A simple desultory Philippic

Not-talgia

It�s that time of year again. Autumn skies, happy crowds. Waking up in the morning to the sounds of Pujo. Yeah right. No dhaaker baddi, the bloody environment jokers seem to have banned dhaakis altogether. The first sound of Shoptomi, at 7 in the morning, is �Hallo hwaan too thurree po� over the loudspeakers in the gravelly voice of Mr. S from the next street. Bother.

Datum

The second-best ham and cheese croissants in the world (OK, in my experience of the world) are sold at a counter called "Swadeshi and more". Between Gates 9 and 10, Terminal 2, Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi.

The BEST, of course, are with the Deli France chain. Which I encountered in Singapore 6 years ago and hope to sample again next month.

Amygdala

On a cloudy day, a whiff of fragrance plants me in a Kentish garden. Well OK, the lawn at Yarrows in Shimla.

"Crisp Cotton", a room freshener by some US company called Renuzit.
I like.

Maid to order

Putting shaving cream instead of toothpaste on the baby's toothbrush - innovative.

Mopping the floors with fabric bleach instead of citronella - imaginative.

Using a shoe brush where she should have used the carpet brush - devastating.

Where have you gone, Hector Hugh Munro, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

Too much of a good thing

For all my friends (and the occasional reader) who send me invites to �social networking� sites � please don�t.
Do. NOT. Send. Me . These. Invitations.
Cease and desist.

WAYN. Linked-In. Unyq. Dammitall, you�re wasting your time on a man who�s taken down his Facebook page. It�s like doing a pub-crawl on a Friday night and meeting the SAME DAMN PEOPLE in every bar. You get SICK of them. SICK. You want me to be sick of you? Or for me to meet you and twist your head off and bung it up your bottom?
Well, don�t then.

And in the usual irrelevant aside, I just thought I could smell Horlicks in my office. Not the jazzed-up chocolate stuff they sell nowadays, but Horlicks from the 1970s, which I had only when I was ill. Which I loathed. Which seemed to consist of thin barley water and cat�s piss.
Only, when I smelled it now, I thought I might like a sip. Nostalgia is weird.
But (just in case you get the wrong idea) I still loathe those social networking invitations.

Fresh

Some time during the night, the crack and grumble of thunder entered my sleep.

And now, in the morning, the world is suddenly new. At 5 and 6 o�clock, people stand on balconies floating in the scent of rain just past, of trees polished by raindrops, of metal cold and wet from an hour of storm. Breathing feels like an art form.

Donning trings

The Akhond of Swat ( http://akhondofswat.blogspot.com/ ) has introduced me to the New Verification Dictionary. Rather more fun than the OED, really.
Current leader -
Tringdon:
i) The small but crucial part of chain mail that a knight needs to unfasten in order to answer calls of nature. "Sir Edric was doing so well until he discovered that the last joust had not only bent his hauberk, but jammed his tringdon and codpiece together."

Check it out here - https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7950289&postID=7819916285638269726

Contributions solicited. "Notatsn", anybody?

Armchair. Meanderings.

Sitting on my balcony as the sun sinks. Smell of greenery, the languor of a holiday afternoon. Cold elaichi milk, a cigarillo. Memories, longing.

And nothingness. No hopes, no fears. No tomorrow.
Reason, emotion, all gone. Only the now of the senses.

Reason is inexpensive. Emotion is a little more high-maintenance. Just my luck that I prefer the senses. Not much in terms of time and effort, but definitely more expensive.
Does that help put a value on time and effort? If a man is self-sufficient in a wilderness, can you put a money value on his time?

Nope. There are no absolute values. Nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

Questions of size

An e-mail exchange with a Bright Young Diplomat led to an error in calculating his time-zone. Error, shmerror � I just automatically bunged him into the time-zone of the capital city, which is 4.5 hours behind IST. Whereas he is in a port on the other side of the country, which is actually 5 hours ahead of IST. Work it out. Only one country like that.

Which drove me to look up the ten largest countries in the world. I remembered that India is 7th. To put that in perspective, India with 1.3 mn. sq. miles (always iffy, with the disputed maps) has about half the area of the USA, which has about 2.6 mn. sq. miles. Canada at #2 is marginally larger than China and has about 50% more area than the USA (and just over 1/10th of the population). The big Bear covers 6.6 mn. sq. miles across two continents � that�s about 2 Canadas. The surprises in the top 10 are Kazakhstan and Sudan at Nos. 9 and 10 respectively. I feel so proud � I watched �Borat� recently.

Figures taken off this site - http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/world-top-ten-largest-countries-in-area-map.html. But curiouser and curiouser � look at the USA placed 4th when the area cited would actually put it in 6th place. The CIA strikes again?

Next up � the wide open spaces. As in, lookit the population density in each of these places. Borat-land has a slightly higher population than Calcutta. I�m not even starting on Canada!

Statutory warning required?

There�s a lot to be said for an illness that, without being particklerly painful, gives you the license to stay in bed for WEEKS. But � there are SOME down-sides. For one, PacMan has now vanished from iGoogle. I am bereft.

Far more painful is the situation vis-�-vis VSP. She�s been told to stay away from Papa, since there�s a minor chance of infection. So every now and again she lines up about 2 feet away from me, purses up like a teeny cartoon goldfish and rapidly blows a series of pichak pichak air kisses. Or � and this breaks my heart � lies down a leetle distance from me, reaches over, takes possession of my arm and curls up with it.

Cuddles can be habit-forming.