My first job

My very first “job” was with a local area newsletter based in Adyar – South Madras News, it was called. I was doing an evening course in journalism, and I think our class was farmed out to various small publications to get our “practical experience” as part of the course. I think so, anyway. My memory is a bit fuzzy about it after so many years, so I’m not even sure who else was allotted to this place other than my best friend Lakshmi.

The South Madras News was published by Mr and Mrs R Desikan. Mr Desikan was short, small but rotund, bald and prone to much hand-wringing, always rabbiting on about expenses and fussing about one thing or the other. He was the sort of man who was always peering over your shoulder, but all said, he wasn’t really a bad sort.

It was Mrs Desikan, however, who stands out with absolute clarity in my memory. She terrified me. Granted that it didn’t take much to terrify me then, but she was a tartar who would have put Genghis Khan to flight. She was about her husband’s height, with long plaited hair that was thinning very noticeably at the top, large eyes magnified by her thick glasses, a sharp nose and a very abrasive manner. She was probably the driving force behind South Madras News, and she drove a hard bargain for everything with everybody. She didn’t hesitate to yell at anybody who didn’t do exactly as she said, and her husband got a piece of her mind fairly often. At 5’8”, I towered over her diminutive 5’2” or thereabouts, but it wasn’t her size, it was her personality that did you in.

I didn’t really like Mrs Desikan and I found it somewhat nerve-wracking to work there – but work I did for a couple of months, for the princely (hah) sum of Rs 500 per month inclusive of expenses.

I have no particularly fond memories of the various press conferences that I attended as a reporter for the South Madras News – except one.

I was to attend a press conference at a medical college/hospital that had opened a new department, but I missed it entirely because I got hopelessly lost trying to find the place. (My homing pigeon instincts aren’t much improved from then.) I finally made it to the hospital, but much too late for the opening ceremony or the conference itself.

In fact, I got there just in time for the closing ceremony which had just begun... and to my everlasting joy, I was privileged to listen to M S Subbulakshmi rendering “Kurai ondrum illai” – live! I doubt anything could top that as an unearned reward for being unprofessional - and I even managed to catch her eye and receive a graceful namaskaram from her (in return for my awed bow) as she made her way out of the hall at the end. It wasn’t much in the larger scheme of things, I guess, but it meant a whole lot to me. Still does, actually.

Oh, and my report on the press conference? I cobbled it together from the “press pack” which I begged from the PRO of the hospital after all was over.

Sunday Scribblings - "Out of This World"

The concept of space, beyond that we get within Earth’s atmosphere, is simply mind boggling. To think of all the millions of miles of empty space between every planet in our dinky little solar system, which is only a tiny part of the Milky Way Galazy, which itself is only, apparently, a small galaxy... the billions of stars that exist within just the Milky Way Galaxy... and then to learn that there are billions of galaxies much much larger than the Milky Way, each of them with billions of stars and miles of empty space between, with still more billions of empty miles between each galaxy... with the Universe expanding rapidly (but to WHERE? What was there first?) all the time, making itself bigger and bigger…

Well, eventually, trying to imagine this sort of thing sends shivers down my spine and fills me with a restless itchiness beneath my skin, leaving my mind in utter chaos. It’s just such an incomprehensibly huge thing to get my head around that I have to go off and do something mundane for a while to feel normal again.

And don’t get me started on the black holes that are apparently gobbling up all the empty space and any stars or asteroids or worlds that might come their way, getting stronger and bigger and swallowing it all ever more and ever quicker. Perhaps one day, at some point - in a year, a century, an eon, a millennium - all those black holes will get together to make a humongous big nothing down which everything will have disappeared... and then what?

The Big Unbang?

Was it something I said?

Was it my breath?

Is it “Abandon a Blog” week and everybody decided that my blog was the one, without telling me?

Why the deathly silence in the comment section?

I’m confused. Hurt. Puzzled.

I feel alone.

Abandoned.

Helloooo… is there anybody out there? Anyone?

Obelix was right!

To more or less quote the formidable Obelix: “These British are crazy”! (Imagine, if you will, the toc toc toc sound of his forefinger tapping against the side of his head).

Why else would thousands of them flock to the seaside – the British seaside, not balmier shores - in weather that is distinctly unsuitable for dallying on the beach or swimming in the sea, or going outside the shelter of your house or, come to think of it, even getting out of a warm bed?

Common sense doesn’t enter into it. If it’s Easter, one must go to the seaside. Preferably in one’s caravan – or, if one has a static caravan, that is where one must stay.

No matter that Easter has arrived unseasonably early in the third week of March, rather than later in April, as in previous years. No matter that the freezing wind is straight from the Arctic. No matter that there is the occasional flurry of snow or spatter of hail. No matter that (in Borth, at any rate) there is barely even a beach, because the waves, whipped into a suicidal frenzy by the wind, are hurling themselves against the strip of shingle and sand in a welter of foam and froth. You wouldnt really set foot there because said foot, followed by the rest of whatever it is attached to, would be washed away in an instant. No - no matter what, the first long weekend of the year, as the harbinger of warmer days, has to be enjoyed by the seaside.

Tradition – or is it some sort of irresistible, if inimical, instinct? – demands it.

Given these conditions, but of course the seaside was the destination for our long Easter weekend too. How else could it be? Pete and I went to Borth, a tiny village by the seaside, in Wales. I had my reservations about the sanity of this plan, but any feeble appeals to Pete’s reason were blown to shreds by the wind. The only thing I could do was be stoic and put up with the seasonal outbreak of bulldog Britishness.

The weather in Borth, for most of Thursday and Friday, was as described above, except that it was even more so. Our caravan was cosy enough, with plenty of heating. The noise of the rain splattering on the roof of the caravan was absolutely amazing… it wasn’t difficult to imagine some insanely playful giant outside, who sometimes threw little pebbles on the roof, and sometimes poured bucketfuls of water - and always there was the wind, making our caravan rock gently from side to side. There was no danger of the caravan toppling over, stable on its eight sturdy legs as it was. But still, when the wind gusted extra strongly, I have to confess that I braced myself instinctively for that which would remain unvoiced...

It certainly was an experience to remember. Saturday and Easter Sunday weren’t bad, with only the occasional rain shower, but the wind remained steady. Wind without rain is actually rather fun – that is, if it isnt the icily freezing North Wind that doth blow. (I don’t have any first-hand information on what poor robin did then, poor thing. But, if the poem is correct in its prediction, robin probably sat in a barn and tried to keep himself warm by hiding his head under his wing, poor thing.)

Monday was sunny and bright and windy – and still very cold. But since it was so clear, we went for a drive. Borth and other seaside towns in Wales seem to have their own little weather conditions, so depending on which town we stopped at, we alternated between feeling a little too warmly bundled up (when the sun shone) and feeling a little too thinly clad (when the clouds came in and the wind blew)… and mostly I watched in utter amazement the surfers and rowboats in the water, and the kids on the sand, digging enthusiastically or building sandcastles. As a sideshow, there were all these serious cyclists with their ridiculous helmets, enthusiastically riding cross-country, battling the winds and winning. (What are these people MADE of?)

When I’d had my fill of gaping in admiration at the stubbornly sporty lunatics in and out of the water, we went in search of icecreams. If you’re at the beach, you’ve GOTTA have icecreams. It's written in the Constitution. It's the LAW. (Honest.) And there’s nothing like icecreams that have been made locally with real cream, instead of the generic Walls or Carte d’Or or whatever.

And since I have nothing more to say that’s relevant to the Easter weekend, I’m just going to add that I am not (yet) a British citizen, so I’ll have to wait till next year to see if I’m also overcome by this delightfully insane British urge to go to the seaside in howling winter weather… or if my Indian instincts will prevail.

Sunday Scribblings - "I dont get it"

Somewhat late with this prompt because I was away for the long Easter weekend. I would have skipped it, except that the prompt was so tempting – I mean, who doesn’t have “I don’t get it” moments or issues, right? Right.

So here are a few of the things I. Just. Dont. Get:

- Maths. Apparently mathematics can prove that we humans - and probably our world - are non-existent. (Figments of somebody’s imagination – which, by the way, are also illusions.) How useful is it to know that? We don’t exist because a mathematical formula says so. Oh hang on, the mathematical formula is illusion too. Don’t you just love theoretical proofs that validate hypotheses picked from thin air?

- Hunting, especially foxes, as in the UK. I know foxes are severe pests, but there are more humane ways of killing a fox than to chase one all over the countryside and have the hounds finally tear it apart. A colleague of mine loves hunting, she says, because it gives her the opportunity to ride cross country. Well gee honey, just ride cross-country, then. Dress up in fancy clothes if you must, tootle on a horn if you like, get together with like-minded horsey folk, take all the dogs for a collective run. And oh yeah – oddly enough, all this can be achieved without torturing a fox.

- High-fashion labels. Gotta be the biggest con job of all time, renewed several times every year. Why pay ridiculous amounts of money for a bag or a dress or a scarf, only to advertise somebody else’s name? What’s the big deal about being a walking – if very expensive – advertisement? And paying for the privilege, how dumb is that?

- George Dubya Bush. Need I say more?

- All the Big Brother series, anywhere in the world. I simply don’t get how people can waste their time watching a few selected misfits and losers have their inane conversations and pursue pointless relationships.

- Sports clubs and fans. What’s the ritual about having to buy and wear team colours and scarves just to watch a game on TV at home? Makes sense – just - if you’re watching a match live at a stadium, but otherwise who would know or care what armchair sports fans wore at home?

- Formula One racing. How can grown men (and maybe women?) sit and watch cars that sound like demented mosquitoes go round and round the same bloody circuit for a 100 or more laps?

- Child Maintenance Payments. Why is it that £100 a month (or sometimes less) is deemed enough to take care of ALL the needs of a child from a non-affluent family, while celebrities’ children apparently require millions? Shouldn’t bringing up a child cost the same, frills apart, no matter in which section of society? Why should rich kids need brand-name clothing and food and schooling when a poor kid can apparently get by on Tesco’s Own brand of everything?

Ok, on this one I can actually see the other PoV too – if I was poor and my ex-husband a gazillionaire, I probably wouldn’t be very amused to receive £50 a month for fulltime child maintenance! But still…

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1: The Countdown Tag

Ten things you wish you could say to people right now (don't list names):

1. You’re way too big for your boots, missy!
2. Would you STOP asking me what to do? I’m not the professional!
3. Phew, your breath smells! How long was that rat dead when you ate it?
4. I don’t think anybody here actually respects you.
5. Stop going on about how much weight you've gained – you’ve not! You're just showing off your perfect figure!
6. You’ve no idea how much I miss you.
7. I wish you would not shove your wealth in my face.
8. I wish I could be like you.
9. Talk less, do more. Actually if you’ll just stop talking, I’ll gladly do it all.
10. If only I’d had the opportunities you did as a child.

Nine Things About Yourself:

1. I love straight hair. I’ve always wanted straight hair. I had it straightened once, in Singapore, and now that I know how utterly beautifully straight hair behaves, I want it even more!
2. I like to read books which have sequels, in sequence. The one series that I read out of sequence was The Chronicles of Narnia. Started with “The Silver Chair” because at that point I didn’t know it was part of a series.
3. I go silent when I am upset or angry.
4. I like my mouth. I think it’s the one good feature I have.
5. I hate clutter on my work desk.
6. I’m very choosy about the books I buy new.
7. I adore looking through charity shops for books.
8. I’m never sure that my writing will amuse others.
9. I love jilebis.

Eight Ways To Win Your Heart:

1. Do little things to show you care for me (no diamond rings, thanks).
2. Make me laugh.
3. Be interesting and chatty.
4. Compliment my embroidery/painting - but be sincere. I can tell if it's not real admiration.
5. Name your baby after me (Note: This hasn’t happened yet but I live in hope)
6. Listen instead of interrupting.
7. Enjoy my cooking.
8. Dont crowd me - physically or otherwise.

Seven Things That Cross Your Mind A Lot:

1. I wish somebody would pay me to sit at home and read books.
2. I should have been born rich!
3. Why cant I have cute dimples?
4. Am I doing the right thing?
5. Get a move ON! You're driving at walking pace!
6. Thank god I dont have to work weekends.
7. We've GOT to live somewhere else, this country's getting impossible!

Six Things You Wish You Never Did:

1. Missed Spanish classes.
2. Buying those shoes. What was I thinking?
3. Snapping at my mother when I was irritated with something/someone else.
4. Sitting through those "bride hunting" occasions when I really didnt want to.
5. Been mean to my sister and brother when we were growing up.
6. Kicked the door - ouch! It only added injury to insult.

Five Turn-Offs:

1. Body odour
2. Puffed-up, self-important people
3. Hypocrisy
4. Complacence
5. Tightfistedness

Four Turn-Ons

1. Intelligence
2. Great sense of humor
3. Dimples
4. Josh Lucas

Three Things You Want To Do Before You Die

1. Travel around the world
2. Lose weight (yeah, it might take that long, possibly longer)
3. Learn Japanese

Two Smileys that Describe You

1. :D
2. :P

One Confession

1. I envy people who can look stylish and posh in anything.

Sunday Scribblings - "Smorgasbord", "Bed", "Music"

From the Smorgasbord of prompts from the past two years of Sunday Scribblings, I chose “Bed” and “Music” to write about this week.

Apart from the mandatory, minimum 10-minute read in bed before doing anything else, including falling asleep – no matter HOW tired I am – one other thing to which I’ve become used is listening to music.

Pete is the maestro here, choosing music that he loves and which he thinks I should know about. I’m pretty much a philistine when it comes to western music in general, with the sort of taste in songs that probably sets his teeth on edge – music that he terms as “too commercial”, by which he means it’s too easy to like and just as easy to forget. I, on the other hand, accuse him of being a musical snob… although once in a while I agree with him on certain songs… eventually. (Things like “Asereje” or “The Cheeky song”, etc).

In the last 7-1/2 years that I’ve known him, my familiarity with various bands, individual singers and their albums has increased dramatically. The music he has loved and listened to for years isnt always to my taste, but I’ve given it a fair chance before deciding that yeah, on the whole I’m not crazy about Elton John (early years and later whining), Bill Nelson (in Be Bop Deluxe and as a solo artist), Kate Bush (who’s as annoying and high-pitched as a mosquito in her debut album and what LANGUAGE does she sing in for god’s sake and what on earth was that video about where she looks and dances like a demented ghost?), David Bowie (don’t get him and don’t like his tombstone teeth) – and so on. Those are the ones that come to mind immediately, but there are definitely more bands/artistes I dont care for overmuch.

On the other hand, I've fallen in love with Pink Floyd - and even more so with David Gilmore and his smoky, ever-so-slightly-raspy MAN'S voice. Listen to him, and you'd never confuse him with anyone else... there's no mistaking that voice, unlike all the boy band and girl band singers who pretty much all look and sound alike if you're not actually watching them. Seal, with his equally gorgeous voice, is balm for the soul... which leads me to wonder, how on earth does he put up with Heidi Klum and her ANNOYING voice - how could he have married her?

But I'm getting sidetracked. Genesis is another group I've come to like very much. Alhough I was familiar with Phil Collins as a solo singer from when I was younger, I've fallen for Peter Gabriel with a vengeance. I love the music that he brings out under his record label too. That man has good taste.

Groups like Afro-Celt Sound System and the Guarneri Underground are very close to my heart - and soul. The former mix African and Irish music by way of some Indian as well, and the lead singer of the latter, Beth Quist, has a voice that is liquid silver - its purity has to be heard to be believed, and she can hold high notes effortlessly for what seems like entire minutes. She's just amazing!

Enya is another singer that I adore... most of the time I've no idea what she is murmuring about, as the lyrics are more often than not in Gaelic - but her English lyrics bypass my comprehension too. It doesnt matter, though, because the melody of her songs and her gentle, soothing, sweet voice are what appeal to me. Her music makes me think of green grass and open meadows and murmuring brooks and everything that is lovely in Nature - it's wonderful and so relaxing to fall asleep to that beautiful music.

I havent touched on a tenth of the music I've discovered over the last few hundred nights... and to tell the truth, I dont know the difference between the various kinds of pop and rock anyway. Hell, I cant even tell the difference between pop and rock! So music labels such as rave, glam rock, metal, hard rock, alternative pop, alternative rock, motown, retro, hiphop, psychedelic, grunge, punk rock, grindcore, house, merseyhouse, speed metal, thrash metal, doom metal, death metal (WTF??) - PHEW! - and so on, hold no meaning for me.

Music to me is divided into two types - music I like and music I dont like. If it's something I like, I can listen to it at any time. So sometimes there's a slight difference of opinion at night when I want to listen to stuff from Pete's DJ compilations. "But it's dance music", he says, a little baffled. "It's the stuff I play at weddings and discos." Yeah I know, and that's where I heard them first and got to know and love them. Songs like "Rockin' all over the world", "Mickey", "The Rowboat Song", "I'm a believer", and so on, are as much bedtime listening as Enigma or Jakatta or any of the "trance" genre of music. To me, that is.

But to Pete, who is infinitely more knowledgeable about western music, the way I put together CDs of my favourite songs is in equal parts amusing and incomprehensible - you could find "Que sera sera", "Yesterday", "Leningrad", "Belfast Child", "Macarena", "Shine" and "Ray of Light" all in one CD, and in no particular order. Mixing up genres, decades and song-styles is something I do naturally, because all I know is that they're songs I like.

I guess it's a bit like Pete wanting to listen to M S Subbulakshmi's "Suprabatham" at night - being ignorant about South Indian devotional music, all it is to him is a melody in a language he cant begin to understand. But because I've grown up with it being played every morning, listening to it at night doesnt seem right. For all I know, there are arcane reasons why playing the suprabatham at night is bad for you, the way certain combinations of musical notes are reputed to create a dissonance within you, and others soothe or calm you. It's more than possible - but it's another matter entirely whether I believe all that.

Anyway, to get back on track and finish off, let me just say that there's a veritable smorgasbord of music which I get to listen to in bed pretty much every night. The Sandman must like that too, because he arrives earlier and earlier.... zzzzz.

Appropriated from here (Click title to see where here is)

You're Feeling: Reluctant to work
To Your Left: 10 feet of carpet, then a colleague's desk
On Your Mind: My stomach (I dont have an alien interior, I'm just hungry!)
Last Meal Included: Half of a scone
You Sometimes Find it Hard To: Explain what I'm feeling
The Weather: Windy
Something You Have a Collection of: Books
A Smell that Cheers You Up: Vanilla
A Smell that Can Ruin Your Mood: Fertiliser
How Long Since You Last Shaved: Depending on which area is meant, my answers are: I dont need to shave (or) None of your beeswax! :)
The Current State of Your Hair: Frizzy and windblown
The Largest Item On Your Desk/Workspace Right Now (besides computer): Printer
Your Skill with Chopsticks: Laughable
Which Section You Head to First In the Bookstore: Discount Department!
...and After That?: Comedy
Something You're Craving: Really good bhelpuri
Your General Thoughts On the Presidential Race: Obama for Prez!
How Many Times You've Been Hospitalised this Year: Zero
A Favorite Place to Go for Quiet Time: Bedroom
You've Always Secretly Thought You'd Be a Good: Kindergarten teacher
Something that Freaks You Out a Little: Slugs, worms, snails - and they freak me out a LOT!
Something You've Eaten Too Much of Lately: Soynuts
You Have Never: Skydived (skydove?)
You Never Want To: Lose a loved one.

Here comes a rant... wait for it... nearly there...

And HERE it is - aimed at people who spell "that" as "tat". Let me say this - it IS tat! And if you dont know what it means, I'll explain it for you. Tat is "tastelessness by virtue of being cheap and vulgar"! There!

In case I'm being impossibly old-fashioned, I'm going to further that impression with a few questions that have been absolutely PLAGUING me:

Is it a time-saving device, leaving out the "h" from "that" while texting or writing?

How much time could it possibly save?

What do people do with the saved time?

(And while I'm registering an effortless High on the Shrill-o-Meter, I'd like to add that yes, I AM going to run down every irritating grammatical, spelling and usage error that offends my eye and grates on my nerves, and post about them right here on this blog!)

Sunday Scribblings - "The Experiment"

I have to say I didn’t like secondary school at all. My friends from next door, who were a year or two older than me, had primed me for all the “exciting” things I’d get to do once I moved from 8th grade to the 9th. They were studious, hard-working twins, and I’ve no doubt they thoroughly enjoyed their lessons and lab work. I listened to them extol the virtues of science in the laboratory, but I had my reservations. (Quite apart from their tendency to pull my leg sometimes, I was never quite sure that I would love lab work as much as they seemed to. I wasn’t a studious student.) For starters, I couldn’t even accept that they were twins (although they were) because they were as unalike as a pea and a cucumber. They completely threw my preconceived ideas of twins being alike, and I wasn’t convinced they had come from the same pod, so to speak.

Anyway, my reservations about science and lab work proved justified. I took to chemistry, physics and biology like a fish to sand – in other words, completely out of my element. Of the three, I found the chemistry lab sessions reasonably interesting, if only because of the smells and fugs - and the odd explosion or fire - that were generated by the random mixing of chemicals. They ought not to have been random, but one teacher could hardly keep an eye on 60-odd exuberant students simultaneously. There were usually a couple of lab assistants who were meant to help the teacher control what went on, but more often than not, they turned a blind eye to our shenanigans. It was a wise idea to cultivate these assistants – and quite a few students did – because if you were in their good books, they would provide some surreptitious help during the lab tests.

Physics was a closed book to me, whether in the classroom or in the laboratory. I hated it with a vengeance. The two things I remember best are the vernier calliper and the screw gauge. I have no words that could describe the extent of my loathing for these implements, especially as I have never, before or since or at any time in my life thus far, felt even remotely inclined towards measuring the thickness of a wire. And since those were the introductory lab experiments in physics, they pretty much closed my mind off to anything else in that department. (It didn’t help that the physics teacher was an even bigger turn off.)

But the lab which tested me the most was biology. Mind you, my biology record book was a marvel of neatness – I loved drawing and took painstaking care while detailing the cell structures and cross-sections of various things that we had to draw (why? I didn’t know and didn’t care) and I displayed my neatest handwriting in it as well. It was a heck of a lot of work for a measly 5 marks or so, but to me it was worth it. I always got the full 5 marks for my record book. Lab work counted for 20 points, I think, and the remaining 65 came from the theory part. (I’m not quite sure if that’s an accurate distribution of points, but it will do.)

The record book points didn’t matter as much as the lab test and the theory test. You had to pass both the lab test and the theory. Getting a 0 in labwork and 60 in theory still didn’t mean a pass on the whole, and the minimum pass mark in labwork was 8 points or so. You’d think it would be easy to score 8 out of a possible 20… but nobody had reckoned with a girl who did so remarkably badly in bio lab.

Anyway, the very first experiment that we had to do in bio lab was to scrape a bit of skin off the inside of our cheek, stain it and observe it under a microscope. We were each given a toothpick with which to do the scraping. Simple enough on the face of it. I scraped at my cheek, then peered hopefully at my toothpick – but there was nothing on it that I could see. I think it was blunt (if you can imagine such a thing). So while my classmates busily worked away with their glass slide, drop of dye and microscope, I stood there scraping and scraping at my cheek.

After some frantic effort, I managed to get something on the blessed toothpick and was about to transfer it to my glass slide, when a batchmate sidled up to me and asked if she could borrow some of MY skin cells! Apparently she was too squeamish to scrape the inside of her own cheek! (Yes I know – ewwwwww!) I had to refuse - for one thing, I had quite enough trouble getting my own sample without scratching my cheek bloody for someone else who was too scared to get her own! For another, wouldn’t it be cheating? She was supposed to look at her OWN cheek cells!

The second lab experiment was to dissect a worm. Luckily we only had to observe while our teacher carried out the operation, as it were. At first I was so far in the back of the group (being a tall girl) that I couldn’t really see what was going on. I didn’t particularly want to, so I was content enough to be looking at the back of the other students’ heads. I also got to ignore what the teacher explained as she did her job. But then she asked us to get back to our tables so that she could exhibit the dissected worm and give each student the chance to take a look at what she had been describing.

Eventually she came around to our table and told us to come closer. I needed only one look – one horrified, queasy look at the luckless worm, which was moving weakly, teased open and pinned to the board – to realise that the thing was still alive. One big retch and I had barely enough time to make a quick exit to the toilet. I don’t like worms and never have, but I couldn’t stand to see one skinned alive. It was worse than any horror movie. As far as I was concerned, my interest in biology ended right there.

Why oh why

dont people know the difference between "palette" and "palate"? A palette is an oval board with a few shallow indents, used by artists to mix their colours while painting. A palette can also be a range of colours used by an artist. A dictionary, I'm sure, would have many more meanings for this word - but I'm equally sure that NONE of those will refer to "sense of taste" or anything anatomical to do with the roof of the mouth! THOSE would come under "palate"!

Just because some words sound the same doesnt mean they ARE the same or that they MEAN the same.

*deeeeeeeeep breath*

Just my rant for today.

Bad form, very.

Man jailed for killing woman on first date

He rushed it, that man. He should have waited till at least the third date.


Updated to add: This was meant to be black humour aimed at that stupid headline which makes it sound like his crime was killing her on the first date. Since it didnt quite come across as I'd have liked, I'd like to say that I meant absolutely NO disrespect at all to that poor woman who lost her life to that monstre. Like I said in my reply to the comment (which prompted this explanation), I'm glad that evil b*stard got a life sentence. It's the least he deserves, preferably in solitary!

The logical thing

I was watching a report on the news yesterday evening, about the abduction of a 12 year old girl and the attempted abduction of a 9 year old girl, both in Birmingham. Thankfully the 12-year-old managed to escape and the 9-year-old didn’t get abducted. The reporter went on to say that police presence had immediately been increased in the areas and more cops were walking around to make the residents feel safe.

I’m not sure that it makes sense to send more cops to those areas.

I mean, if you were a kidnapper, would you, KNOWING that there would be more cops around than ever, return to the same place where your previous attempt at abduction was foiled? Or would you go someplace the cops weren't? Which would be more logical?

It’s a pity that there cant be more cops on ALL the roads all the time. But no matter what the police do, no matter how many are on the roads, criminals with nefarious purposes will still operate.

Cops, like bodyguards, have to be lucky all the time to prevent crime and save lives. Criminals, on the other hand, ARE lucky most of the time when they carry out crimes.

It’s not a winning situation for the law-keepers. As I said, more's the pity.