Pippa Middleton's Cricketing Boyfriend

Know who Pippa is dating, dahling? She's with England's finest doosra-man. Palace sources inform us that Pippa Middleton's boyfriend, and date at the Royal Wedding, is former England off spinner Alex Loudon.

Loudon is an old-Etonian friend of Prince William who captained England under 19s. He turned pro and played county cricket for Kent and Warwickshire with some success, when he morphed from a batsman into an off-spinner with a cunning doosra. He was picked for England and toured Pakistan in 2005, but didn't get a game. He played his only ODI in 2006 against Sri Lanka, and was run-out without facing a ball, as a part of a crushing 0-5 series loss to Mahela's Marauders.

He retired in 2007, the ripe old age of 27, to attend London Business School and subsequently pursue a career as a broker in the City. That may have been a very good call, given Swanny's success. It can't be easy to maintain an Old Etonian's lifestyle on a county pro's income.

Is there an event-marketing opportunity here? Prince William plays a bit of cricket too. Wills and A-Lo captaining...rival teams in whites...Kate and Pippa in the pavilion-tent...boaters and floaty dresses...Pimm's No. 1...Wills Navy Cut...Lady Di's favourite charity...no liveried servants, too colonial...Dave and Sam Cam...His Highness Jyotiraditya Scindia might grace the occasion... Live TV coverage might be embarrassing, an edited 10 minute news clip could do the job nicely. An antidote to the IPL. Sure, the IPL is more good than bad. But cricket needs more cultural-flavours than the IPL can provide.

Regardless, well played Alex Loudon. Bowled the doosra maiden over.

Wills Navy Cut @ The Royal Wedding

The Imperial Tobacco Company will launch Wills Navy Cut in the UK tomorrow, to mark the happy and auspicious occasion of the Royal Wedding.

Brand spokesperson Yogi Tobaccowallah explained "The future Emperor William is lovingly referred to as 'Wills' by his subjects. He will be getting married in his smart Navy Cut suit. He and his beloved are perfectly matched, made for each other, just like the filter and tobacco in Wills Navy Cut cigarettes. We have every confidence that the future Emperor and Empress will make Wills Navy Cut their smoke of choice".

Mr Tobaccowallah will be at Westminster Abbey tomorrow to present the UK's first carton of Wills Navy Cut to the royal couple, as a special wedding gift.





Also made for each other...

Gamla Stan, Stockholm, and proto Indo-European

My flight had started boarding. I was gathering up my laptop, iPod, magazine and assorted paraphernalia to head to the gate when my cell phone rang. It was my wife. I told her I'd reached Istanbul airport, was heading to my flight, and that I'd be home soon.

My wife was surprised. She thought I was in Stockholm, Sweden, not in Istanbul, Turkey. As always, my wife was right. I was, in fact, in Stockholm.

In my defence, I had had a long day. And, the part of Stockholm I'd just walked through was called Gamla Stan, which sounds like it could be in Istanbul. How did the heart of the capital of Scandinavia wind up with such an oriental sounding name?

It turns out that Gamla Stan, which means Old Town in Swedish, has familiar Indo-European roots. Stan is a contraction of the Swedish "staden" (sta'n), meaning "the town". This derives from the proto Indo European root sta - to stand, set down or be firm- ; the same root as English words like stand, stance, status or stadium and Sanskrit/ Indian words like sthal, stapit, stupa or Hindustan.

The origins of Gamla are a bit more tricky. Gamla meant camel in ancient Aramaic or Syrian. Gamla morphed into the Hebrew kamal which led to camel. It is tempting to think of Gamla Stan as Camel Town; perhaps ancient caravans from the Sahara trekked right across Europe to do business with the Norsemen of Scandinavia. Unfortunately, linguists seem to think there is no link between camels and Gamla Stan.

Gamla comes from the old Norse gammel, which means old. I find it easier to recognize the comparative forms of gammel: alder and aldest which lead to the modern English elder and eldest . Wikitionary tells me that gammel might be from the proto Indo European word for winter. If so, Gamla Stan could be understood as Winter Town, or perhaps even the Town Nourished Through Many Winters, which would be more evocative of the heart of the Scandinavian capital than just Old Town.

It also turns out that Turkish is not a part of the Indo-European language family at all. While Turkish has borrowed through the Ottoman years from Persian, Arabic and possibly even Sanskrit, it is from a completely distinct family of Turkic central Asian languages.

Hindi and Swedish, however, are cousins. Locating Gamla Stan in Delhi rather than in Istanbul may have made more sense. Gamla Stan sounds like a natural fit in old Delhi...Gamla Stan could roughly translate to Garden City...maybe a few miles past Hazrat Nizamuddin...

Pine Boats @ El Piano, Granada

Have you ever been annoyed at a picnic by a paper plate that gets soggy with gravy and starts collapsing in your hands?

Did this paper plate collapse at the precise moment when your eyes met Hers - she of the sparkling eyes and lustrous locks - so you had to cut short that magic moment to prevent the chana masala from descending on to your trousers? Did She then go off for a walk with the creepy guy from Accounts, so true love which was meant to be remained forever unfulfilled? Tragic. My sympathies, dear friend.

And to think that this tragedy would never have happened if the catering was by El Piano of Granada, Spain, a take-away restaurant I discovered on my travels.

El Piano serves delicious, organic, locally grown vegetarian food, not on paper plates, but in pine boats. Unlike paper plates, pine boats don't get soggy. They remain firm through your meal. Ergonomically shaped pine boats fit comfortably into the palm of one hand. And pine boats are morally good, because unlike styrofoam, pine boats are biodegradable.

So the next time true love strikes, dear friend, as it doubtless will, like it did for Oliver in Love Story, be sure that delicious, organic, vegetarian food from El Piano restaurant, of Granada, Spain, is secure in a firm pine boat. Because then you can be certain that true love will blossom.

Though, stepping away from the advertising script, surely the standard dish-design for away-from-table dining ought to be something like a pine boat? If pine is scarce, bamboo or sugarcane based alternatives are also possible. The design specs for any away-from-table dining surface should have asked for something which is rigid, fits into one hand, doesn't absorb moisture, can't dribble over the edges, is cheap, and can be thrown away safely.

Hence, this blog is calling for a revolution. Humanity should herewith be liberated from balancing dinner plates on one hand, from landfills stuffed with styrofoam, and from struggling with soggy paper plates. Until that revolution is complete, humanity is at liberty to sample the excellent veggie food at El Piano while visiting Granada, or the sister restaurant in York.

Martin Crowe and The Lake Wobegon people-model

"So that is the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking and all the children are above-average."

Every week, Garrison Keillor concludes Prairie Home Companion with these wise words. Similarly, every week, the titans of the corporate world conclude that that they will compete for the future by winning the war-for-talent. They all strive to hire above-average people, and instruct their human resources departments to design "people-models" that allows their company to hire talented employees, as talented as the children of Lake Wobegon.

However, for a practicing business executive, this war-for-talent is mostly irrelevant. Winning the war-for-talent takes too long to matter. I, and most of my peers, have windows of about three years to deliver on our objectives. Over that time frame, the talent we have to work with is usually a given.

Even at Talent Masters, companies supposedly flush with talent like Procter and Gamble or GE, it is rare to step into a role worth doing with a crack team already in place. Best case, one can parachute in a handful of exceptional individuals into key positions. From then on, business leadership is mostly about trying to get your team to punch above their weight, by giving them a sense of unity, direction and belief, and by tactically shaping the game to amplify strengths and cover weaknesses.

A cricket captain’s job is like that of a practicing business executive. As a captain, you can preach, or whinge, about how your cricket board should have invested in the grass-roots game years ago, bringing better players through to the professional level. True, but irrelevant. You’ve got a squad. Your job is to win with that squad, warts and all.

Looked at this way, a good captain is not necessarily one who wins big tournaments. A good captain is one who gets his team to punch above their weight, who wins games he had no right to win given the quality of his players. By this yardstick my all time favourite World Cup captain is not Clive Lloyd, not Steve Waugh, but Martin Crowe in the 1992 World Cup.

Martin Crowe led a bunch of bits and pieces mediocrities, plus one quality player in Crowe himself. Yet, they competed on even terms with clearly superior teams by turning the prevailing cricketing wisdom upside down. Mark Greatbatch opened the batting, slugging the ball over the infield. Dipak Patel opened the bowling with his off-breaks. In the process, Crowe’s Kiwis changed the way 50 over cricket is played, forever.

Crowe’s team, which included dibbly-dobbly merchants like Gavin Larsen, Chris Harris and Willie Watson, were looking good for a spot in the World Cup final until an inspired Inzamam-ul-Haq blitzed Pakistan to a come from behind semi-final victory. Which goes to show that planning, spunk and tactical smarts can’t match god-given talent. However, in a contest between evenly matched teams, smart tactics should make all the difference.

Another brilliant tactician was Shane Warne. I've watched enviously as he conjured up victories out of nothing for Hampshire and Rajasthan Royals. Clearly the greatest captain Australia never had.

MS Dhoni has one of the best minds in contemporary cricket and can be genuinely inventive. One of my favourite passages of play in recent history was the Nagpur test against Australia in 2008, when Ishant and Zaheer dried up the flow of runs by bowling yorkers a foot outside the off stump, frustrating Australia into a epoch-ending series defeat. Another memorable Dhoni innovation was placing a fielder directly behind the bowler to catch-out a rampaging Keiron Pollard in an IPL final. I haven't worked out how the same cricketing mind bowls Ashish Nehra, or Joginder Sharma, in the last over.

I would love to see captains using more tactical inventiveness in this World Cup. Perhaps the ICC should institute a Spirit of Martin Crowe innovation award, along the lines of the ICC Spirit of Cricket or the Kingfisher fair play awards. If the ICC is not up to the task, this blog could fill the breach.

Captain Haddock's Bashi Bazouks

Ever wondered who Bashi-Bazouks are?

I first encountered Bashi Bazouks in The Crab With The Golden Claws. At the time, I didn't really wonder who or what they were. I just accepted them as another Haddock-ism, like lily livered landlubbers, or fancy dress fatimas, or ostrogoths, all good ways of describing people who don't understand that Loch Lomond whiskey is sacred. Nonetheless, I was delighted when I found Bashi Bazouks in a totally different context.

It turns out that the story of the Bashi Bazouks is much sadder than that of odd-toed ungulates, or duck-billed platypuses or even billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles.

I came across Bashi Bazouks while reading about the Ottoman-Russian war in 1876. Bashi Bazouks were irregular fighters in the Ottoman Army. They were unpaid, non-uniformed, and used as lookouts or sentries. They gained international notoriety when they were involved in horrific escalating tit-for-tat violence in Bulgaria, between Christian Bulgarian nationalists and Muslim Ottomans, which culminated in the Bashi Bazouks' massacre of the entire mountain-town of Batak.

It is hard to know what actually happened at this time. Open sources like Wikipedia can be unreliable when describing emotionally-charged political history like this. But to the extent that my Googled-up references can be trusted, the Bashi Bazouks were both tragic victims and brutal aggressors. Many of them were Muslim Circassian refugees from the Crimean wars, displaced from their homeland and repeatedly brutalized by the Bulgarian majority, before retaliating with even more brutality when they were finally given license by the Ottomans.

This story has a surprisingly contemporary feel. The soul-destroying ethnic violence in the Balkans and the Caucuses is still going on. The great powers are still learning that fighting proxy wars with low-cost irregular troops usually ends in tragedy, whether you call them Bashi Bazouks, Tamil Tigers, Sandinistas or mujahedeen.

Changing tack a bit, ever wondered who Archibald is? Captain Haddock's first name is Archibald. Fortunately, this Archie is not a carrot-top.

The Trouble With Being Swanny

Swanny’s Ashes video diaries are coming thick and fast now. Episode 7 came out on Jan 2, a mere 4 days after the Christmas special episode on Dec 29.

Interesting, then, that Swanny did not bring out an Ashes video diary for a sixteen day period between Dec 13 and Dec 29. Swanny did not do an episode after the Perth test, when England got walloped. He went straight from celebrating the Adelaide win with videos of England fans doing the sprinkler dance, to celebrating the Melbourne win with the England team doing the sprinkler dance on the hallowed MCG turf, to the eternal delight of the Barmy Army.

Swanny knows that jokey banter is great on a winning team. Jokes sour very quickly in a team that rarely wins. That equation, between joking and winning, cost him ten years of his career.

Graeme Swann was first called up for England duty as a gifted twenty year old, in 1999, when England were officially the worst team in the test world. Nasser Hussain and Duncan Fletcher were tasked with giving that rabble, who had made a habit of losing, some grit and backbone. They had no time for a self-confessed “obnoxious loud-mouth”, who missed the team’s tour bus because he overslept. Swanny was dropped after bowling five overs in an ODI. Ashley Giles was their spinner of choice.

When Swanny finally made his test debut as a seasoned thirty year old, in Madras in Dec 08, England were a competitive team. Now, they had discipline, they had spunk. They needed inspiration and effervescence, which Swanny brought to the party. Critically, they won often enough to have self-belief. Their boats floated high enough in the water for Swanny’s juvenile jokes (about Alistair Cook’s resemblance to Woody from Toy Story, or Steve Finn’s bad haircut, or Tim Bresnan stealing all the chocolate bars) to raise a laugh rather than to grate. The same personality which made Swanny a non-option ten years ago now makes him the talismanic spirit of a winning team.

Is he a better bowler now than in 1999? Yes, of course. But I suspect he always was a better bowler than Ashley Giles, Shaun Udal, Jamie Dalrymple, Michael Yardy or even Monty Panesar, all of whom played for England. That feels unfair. But in my judgement, there are very few players who are so much better than the next best alternative that it is worth disrupting a team's spirit or ethos for that extra ability. Maybe I'd consider fitting in Brian Lara, KP or Shoaib Akthar...very rare.

Regardless, Swanny leading the England team in doing the sprinkler dance on the MCG has to be one of the great moments in cricket's history, precisely because it is so silly. It reminds us that cricket, like life itself, is just a game.

Pink Floyd on Education

We don't need no education,
We don't need no thought control,
No dark sarcasm in the classroom,
Teacher leave them kids alone,
Hey teacher! leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall,
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

I spent a chunk of my youth chanting along with this Pink Floyd rock anthem. So, I was intrigued to learn that one of the leading lights of the recent student riots in London was the Pink Floyd lead guitarist David Gilmour's son, Charlie Gilmour. The rioters were protesting the government's plans to raise university fees.

David Gilmour thinks education is worse than a waste of time. Yet, his son Charlie believes education is very important, and should be massively subsidized by the state. How did father and son wind up having such dramatically different views?

Or are their views really all that different? On reflection, I suspect not.

Neither father or son really has a point of view on the positive externalities created by subsidized, over-consumed higher education. They are not policy wonks. They are musicians. They are expressing an emotion. I think both father and son are expressing exactly the same emotion.

Jack Black captured this emotion precisely in School of Rock:

"The Man is everywhere. In the White House, down the hall, Mrs. Mullins (the head mistress), she's the Man. And the Man ruined the ozone, and he's burning down the Amazon, and he kidnapped Shamu and put her in a chlorine tank! And there used to be a way to stick it to The Man. It was called rock ‘n’ roll."

I think that is what both father and son were doing. As young men, they were sticking it to The Man. Once upon a time The Man said "go to school". Now, The Man says "you can't go to school unless you pay for school". Regardless, rock 'n roll wants to stick it to The Man.

Admittedly, the son did get a little excessively carried away. But one lesson he will have learnt from his father, and his father's friends, is that sticking it to The Man does not preclude making it up with The Man at some later stage. For all David Gilmour's angst about education, he still sent his son to an expensive private school, and on to read history at Cambridge.

Colombo Moment?

"Are you having a Colombo moment?".

I'd heard this question a few times at my new job, and I just couldn't figure out what it meant.

The context is usually as follows: We are in a day-long strategy meeting. We are running behind schedule. The presenter has walked through forty odd dense Powerpoint slides. The audience has mostly stopped paying attention, and is ready for a coffee-break. The presenter finally beams up the slide entitled Next Steps, to collective relief. Right then, a bright young spark sitting in the corner of the room is struck by a really important thought, and pipes up with "Just one more thing...". The senior pro running the meeting turns to the bright young spark, and gently asks "So, are you having a Colombo moment?"

Why Colombo? Surely the Sri Lankan capital is a laid-back sort of place, where bright young sparks are more given to bowling doosras than to being struck by really important thoughts just before coffee breaks.

I finally cornered the senior pro during the coffee break and asked him what a Colombo moment really is. It turns out that the reference has nothing at all to do with the Sri Lankan capital. The reference is to Frank Columbo, a detective from a 1970s American TV series.

Lieutenant Columbo is a brilliant detective who lulls the murder suspect into a false sense of security with his dishevelled look and his overly polite manner. His signature technique is to conduct a friendly and seemingly innocuous interview, politely conclude it and exit the scene, only to stop in the doorway and ask, "Just one more thing...". This one more thing is invariably an inconsistency in the suspect's alibi, or in the crime scene, which ultimately nails the murderer.

So a Columbo moment is a thought, delivered to a comfortably jaded audience, in a "just one more thing" format, which is so insightful that it cracks the entire case open on the spot.

Columbo moment clearly is a useful phrase. I wonder if it is destined to become a permanent part of the English language. Like "star crossed lovers", "go ahead, make my day", "security blanket", or "she's your lobster".

Altoids: On Britishness and Capitalism

This post was born from the frustration of an unsuccessful shopping trip. I wanted Altoids. I checked the local supermarkets - Sainsbury's, Tesco, Asda. None of them had it. My local independent pharmacy used to carry a few tins, but alas, no longer. As I made peace with poor substitutes like Fox's Glacier mints and Starbuck's After Coffee Mints, I reflected on the irony that such a quirky, idiosyncratically British brand was so popular in America - it was not unusual to see colleagues carrying Altoids tins from meeting to meeting back when I worked in the US - but was unknown in Britain. Perhaps that reflects British identity, which, like India's unity, is more apparent from without than from within.

However, after a little Google powered research, I was left reflecting not on the subtle ironies of Britishness, but on the brutal nihilism of business. Altoids are no longer British. The red and white tins no longer proudly say Made in Great Britain. The factory in Bridgend, Wales, which used to supply the entire world with the curiously strong peppermint has been mothballed. Production has been moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, so that the product is made closer to its biggest markets, which are in America.

I am generally a fan of globalized, optimized supply chains, but this is ridiculous. It is like moving the Jack Daniel's distillery from Tennessee to Nanjing province so that the whiskey is made close to Shanghai, the world's largest market. It isn't Jack's if it isn't from Tennessee.

The advertising is no longer edgy or self-mocking. The official web site claims that: "Altoids honours the authentic - people who stay true to themselves no matter what. Those who are confident, honest and unwavering. Those who are CURIOUSLY STRONG."

Like, for instance, Altoids honours people who contribute to a blog about beautiful coffee. "For most people, coffee's just a morning beverage. But to the contributors of this blog, it's high art. Dedicated to looking past coffee's buzz, they find a subtlety that other's simply miss. Filled with striking imagery from the world's best latte artists, this cup of Joe is almost too beautiful to drink"

Altoids also honours Cameron Adams, who writes a blog called The Chattanoogan: "highlighting street style in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Cameron Adams' blog focuses on the well-hidden gems of a small town. Why, you might ask? The innocence and spontaneity of the images that capture the residents' local flavor seems to answer, why not?"

Why not, indeed. But does shrinkage ever occur?



I had to find out how this train wreck happened. How did The Man destroy Altoids' spirit by turning it into a motherhood and apple-pie candy from Chattanooga, Tennessee? It turns out that capitalism didn't just destroy Altoids, it also made it the icon it once was. Altoids' golden age came after it was acquired by Kraft, following a series of takeovers and leveraged buy outs.

Altoids were invented in the late 1700s, and were promoted for over a century as a "stomach calmative". The brand was owned first by Smith and Company of London, which became a part of Callard & Bowser-Suchard, which became a part of Beatrice Foods, which was bought and broken up by KKR, when Altoids was sold to Terry's of York, which was then acquired by Kraft General Foods of Chicago in 1993.

At this time, Altoids was a tiny brand, but with a devoted word-of-mouth following among the heavy-smoking, coffee-guzzling Seattle club set. A Kraft marketing manager called Mark Sugden, working with Leo Burnett Chicago, the agency which created the Marlboro Man, "got" this Seattle set's devotion, did not get a big advertising budget, and came up with a campaign that was consistent with what the brand already stood for. "We were talking to a cynical, smart, cutting-edge audience, and nothing mediocre was going to sell," says Burnett Creative Director Steffan Postaer. What sold were advertising posters that looked like this:



Market share rocketed from too small to measure to 10% in 1997, or $40 million. Something good had happened. A curiously strong breath of fun from old Blighty had blown into the lives of millions of people.

I guess the trouble with capitalism is that it doesn't know when to say "enough". Common sense says that a brand can't retain its quirky, smart, foreign, cynical, funny, laconic, iconoclastic soul if it gets very much bigger than 10% of the market. But woe betide the poor brand manager who might naively suggest this. Many new variants were launched, budgets were found for TV advertising. I wasn't able to find out how successful this SKU proliferation was; but in due course Kraft sold Altoids on (along with Lifesavers) to Wrigley for $1.4 billion amidst talk of revenue "headwinds" in 2005.

Wrigley closed the plant in Bridgend and increased capacity utilization at an existing plant in Chattanooga. The humour in the advertising drifted from under-stated to over-the-top, from Sir Humphrey Appleby-funny to Borat-funny. Somewhere along the way, the brand name became associated with enhanced blow jobs.

Mars acquired all of Wrigley for $23 billion in 2008. Altoids was obviously not the main point of the buyout. The current Pottery Barn-esque creative platform, wholesome authenticity, looks more like damage control than an effort to build a brand around either the British legacy or the dedication of the Seattle club cultists.

Maybe, though, there is something deeply British about this story, about inventing something that then goes abroad and takes on a completely different character. Like cricket. Or the English language. Or democracy, or capitalism, or scientific method. Altoids is in good company. Maybe I can explain all this to my local pharmacist to get him to import some quirky Britishness from Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Avatar: The Worship of Vishnu

Watch Avatar. It’s a great film. If you have watched Avatar as entertainment, I urge you to watch it again, now with a piety in your heart, in the spirit of bhakti, for this is no ordinary Hollywood blockbuster, it is the tale of a blue-skinned hero, animated by a celestial spirit, who was born to save god’s righteous people, and leads them to glorious victory over evil.

Our blue-skinned hero’s people are noble and devout. Yet, our hero arrives among them in troubled times. Many doubt him. Unfazed by the doubters, our glorious hero slays demons, charms the tribal elders, frolics in a scented grove with a beauteous maiden, does battle to save his father’s soul, and rides the skies on a sacred eagle. He is accepted as one of the chosen people, is appointed commander-in-chief, and leads his tribe into an apocalyptic battle that pits right against wrong, good against evil. He leads with courage and cunning in this battle, wins a decisive victory, and restores the natural order of the universe.

You’ve heard this story before, you will hear this story again. In James Cameron's telling of this story, the blue-skinned avatar is called jakesully, the animating spirit is Jake Sully, the righteous tribe are the Na'vi of Pandora, the slain demon is a Thantor, the beauteous maiden is Neytiri, the father figure is Dr Grace Augustine, the sacred eagle is a Toruk, and the evil forces defeated in the apocalyptic battle are the US Marines. In previous tellings of this story, the blue-skinned avatar is called Rama, the animating spirit is Vishnu, the righteous tribe are the Raghuvanshi of Aryavrata, the slain demon is Taataka, the beauteous maiden is Sita (or perhaps Radha is better cast?), the father figure is Dasharatha, the sacred eagle is Garuda, and the evil forces defeated in battle are Ravana's rakshasas.

Other Vaishnavite inspirations are less obvious. Are the floating mountains which protect Pandora's sacred forests inspired by Govardhan? Is the carriage of the Na'vi people, who walk tall and lithe, and swish their tails with pride, inspired by the vanaras of Kishkinda?

Google tells me that these parallels haven't gone unnoticed. Some cranks were offended. Many Hindus, including me, enjoy these resonances. A film maker called Sudipto Chattopadhyay likened Jake Sully to Kalki, the long awaited tenth avatar of Vishnu. One of the beautiful things about Kalki is that every tribe, every culture can locate their own messiah in that placeholder.

The story that you have heard before, that you will hear again, is what Joseph Campbell called the monomyth, the single narrative that underlies all the great stories ever told, the Odyssey, the Norse myths, the stories of Rama, and Gautam Buddha and Jesus. Contemporary mythology - Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Star Wars and now Avatar - follows the same narrative structure, sometimes instinctively, sometimes intentionally.

Re-telling the monomyth becomes interesting because of rich detail which Avatar has in plenty, like, the complete Maori-based Na'vi language invented for the film, or the coral reef inspired jungle-scapes of Pandora. These stories aren’t about surprise endings. They gain meaning, resonance and emotional heft with repetition. The story of Rama is retold every Dussera. The story of Krishna is retold every Janmashtami. Perhaps the story of Jake Sully will be retold every April 22, on Earth Day, to honour the Na'vi's Gaian ethos? Perhaps we will be blessed with an Oscar winning sequel?

Kannadasan and Krishna Consciousness in the Peak District

காட்டுக்கேது தோட்டக்காரன் இதுதான் என் கட்சி

kattukkethu thottakaran, ithuthan en katchi

These words are from a favourite old song by Kannadasan, one of Tamil cinema’s greatest and most celebrated poets. This translates roughly to: does the forest have a gardener? His side is the side I’m on.

As it turns out, the forest does have a gardener. His name is Les Morson. His side is the Hartington Sports Committee. My family and I discovered him, and the woods named in his honour, on a recent walk through the Peak District National Park.





Kannadasan’s lyrics were written for a character disowned by his family, trying to assert that he still is one of God’s people. In that context, the kattukku thottakaran, the forest gardener, probably refers to God. Krishna is vanmaali, literally forest gardener, in many Indian traditions.

It seems perfectly reasonable to assume that when Mr Les Morson starting planting trees to make a forest, he did not intend to discover his inner Krishna-avatar, even if that is in fact what he did. The Lord manifests himself in mysterious ways.

Ubuntu, not furniture

Consider yourself at home
Consider yourself one of the family
We've taken to you so strong,
It's clear we're going to get along
Consider yourself well in
Consider yourself part of the furniture

These words were chiming forth from the back seat of my car. My children were practicing for a show while I was dropping them off at school. As they picked up the tempo and emphasis for the crescendo...Consider yourself, one of us!...I did a double take on “consider yourself part of the furniture”.

Is that nice? To be considered a part of the furniture? Sure, being a part of the furniture is better than being bullied. But sitting around being invisible, like the bofa on the sofa, can’t be a ton of fun.

The opposite of being a part of the furniture may be umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu. This zulu saying translates, roughly, to a person is a person only through other people. This saying is a part of a South African philosophy called ubuntu, about the inter-connectedness of humanity. This reminds me a little of the traditional Hindu namaste, which means I recognize the divinity in you. Ubuntu seems to have an added element of reflexivity, or self-reference, to it. Like, maybe, re-framing Descartes, I am because I recognize the divinity in you.

I first came across umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu in a management handbook called The Fifth Discipline. Peter Senge welcomes readers to his book with umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, to say that the meaning and value of the book is derived entirely from what we readers get out of it. Since then, Bill Clinton has advised the Labour Party to embrance ubuntu. There is a Linux operating system called Ubuntu.

And, praise the lord, there is even an Ubuntu fair trade cola. They really should quit treating Oliver like a part of the furniture, and should buy him an Ubuntu fair trade cola instead, to recognize the divinity within him.

I’d like to buy the world an Ubuntu... its the real thing.

Caesar, the cat?

The assassination of Julius Caesar, when Casca’s hands spoke for him on the Ides of March, when et tu Brute felled Caesar, is surely one of the most pivotal, dramatic and best remembered episodes in world history. The place where this happened, the Area Sacra, with the brick ruins of four Roman era temples and its chipped fluted columns, is still evocative and atmospheric. However, it is not a tourist attraction. It is a sanctuary for stray cats.



This cat is napping on the ruins of the Theatro Pompei, the building where Caesar was killed.



The cats in this sanctuary seem to be healthy, clean and well looked after.



My family and I discovered this place by accident. The tram line we were on happened to terminate at the Largo Argentina, a busy transport hub adjacent to the Area Sacra. Otherwise, this place is simply not promoted as a sight for tourists to see. Other potentially interesting sites in Rome which are off the main tourist map include Ostia Antica, the Circus Maximus and Augustus Caesar's mausoleum.

I often complain that we Indians are so bad at showcasing our fantastic heritage. It is interesting that Italy, which is ten times richer than India but still feels spiritually akin to India, is also not that great at showcasing its heritage. The world champions of showcasing heritage might well be the British. It feels like more work has gone into presenting the Roman Baths at Bath, a spa in a remote outpost of the Roman Empire, than the seat of the Roman Empire itself at the Foro Romano.



Still, I'm glad someone is looking out for the cats :)

Rapidex goes to Paris

One of the highlights of our family's trip to Paris this spring was this poster:



It is prominently displayed all around the Paris metro network.

It reminds me of one of my favourite brands, Rapidex English Speaking Courses, which is right up there along with Palmolive and Boost as great Indian brands endorsed by Kapil Dev. Different cultures, exactly the same consumer need.

The market clearly knows that the "right" English is no longer the Queen's English. In case the current turmoil on Wall Street does not abate, we can always look forward to a brand relaunch as Main Street English:



Thanks to Polly-vous Francais for the Main Street English poster.

Sit down, I think I love you

A Buffalo Springfield classic just shuffled up on my iPod. It goes:

Sit down, I think I love you
Anyway, I’d like to try
I can't stop thinking of you
If you go, I know I'll cry...

...Oh you know what they say about the bird in the hand
And that’s why I ain’t leaving without you...

...So if you want someone to love you
Pretty baby, I’m your guy.

Really?

Experts like Dear Prudence clearly know more about matters of the heart than me. But even I can tell that Dear Prudence would not recommend “I think I love you, anyway I’d like to try” as the ideal declaration of undying love. You had to think about it? And having thought about it, you were so completely convinced that you were willing to “give it a try”? Dude… really...

And what’s the deal with “the bird in the hand”? Is the girl worth trying to love because she is a bird in hand? Or should the girl settle for you because you’re worth two in the bush?

These lyrics are by Stephen Stills, who also wrote "if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with". Bit of a theme developing here.

Maybe Stephen Stills knows something that Dear Prudence and I don't. Maybe this ironic, laconic, self-deprecating approach really works. Real-romantik, a la real-politik?

Either way, great song. Click here to hear it on You Tube.