Greetings...
from the black hole formerly known as Calcutta!

Like everything in life the last couple of days have been a mixture of the sweet and the sour.

The Air France strike left me waiting for 6-hours on a standby list at Charles de Gaulle, only at the last minute to be handed a business class boarding pass and told to sprint for the plane. I make a bit of a habit of leaving boarding until the very last minute but this is the first time i've actually had to knock on the door of a 747 and ask them to open up.
I slipped back into the luxury of my flatbed seat safe in the knowledge that there was little hope of my bag having made it on to the same flight, and woke up 7 hours later in Dehli to find my suspicions confirmed.

Having filled in multiple 'wheres my luggage..?' forms at Delhi and randomly picked a hostel in Kolkata as a forwarding address for my pack I jumped on a Jet Airways flight and landed here bright and early Tuesday morning. Finding a taxi was a breeze, the ride into town was the usual scramble of bikes and buses, all accompanied by the clamour of horns, and I quickly felt like i'd slipped back into the India groove and was on vacation.

The Lonely Planet describes the hostel I randomly chose as 'cosy'. I'd describe it as a bug ridden flea pit, complete with wildlife in the form of roaches and a mice.

Heres what they left my right arm looking like. If you flip the image 180' you get a picture of my left arm... lets hope they don't scar.

Waking up with the call to prayer this morning I was aware of not having had a very good nights sleep, the reason possibly being the 60+ bug bites smattered all over my body and face. The owners promptly exploded a bug bomb in the room, rendering it a chemical war zone for the next week and upgraded me to a bigger room downstairs, again with the complimentary in room mouse. I'd happily have upped and moved off to a new hostel if this place wasn't the only link between me and my luggage.

Despite all this, today has been a good day. Its lashed with rain so i've sat in a cafe and, for the first time in a long time, had time to read the Economist from cover to cover.




I met a group of volunteers working at Mother Theresa's home for the poor and spent lunch learning about how the charity works and how they're involved. I've also scrambled around a few shops to pick up toothpaste, deodorant, a clean t-shirt etc etc and just a few minutes ago the hostel received a call saying my packs arriving on an Air India flight tomorrow morning! I wonder if its had as much fun as me in the last 3 days...

x

"X" marks the spot!

Tickets are booked, visas stamped and backpack is packed...
Wish me luck!

x

101 (whose counting?) totally useless yet curious things you don't need to know

In the 1400's a law was set forth that a man was not allowed to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. Hence we have "the rule of thumb".

Many years ago in Scotland, a new game was invented. It was ruled "Gentlemen Only...Ladies Forbidden"...and thus the word GOLF entered
into the English language.

The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV was Fred and Wilma Flintstone

Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.

Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.

Coca-Cola was originally green.

It is impossible to lick your elbow.

The average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000

Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

The first novel ever written on ! a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king in history:
Spades - King David
Hearts - Charlemagne
Clubs -Alexander, the Great
Diamonds - Julius Caesar

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air the person died as a result of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter "A"?
A. One thousand

Q. What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common?
A. All invented by women.

Q. What is the only food that doesn't spoil?
A. Honey

In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by
ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the
bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase......... "goodnight, sleep tight."

It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month, which we know today as the honeymoon.

In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts... So in old England, when customers got unruly, ! the bartender would yell at them "Mind your pints and quarts, and settle down." It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's"

Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the
rim, or handle, of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle" is the phrase inspired by this practice.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd
waht I was rdgnieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan
mnid aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy,
it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod
are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and
lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a
taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.
Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey
lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a ! wlohe.

ps. I can lick my elbow!

Doug's on the telly!

After months of getting up at horrible o'clock Doug's patience, persistence, diplomacy and dogged determination has finally got him out of the control room and into the limelight!

See him in all his glory here ... (scroll down a bit)

Its the first time i've ever seen him in a suit & tie! Anyhow, he looks like he's taking it all in his stride but tells me he was shitty bricks at the time, oh, and that the horrible o'clock bit doesn't change.

Nevermind. Well done Doug!

x

From the BBC:

This makes me happy...

"Climate change campaigner Al Gore and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have been jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. "

and this pisses me off...

"President George W Bush, was "happy" at the "important recognition" for his rival and the IPCC, a White House spokesman said. However, the president was not about to change his more sceptical stance on global warming, the spokesman said."

You can read the full article here

x

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Today, Wednesday 10th October, a full 2 months prior to the event I saw this years first Christmas ad.

WTF