the full 90 minutes.

There was less of the tiki taka football on show today, Anderson continued with his loose balls and as I’ve mentioned before De Gea still really needs to work on his distribution, especially when you are playing against a team the size of Stoke – I don’t think any of his hoofs was caught by a United player. That said, he pulled off some exceptional saves and he’s looking a bit more comfortable than a few weeks ago and looks like the quality United need at the back.

Nani was once again the best player for United, the last season or so he’s finally beginning to fill the boots to match his ego. Always written off as a poor man’s Ronaldo, he’s more like a middle class man’s Ronaldo now. Rather surprisingly was that Owen managed to last the full 90 minutes, but his contribution, yet again, didn’t do justice to his ability. A good run to draw off defenders to help Nani’s goal, but apart from that when he did get the ball there didn’t seem to be any killer strike, there was too much hesitation and on more than one occasion there was too many touches. Maybe with more games he could get back to his goal scoring ways and with the injury to Rooney and Hernandez (how many injuries do United get in a season!) maybe he’ll get his chance.

Two points dropped here, but Stoke were a very tough side to deal with.

This Is The Worst Flu Ever!

I’m currently down and out with man-flu, which is a little bit like a cold that women and children get – what with all the aching joints, mucus oozing out of various orifices, a single functioning nasal passage, sneezes so hard it gets picked up by seismometers around the world, sinuses that have inflated to twice their normal size and general Sunday morning tiredness – only man-flu is scientifically proven to be 10x worse. Yes, it might mean we are a weaker sex, but damnit if that’s what it takes for you to believe that this flu has me at deaths door and it’s using all my bodily strength to fight it off and it’s not ‘just a cold’ then so be it.

So far, I’ve kept myself occupied by finding out why mucus is yellow when you have a cold (and that your nose contains the same, err, expandable flesh, as male sexual organs), what the hell the sinuses even are or do (I was surprised), read an entire Star Wars novel and then researched who Sifo Dyas was and why General Grevious was a cyborg with lightsabers. So despite being completely knocked for six as my body battles this virulent man-flu, I feel as if I’ve achieved something with my new found knowledge that Grevious was trained by Count Dooku and will be sure to pass on this information when I meet new people.

Oh yes, and my girlfriend has sent a care package to help me get better which consists of honey, pepper, ginger and cloves which I’m to mix in to a cup of tea and then take a Combiflam afterwards. If you haven’t heard of Combiflam it’s an awesome 1+1=3 painkiller where the creators thought “Hmm, Ibruprofen and Paracetamol are great but they both lack that little something. I know let’s mix the two together and call it Combiflam!”