Friday doggerel: For he is a very sad man

Sing to the tune of "For he is an Englishman" - Gilbert and Sullivan, HMS Pinafore. The doggerel is based on the current Shashi Tharoor-Twitter brouhaha. For the humour impaired, this is supposed to be sarcastic and is based on this classic quote.

For he is a very sad man
For he is a very sad man

The Congressman has said it
and it calls for many a repeat
when solitude and wine meet
that tweeting is no great feat
For he is a very sad man

And he could be from any nation
rich, poor or the middle station
he could be your distant relation
even indulges in self fornication
For he is a very sad man

Thinks he has no cause for worry
so he writes in a bloody hurry
the high command makes merry
now the news is not so dreary
For he is a very sad man

He always hits the whiskey bar
while he stays at the five star
often behaves like a great czar
doesn’t even drive his own car
For he is a very sad man

Hope the Congress lynch mob
lets him keep his big job
else Vinod Mehta will rob
he’ll write and we’ll all sob
For he is a very sad man

Origin of Nike's "Just Do It"

Morbid quiz fact of the day: Nike's slogan "Just do it" comes from murderer Gary Gilmore's statement "Let's do it" to the firing squad that executed him. Wow. Here's the creator Dan Wieden talking about it.

Quiz question. Fill in the blanks (Yeats poem, famous film)

Fill in the 5 blanks. Film related hint below the poem

Sailing to Byzantium
- William Butler Yeats

THAT is __ _____ ____ _____ ____. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

==
Hint: The blanks gave the title to a famous novel published in 2005। This was made into a film that won 4 academy awards in 2007, including Best Picture.

Interview with Danny Boyle

Interesting interview with Danny Boyle, the director of Slumdog Millionaire:

AVC: Were there places it was difficult to get permission to film?

DB: There's lots of things that can be solved with cash. [Snickers.] And there's occasional things that can't be solved with cash, which become a bureaucratic nightmare for some reason, and there's no distinction between the two. There's no way of reading a situation and saying, "Yes, that'll be a bureaucratic nightmare, but that one we'll be able to buy off." It just depends on the day, apparently. The most extraordinary thing, you'd be given permission for, and then the weirdest, simplest things, you just wouldn't be able to obtain permissions. And it would go on and on and on forever and ever, and there was no way to know. You have to kind of approach it with an open, quite optimistic mind, no matter what's thrown at you, because it will only ever result in damaging the film if you let any kind of despondency get to you. You have to remain optimistic, and that's clearly how people live their lives there. Against all the odds, they retain kind of a spirit which allows them to get through against insufferable odds. The poverty, the traffic, the lack of infrastructure, the flooding during the monsoons—there's just so many things that are coming at you at the whole time that your spirit has to remain, and that's certainly true. It enters the minutia of filming

My ideal job - Women's beach volleyball referee

My wife and I have been having this ongoing argument about the Olympics. She considers beach volleyball sexist since the men get to wear shorts and tank tops, while the women wear almost nothing. [My counter argument is that women get to see a lot of eye candy in the men's diving competiton, where the women wear one piece suits and the mean wear not much except sweat.]

Anyway, I checked the rules of Beach Volleyball. It appears that there is a rule concerning the *maximum* amount of clothing that women participants can wear.The rule states that "women's uniform bottoms have to be two and a half inches wide on the sides."

I also checked the website of the FIVB for rules concerning the names of the players and found this:

"Sanctions will apply in case the team name of a men player does not appear on his shorts, while it is only recommended, due to the limited space, to feature the same information on the women's bottom during the 2008 season. Therefore, the FIVB will not fine any women athletes for not placing their names on the bottom of their uniforms in 2008,"

My first question is this one: How the heck do they enforce these rules? I can picture a guy going around with a measuring tape and saying; "Now then, young lady" and measuring the clothing around all vital areas below her navel.

My second question is this: "Are they hiring?"

Quiz Question: Name the English equivalent

Fill in the Blanks: (cut and pasted from Wikipedia)

• Fulano, Zutano y Mengano — in Spanish
• Hinz und Kunz — in German
• Jan en Alleman — in Dutch
• Tizio, Caio, Sempronio, Mevio, Filano e Calpurnio — in Italian
• Fulano, Beltrano e Sicrano — in Portuguese
• Ivanov, Petrov, Sidorov — in Russian
• Are, Oore, Shamsi Kooreh — in Persian

_______, _____________ & _____________ in English.

Hint: Think of the 3 tortoises from the Galapagos brought by Charles Darwin in HMS Beagle

Nissim Ezekiel: Irani Restaurant Instructions

Happy Friday folks! Here's a nice Nissim Ezekiel poem for your enjoyment:

IRANI RESTAURANT INSTRUCTIONS*

Please
Do not spit
Do not sit more
Pay promptly, time is valuable
Do not write letter
without order refreshment
Do not comb,
hair is spoiling floor
Do not make mischiefs in cabin
our waiter is reporting
Come again
All are welcome whatever cast
If not satisfied tell us
otherwise tell others
GOD IS GREAT

------ Nissim Ezekiel, 1972

For more poems by the great Indian poet Nissim Ezekiel, please refer to his works in the Digital South Asia Library.