House Prices

Enjoyed Robert Samuelson's take on housing in America.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/01/can_we_cure_our_house_lust.html

Run, Fat Boy, Run

The ideal in-flight film for a guy running his first marathon. Watch the trailer here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTrfuX1Pb-k

The Strange Rise of Modern India

I have rapidly gone from being delighted with this book - because this is a non-Indian writer who clearly gets India like it is - to being bored stiff - because it is telling me nothing that I don't already know. I'm not going to bother ploughing through the rest of the book. But it probably is a nice introduction to modern India for someone who isn't already immersed in the culture.

I sympathize with Dubya

CIA Asks Bush To Discontinue Blog

WASHINGTON, DC-In the interest of national security, President Bush has been asked to stop posting entries on his personal web log.

Tom and Jerry

Having successfully avoided Tom and Jerry through my childhood, I'm now consuming it at a rate that feels like 90 minutes per day. My impressions:

- The music is superb, and under-appreciated

- I'm surprised that my children enjoy this. They generally dislike violence on TV...even in Disney films. The probably get that the violence here is stylized

- I'm surprised the violence, stylized or otherwise, hasn't worried the censors or the morality police

- I find it a lot easier to identify with the predator (Tom) than the prey. That might be part of the reason I don't enjoy the violence

Attack of the Thermo-Nuclear Mosquitoes

Marathon training is really not happening here in Madras. I started off training outdoors. The heat and humidity sound manageable: 22C and 88% humidity. Just did not work out. I was dripping sweat, struggling to concentrate and was ready to drop after just 2 miles.

Have given up on road running for now. Did 5 comfortable and satisfying miles on the treadmill in an air-conditioned gym this morning.

The first unexpected hazard is the mosquitoes. They hang in the air in swarms thick enough to be opaque. They are able to bite even under my t-shirt.

The more interesting unexpected hazard is the culture. Road running is so counter-cultural in Madras, I almost expect the scrawny urchins loitering around on the pavements to break out into hoots or whistles as I pass. I was running in the Boat Club area partly because the roads are clean enough for a run to be possible, but also because it is an unambiguously posh area. Urchins just seem less likely to hoot at rich people in posh surroundings. The only other people running on the Boat Club roads were white. It's weird being a foreigner in my home town.

What are Moonballs?

This is my 50th post. It is time to clarify what moonballs are. Or more specifically, what moonballs are not. 

I have been surprised to learn that moonballs sounds risque to some of my peers and potential readers. While my imagination is piqued, I must confess that as a married, heterosexual, 37 year old banker of middle class south Indian antecedents, I am completely ignorant of the risque connotations of moonballs.

Rather than coarsen the tone of this blog by speculating on the possible risque connotations, here are a bunch of other possible meanings of moonballs: 

1. A nick name for idlis. A soft, white, round and iconic Tamil staple food 

2. A nick name for rossogollas. A soft, white, round, very sweet and iconic Bengali staple food 

3. Collector's item golf balls made from rocks that were brought back from the moon by Neil Armstrong 

4. Balls made of flubber, the material invented by The Absent Minded Professor in the film of the same name 

5. Formal dance balls (think Cinderella) held by the light of the harvest moon 

6. Brand name for a green cheese. This is a sphere of synthetically coloured cheddar cheese about the size and shape of a bulls-eye which is being test marketed as a healthy snack for American children 

7. Special white bowling balls used in the final, decisive round of professional bowling matches if the previous rounds fail to identify a clear winner 

8. A very high and slow lob played in tennis. As in: hit the ball all the way up to the moon. This is a cunning shot ideally played on floodlit courts. The ball is hard to spot if it goes above the height of the floodlights 

 9. Balls bowled by Mr Moon. Which translates to Mr Chandra in Sanskrit or Hindi. Planet Earth translates to Planet Prithvi 

10. A cricket delivery mastered by Jeremy Snape, captain of the Leicestershire Foxes and occasional England one-day specialist. A spinner's slower ball. Typically an offbreak bowled so slowly that the batter tends to mistime his hoick and holes out to mid wicket.