Tiny Little Fractures

  upbeat

So Inzy has been banned for four games for bringing the game into ‘disrepute’ while being cleared of the ball-tampering charges. Fair enough I think, but he should wear the ban as a badge of honour. He stood up against the system, the institutionalized double standards and favoritism that have historically been such a part of cricket and which is still far too prevalent in the game and there’s a price to pay. There is nothing wrong with facing a bit of jail/probation time for breaking a few rules to highlight an injustice*.  It seems that the PCB is looking into bringing charges of disrepute against Hair; I think this should not be considered so much as being pursued with the eagerness with which Bush is going after Middle East oil. After all it was Hair’s poor decision making, heavy handedness, inability/unwillingness to communicate clearly (boy this list is long isn’t it?) that lead to the sorry state of affairs right now.

  Can’t admit he made a mistake

Despite Hair’s assertion that he is “bloody good” consider his record and that’s a bit laughable. Some people seem to think that just because he made stern, unpopular decisions and stood by them regardless that he is some kind of super umpire. That’s like saying Bush is a bloody good president because of his inflexibility in admitting he made a mistake invading Iraq. Somewhere along the line, changing one’s mind due to evidence became hypocrisy while standing by your word even if blatantly wrong and injurious became honourable. That’s a load of bullshit to me and Hair should be charged, he accused the Pakistani team without any evidence whatsoever of cheating, he took unilateral action and acted outside basic cricketing norms (if not the rules per se). If what he achieved with his actions is not bringing the game into disrepute then the only way I can see anyone being charged in the future of disrepute is if they disrobe in the middle of the pitch and do unmentionable thing with the stumps when faced with a bad decision. The acquitting of Inzy should be far from the end of this saga, Hair should be brought to justice, else the double standards will have prevailed once again.

Cricinfo also has an interesting article on Ranjan Madugalle, who seems to be the match referee for every match ever played and probably has enough frequent flier miles to fly to Pluto and back. I was quite interested by one statement in the article, 

“When Madugalle was made chief of match referees, Asian countries made the same mistake the ICC did. They assumed that because he was Asian, and understood the situation on the ground better than someone from Australia or England might, he would be sympathetic. The truth was the opposite. In his aim to not just be fair, but seen to be fair, Madugalle was harder on subcontinental players than others. In India he made many enemies during the tour of Australia in 1999-2000, when his decisions were harsh on the Indians, and relatively light on the Aussies.”

Hmmm….I honestly cannot remember that tour or what happened, if it is the case that the punishments were lighter on the Aussies then I think Ranjan made a serious error in judgement, pandering to the Aussies simply because he was new and South Asian (the South Asian countries made a mistake expecting leniency as well.)Of course that’s just my opinion and has to be balanced with the fact that I obviously wasn’t privy to how secure Ranjan was with his position. Who knows if he had taken a stand then his career might have met a sticky end. I still think he made a mistake, but you know can’t judge him without all the information. And from all accounts he’s pretty fair now, lets hope he presides over Hair’s hearing.

* There is a line to be drawn though, even if it is in the sand. Blowing innocent people up to highlight injustices is taking things a bit far in my view. That might seem like an unnecessary caveat but considering the blogosphere being what it is it’s an important one to make.

Yes I’m sad. I can’t help myself but be a big fan of Gray’s Anatomy, despite the fact it is somewhat of a medical Dawson’s Creek (which I more sadly used to like back in the sunny days of my youth, but that’s another blogpost). In fact I was quite bummed to realize I had missed the season premiere last Thursday, probably because I was busy drowning my sorrows at R’s place (not that I can remember).

I did manage to watch the premiere on ABC’s website, which was handy, and it was good, very good! Now just can’t wait for Lost’s premiere in a couple of weeks and an exciting season from both shows. Watching the Gray’s Anatomy episode led me do some research on the music featured on the show, which in turn led me to fortuitisly download some tracks from my favourite artist of the week, Mat Kearny. He’s sort of a pop, R&B, toned down Limp Bizkit, hard edged Peter Yorn, weird, brilliant mish mash of music. Bloody excellent listening to and I would highly recommend Limewiring him. Enjoy!

Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle, I remember reading this article with a sense of disbelief and incredulity. Surely the big man jests, blithely stating ‘Yes, I am down to umpire in the Champions Trophy and I expect to fulfill that appointment.’ Imagine the arrogance in thinking one can get away with accusing teams without basis (in my humble opinion) of breaking the rules, acting outside of cricketing law and effectively blackmailing the ICC. The Aussie apologists of course are backing big Darrell all the way, ‘If he’s one of the best umpires in international cricket then of course he should be umpiring..’ so says that paragon of fair play Ponting. That’s a big fucking IF there old boy.

   One good decision…

  ..leads to another

Imagine if Assad Rauf or Aleem Dar did something similar to this, accusing say the English team of tampering to produce a ‘swinging’ victory in the Ashes, changing balls in the middle of a game that Australia was winning and trying to extort money in response for silence from the ICC. I’ll bet you my right ball that pretty much the whole of Australia’s and England’s cricketing fraternity would be baying for their blood, for them to be hung, drawn, quartered and then forced to watch Warne’s whale sex action tape (google it if you don’t know what I’m on about) as punishment. Any umpire from the Asian subcontinent if they did anything similar would probably be roundly reamed by the Aussies and would not be able to play even one bump cricket on the street.

I’m glad the Indian board has woken up and told Hair to bugger off and hopefully this will sound the death knell for his career. Given Hair’s history and blatant lying that he follows all the rules of cricket (ergo his inability to accept the ruling that Murali doesn’t throw), he is the one that should have the book thrown at him (preferably all the Brittanica volumes if I had my way) and charged with bringing the game into disrepute. I hope Hair gets buggered off the panel and not allowed to umpire anymore while the Pakistanis get absolved of tampering, Ranjan over to you….

                                                                                    

That gripe aside, Vodka, RedBull and cold medication when mixed produced a very odd kind of buzz for both me and R. I was a bit better than him and considering our other companion A, my flatmate has a fair inability to chat up (read, no balls) I was pretty much flying solo. Hooking up in clubs is not a game I really like playing anymore, mostly because of the fact I’m on the run down to 30 now and my SL mind-fuck has made me want to at least attempt to behave. I try it on and off here simply because there really is no alternative. We never seem to meet cool people who are our ‘dial’ to hang out with, much less attractive, fun girls to profess our undying affection to (or something to that effect). So trying the hook/chat-up game is usually the only option left this side of the Indian Ocean to at least keep ourselves entertained on a night out.

Now the ‘game’ is essentially a numbers one, both in terms of volume of girls approached and dialing digits obtained. Getting numbers is actually pretty easy (or used to be at least) as my overstuffed contact list on my phone will attest to. The problem is actually remembering who the hell the numbers belong to visually. Was it the big brown eyed girl or the horrendous fugly friend is an eternal question I face the next morning? Thus I actually rarely call girls back when I get their numbers, its usually more entertaining to go out and get some new ones. Getting laid is a whole other equation and this is where volume really comes into it, I figure a hit rate of about 5% for the first step in hooking up assuming you are somewhat picky. If you are willing to stick your tongue down the throat of the nearest rhino regardless of the chance of catching herpes then your batting average will be significantly better, but assuming you have some vestige of self respect this really shouldn’t come into the equation, OK, occasionally you can take one for the team, but only once in a blue moon! 

Anyways back to the numbers, so for every 100 attractive girls you approach, five should give you some kind of action on first contact. Around 50-75 will give you their number/email address of which maybe 10 will return your call. I figure this is because when they sober up they really can’t remember which one of the umpteen guys who hit on them you are. The numbers aren’t pretty, I’m assuming having a Ferrari, a bank account the size of Sri Lanka’s GNP or looking like Brad Pitt helps, but I’m just an average guy and it can get frustrating.  You just have to first grow some monster sized balls, learn the gift of the gab, know what shots to order and get ready to deal with rejection. Trust me it never gets truely easy, but getting shot down always makes for some good laughs the next morning, while the opposite, well is quite nice.

Here’s the thing though, I used to be fairly decent at this enterprise but recently my mojo seems to have deserted me. I approach, engage the gift of the gab and get good responses but for some odd reason I actually FORGET to get a number. Last night I chatted up around three, one of whom seemed to reciprocate interest, one looked straight through me and the other giggled shyly and averted her gaze (this being an Indian party I figured I’d give that one a wide berth). With the one who was interested I vaguely remember a confused look sweep across her face when I begged her leave to head back to my mates. Now if this was a one-off I wouldn’t be too worried, but I’ve been doing this consistently for the last few months and I’ve just realized today that I’ve seen that look of confusion all too often. All in all not a good trend to forget something so BASIC in the game, even if it is on some level done consciously. I think I’m going to make getting Sasha’s (I’m really hoping that’s her name) number my number one priority for next weekend, Sip here I come, to find my mojo.

P.S. The Lovefest event itself rocked, await pictures on Flickr when I go pro, hopefully this week.

I was supposed to head out to Sip tonight to hit on a bartender called Sasha (I think) whom I met last weekend, had a smoke and a nice chat with..very flirty, very cute, big eyes. Unfortunately with friends like R (who gets sick if an ant farts in Bosnia), even a healthy immune system couldn’t safe me from an itchy throat. I erred on the side of caution because I really, really want to go to the Dhamaal Lovefest event tommorow at Club Six so I’m at home tonight with copious amounts of tea, Airborne, Picassa and Lone Wolf and Cub: Babycart in peril for company. The end result of this is a new appreciation for topless, samurai fighting girls and updates on my Flickr account. Tell me what you think of the pics! Now I’m off to try and recover ASAP in anticipation of thumping house music and hot brown girls tommorow.

Afternote: Hmmm…my luck sucks today, not only did my roommate turn up with some cute, young drunk friends intent on hitting the town, but flygirl happens to be getting her hair done, thus unavailable for a long overdue chat (I know better than to get between a woman and her hair!), not a good day for touching base with the ladies. On another note, I’m a bit hesitant on seeing Ms. Hepburn used like this for GAP, but I have to say this is a bloody good ad! 

The only real hobby I have, not counting the odd obsession I have with collecting first edition Gerald Durrell hardcovers, is photography. I’m generally a wildlife, nature and scenic photographer, as my Flickr account will attest to, and I can’t wait to do some proper wild photography in Sri Lanka. My first official RAN action that I attended however awoke a bit of a journalistic photo yearning in me, especially after my Ground Zero experience last week. As far as I can tell those pictures of the action aren’t mine, but I’ll post some of mine later.

Taking the actual photos is just a small proportion of the work, organizing, post-processing and getting them out into the public domain is actually the most time consuming and tedious. Especially considering that I usually take a few hundred pictures in a day of shooting, for example I took close to 400 today. Going through them is a pain, not to mention cropping, fixing, etc and that’s just for JPEGs, I haven’t even touched my expansive collection of RAW files. Maybe sometime when I’m stuck in isolation I might get to those. I sometimes think that I don’t get out enough and just click, but then if I did that I’d probably be bitching about how I don’t sit in front of my computer enough and process the results.

I think I’m going to spend the rest of the week trying to clear the backlog of photographs I’ve taken since July (maybe even go pro on Flickr) in preparation of a possible photo frenzy for Lovefest on Saturday. On a more random note, favourite song for the week is shadow stabbing by Cake, nod out to Darwin for the recommendation!

I have an uncanny knack of always, pretty much without exception, walking in the wrong direction of my destination. In fact I sometimes start walking in the right direction, second guess myself and end up in the wrong direction. So it was no surprise to me that when I headed out to Central Park last Sunday, I instead ended up downtown on the Brooklyn bridge. Per usual form I actually started walking in the right direction, looked behind me and saw what I thought was the Empire State Building and flipped a U. It was in fact the Woolworth Building (I think) and not the Empire State Building, in my feeble defense I didn’t have a map (too cheap and too self-confident in my navigational abilities) and both buildings are really tall.

I ended up wandering around on the Brooklyn Bridge trying to take artsy pictures of passing cars and people before deciding to give Ground Zero a visit. I was a bit apprehensive simply because of the abundance of heavily armed policemen everywhere, some of whom gave me very speculative looks. They were the kind of looks that made me think they had been promised an exceptionally large Christmas bonus if they hit a quota of brown fellas they pulled in for a short across to Guantanamo and they were trying  to figure out how much of a fuss I would put up before coming quietly.

I realized soon that there was a more rational explanation for the preponderance of cops on the streets and that was that old Dubaya was visiting Ground Zero. Of course no presidential visit would be complete without some kind of protest and there was plenty of this. One bunch of protestors wanted the troops home from Iraq, while the rest were trying to convince everyone that 9/11 was a conspiracy theory. It was all very exciting and people gave way to me once I pulled my camera out, probably because the white 70-200 F4 L lens I had on looked pretty professional. Matters got even more exciting when it came nearer to the time Bushie was supposed to turn up and the cops decided to do some (civilized) crowd control. I was like a kid in a candy shop at this point, people yelling, cops gesturing a remote chance of a rubber bullet in the buttocks and me playing photojournalist through it all.

Then I took this picture of an agent.

That look just chilled me to the bone. I had visions of being bundled into an orange jumpsuit and a black plastic bag over my head, while they flew me back and forth across the Baltic pulling my fingernails out at every stopover. And to be honest, orange just isn’t my colour. I gallantly decided that discretion was the better part of valour at this point and made a strategic retreat back to mid-town Manhattan to the vastly safer occupation of being an accidental tourist. The rest of my day was spent rather tamely on top of the Empire State Building taking innumerable pictures and then over in Jersey at an Aunt’s place for dinner. Await pics and more details about the wonderfulness that is NY!

It’s really no contest; it used to be the fashionable thing to bitch about the Tube system back when I used to be a Londoner. This was especially so when you had to get into IC for an exam and the Circle Line appeared to be stuck somewhere between Oxford and Nottingham and the prospect of sticking your tongue on the middle rail became increasingly more attractive as the minutes ticked by. But here’s the crux of the matter, even if you had to wait around 16 hours for the next train at least the information board would let you know of that fact. A feature that was sadly lacking in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Subway system in New York.

It honestly doesn’t look like the facilities in New York have been upgraded since the 1940’s. The Tube is positively genteel compared to the Subway right down to the delightful endearments to “mind the gap,” just in case you had any aspirations of slipping onto the track for a little nap. Those little things do really matter, like the railings on the Piccadilly line that provide you with room to place your luggage without having to crowd the exceptionally large, dangerous smelly looking Neanderthal sitting next to you. 

There is that amazingly intuitive tube map which is posted all over the place as well as innumerable signs giving you up-to-date information on service updates. There is unfortunately no such thing in the New York Subway, no screens to tell you when the next train is coming, if at all. It is all in all not the most intuitive public transport system in the world, causing me to lug my suitcase up and down several stairways in a desperate attempt to find the Airtrain (mostly due to some disingenuous information provided to me by someone who should have known better).

The Subway in New York is positively apocalyptic compared to the Underground. I only spent a little time on it and I would probably believe in vampires and werewolves if I had to ride some of those trains in the middle of the night. Also I would probably be traveling in the absolute wrong direction, which probably would not contribute to my mental wellbeing. So Londoners, be glad for the wonderful transport system you are blessed with, yes the Circle line may never be on time, which is odd since it runs in, well, a circle. But at least you won’t be drained off your blood while your last conscious thought is the sad realization that you are once again traveling in the wrong direction.

P.S. Lest I am accused of bias towards the British transport system I have to say the Singaporean MRT kicks the Tube’s ass, though it is around a much smaller area. And further on the subject of public transportation, while San Francisco’s Muni system rocks, the BART is only marginally less confusing than the NY Subway. It is not uncommon to see tourists wandering around exasperatedly in Embarcadero station muttering to themselves, “how the fuck do I get to the airport!?” before throwing themselves desperately over a railing.

Well not really the head honcho of Emerald Land but I am off to the Big Apple, NYC tonight to help organize a fundraiser for my intrepid organization at an exclusive New York nightspot with Whoops and Big hosting and a lovely young lady singing “come away with me.” Should be an interesting experience and I’m taking my trusty EOS along as well, hopefully should be able to get some good shots of the city, meet some interesting people, gawk at some celebs, hit some hot night spots, drink a bit and raise a lot of money.

I am a tad bit nervous about flying back on Monday which just happens to be a rather ominous anniversary. The fact that I’m brown and have a goatee makes my butt-cheeks clench in apprehension about being anywhere near NY on that day, much less in an airport. Oh well, impending loss of anal virginity aside, does anybody have any suggestions on what to do or good photography spots in NYC?

From Cricinfo, “Pictures from Sky Sports appeared to show Akhtar flicking his thumb at the ball as he walked back to his mark,”…um…so? Who gives a fuck?! I’ve seen players flick the ball a thousand times when walking up to their marks, presumably to get grass dirt off.  Apparently that is “still illegal as only the umpire can do so.” Please do watch the video below and tell me what you see. If he did something like this repeatedly then fine, there probably was something dodgy going on, but only once? Give me a fucking break, as I said before it happens every time an international match is played, I guess the skin colour is what makes it questionable or illegal.

That this matter even received attention is ridiculous. I mean look at what Nasser Hussain said, “I can’t believe that he would be so stupid.” It’s the bloody WASPS who commentate who are being idiots. What is it about British and Australian teams that make them unable to accept defeat? Something always crops up when they lose or going through bad patches, ball tampering is the obvious example. I believe Atherton in frustration requested the 15-over rule to be changed after we walloped them in the ’96 quarters(though I’m not entirely sure about that). And it’s not limited to the sport of cricket, hockey once dominated by countries like India and Pakistan has now largely become dominated by rich countries after synthetic surfaces were introduced. A change that took hockey away from the majority of those who enjoyed it and gave it to those who can afford it and allowed the rich majority to become the “best in the world.”

What the South Asian bloc should do if these double standards continue is a difficult question. We can walk out of the ICC and bring it tumbling down. After all we have greater purchasing power and clout than Australia, England and NZ combined. Africa is largely powerless with only South Africa being a country of any significance. We walk out and everything falls down, the white countries will play with each other and the browns with each other. The West Indies will probably just disappear as a cricketing country while South Africa will probably stick with the white countries due to “security concerns.” The sad thing is if we do split along those lines, as a friend pointed out the Aussies, Kiwis and the English will probably be pretty happy playing themselves endlessly and competing to be the ‘best.’ The alternative is we put up with it and keep trying to change the system step by step. When I’m pissed I prefer the former, when I’m calm I prefer the latter, well somewhat.

I get out of the Prelude on California street. Middle aged, white lady trundles up to me and the following ‘conversation’ ensues.

“Do you speak any English?”

Mutely shake my head. 

“Do you speak any Spanish?”

Mutely shake my head again. 

“I can’t believe it, I speak five and you don’t speak any"(or something along those lines)

Laughing my head off I watch her condescending, retarded arse head off down the street mumbling to herself about the stupidity of immigrants.

NB. A suggestion I was given for the answering the second question if that situation should pop up again, “no I don’t speak any Spanish.”

I’m in mourning today. One of my favourite conservation wallahs has met a sad end. As I overslept today it was Darwin’s comment on my last post that left me scratching my head with a sinking heart. I believe I first saw Steve Irwin on TV right after my A-levels, during which I was bedridden for a week and Rupavahini I think or ETV was carrying the Discovery Channel’s Crocodile Hunter. I frankly thought he was the shit, I mean who else can rather disingenuously say “that’s a rather large croc” and then proceed to throw himself on top of it with gay abandon and wrestle with it like it was you neighborhood Labrador.

Steve Irwin’s enthusiasm for all creatures great and small (to paraphrase James Herriot/Wight) was what really stood out about him. Both Irwin and David Attenborough are two people who have that genuine enthusiasm for nature thought they express themselves in hugely different ways. That Irwin died while filming dangerous creatures seems sadly appropriate. After all he did take some outrageous risks, I guess statistics can’t in the long run be beaten.

Steve Irwin will be sorely missed by his fans, family, colleagues and the multitude of Australian animals that probably owe their lives and survival to him. I hope his life and death was not in vain and hopefully some of the wacky and wonderful Australian species he fought so hard to protect will not go the way of the Dodo. Thank you for your contribution to the world and rest in peace, croc-hunter.

You would think almost getting run over twice on two consecutive mornings would not be conducive to a good mood, but rather surprisingly I find it is. Perhaps it’s the thrill of cheating death in the mornings when I can usually barely get my jeans on without falling down a couple of times and generally pour juice into my cereal instead of milk. I am hoping though that this trend of missing the front end of fenders by inches will not continue, after all luck has to run out sometime.

On the bright side of life I discovered two new bands on my iPod, something that happens with pleasing regularity. I have close to 9,000 songs on there, downloaded from a spectrum of people from British hipsters, Sri Lankan yuppies and San Franciscan liberals. Every now and then it throws out a couple of random gems and today two outstanding songs popped up, Summertime by the Sundays and Turn by Feeder, two British ‘indie’ (if that term really applies anymore in the real world) rock groups.  I would recommend both groups for some chilled out, sometimes upbeat sometimes shoe-gazer tunes.

This week has also been one of the most sozzled weeks since I left college and I’m sure I’ve burnt up what few brain cells I had left. PKS left on Sunday (sadly I don’t have anybody to laugh at with regularity anymore) back to NZ and R has either been trying to celebrate his new found freedom or drown his sorrows (probably the latter) and dragged me along with him. It’s been a steady stream of rum and cokes and vodka/redbulls since Tuesday. One of the more notable nights was Friday at Voda, a brilliant place where there’s no cover charge, drinks are around $5 each and on top of that it looks a bit like Glo. Five shots of vodka, a couple of them free meant that even though I managed to get a number I for the life of me cannot remember who the girl was. All I can recall is that she was Asian and from Fullerton which in retrospect does me no good as that’s around 500 miles south of here. I do quite like Voda though, especially as a start out point to the night.

I’m currently thanking whoever pulls the cosmic strings for making tomorrow a holiday during which I plan to resolutely steer clear of anything with an alcohol content, try and sweat some toxins out in the gym, lose at poker and watch Himalaya, i.e. be somewhat productive. I also intend to spend a good portion of the day putting my thinking cap on and come up with ideas to make a quick $4,000 (preferably something that doesn’t require me to give up a body part) so R and I can hit up SL in December for a couple of weeks, just to try and maintain some sanity. Why did I leave corporate America and a fat paycheck again?

Had a most interesting brownbag today at work with Silas Kpanan’Ayoung Siakor, this years Goldman Environmental Prize winner for Africa giving us a little talk. It was an amazing experience listening to him talk about his efforts to give Liberia’s forests a fighting chance for survival and his hopes for his countries future. His optimism and realism were sobering considering Liberia’s troubled (to put it mildly) past.

What was also surpising was how soft spoken and self-effacing he was. This was someone who gathered data on Charles Taylor’s logging of Liberian rainforests (and extracting minerals) to finance his quaint hobby of fucking shit up with the end result of UN sanctions being imposed on the country. Now that to me is balls, Charlie Taylor wasn’t exactly your average run of the mill tin pot despot. He was more like the “I’ll cut your head off and use it as a bowling ball” kind of guy who famously (and sadly winingly) ran for re-election with the winning slogan “He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I will vote for him.” I believe Silas mentioned what he did was a bit “difficult,” probably the understatement of the decade for me.

I’m so very glad I got to hear him speak and to actually learn that he existed and what his story was and be inspired by it. There are so many people doing so much in such difficult conditions to affect real change in this world. They are by and large unsung heroes and rarely get any publicity. Instead what you see plastered over the MSM is the fact that Oprah Winfrey opened a school for disadvantaged kids, probably at the cost of one week of her pay. Not to take anything away from the good she did, but the payoff in terms of sacrifice are so much more in her case than for most.

If you have a minute, read up on Silas’ and the other Goldman Prize winners stories and be inspired! Also check out the Rolex awards for Enterprise, there’s even a Sri Lankan on there!

Is there anyone out there who can do some pro-bono translation work for a small non-profit in Sri Lanka called Paavima. The work would mostly involve translating dive materials into Sinhala for use at the dive shack. If one of you Sri Lanka based bloggers feel like helping out drop me an email at childof25@gmail.com and I will put you in touch with the appropriate person. You can also check out their blog here and their flickr page here.