Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Hooik-Wheeew!

2010's been about a lot of peaks and a lot of troughs with very little else in between. But have you heard? It's in the stars. Next July we collide with Mars.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Slime Time

It's law school election season again. And the ridiculousness of this charade is more apparent this year than perhaps any year previously. Personally, I'm just glad that, compared with whatever attenuated capacity I have been involved in the past, there is absolutely no compulsion on or interference with my normal life this time around. I suspect that's why it strikes me as being more of a charade this year. There's an ugly sense of self-importance that accompanies every election and, last year in particular, the disguising of personal ambition behind perhaps the most superficially socialist election agendas was, from my openly biased perspective, really pathetic.

My reasons for voting for who I did in the last four years (and only once, in first year, did I get both right and only one other time, last year, did I get even one right) were simple: the President and Vice-President of the National Law School's student body can't really do anything. Indeed, to my mind, if the office holders can do so much as to make sure all Committees work well and achieve success, that'll honestly be their best achievement. (Every year, I've been told that I'm wrong and that there is scope for doing a lot more in office, so if you disagree, I've heard it before and I'm not saying you're wrong.) However, in the exceedingly exceptional circumstance that the office bearers have the opportunity to do something that affects my life directly or if I need to employ their services/goodwill in case of an entanglement with the powers that be, I'd like them to be friends of mine or, in cases where this is impossible, reasonably intelligent people I feel comfortable speaking to freely.

As narrow-minded as I've been (and demonstrated above) about elections, I can't help thinking that half the fun with elections is in recognising or legitimising real characters in law school. Unfortunately, if my sources of goss are correct (and they usually are), I don't see too many characters standing for elections. And that's a shame. 

 

Sunday, May 09, 2010

Comeback of the Year, 2010

Him: I can see [X's new] pictures and you can't, nyah-nyah-nuh-nyah-nyah! :P
Her: I'm not in love with her, you are. So, it doesn't matter :P
Him: I'm not curious, you are. So it does matter.
Her: I can live with curiosity. You can't live with unrequitted love.
Him: Unrequited. Single 't'. :P
Her: In your case it soooooooooo unrequited that it's unrequitted. :P

(c) Sowjhanya Shankaran

One Step Closer

Leeds United came from a goal down to beat Bristol City 2-1 this evening, playing with 10 men for more than an hour, in front of 38,234 people at Elland Road. And the cow has finally, finally jumped over the moon.

"It's been a season of real ups and downs," is what manager Simon Grayson was trying to say before being doused with champagne by Bradley Johnson at the post-match interview and I couldn't agree more. The contrast between the pre- and post-New Year period could not have been greater. Runaway league leaders at the turn of the year having lost just three games in all competitions all season (including a 0-1 at home to Liverpool in the League Cup), that figure turned to thirteen one week ago when Richard Naylor thumped an unstoppable 87th minute header...past Shane Higgs into his own goal.

The disparity between the team and the rest of the league in the back half of 2009 meant, however, that a win on the final day would still be enough to land second, twelve points behind Norwich, who had wrapped up the title three weeks previously. "If you can't win a game at Elland Road, you don't deserve to be promoted" is what I'd been telling myself for the week leading up to tonight. That it happened at all was a small miracle because when Darryl Duffy put Bristol ahead after Max Gradel had been sent off in the first half, my palm instinctively slapped my forehead and I thought, "oh God! It's happening again." I walked off immediately, too nervous to watch the rest of the game. Fifteen minutes later, I received a text message which was like a shot of adrenalin: Leeds were winning 2-1, thanks to (what turned out to be an excellent 20-yard goal from) Jonny Howson, five minutes after coming off the bench and captain-for-the-day J-Beck's 31st of the season. Highlights betray that the half an hour or so that followed wasn't all hands to the pump: Collins hit a post, Becchio missed an easier chance and, generally, it ought to have been more than 2-1, if anything.

And so, the three years in League One have a happy enough ending: something I didn't foresee when Leeds started the 2007-08 season on -15. A lot will change at the club over the summer: Jermaine Beckford will leave, there will be a fair bit of transfer wheeling and dealing and maybe Ken Bates will finally have the courtesy to let us know exactly who it is that owns the club. I'm also really optimistic about the Championship next season, partly because it's been pretty much the same sixteen or seventeen teams that've just stayed there for the longest time and therefore a fresh team putting together a run could easily jump into contention for the Premier League playoff positions and stay there all season. And partly because this team beat Manchester United at Old Trafford and drew with Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Line this season without really playing above its ability. There was the unmistakable feeling of "we're too good to be celebrating this" at all the post-match conferences and that speaks of a quiet confidence that's taken a huge beating since that epochal win at Old Trafford on the first Sunday of 2010 but is still sufficient to make me believe that it is the top half of the league table that I will continue to check for the fourth season in a row.

Now, as a friend suggested, if the Red Bulls were to suddenly lose pace tomorrow evening, it would turn out to be a great weekend indeed!  

Saturday, May 08, 2010

Thoo.

I really should've written this even before the "awesome" post. Simply put, I've come to the inescapable conclusion that the language rut that chronically plagues The Establishment isn't just restricted to an overuse of tired adjectives where an adjective is necessary, it even extends to placeholders in certain set language typologies used in a way so as to render the placeholder entirely (no pun intended; used in the proper sense) irrelevant.

The ways in which this devalues our language are numerous but I'll restrict myself to the most common types. Exhibit P1, ladies and gentlemen, is "whole". Exhibit P2, if you can detect the aroma of my culinary efforts, is "entire". The typology I'm referring to, of course, is the general assertion: "the idea", "the thing" and, perhaps most irritatingly, "the point". (It always annoys me when people say "the point is that". As if you know what "the" point is. In fact, I'm pretty sure you don't know what "the" point is and I refuse to submit to any form of thought that tends to imply that you know what the point is. I'm old and bitter. Say it.)

Marry the two sets and you arrive upon such eloquent speech patterns as "the whole idea", "the entire idea", "the whole thing", "the whole point", "the entire point" and so on and so forth until you puke (I resist cracking an ad nauseam joke). And it's everywhere. Students do it, teachers do it, people trying to sound intelligent do it, legitimately intelligent people do it, absolutely everyone.

P.S. "Sir, can't you just admit that the whole purpose of China's economy is to exploit its labour?"
"Whole purpose, huh?"
"Yeah, well, part of the purpose, at least?"
"That's more like it. But no. I disagree."  

Friday, May 07, 2010

On the 2010 Draft and the Creative Black Hole that is now WWE

I'm incredibly surprised that the second generation of viewers of professional wrestling on cable TV still divide their impressions of wrestling into a tired, two-step formulation: either side of the Attitude era. To my mind, just as important to the evolution of the product was Vince McMahon's famous "shake things up" speech on MNR with the roster surrounding the ring. Taking this speech to be as relevant as I insist it is would split the last fifteen years into not two but four distinct phases: the pre-Attitude era, the Attitude era, the post-Invasion era and the post-annual Draft era.

The need for VKM's shake up were obvious: the brand split put immense amounts of pressure on the shrinking upper card that had notably lost Austin (to injury) and The Rock (to Hollywood) and there were fears that the mid-card wasn't going to generate enough interesting feuds or prepare enough talent for the upper card if everyone had to swim for survival and consequently suffocated in the four hours of TV time.

But what have we come to in a few short years? The only big movers in the 2010 Draft were Edge, Jericho and Morrison, who now join Orton, Batista, Sheamus, Hunter and, of course, Cena on an increasingly overpopulated upper card on MNR. It means, in all probability, whichever way you look at it, that a mid-card exile is in store for the majority of these eight because it hardly seems credible or likely that more than three of them will populate the title picture at any given time, especially now, since Swagger cashed in his title shot and is now conveniently on SD!

That leaves me to contemplate the immediate future of SD! which will now most likely feature the two highest (the quality of talent going the other way forces the use of a comparative) profile Draft picks: Kingston and Christian. That appears horribly desperate, unless they have some mega plan in mind, such as (and I know I'm dreaming here) one final, well-overdue world title assault by either Kane or Big Show. I doubt they do. In which case, I'd like someone to show me how the business end of this now evidently little league show, for the foreseeable future at least, is going to amount to anything more than "here you go, Jack! Beat this guy!"

The one game-changer I've left out of this depressingly bleak forecast is The Undertaker and my reason for doing so is simple: he's not going to move from Friday nights anytime soon, he's not going to be at too many Friday nights either and when he next picks a fight with someone (presumably for Summerslam), I doubt it's going to be with Swagger/whoever else is holding the gold because I have enough faith that he's going to use the rest of his time at the top to build rather than destroy. And hey, I've marked out for him my whole life but his (count them) four runs with the Big Gold Belt since his return at Wrestlemania XX have made even me a little apologetic. And to think that this brand split only happened because they couldn't find a guy to do both shows every week as champion following Big Evil's phenomenal heel run back in '01. Ironic, that.

So, we're back where we started, staring at the unbelievable but very real prospect of Orton and Edge fighting over...nothing. Don't shout it out just yet, but it may well be time for some title unifications.

(c) Eashan Ghosh, 2010.            

I'm not sure if there's a point to this story but I'm going to tell it again.

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I've been wilfully caught up in the self-defeating quest to get to know myself for years. I've never expected anything beneficial to result from such a quest. I tend to evoke extremely polarised reactions from people I get to know in passing. Consequently, only those people who know me inside-out would honestly claim that I'm a person who's just "alright." It's not a coincidence that the description I've laid out above has no fewer than, title included, eleven references to me (make that twelve). I'm affectionately referred to as "Ego." I think that last statement might have given away a tad too much. Welcome Aboard.

IHTRTRS ke pichle episode mein aapne dekha...

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