A red tee shirt

I want a tee shirt.

And no thanks, I do not want a tee shirt that advertises your company, I would like ( gasp) a plain one, thats right, one that has no markings whatsoever. I know I'm being difficult but its my age you see.... Now, just to make matters much much worse, I want a V-neck tee shirt, ideally with a pocket and I'd like one in White, one in black one in grey and one in red.

Easy I thought, I'll just pop into town and see whats in the sales.

As that proved a dismal, frustrating, failute, I thought maybe I'd go on line, I mean, a direct connection to all the people out there who, in this time of credit crunch and resession will be gagging to sell me a good quality plain tee shirt or four.
How wrong could I be?

Google 'High quality' Tee Shirt and there are plenty of high value TS's and lots and lots of 'low price' tee shirts but nothing in the high ( or even medium) quality range. Google V neck Tee shirts and you get lots but none of them are plain. Google Plain Tee Shirt and there are pages of TS's that are absolutely NOT plain....

Something so simple... In this day and age... and using the awesome power of t'internet and what have I found?

Precisely Sod All.

My Long Haul Travel Hell...

With a long haul flight approaching I am reminded of all the bloody annoying habits that my fellow travelers indulge in, particularly here in the subcontinent….

1) Pushing and shoving to get on board before everybody else and then faffing about and blocking the aisle so everybody has to wait while the thoughtless asshole repacks his cabin baggage.
2) Sitting down and immediately reclining the seat fully. My defense is the knees in the back, pronto.
3) Demanding a can of beer or bottle of wine immediately and becoming annoyed with the cabin crew if the wish is not fulfilled.
4) Spilling over the armrest into my seat without even a glance.
5) Talking on the mobile despite being constantly asked to turn it off by the cabin crew.
6) Pushing past without saying excuse me.
7) Removing my cabin baggage in order to fit their oversized piece in.
8) Not buckling up seat belt despite being asked to by cabin crew.
9) Cooperating with cabin crews requests to put seat upright, buckle up etc but then immediately reversing as soon as cabin crew move on.
10) Standing up as soon as the wheels touch down.
11) Pushing and shoving to get off the aircraft as soon as possible (same people as 1above).
12) Talking to me incessantly.
13) Snoring
14) Belching, burping ostentatiously.
15) Putting on the headphones and then singing or humming along.
16) Racing off the plane and then blocking the corridor by walking in a slow moving huddle.
17) Getting to escalators and then immediately standing still and blocking them.
18) Getting in the wrong queue at passport control
19) Pushing in in queues ( astonishingly common in the Middle East)


All of the above are alas commonly experienced in ‘the east’ and surprisingly much less often in ‘the west’.

How to explain?

It came to me in the night.....

I had one of those ‘it came to me in the night’ experiences last night, and yes, by it, I mean an idea. Now there is every chance that when this sort of thing happens, that is, when an idea just pops into ones head unannounced and seemingly fully formed, we tend to think that there is something funny going on, that (say) the idea has been implanted by some external agency or has been forming over a long period in the subconscious. This then leads us (or me at any rate) to think that the idea may possess some sort of ‘validity’. When in fact it is far more likely to be complete bollocks because it has actually come from the semi sleeping brain making free associations, which while occasionally yielding something of interest ( the origin of original thought?) usually produces nonsensical gobbledygook.
So anyway, what was this amazing thought then? I hear you asking.

Put simply, it is the idea that if humanity encounters a higher intelligence it will love it.

Now I am going to attempt an explanation, however, to me, it just seems so bleedin’ obvious. I mean, quite apart from the fact that the higher intelligences that we already know, some cetaceans, Gaia, God (? You already know my feelings about that chestnut) already provoke a love response in us. However I am postulating a higher intelligence that we can have meaningful communication with. OK OK! Enough with the objections already! Yes I know that there is a significant body of opinion that states that we could never communicate realistically with an alien intelligence and yes ‘meaningful’ is also a large bag of extremely wiggly worms but even so. I’m doing the postulating OK? So, we meet with a higher intelligence, by which I mean an intelligence that is at least an order of magnitude greater than our own. Say, an IQ of 1000 to 10,000 or more. This entities intelligence is such that it can rapidly absorb our language system, verbal, physical etc. It can thus engage us in conversation. It is at this point that I now think we would fall hopelessly and irrevocably in love, in fact we may even be in danger of dying of broken hearts should that love be unrequited. And you lot with dirty minds can fuck off! I’m not talking about lust here but ‘real’, ‘true’ love. And if you don’t know what I mean by that then I feel a teensie bit sorry for you….

Now, the entity or entities may have a whole raft of reasons for engendering love, they are , after all, super intelligent and we may never fathom their reasons but this does not concern me, because I am positing that real love comes from profound communication. Perhaps it all becomes simpler if I turn it around: Profound communication engenders real love…. After all communication at a very deep level requires understanding, empathy, trust, closeness. And these qualities are also required for love.

So.

When the flying saucers land we should actually expect to love our galactic neighbors , of course they will have sussed out that getting everybody to love you very deeply is surely the way to subjugate a world, so much more effective than all that crude violence with all the unpleasantness and waste that that causes. And I never said anything about them loving us…. My vision then is of a galactic empire ruled by the most effective, deepest communicators who engender deep love in all of their subjects.

‘Wacko’ I hear you thinking and probably with some justification. I’d welcome comments………..

A fun weekend

Had a visitor this weekend; a certain young Gary Rudd late of Lincoln City and allegedly Freddy and the Dreamers, freshly arrived in Mumbai on Wednesday, joined us on Friday evening at the ‘Golden Punjab’ in Vashi for a slap-up chilli prawn dinner after an ‘interesting’ and, I suspect ‘educational’ taxi ride up from South Mumbai where he had been enjoying the cream of Mumbai’s Café society for the last couple of days.
Back at the apartment, a late night ensued, fueled by Kingfisher and Golden Virginia and much setting the world to rights.
Saturday morning saw Gary, John, Vivek, Ashok and myself depart Kharghar for all points south and after pausing at the wonderful Sai Krupa for a hearty breakfast of Vada Pav and Chai and also to meet up with the other members of our group, Alix and Caroline from Hong Kong, Ramesh from Bangalore and My mate Parag. We were soon replete with victuals and heading South along the coast moving ever further away from the metropolitan influence of Mumbai and into the lovely Lonkan coastal region with its swaying palm trees and sandy beaches. First Stop Achsi beach for gulls , terms and waders but the tide was halfway to the horizon and the waders and gulls distant specks however, with scopes we were able so scan the distant flocks and were pleased to see one or two Great Knot through the rippling heat haze.
Then it was onwards to Murud for lunch and beers on the beach in the shelter of gracefully sloping coconut palms. Mr Rudd seemed to be impressed! After a long lunch of Paneer Chilli, Prawns Fry, Masala Papad and some ice cold kingfishers, and after persuading Ashok, our driver to have a go at Parascending on the huge white beach the group split up with Ramesh coming with us to investigate reports of some rare pelagics on a beach south of Murud and the others driving up into the mountains to establish base camp at Phansad. The looked for pelagics were absent but it gave Gary a chance to have a paddle in the warm clear waters of the Arabian sea and for us all to get some sand between our toes. After another stop to wander round the ruins of an ancient mosque and mausoleum half hidden in the jungle edge like some Indiana Jones film set we followed the others up the mountain and into the jungle proper…..
It is dusk when we drive along the forest tracks and pretty much dark when we arrive at a clearing to listen for Nightjars and owls. With the vehicle engines switched off and everybody quiet we squat by the track and listen in to the sounds of the jungle at night. It immediately becomes apparent how difficult it is to completely escape anthropophony these days, here, up in the mountains, deep in the jungle, in a sparsely populated area of the world, on a very still evening, one of the most prevalent sounds is the persistent distant drone of jet engines. And indeed the sky even here is rarely free of the winking lights of some aircraft plying its way across the heavens. Jerdons nightjars are calling around us and we locate one in a nearby tree by homing in on the reflections in its eyes with our torches. Mosquitoes also prove to be a constant, only held at bay by a fragrant stream of GV smoke so generously provided by Gary…… Then its back to Murud for a full on , gen-u-ine Malvani veg Thali washed down by beer and wine. Back up on the mountain, half of our party depart for the night to a high watchtower in the forest with the forlorn hope of seeing a leopard, the rest of us settle down on the veranda for discussions on, well, just about everything of importance with Gary providing entertainment with his Euke. Listening to George Formby and David Bowie covers played on a euke in the middle of the jungle is, needless to say, a rather wonderful and unique experience!
Next morning a dawn birding walk in the cool mountain air and then back down to the coast for more Vada Pav, Missal Pav and Chai before heading north back to Mumbai, cold beer and hot showers.

Whats got into J?

The saga continues: Have been prescribed Viatmin E and B in high doses as well as dietary supplements. These have had no effect save to make my skin burn and my feet swell up like balloons. Have had tests for thyroid, blood sugar, cholesterol and a few other things that I don’t understand, as on the form it says something like T4F – within normal range..?  Then I got prescribed more different vitamin supplements and a paracetamol /muscle relaxant which, thanks be to ( insert personal deity) works, in that If I take one an hour before going to bed then I can sleep through the night, unfortunately when it wears off the muscle spasms just come back. Then I threaten to fly home and am sent to a ‘top doctor’ in South Mumbai. He tells me that if I keep taking the vitamins It will get better. Whilst in his office my attention is drawn to a book on the shelf behind him. ‘The Orgasm’. He has asked for more tests and so yesterday I gave more blood, a urine sample and have my chest shaved for an ECG which I do on a treadmill. My BP starts at 130/88 and ends at 170/90, the machine spews out reams of graphs but what they mean I know not. Today I saw my doctor again who tells me that all the new tests show that there is no problem. I am told that if I keep taking the tablets it will go away. I ask the doctor what is it that I have got, what is causing the PMNP? He told me ’Your nerves have been slightly over exerted’. Gee thanks, now I understand.

So, condition still exactly the same, painkiller/muscle relaxant provides temporary relief, am told ‘it will get better’ give it time.

And now: The first Jeaunsetalk film review!

As an 'entertainment experience' 2012, on a big screen is undeniably a winner. Who could not fail to be entertained by this piece of full-on special effects hokum? So spectacular is this piece of cinematic crap that the complely rubbish story, icky sweet sentiment, cloying - faux philosophising, unscientific and generally hillarious unattention to detail that one is left with a feeling of having been, well, entertained. To be frank, the storyline is so clumsy in its attempt to hold the series of cgi set pieces together that its best not even to think about it. However, the special effects are truly unbelievably amazing on a big screen. The engineers who created this should be congratulated for achieving hitherto undreamed of levels of realism in thier depictions, in particular, of tsunamis and very large buildings collapsing. Remarkable and definitely worth experiencing.
Seen as a 'film' this is a piece of dog dirt, as an experince though, brilliant!
That I saw this in my local multiplex in Kharghar, New Bombay I think only added to the experience. The cinema was clean, had amazingly comfortable reclining seats and sported very high quality sound and display clarity. From the initial 'please all stand for the national anthem' when one is treated to a jittery low res loop of the Indian flag waving, intercut with two elderly Indian divas wailing, to the twenty minute intermission half way through the film, the seat service, where trays of fast food and colas are bought to your seat, the whole experience was satisfying and  for me educational and at less than two quid, value for money. Avatar opens here soon and so I may being going again before too long.

Cramps - Now it has a name!

Been to another doctor: Its a 'Peripheral myoneuropathy' apparently. Blood tests tomorrow to try to determine the cause, diabetes is most likely possibility I am informed.

Cramps the story continues....

Finally got to see a doctor who repeated everything I have read on the net viz:

Can be caused by lack of salt due to excessive sweating. But as I spend my days in over air conditioned spaces, shivering rather than sweating, and as a lot of the food here is very salty this is unlikely.

Thyroid imbalance. I would feel lethargic and may put on weight. I am loosing weight (through dieting I hasten to add) and do not feel in any way lethargic.

Statins: As I have stopped taking them and the cramps continue, these are ruled out.

I’m going to a clinic this afternoon for ‘blood tests’ and to see a ‘specialist’ but will have to wait a few days for the results, in the meantime I have been prescribed Vitamin E capsules, am eating bananas to boost my potassium, drinking lots of water and attempting to locate a source of Tonic Water so that I may self medicate with quinine. Strangely all enquiries about Tonic Water or even Indian Tonic Water have been met with a complete blank. ‘Never heard of it’ is the response and have not been able to find it in shops or supermarkets. I was confidently told that Tonic water ‘is simply lime juice’ by two people here and my HB said that he had been offered 50 ml bottles of ‘Special Tonic’ by a pharmacist. The search continues as do my nightly cramps which are slowly driving me nuts.

Statins - Warning!

I’m ill, or at least, I feel like shit. I have developed a tendency for my calf muscles to cramp when I lie down and its getting worse and worse. My legs twitch and ache all the time and the combination of these two delightful symptoms means that I can’t sleep and so am turning into a zombie during the day.
Having discovered that a significant minority of people who take statins get these symptoms I immediately stopped taking them. The sympotoms have not diminished in fact they have worsened and now, to my delight, I have discovered that it is apparently dangerous to stop taking statins abruptly….
I’m due to see a doctor but my confidence is low and being 4000 miles from my family doctor at home makes me feel a bit helpless. What do I do? Resume taking the things that may have caused this reaction in the first place?? Wait? I really dunno but I’m slowly going mad! I’m drinking tonic water ( quinine helps with cramps) I’ve upped my intake of bananas for the potassium, I’m drinking several litres of water a day but all to no avail. Now I am getting muscular spasms in my arms as well.
Oh shit.

A weekend away....

Back to the Jungle reserve at Phansad this weekend despite prognostications of a post cyclone deluge, nobody else staying at the bungalow and so we have it too ourselves. Arrived in Murud and straight to my favorite beach side bar for beers and snacks before decamping to a restaurant for a totally authentic Malvani veg thali. Although not licenced they turn a blind eye to our under the table decanting of wine into the stainless steel mugs they provide. Back up to the bungalow at midnight and then an hour session photographing cricket, mantids and spiders in the garden. Next morning dawns bright albeit it misty and we face two severe disappointments; firstly we are told there’s no milk for the Cha’ha which necessitates us jumping in the car and driving down the mountain to the first village that has a tea shop. With our craving for tea sated we then go back up for breakfast only to be told on our arrival that ‘there is no breakfast as the man who prepares it ‘did not come’.  So we drive down ( again) to the coast where we have a breakfast in the beach bar and more tea before driving back up ( again) to go birding in the paddy fields. Climbing down the steep slopes into the valley we find that the rice has just been harvested and is spread out across all the little dykes between the fields which means that we cannot walk on them.

Back down the mountain again and this time we decide to stroll along the beach looking for gulls, terns and waders. Having exhausted that possibility we then drive slowly south along the coast, past the furthest limits of our previous explorings and discover a magical world of small sandy palm fringed bays, old forts and crumbling temples like something out of an Indiana Jones adventure. This area seems to be the first point south along the coast that is finally free of the metropolitan influence of Mumbai 200 km to the north. The coast road here is a pock marked single track affair traversed mostly by ox carts, around each headland is another little sandy bay where Oystercatchers, curlew and sand plovers feed completely undisturbed by humans. A few miles away, across the board bay there is a distant rumble and what looks like an open cast iron ore mine and dock but it hardly encroaches on the seaside idyll we are enjoying. Here there is a large Moslem temple and mausoleum that is being restored and we are able to wander in and around it completely unhindered by anybody, the guys working on it greet us with smiles bid us ‘welcome’. I even walk inside where there are a series of carved stone tombs, carvings and ancient wood workings lay around and we are completely trusted just to explore. Fantastic! Down the road there is a small sandy bay fringed by a number of huge baobabs, a tree that I have never seen outside of Africa and we puzzle over their origins which, judging by their size must be hundreds of years ago.

Then its back to Murud for lunch the skies that have been darkening all morning finally produce the rain and it wastes no time in becoming torrential so we drive back up to Phansad again for a rest and to await the end of the rain. When it does clear and the sun comes out the jungle steams and I take a solitary walk through it I the sauna like humidity, a time for some reflection on my luck at being in such a magical place! Before dusk we drive deep inside the jungle to a water hole where a Sri Lankan Frogmouth, often considered to be the worlds ugliest bird has been seen and quite well twitched. The waterhole is alive with tree frogs and mosquitoes and while we wait to hear its distinctive call we are eaten alive despite a liberal coating of ‘Expedition Strength’ deet.

Having drawn a blank on the SLFM we go back to Murud for dinner on the seafront under the leaning palms where we bump into a crowd from work, it’s the purchasing department picnic, I’m not sure who is more surprised……

After another nocturnal photographic session I retire to bed to find my shoes are full of blood, I’ve been well and truly leeched.

During the night I am awoken by more rain hammering on the tin roof of the bungalow and decide to pop outside for a pee. I emerge onto the veranda dressed in nothing more than my shorts, torch in hand and wonder if there is any wildlife about, looking down, about a meter from my bare feet is a forest scorpion of quite gigantic proportions! A grab my camera and fire off some shots before retiring. At six we are up and off to the coast again where we spend a happy morning at a favorite spot watching many different guls, terns and waders including what we think may be a Saunders tern.

Saunders or Little Tern?

We arrive home, hot sweaty, dirty and covered in bites but agree that’s its been an absolutely exellent weekend. In the evening we sit on the balcony sipping icy cold Sauvignon Blanc and watching a thunderstorm build and die with the fading light of the day. Werk tomorrow…..Sigh.

A rather soggy squib...

Never has a potentially serious weather event fizzled out so quickly or completely! One moment we were being inundated by biblically heavy rain, the next, the rain stopped as though a tap had been turned off. A strange calm descended which, we were assured, meant that we were in the eye of the storm and the rain and wind would return with even greater force during the late evening. In fact, that was the end of the ‘cyclone’, the calm dry weather persisted through the night and this morning, although the mountains are shrouded in cloud the sun is shining and the puddles are steaming and will doubtless soon be dry.

Getting hold of a weather forecast here is difficult, the daily forecasts on the telly are hopeless, seeming to bear no resemblance to reality and the ones in the Times of India border on farcical, in particular I find the amazing accuracy that is always so confidently asserted very amusing with statements like ‘Temperature today at midday 31.27 C’ or ‘Rainfall 14.65 mm’. This coupled with the fact that for a given forecast the actual temperature was in fact nearer 26 and the rainfall absent does rather sap the confidence. Indeed the weather forecast in the paper this morning or yesterday  made no mention of a cyclone. Of course, half of the reason for this is that there is relatively little need for a big spend on meteorology when for 99% of the time the weather is just so damn predictable, with rain for three months and hot sunshine for nine months.

Following the massive loss of life in the storm of July ’07 here, there were calls for increased spending on modern kit and a Doppler radar was purchased at considerable expense by the local government. People were therefore shocked and horrified a few months later to be told by the media that Doppler radar could not predict the weather but only tell what was happening in the present. Earlier, its acquisition had been accompanied by claims in the Times that now Mumbai would be able to give accurate weather forecasts days or even weeks ahead. I read recently that this facility has never been successfully commissioned and is currently rusting in a government compound whilst various departments argue about who is to blame for this huge waste of money. The thing is, it is impossible to tell if this whole story is true, partially true or even a complete bunch of crap!

So, looking on the TV, the newspapers, the net, or listening to the various self appointed weather pundits in the office, this coming weekend will be hot/cold, wet and dry making it a tad difficult to plan….

Latest update at 1.30pm: Weather fine , settled and sunny, still cloudy around the mountain peaks and the amount of water in the ground combining with the hot sunshine makes it highly probable that we may experience convectional storms this evening.

Tropical Cyclone Phyan – As it happens….

Your roving reporter is on the spot as Phyan comes ashore at Mumbai. Current time 2.45pm and the rain has eased a little, but only a little. Is this the ‘the eye’ I wonder? Its dark outside or almost so and the shear intensity of the rain is amazing, its not hugely windy (yet) but it is eerily cold. The weather forecast says its 30C but I don’t think so, more like 15C. Now this is a low temperature even for the middle of a cold night in winter here so you may imagine how spooked the locals are. Currently forecast to come directly overhead at between 7 an 11 this evening, so the next few hours will be interesting.
I have experienced some really heavy rain in my time, tropical thunderstorms in Malaysia, Monsoon storms in India but the shear intensity of the rain that we have experienced in the last four hours eclipses anything I have experienced previously, god only knows what it must be like in a real Hurricane / Typhoon.
We’re shutting the factory and preparing to go home early and I’m wondering just how I am going to get from my office to my car about a hundred meters away without being drenched to the skin! I have to say that its all rather exiting at the moment, big weather always turns me on, its not very photogenic though with next to no light and a fug of rain and cloud. Hopefully we’ll get some thunder and lightening action before to long to spice things up a bit.
Just heard that although we are supposed to be leaving early but the roads are ‘jammed up’ so I don’t quite know what we ill end up doing or when exactly I will be home….
More later.

When weather turns bad....

It’s a first for me, and it provides an explanation as to the sudden and drastic change in the weather, it’s only a flipping tropical storm! Normal November weather in Mumbai is hot and clear in fact one would normally be happy to bet a months wages on the fact but clearly, nobody told the weather gods as I woke on Monday morning to overcast skies and yesterday morning it started to rain, by the evening it was like the monsoon again and continued so throughout the night, this morning its more of the same, dark grey skies emptying a more or less continual deluge of warm rain. The red dust has already reverted back to gloopy brown mud and people here are in general feeling very happy about it. By the monsoon end we were 15% down on the water required to get through until next monsoon and water rationing had already started, this then is a very welcome top up.
Not so for the migrant birds freshly arrived, exhausted and looking for the abundant food that is normally to be expected, the insect eaters will be especially affected.

The cyclone approaches! It will be directly over Mumbai at around midnight tonight and we are told to expect very heavy rains, high winds and a storm surge causing flooding. It’s a complete sod as was hoping to get away at the weekend however the forecast is for the rains to continue through until next week. Agghhh! Wherever I go this year it bleedin well rains….

Bonus post! Not avaialable on email!

I’m really getting into Flickr. It is a really well designed site with hidden depths that I’m constantly uncovering, it has already put me in touch with some new folk both in India and the UK and it’s a really great resource for the provision of a little creative stimulation. Everybody seems very polite and a minor criticism is that there is little or no negative comment: ‘What a pile of utter SHITE mate’ or ‘Lets face it, you are not a natural photographer’ would be nice once in a while instead of the endless ‘Coo’s and ‘wow’s that seem to be the stock in trade of the average flickr commenter. I fancy trying it (‘Call that an image? Fuck off and die you fucking wanker’ might be fun) but am scared that I might be drummed off the site, in fact I’m sure I would if I gave free vent to my dislike of some of the stuff that’s uploaded. But the majority of the content that I’ve seen has actually been of a disturbingly high standard, so much superior to my own efforts that I am spurred on to greater creative heights, well that’s the theory anyway. I just wish more of you posted stuff on Flickr, it’s a great way to share pics.
Oh dear, today the weather is completely overcast, there’s even flecks of drizzle on my office window, this is NOT what I flew five thousand miles to experience and makes even mediocre photography difficult. Come to that my apartment doesn’t seem to offer much in the way of subject matter once the view from the balcony has been snapped, nevertheless, I have a theory that a really good photographer could take a good picture in a completely white or for that matter, black, cell and am setting myself a challenge of producing a really good image taken in the apartment. Have been plagued by leg cramps in the night of late and its getting worse, its just soo painful as well, I am suspecting that it’s the Statins I’m taking ( thanks Figrat) and am going to stop taking them from today following a night of torture.
Did I say drizzle? Well in the last hour or so it has metamorphosed into a biblical deluge, there will be tears before bedtime I fear. But as it’s a weekday and I am ‘at work’ I don’t really mind, however, come the weekend I’m off to Phansad and the weather had better have cleared up. I can honestly say that I have never known rain like this ( or even just ‘rain’ come to that) in Mumbai in November, its odd, very odd.
So I’ll hunker down in front of the box tonight, BBC entertainment is surprisingly good, a veritable oasis of intelligence and culture in a sea of lowest common denominator, short attention span shite. Its always fun to sit with my Indian staff and watch them trying to figure out something like Blackadder or The Office, I’m rolling around creased up with laughter and they sit with completely straight faces, of course the tables are turned when its an Indian comedy, which are all, without fail, the most childish slapsick imaginable and which they, in common with many Indians seem to find utterly hilarious. Maybe one day I’ll learn to love it or will finally discern the deeper subtleties amongst the fat men falling over, and over, and over…….

Chris

Back to Bombay!

Well well well, here I am once again…….

Flawless trip from all the way from Surrenden Close to Regency Gardens, not one single issue (this is, I think, a first). Woke to a warm (30C) and sunny Saturday morning and could not suppress the feeling of being, somehow, on holiday. In fact, so strong was this feeling that I was transported back forty five years to walking down to the newsagents in Cromer with my dad to collect the morning paper and buy some bacon, even the smell of that shop came back to me, a unique and redolent combination of suncream and short chain monomers from the cheap post war plastics used in the buckets, ( not spades though because they were still made of metal) beach balls and rubber rings that festooned the walls of the shop. I can see it all now so clearly and can feel that excitement at being on holiday and the prospect of a long day on the beach, rockpooling, building sandcastles and sea defences.
But I am alas, most definitely not on holiday and Navi Mumbai is so not like Cromer that it is difficult to conceive of both places actually being on the same planet…… And of course, the Cromer of my childhood is indeed on another planet, one called ‘the past’.

Whatever, I’m ‘Back in Bomb’ as Salman Rushdie says, until 11th Dec, five weeks of work punctuated thankfully by four weekends of fun ( if all goes according to plan). The apartment is full, with John from Leeds and Roman from Wiesbaden both in residence. Spent Sunday morning birding with friends ( Hen Harrier, Wryneck, Bluethroat) and Sunday afto exploring some of the back streets of Khargar with Roman and ( as if you didn’t already know) putting some of the photos from the weekend up on my Flickr page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeaunse23/

I’m such a shameless self promoter and the most troubling thing is – I don’t even care! Get me huh?

Anyway, have just about readjusted my internal clock by the liberal internal application of ethanol in the form of the really excellent Sula Vinyards Sauvignon Blanc and now feel ready to take on the world ( god, what a transparent lie).

I have been questioning some of you during my recent visit to the UK regarding the personal email sent to your inbox versus the Blog approach to staying in contact and , perhaps not surprisingly, many of you have come down firmly on the side of the personal mail and therefore I plan to take a duplex approach and to send you individually and yes, lovingly, hand crafted emails, as well as using a generic version of the text on my Blog,

http://jeaunsetalk.blogspot.com/

I’m hoping that this will please all of the people all of the time (who said it couldn’t be done eh?).

I’m really loving the weather here at the mo’, its hot at midday but mornings and evenings are cool at around 20C, the sky is a clear blue and any wind very light. The winter migrants are back and the countryside is now simply vibrating with avian life, I reckon the number of species of birds easily doubles in the winter which is another bonus of the Indian climate. This trip I have bought a big bag of Tagliatelli, two large tubs of Parmesan cheese, Lady Grey teabags and Dorset cereals Muesli. I am intending to add to my Indian diet with an Italian one following last trips successful manufacture of a passable Tagliatelli a la Pomordoro. Forgot to bring dried yeast however and so will have to wait until next trip to start making my own bread…..



Nostrovia!

Back in the UUUK

Back home! And its wonderful, 99% due to the sumptuous autumn sunshine. Enjoying cooking and relishing all the stuff I miss in Mumbai, like the bread and the cheese!

Whatever, the breaking news is that I now have a photostream on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeaunse23/

Check it!

More as it 'appens

The weekend of the Mantis! (Or how I got ill and learned about septicemia).

Last weekend in India for a few weeks and the first this visit with a promise of fine weather and so it’s off to the Jungle reserve at Phansad three hours south of Mumbai with a bunch of mates for two days of savoring the Jungle Experience. The birding is rubbish we know because the post monsoon vegetation is so thick and luxuriant, however abundant insects and amphibians more than make up for it.
Arriving at the little tin roofed bungalow the outside strip light is on and plastered with moths, crickets, bush crickets, lantern bugs, assassin bugs, spiders and beetles but most of all mantids. Mantids of all shapes, sizes and colours stalking the other visitors to the lights. Up above under the veranda massive geckos wait for stray moths while down below is a collection of frogs and toads cleaning up anything that should fall. Outside in the lawn mole crickets are singing their piercing monotonous song while cicadas and tree frogs try to sonically out compete each other all around us. Noisy yes, but also massively soothing.
We waste no time and as soon as out kit is stashed we head out into the forest, the head forest officer has seen Leopards nearby so we hope against hope to see one. Standing in the middle of a jungle clearing, late at night is an extremely wonderful experience and we all soak up the atmosphere. There are a myriad of fireflies blinking on and off in the trees and many pairs of eyes reflect our torch beams, the vast majority of which turn out to be spiders. Actually it struck me that this jungle could have easily been Tolkiens model for Mirkwood, its dense and tangled, gnarled old trees festooned with twisted and
cris-crossed lianas hung with spiders webs and positively crawling with BIG spiders, Wood spiders, Huntsmen, Tarantulas, Cat Legged Spiders, Thorn spiders , an arachnophobes worst nightmare come to life! I have to say we loved it!
Next morning we’re up at dawn and off to a waterhole five kilometers in to check out some vultures nests, the walk seems hard to me and I’m pouring sweat, my mouth is dry no matter how much water I drink and a dull headache makes its presence felt. When we get back to the hut for breakfast I find that I’m not ravenous as I normally would be in fact I cant really face food. I feel tired and listless and decide to lie down. There’s a power cut and the ceiling fan grinds to a halt. I tell my mates to go on out and I’ll just have a lie down. And so I lie there, basically all day, drink water and aching all over. Is this H1N1? I wonder? The start of a stomach bug? Late in the evening I get to sleep and awake on Sunday morning drenched with sweat and still aching. I get up and take a walk and feel fucking awful. Eventually we leave and sitting in the car heading to the local town for some breakfast I feel a little cooler, by the time we reach a breakfast stop I’m actually hungry and notice that the headache has gone. By the time I’m back in Mumbai I’m feeling about 95% better. So: WTF was it? I really dunno but there is a theory: Whilst in Delhi last week I cut my finger, just a very slight nick, no blood raised in factso I thought nothing of it until about 24 hours later when I wake up with a swollen throbbing finger with a large ugly yellow lump on it, I can hardly bear to touch it but stab it with a pair of tweezers and massage Savlon into it and cover it with a plaster. Immediately it feels better and after another 48 hours ( Saturday afternoon in fact) I take the paster off to check that’s its not turned gangrenous or something equally horrid and it looks absolutely fine so I leave the plaster off, but it soon becomes swollen and painful again. Doh! So I repeat the treatment again and once again it seems fine. The plasters still on as I type. It has been suggested to me that this pusy infection of my finger may be related to my mystery malady, maybe I’ll never know…..
The mantids were amazing however, and we did see a Sea Eagle on the way home!

DELHI DREAMING……….

A quick and, I have to say, uncharacteristically enjoyable three nights in Delhi. Delhi: It may as well be on a different planet to Mumbai with different food ( yummy, more North Indian in character ) , architecture ( older, more colonial), infrastructure ( wide roads and open spaces) and for once the weather was nice, made a  change from Mumbai which has been rainy and grey for the past n weeks and is now stinking hot, hazy and humid. Delhi was clear blue sky and low humidity which made the 36C easily bearable. A series of quite agreeable meetings during the day and getting hammered every night with an interesting mélange of people made for a fun time. Stayed in a ‘guest house’ in an up market area of Delhi ( Friends Colony) belonging to an associated Japanese company, after the cramped style of accommodation that seems to be the thing in Mumbai this guest house was almost comically the opposite, my en suite was so huge that I needed to sit down for a rest twixt wash basin and shower and really needed binoculars to see the loo. My bed was built along similar lines and lying in bed I could just make out the edges far off in the distance. Food was all freshly cooked by the Nepalese HB and bleedin’ delicious it was too. Every morning I was woken by a very pleasant and rather exotic blend of sounds comprising a water seller ambling along the road ringing a bell and shouting rather like rag and bone men used to when I was a child. Then there was the squawking of the Parakeets and Mynas on my windowsill and the distant calls of the Muezzin. Warm sun streaming in through the window lighting up a zillion drifting dust motes at 7.00 rounded off the atmosphere. And the plumbing, gosh, well, what can I say?  Indian plumbing is always entertaining and here in Delhi, in a large old house it was re-mark–able. Just the shear complexity of the water heater in my bathroom was enough to keep me amused for minutes as I desperately tried to work out how to turn it on and how to get water of the correct temperature to supply the tap that I required. There was a ‘double pressure’ boiler resplendent with switches, dials, lights and multifarious metal tubes and valves, some with nice brass in-line taps. An array of unlabelled electrical switches and some suspicious exposed copper wires completed the picture. It turns out that several electrical switches had to be thrown (one in the distant bedroom) and the correct lights illuminated before the intricate process of directing water through the labyrinthine system could commence, only then, when the hot water was flowing would the final winking red light come on to announce that the process was nearing completion, a spluttering torrent of near boiling water that sprayed both into the bath and across the vast bathroom floor simultaneously. At this point the merest touch of any of the many switches, taps or valves would change this water to cold in an instant and the reinstatement of heat would then require several minutes of speculative fiddling. Great fun tho’.

And hey! WOW! Delhi airport has had a serious facelift! It now looks pretty much like any modern airport instead of the wonderfully pathetic disorganized and archaic mess that it used to be ( even worse than Mumbai if that’s possible) but now its all gleaming and spacious. I need not have worried; it’s only the appearance that has changed however, underneath the gloss its still lovable old India with its finely crafted blend of madness, ineptitude and plain belligerence that I have come to love….. Went to a café airside ( A café! Whatever next? Clean toilets?) And after getting over the shock of being offered a variety of fresh food that was not dried up and encrusted with flies I opted for a stuffed croissant and a cup of coffee. After being charged a very reassuringly European price I retired to my (rather wobbly, but shiny and new)) table to await this feast. Although there were only about three other customers it took the fourteen or fifteen staff twenty minutes or so to deliver a mildly warmed through puff - pastry style snack that was only extremely loosely based on a croissant ( the general shape was roughly correct)  and a creased paper cup of warm brown but disturbingly tasteless liquid. Naturally the ‘coffee’ was spilled onto the table in a most professional manner by the waiter. Seems to me that they have taken ‘International levels of service’ to their bosom, I haven’t had such excellently crapulent service since the last time I was at Heathrow. Well done India! You are getting there!

And after the mandatory unannounced one hours delay that is the norm for Mumbai-Delhi flights these days ( Mumbai blames it on Delhi’s pants ATC and vice versa). I was back to my cosy apartment and planning my last trip of this visit. Off to Phansad with ‘the lads’ Girish, Swapneel, Samir and Parag, not forgetting Ashok my birding driver. The forest guest house is fully booked which is a bit of a sod and so we are banking on finding some accommodation in the nearby little seaside town of Murud. Looking forward to a weekend of chilling with me mates over beers and snacks with intervals of natural history adventures in the jungle early morning and late at night. At this time of year , if the sky is clear, which it looks set to be then the heat anytime after about ten in the morning is impossible.

More as it happens………..

A BIRDING WEEKEND

Although not quite the clear and sunny weather that was promised (probably just as well) the has rain held off and I have been able to get out and about. Kicked off 6.30 am on Saturday morning with a drive up into the Ghats, only 30 minutes drive and it feels like a million miles away from Mumbai surrounded by wooded mountains, everywhere bright green, waterfalls and rushing torrents, a bit like the Scottish highlands but with palm trees. Lots of birds about and our progress is slow as we drive and stop, drive and stop as new birds come into view. Highlights are amazing bright orange- brown Cinnamon Bitterns, a Slaty Breasted Rail ambling across the road in front of the car and a pair of Pied Cuckoos amongst the thirty odd species. Then we drove back for a hearty breakfast of Vada Pav, deep fried chilies, Sweetlime juice and copious Chai before heading down to the mangroves for a plod around a favorite piece of turf. And WOW the vegetation has grown up so much since I was here last, so much so that the paths I know are now obliterated and a birding stroll turns into a mammoth bushwhacking adventure as we try to avoid mud and marsh, end up seeing FA birds and becoming plastered in evil stinky mud. And it’s HOT and humid, when the cloud thins the temperature soars and so we get back to the car sweaty, muddy and stinking. Home for a shower and change of clothes and then out again back up into the mountains for more good stuff. Cracked my bottle of Sula ‘Dindori’ in the evening, very nice indeed. Yesterday morning up again at first light and then off to Kanala bird sanctuary on the Goa road for a Jungle walk. Brighter than Saturday and even hotter, the jungle is steamy and wet and my glasses are constantly steamed up and/or splashed with sweat. The woods here are full of big spiders, crabs and biting flies but strangely, few birds, a few Orioles and Drongos and that’s about it, and so we give up after a couple of hours and head off to the Uran wetlands where we score with a list of over sixty species with flamingos, spoonbills, lots of mongoose around on the trails and swarms of butterflies, fantastic! We stick around birdwaching until after midday when the heat finally defeats us. Brilliant!
Last night went for Chilli Tiger prawns at the ‘Golden Punjab’ in Vashi, ( I heartily recommend it should you ever be in Vashi) several beers and a plate of Kulfi rounds off my best weekend of the trip, fell asleep last night listening to the Brown Fish Owls calling outside my bedroom window.
And so to Delhi…. I’ll Blog from there hopefully.

The weekend tally:


House Crow
Jungle Crow
Jungle Babbler
Puff throated Babbler
House Sparrow
Rock Pigeon
Little Brown Dove
Longtailed Shrike
Red Vented Bulbul
Red Whiskered Bulbul
Black Kite
Brahminy Kite
Shikra
Marsh Harrier
Cinnamon Bittern
Slaty Breasted Rail
Glossy Ibis
Gull Billed Tern
Whiskered Tern
Brown Headed Gull
Black Winged Stilt
White Breasted Kingfisher
Coppersmith Barbet
Large Brown Barbet
Night Heron
Great Egret
Intermediate Egret
Little Egret
Indian Pond Heron
Grey Heron
Purple Heron
Purple Swamphen
White breasted Swamphen
Coot
Spot Billed Duck
Pygmy Cotton Goose
Redshank
Sandpiper
Black Drongo
Bronzed Drongo
Golden Oriole
Black fronted Leafbird
Greater Coucal
Greater Flamingo
Spoonbill
Red Avadavat
Scaly Breasted Munia
Black Headed Munia
Barn Swallow
Wire tailed Swallow
Palm Swift
House Swift
Ashy Prinia
Plain Prinia
Clamorous Reed Warbler
Baya Weaver
Pied Cuckoo
Common Cuckooshrike
Indian Cormorant
Brown Fish Owl
Small Minivet
Asian Pied Myna
Indian Myna

Eye eye....

Back to the eye doctor this evening for another round of ‘guess what’s wrong with Jeaunse’s eyes’ the three sets of eye drops that were prescribed for me last Wednesday have eased the irritation but they’re still red and inflamed and they’re still watering like crazy all the time. So, it’ll mean a trip to Vashi – The Big City – with all its manifold glittering attractions. I’ve decided that I’m going to go mad and treat myself to a bottle of Sula ‘Dindori’ Shiraz. Which I am going to drink all by myself tee hee. A colleague from the UK is flying out on Saturday so I am going to savor my last couple of solitary evenings, he’ll be here until after I depart so the rest of my stay will be more social. Got my air tickets for Delhi today as well, I’m off on Monday afternoon, not my favorite place to be honest and looking at the weather forecast, 36C and torrential rain I fear this feeling will only be compounded. Still I will be staying in my companies guest house which I have to say I love, its in a very middle class area which means only five beggars per person rather than the more usual ten, and theres a nice park around the corner where one can pick ones way through the litter and turds for a stroll of an evening. I’ll be being looked after by the venerable ‘Panditji’ who does so like to ply me with his wonderful fragrant Chi and who makes the worlds best masala omlettes, he’s a little wizened old guy of an indeterminate age who always wears and old blazer over his dhoti and who always calls me ‘Chris Sir Sahib’, his home cooking is renowned throughout the company, almost makes the journey worthwhile ( but not quite). Delhi is a pig of a place in general, a huge sweaty crumbling traffic jam with a small area that’s quite picturesque where the government buildings are and a huge new modern ( but already crumbling) industrial area called Noida which is where I’ll be spending my days. However, I just know that the time will simply zoom past as I’m going to be very busy doing presentations and training courses in the day and wining and dining in the evenings, before I know it I’ll be back in Mumbai again and will have only a week remaining before returning to the bosom of my homeland.
And today the sun has come out and with it swarms of butterflies, it almost feels like being on holiday, driving to work this morning my driver spotted something in a tree and we shuddered to a halt, a beautiful Spotted Eagle sitting impassively in a tree by the side of the road and me without a camera! Still a good omen for the weekend when, if the sunshine continues I’ll be out in the local mountains for some serious birding.

Fingers crossed.

Jeezus Friggin Christ Almightly

"India wants a fair and equitable agreement. There should be no barriers
to its own economic growth. We are deeply concerned over the issue of
global warming and climate change. The best way to mitigate the problem
is that countries should do things on their own. We are doing it and
over the next two to three months more countries will know what we are
doing," he said.

The minister said that Himalayan states of Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim,
Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand need to be given
special incentives for maintaining the forest cover and expressed hope
that the Centre would respond to the suggestions made by him.

The fact that around 15,000 Himalayan glaciers are receding is beyond
doubt, Ramesh said, adding, however, that what still needs to be
established is the cause of the recession.

He said that while the western school of thought attributes the
recession of glaciers to global warming, Indian scientists are of the
opinion that there is still not enough solid evidence to substantiate
it.  

Wankers....... 

I HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO QUITE FIGURE THIS ONE OUT……

A train is running along a straight railway line, doesn’t matter how fast but let’s pretend it’s really, really fast just for the fun of it. It’s an old fashioned engine with flat vertical forward facing windows, not the most aerodynamic of designs but functional. Ahead of the train a small fly is busy flying along minding its own business, it is heading straight for the train window and…. Well you can imagine the result.
Or can you?
Let’s analyse what happens in a bit more detail……….

The fly impacts the window and its remains rapidly find themselves moving in exactly the opposite direction. Something quite remarkable has happened in fact. The fly has reversed direction without ever being stationary because the window that it hit was already moving. But how can this be? Think carefully about the last few moments of the flies life, one moment it is moving in one direction, the next instant it is moving in the opposite direction but at no time did it actually stop.
Can you imagine reversing a car and then putting it into a forward gear without stopping in between?
OK so let’s imagine a car on a long trailer being towed by a lorry. Start the car at the front of the trailer, reverse it down the trailer and then stop and drive forwards again. Is this situation analogous to the fly on the train window? Maybe it is. The car clearly stops relative to the trailer before proceeding to move forwards again but in truth the car is only stationary relative to the universal reference frame when it is moving backwards at the same speed as the trailer is moving forwards. Once it starts to slow down it is in fact moving forwards. Hmmm, does this help with the fly /train quandary? I’m guessing this is a ‘reference frame situation’, that is, viewed from one frame of reference something impossible appears to be happening whereas viewed from another it is not so it is the use of a false reference frame that is the problem. Consider. From the point of view of the fly’s vector firstly it has velocity in one direction and then it under goes a very short period of extremely strong deceleration followed by a movement at a constant velocity in the opposite direction, it does not appear to go through an acceleration phase for if that were the case it would imply that the train were accelerating which it is not. Agreed the train is slowed very (very) slightly by the impact of the fly but the fly after decelerating strong is somehow instantly moving at a constant velocity in the opposite direction and without passing through a stationary phase for, if the fly were to be stationary then that would imply that the train were also stationary, if only for an instant……
So lets try and develop and alternative reference frame. This time we take the train as the reference, relative to the train in fact the fly decelerates to a dead stop. Indeed, the fly is no longer moving once it has spread itself out on the window. So that’s it, problem solved… I guess, but I still come back to what I see as an observer of the fly’s vector. First it has a constant velocity in one direction and then it has a constant velocity in the opposite direction. In fact, if we replace the fly by a mathematical point then there is not even a period of deceleration merely an instantaneous change of direction with no period of being stationary.
My head hurts…… Ideas on a postcard please….

A WET WEEKEND

And how! It has (and there is simply no other word as appropriate I’m afraid) PISSED down for the last 60 hours. This is of course excellent news for the huge majority of Mumbaikers as the severe water shortages have already meant rationing (still no water in my apartment and it’s been three weeks now, however that is for a different reason, a broken pump at a local reservoir). Going out on foot is pretty nearly impossible due to the shear heaviness of the rain, however as one cant see more than about 30 meters and there’s nowt to see anyway as the wildlife hunkers down to escape the drenching deluge, there’s really very little point. But it’s a drag for yours truly as it means being confined to the apartment with the hopeless TV choice and its associated astonishing density of commercials which drives me absolutely fucking MAD! I tried watching The Nat Geo Channel (what a load of purest shite that is and what a sad demise of what was once such a respected name) pathetic, factually incorrect, short attention span drivel it may be but it’s the ads that defeat me. Having nothing better to do and being a right contrary bastard I decided, just for your edification dear reader, to note down some facts and figures. Ads on Indian satellite channels maybe divided in to several equally annoying types: Firstly there’s your actual commercials, now the problem here is that on each channel there’s a very limited number of commercials available and so they have to show each one multiple times, its not uncommon to see the same ad three times a single commercial break and with three breaks every half hour one somewhat rapidly tires of them – an understatement actually, I find my blood starting to boil and the urge to throw something heavy becoming almost uncontrollable. Then there’s the ‘sponsored by’ or ‘bought to you by’ messages, which are nothing more than a list of the advertisers that have already driven me perilously close to the edge of sanity. That however, is only the half of it, for those nice people at Nat Geo like to enrich my life still further by advertising future attractions and this will be done at the beginning and again at the end of the break (sometimes several times) just in case I missed it the last twenty times that it was bought to my attention during the last half hour…So mindless is the programming that it is not uncommon to see a trailer for the program that is currently running inserted several times into that program. Then they run a brief resume of where we had got up to in the last brief section of the program followed by perhaps three or four minutes of content before – its another commercial break! On top of this they do so like to run advertising over the top of the actual program as if the breaks were not sufficiently compelling. I am sure that people have been driven to acts of horrendous violence through less provocation than this……It amounts to nothing more than a cruel and unusual punishment, I may yet write to the UN.
Reading, writing or rain watching are the other alternatives and It’s the latter that actually won out. I’m not currently really in a reading or writing mood and so joined Driver and HB on the balcony from time to time, staring moodily at the never ending sheets of rain. It’s been quite amazing watching the water flow in the nullahs outside my apartment complex. There’s a small stream outside the back of the apartment that runs along the base of the hillside, a couple of weeks ago I walked across it and didn’t get my feet wet, by Saturday evening it was a roaring torrent that to wade across without ropes would almost certainly prove suicidal. This stream empties into our local nullah which is outside the front of the complex and which for most of the year is simply a wide and deep litter and weed filled dry ditch. Now it is a river of foaming and surging brown water about ten meters across carrying tree trunks and the odd dead dog past with remarkable rapidity. This dear reader is the real monsoon, albeit rather late. Of course with so much water in the air and the temperature an even 30C it means that the air is saturated with water vapour and so everything is sticky and wet even indoors., In particular we have a cream leatherette settee, tacky eh? - Particularly to any exposed flesh – not nice!
So what did I do with my wet weekend apart from being listless and lethargic? Well, I went to the newest biggest flashiest Mall in the area to find some Eeengish food items. There’s a teeny Waitrose there which is surreally expensive even by UK standards, I have never seen anybody in there ( apart from me ) But even I draw the line at small packets of Alpen at almost a tenner or small jars of French preserves at around six quid a throw. But I did buy a small piece of mature cheddar and a packet of biscuits which I later savoured with a couple of glasses of red.
Then I went and got myself a Kurta – one of those long shirt thingies – a nice plain cotton one in a natty shade of orange, cost less than a jar of Waitrose jam as well.. Have been meaning to avail myself of one of these as , ahem, leisurewear. Now I can drift languidly around the apartment in a Kurta, (much to the amusement of the staff), I should really have a cigarette holder and an old typewriter to complete the image…. I then took Driver and HB out for a slap up lunch at my favorite restaurant, Aloo Muttar, Mixed veg Jalfresi and unlimited Rotis and Chai, all for less than two quid ( put the Waitrose prices even more into perspective ).
Made Tagliatelli a la Pomadoro as previously outlined, drank a bottle of red and slept. I had hoped that Sunday would be fine enough for at least a drive and a walk in the local mountains but not a bit of it, constant fucking torrential rain kept me indoors yet again going slowly and yet somehow stylishly, indolently, mad. Read, wrote, dozed. And today the rain continues, at least I have work today, which I really should be getting on with…….

This is the view from my bedroom balcony across the still - under - construction Khargar Golf Course

And this is what it looks like today.....

Tagliatelle a la Pomadoro

No hope of getting out and about so took driver and HB to the local megamall to buy ingredients for a pasta dish.
Itallian Tagliatelle -a fiver for 200g. Parmisan a fiver for 100g. Nevertheless went ahead and cooked a reasonably accurate simulacrum of the EyeTie orginal for Ashok and Thakur and then made them eat it he heh. They claim to have enjoyed it, by the time it was finished I wuz pissed from a bottle of Sula Shiraz. So have proven a postulate: Can accurate Italian food be produced in New Bombay? Answer - Yes so long as cost is not an issue. Weather biblical ( thanks for the phrase Pam) mud slides, floods, the heaviest rain I have ever seen in my life. Ho-hum.

THIS IS MUMBAI CALLING……………MUMBAI CALLING……….

Sitting here in Mumbai, or Navi Mumbai to be more accurate, with the Indian general elections and the credit crunch behind us, pathetic monsoon and H1N1 notwithstanding there is a feeling of being at the very forefront of the recovering world economy. The vexed question whether India is ‘decoupled’ or not seems almost academic in the face of 6 percent plus growth, forecast to increase to 9 percent within the next few months. Of course people here who see the world via The Times of India or The Hindustan Times with their expansive and insightful coverage of world affairs - one page mostly dedicated to Hollywood gossip – have liitle or no idea of how the current economic conditions are really affecting the rest of the world. And just because the growth is not in double figures they will keep on calling it a ‘recession’!

I have often mentioned that India is very sensitive about how the rest of the world sees it, bridling at the merest hint of criticism and glorying at the slightest sign of superiority – ‘The new world champion tiddlywinks players grandfather came from Delhi!’ the media will trumpet. Well the newspapers, with the possible exception of the ultra conservative ‘Hindu’ also love to stir things up and so any report that may suggest that things are not absolutely 100% rosy here is usually emblazoned across the front pages. And so today we have a report that Mumbai is one of the lowest paid cities in the world and I don’t doubt it, this is a low pay economy in the first place and in Mumbai with the ceaseless immigration from the surrounding countryside and already vast population, competition for jobs force rates down even further. In Mumbai a decent degree ( and I mean a decent degree from one of the Indian Institute Universities and not one from one of the many hundreds of ‘private universities’ that churn out semi literate morons) will get you maybe a grand a year, a doctorate maybe a grand and a half – and these are ‘well paid’ jobs don’t forget. Then there’s the news that Mumbai has some of the highest levels of carcinogens and other pollutants in its air and it is certainly the case that there is a constant brownish haze, makes for nice sunsets mind you….. Also in today’s news along side the usual run of rapes, murders and lynchings (increasingly fashionable this year it seems) is the fact that the police force in Mumbai is so poorly paid and so overworked that it is running at half strength and many police stations are closed as they don’t have the staff to occupy them. On a more positive note the anti terrorist squad have been issued with some shiny new automatic weapons that are described in the Times of India as , get this, ‘sexy’.

Nevertheless, the feeling is positive, India’s banks have not overstretched themselves, the economic stimulus packages produced by the central government were miniscule compared to the rest of the world and infrastructure development is underway big time. In fact India’s relative isolationism both culturally as well as financially has been of great benefit. And talking of cultural isolationism I have been amazed and pleasantly surprised to discover a prog metal band from Chennai called Motherjane who are actually very good- check out  their album ‘Maktub’. This is really amazing considering that India doesn’t really do ‘rock’ music, no, that’s not correct, it does but ‘not as we know it’. A typical Indian ‘Rock’ band is a sort of bastard offspring of Elvis Presley and Gary Glitter – with  moustaches, they’re big on glitter and basic twelve bar grooves but that’s about it, pretty much all of the male bollywood stars have a ‘rock band’ but don’t go there, no, really, please, just don’t! So anyway out of the blue I discover that there is actually a band making really good melodic proggy metal with a subtle Indian influence, but look at their website 40,000 downloads! So few! Architects have half a million for each song they put up…. Just goes to show that India is not ready for such radical stuff. And why should they be? They prefer their own music like they prefer their own food, however I cant help but think that this is in part due to accessibility, remember that the vast majority of the population doesn’t have access to a computer or even a CD player come to that. 

I’ve been fancying a change to Indian food recently, and I don’t mean Indian Chinese or Indian Italian I mean food that has no Indian influence whatsoever and it’s almost impossible to find. Next time I’m bringing some pasta, some Arborio rice and some herbs, at least I should be able to make risottos and pastas that actually taste Italian ( get me, the ‘international’ chef eh?) Oh yes and I’ll need some parmesan as well. I may even plan a dinner party have a few folks round to try it, but perhaps not, I’m fairly confident they wouldn’t like it, reckoning it tasteless and bland. Green salad is another thing I crave, difficult to get particularly lettuce so maybe I should bring some cut and come again green salad seed. Then I would have to get other difficult or impossible to get items like potting compost and pots. Still worth a try I reckon. Finally there’s bread and even though I love roti in all its huge number of forms, I really miss a decent crusty loaf so next visit I’m also bringing my bread maker and some dried yeast.

Finally dear reader, medical news and a trip to Vashi.....

I've got some kind of conjunctivitis type eye infection at present and last night went to my nearest proper city, Vashi, jewel of New Bombay, to visit an eye specialist, well, as you may imagine that was a story in itself but I was blown away by the street decorations for the soon-to-end Ganpatti festival, all the streets in the city centre are absolutely plastered with strings of coloured lights, like an Indian vesion of Blackpool illuminations, Ashok, my driver told me that this was nothing and that I should see what they do in Pune. I had no idea that this was going on half an hour down the road from where I live and it made me feel somehow Christmassy to see the streets thronging with people, the lights and the music blaring on every street corner. Clearly I havent been getting out enough.......

THE SINGULARITY IS COMING!

Look up ‘Singularity’ in a dictionary and this is what you’ll find……

1. The quality or condition of being singular.
2. A trait marking one as distinct from others; a peculiarity.
3. Something uncommon or unusual.
4. Astrophysics. A point in space-time at which gravitational forces cause matter to have infinite density and infinitesimal volume, and space and time to become infinitely distorted.
5. Mathematics. A point at which the derivative does not exist for a given function but every neighborhood of which contains points for which the derivative exists. Also called singular point.

I was surprised in my research, admittedly brief, OK then, extremely brief, indeed, one might even say cursory, that in all the definitions of singularity I looked at none mentioned a key point which is that in the astrophysical and mathematical world a singularity is something beyond which it is impossible to see or know.
And this is not a case of mere probability either, for example, one might say it is impossible to know what will happen tomorrow and this , strictly speaking is true. However we can assign meaningful probabilities to what may happen tomorrow – a 70% chance of rain for example - But we cannot assign a probability of what will happen after a singularity is reached, that is a fundamental part of the definition of the word.

Nowadays it has become fashionable to talk of a forthcoming cultural and/or technological singularity, informed by the likes of Terrance Mckenna, Ray Kurzwiel, Vernor Vinge et al. This concept(s) seems to be a bit of a mash up of science, folklore, new ageism, religion, wishful thinking, crackpottery and yes, some intelligent and informed speculation.
Clearly something’s up, we cannot go increasing our population indefinitely, sustained development is the great modern oxymoronic mantra of today’s idiot politicians, technology appears to be advancing at an ever increasing rate, particularly in certain areas like information technology, the climate is changing, finite resources are being exhausted and, some would say, the human race is being changed by its every increasing degree of connectedness.

So is this all utter shite?

Let Jeaunse explain his simple and yet effective method for determining the answer for you dear reader:
The way I see it is that there are two main types of ‘predictor systems’ currently operating in the human sphere: The ‘Rational’ and the ‘Non Rational’. In Rational Predictor Systems ( RPS’s) (Doncha just love TLAs?) one may use a variety of algorithmic mechanisms that are essentially mathematical in nature, they may include some element of extrapolation or finite element analysis, they may be statistically based or knowledge system based, whatever, they will all yield results that give a range of probabilities that are derived and defined by the method being used.
In Non Rational Predictor Systems (NPSs) results may be produced by astrology, various –mancies, The I Ching, strongly held ‘feelings’, ‘hunches’ etc. The main difference between the two systems is that while RPSs give results within a range of probabilities which widen as the time period over which the predictions are being made increases, NPSs give only absolute answers within a range of possibilities which remain the same over the time period.
This difference is absolutely significant, for with a RPS, after a certain time, tF, the width of the range of probabilities will have reached 100% and at this point anything can happen or, putting it another way, no useful information can be found. With a NPS however, the confidence of the prediction is non time dependant and so if I ask a powerful meteorological computer ‘will it rain in London on this day in 20 years time?’ the result has such a wide margin or error that it is meaningless, in other words a prediction cannot be made. However when I ask a Shaman to give me an answer to the same question he or she may well say ‘yes’ or indeed ‘no’.
This means that after tF The NPS is actually more reliable than the RPS. This then is my rationale for using NPSs for the prediction of future events that are a long way off or are extremely complex or both.
Back to our singularity. As a mathematical construct it is impossible to know what lies on the other side and therefore we need to fall back on NPSs to give us some glimpses of what may be in store for us. In order to bring a degree of confidence to the results obtained by NPSs I propose to use a method which I call Multiple Parallel Non Rational Predictions ( MPNRP , pronounced MpuhNerp). MPNRP uses an array of NPSs focused on one question and superimposes the results. For example I use a dream interpretation, tea leaves, I Ching, a drug induced predictive state with something like Ayahuasca, to ask will in rain on this day in twenty years time? Combining the results of these ( and ideally many more divining techniques) will give me a result that will have a degree of confidence built in which while still wide will nevertheless be narrower than the result from a powerful computer.
Utilising MPNRP we can therefore look at the other side of the forthcoming singularity!
And we can make a start immediately because there are already sufficient crackpot ideas sloshing around cyberspace for me to correlate some and get an idea of, for example, when this will be.
No surprises here as it is already widely agreed by those who have gazed into the future using a whole variety of, frankly barmy methods, to see that very many of them agree that it will be in 2012…. So soon? Well, I know, but MPNRP provides ample confirmation that this will be the date.
Here at JAIP - the Jeaunse Advanced Institute for Prediction, we are busy putting incisive questions about the future to a whole range of raving holy men, new age nutters, practitioners of ridiculous –mancies, fortune tellers and clairvoyants and carefully collating their answers. And even at this early stage in our researches let me tell you that the answers are astonishing! For example it seems that in the post 2012 world we must expect to live a life entirely free from beetroot, and what is more, by 2020 there will be no such thing as raffia......

Enjoyment

I think I may have spotted a gap in the market:

Enjoying yourself lessons!

Yes, for only £50- an hour my team and I will teach people how to enjoy themselves. Well, I seem to enjoy myself most of the time, so I guess I must be reasonably good at it. Therefore I should pass my expertise on and there certainly seems to be lots of folk out there who clearly never learned or perhaps could simply do with a refresher course and for a reasonable sum I will provide. When I think of the number of people who suffer depression and all those happy to shell out for all manner of ‘therapies’ I think I could be onto a winner, I could establish a Jeaunse School of Enjoyment franchise and really coin it. There would be modules on:

Having fun

Experiencing pleasure

Having a laff

Being happy

The roots of joy.

Advanced enjoyment

Enjoyment theory

How to rid yourself of guilt

Effective enjoyment

Naïve enthusiasm

Practical work would be great!

Of course, one shouldn’t laugh (well, not all the time anyway) this enjoyment business is, after all a serious affair and of course there’s no easy route to enjoyment, one needs to practice and practice. When I see how seriously people take so many enjoyable things like listening to music, looking at art, tasting wine I find myself thinking that what these people need is enjoying yourself lessons, they seem so grave. And I absolutely don’t buy that crap about being ‘grown up’ either. Having fun is, for me one of the great pleasures of life and its maybe time that I started advertising the fact.

Quote: Zoya Boone

It's like a rainbow. Without an observer at a twenty-three-degree angle to the light reflecting off a cloud of spherical droplets, there is no rainbow. The whole universe is like that. Our spirits stand at a twenty-three-degree angle to the universe. There is some new thing created at the contact of photon and retina, some space between rock and mind."

AN IDEA

Experienced bad service? Purchased a bad product? Been ripped off?

Feel that your voice is not being heard when you complain? Angered by the automated reply your whinging email produced? Why then, just head on over to: www.Iwanttocomplain.com . Every hour of every day of every week IWTC will tabulate and publish the top useless service providers, the top crap products, the top rip offs in your area. So, as well as checking out what’s good, you can now protect yourself by checking out what’s bad before shelling out your hard earned….. Getting a listing on IWTC will hopefully be such a powerful consumer force that share prices will tumble following a listing. And what a great place to advertise! Not on IWTC? Then advertise the hell out of your product on the site! Everybody seeing that Sprainsberries Comestibles PLC are selling rotten Chinese tomatoes will turn right around and head on over to buy ASRA’s reasonably priced and entirely healthy organic vegetables. And it could be a great price moderator. Supermarkets and their ilk love to advertise how cheap (sorry , ‘reasonably priced’) certain of their products are well how about IWTC advertising how expensive some of their products undoubtedly are? It’s all too easy to be suckered into buying cheap baked beans but spending more over all on your overall shopping basket because the larks tongues and truffles are overpriced. A universal web based complaints forum is long overdue don’t you think?

MEGA CRISIS LOOMS FOR HUMAN BEINGS – WHATS THE BIG DEAL?

Looking at the evidence, and by that I mean evidence available via the multiple media formats that increasing numbers of us have easy access to as well as the evidence which is apparent though our daily experience of the world we inhabit, its pretty damn clear that us human beings have wrought some very significant changes to the face of the planet we inhabit, nearly all of them negative from the perspective of ‘quality of life’ or indeed, what is so laughably termed ‘sustainable development’.
Equally laughable in my opinion is the notion that ‘we’ can do anything about it! You see, I have what might be termed a ‘post- Lovelockian’ perspective on the matter. My thesis is that there is actually nothing of any significance that can be done about the current ‘environmental crisis’ and further, kidding ourselves that there is, is simply collective egotism of the most monstrous kind. In fact , to me, ‘doing something about it’ is a paradoxical notion. Of course, this is a huge heresy, are we not the all powerful Homo sapiens? Bestriding the world like a dominant and yet benevolent conqueror? And do we not have a mighty and unique tool at our disposal in the shape of the human brain? Capable of making ipods and atom bombs, ring pull cans and mortgages, indeed a veritable panoply of amazing constructs that are surely proof in themselves that we are close to almighty? Wielding this extraordinary tool there is surely no need for us to be concerned, after all, there will be another technological fix along in a short while, the ‘boffins’ will figure it out, I mean to say, ‘things’ are much better now than they were one hundred or one thousand years ago aren’t they?
Hmmm, well, depends on your perspective I guess. If you are a western, modern, middle class individual you are certainly likely to live longer and be materially wealthier than you would have been in the distant past, but are we actually more fulfilled, are we happier? I would venture that sales of prozac and diazepam suggest possibly not. We are beset by affluenza, obesity, and mental illness and yet we fondly believe that we have never had it so good. And of course, for the vast majority of us things are actually massively worse, no access to clean water, enslavement to malignant political, religious or commercial systems, malnutrition and poverty are actually all on the rise for the majority of human kind.

Way to go Homo sapiens.

And now we are faced with a huge crisis, the likes of which our species have only experienced on a very few occasions, if ever. Our planet simply cannot support our burgeoning population, and there is going to be a cull, sixty to eighty percent of the human race will be removed, maybe more, there will be massive unrest, wars, tyranny on a scale previously unimagined coming to a country near you soon. The climate will change, sea levels will rise, the poles will shrink or disappear. The balance of probability says that this will happen and happen in our children’s lifetime. There is no technological fix that will allow us to continuing to ‘develop’ ad infinitum.
Let us therefore consider the ‘long game’: The doom merchants love to talk about the ‘Big rock from space’ or ‘Supervolcanoes’ and indeed these are all real and ever-present, however, the immediate threat is that we have well exceeded our planets capacity, overpopulation plus climate change is happening now, not hundreds of thousands or millions of years into the future.. Of course the Tech-Fix merchants will have it that eventually we will migrate to other planets, or build huge artificial habitats in space, that we will migrate away from the sun, live in tubes and push buttons, that we will live forever in luxury and good health….. Well, apart from the fact that this is purest childish fantasy/wish fulfillment I can’t imagine that we would be any happier than we are now. Consider, it may be possible, by linking our bodies up to various pieces of medical kit to allow us to live for simply ages, disease and stress free in fluid filled pods free from threat of physical trauma of any kind. Fancy it? No, I didn’t think you would… It seems to me that we have become confused and have come to absolutely equate happiness with living a long (preferably immortal) and physically healthy life ( nowhere more apparent than in the US) and it is the blind adherence to this idea that has lead us to where we now find ourselves. Thus, it is not until we, as a species, are able to understand that this may not be the path to ultimate fulfillment that things will change.
And part of this path involves changing our attitude to death promulgated by the Abrahamic religions. I have no fear of death, I certainly fear the pain that may be associated with it however, but this can be ameliorated simply by the use of some natural plant alkaloids and changing societal attitudes to euthanasia. For me death equals peace and I can’t understand what there is to fear about peace.
Back to the long view: Worst case scenario, all of humanity is removed from the planet. What has really changed? From the perspective of our collective ego, much, but from a Gaia perspective, almost nothing, the celestial bodies continue on their orbits as if nothing has changed at all! If the population is significantly thinned out then fine, the biosphere will continue its ever changing dance, new forms will arise and fade, catastrophes will happen, yes, that super volcano will eventually erupt, that big rock will come crashing down, it has happened before and it will happen again. It is, simply, the way things work and we should be celebrating that rather than fighting it.

JAMES LOVELOCK ON BBC HARDTALK

Anybody see it? Astonishing!

In case you didn’t, his premise en précis:

1) Balance of probability is that it is now to late to do anything about climate change and that the climate will shortly ‘flip’ to a new stable condition about 6C warmer than now.
2) Most ‘Green initiatives’ are a complete waste of time.
3) Nuclear power is a viable source of energy for highly urbanized parts of the world.
4) Dealing with nuclear waste is a trivial problem compared with the problems we are facing.
5) Our strategy now should be adapting to the new climate.
6) The earth is/will be only capable of sustainably supporting one to two billion people.
7) The big dieback from the current 6.5 billion people plus will take place this century.
8) Wind power is a joke. ‘Bad engineering’.
9) Biggest problem we have now is population.
10) Gaia will ‘see to’ the population problem ( see 5 and 6).
11) None of this is definite but the balance of probability is that it will happen.
12) Fooling around with ‘reducing carbon footprints’ and other such nonsense will only serve to prolong the agony and will deflect us from concentrating on what is now the main issue ( see 5 ).

He presents a very compelling case and I cant help but think he is very much on the right track.
How will You/I/We cope with what we/pur children will almost certainly have to face?

STENCH!

Warning: This piece contains material of a disturbing nature please do not read if you are of a sensitive nature……….

It sounds like the name for a band or even a post – ironic name for a modern perfume but I want to talk about the Real Thing: Stench!
In the UK we don’t really do ‘stench’ do we? Oh, we complain and even recoil when things smell a bit off but ask yourself, when was the last time you really experienced a genuine, honest to goodness stench eh? In my letters home, I’ve often talked about the sights and sounds of India, but it occurred to me earlier today that I have never really delved particularly deeply into the smells of India. I recall having written about the all pervasive background smell that one generally encounters in the worlds ‘warmer regions’, a redolent cocktail of decay that is not especially unpleasant and soon fades into the general sensorial background noise. I kind of like it and its pretty much the first thing to greet me when I step off the plane at Mumbai. But India as an olfactory experience is utterly unique in terms of both the intensities and the contrasting varieties of odour on offer: The spices, the perfumes, the incense, the flowers etc all have a travel brochures clichéd charm of course but nothing that you can’t experience at some point in every high street in the UK these days. Where India excels is in the, erm, somewhat less marketable whiffs that abound here in so many interesting combinations.
Partly it’s to do with the sun but its also to do with India’s unfortunate (and nobody can deny this) lack of hygiene and civic housekeeping, sorry, make that complete absence of same.
I am consistently struck by just what a totally litter strewn place the subcontinent is, I used to think South East Asia was bad but believe me it’s a paragon of orderliness compared to Mother India, in fact it is really quite difficult to find somewhere that is not litter encrusted and of course ‘litter’ here is, ahem, rather more than the odd crisp packet. … Dead dogs for example are not that uncommon a part of the rubbish ecosystem here and let me tell you, until you’ve had a good lungful of dead dog that’s spent a few days out in the baking sun until its swollen fit to burst and a deep purple-red in colour, you have really not given your nostrils the full work out. I notice that even the crows don’t touch them.
With the chronic lack of public (or private) ‘conveniences’ in India, the elimination of waste products from the human body is something that is generally done in public and no notice is taken of it, one simply ‘doesn’t see it’ However, said waste materials solid or liquid do have a certain pong that is multiplied manyfold by a combination of sheer quantity and of course the ever present heat. This does not mean that the place smells like a toilet, far from it, toilets in the west smell predominantly of chemicals; perfumes odourants and disinfectants, chlorine and phenolics that whilst distinctive and yes, not exactly pleasant, are a far cry from the full- on stench that may be given off by a Mumbai back street once the sun gets up…… The last important component are the odours given off by unbridled and pretty much unregulated heavy industry; metal smelters, pharma companies, fine organics producers and their ilk spray an impressive mix of gaily coloured fumes and liquid waste streams direct into the long suffering environment and some of these smells can cause your hair to stand on end and your eyes to bulge ( as well as smart and water). I’m a chemist and yet I can’t even begin to guess at the chemistry of some of the smells I encounter. There’s one I pick up every now and again that’s like very intense cat piss and another one that reminds me, somehow of rotting metal….In practice of course these odours are mingled and layered to subtle ( and not so subtle) effect, ever changing and transforming, blending with ( and usually dominating ) all those other, rather more pleasing smells I mentioned earlier. So a visit to India is always an olfactory adventure, one simply never knows exactly what noxious pong one will encounter next and there are times, here in New Bombay when I think ‘enough already’ give me the delicate perfume of a silage clamp or some simple diesel fumes.