Thoughts of a Layman: January 2007 Archives

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January 25, 2007

Snow

As a Chennaivasi, I never had a chance to see snow. When I woke up in the morning yesterday and looked out of the window, it was a pleasant surprise to see snow all around. Though the temparature has been dropping since last week, there wasn't any forecast of snow in London, but suddenly the first snow of the winter arrived in London yesterday.

Met forecast more snow to arrive today, but as usual, they got it wrong and the roads were clear this morning and no trace of snow anywhere.

Posted by Vasanth at 04:59 PM | Comments (2)

January 18, 2007

CBB

Much has been said and written about Shilpa Shetty appearing in the Celebrity Big Brother show on Channel 4 in UK. I was watching the show till last week and stopped watching it after unsavoury happenings inside the big brother house.

I thought including a South Asian who hasn’t lived in UK in the show was a recipe for disaster as it would be difficult for Shilpa to adjust to the British culture from the word go. . Most of the other participants were British and also most of them were Z list celebrities.

The show kicked off well but it all started when the team was spilt into 2 and the introduction of Goody clan into the house. 3 voluntary walk offs as they couldn’t stand the clan and I think Shilpa should have done the same thing at that time. The show was already losing viewer ship and it would have been a death knell for the show as there weren’t any characters left in the house, but she continued despite crying most of the time inside the house.

British TV is entirely different from India TVs, here most of the programmes, even if it is in the prime time, were sexed up for attracting more viewer ship which is fine for British culture. However, anyone from South Asia who just moved to UK would find it difficult to watch some of the programmes with family. I am not suggesting that there is anything wrong about it, but we weren’t used to such programmes, so find it hard to believe.

Back to Shilpa, I think there was an undercurrent within the South Asian community that there are racially abused in this country in some ways and could relate this episode to their own life. Otherwise, I wouldn’t think there would have been such a response, because, after all Shilpa is said to be paid £300,000 for appearing on the show and could earn £1 Million if she wins it.

Posted by Vasanth at 04:43 PM | Comments (0)

January 09, 2007

Car & Bike Show

Its been great passion for me to see a formula 1 race in the racing circuit, which hasn’t materialised yet. However, I had a chance to have a good look at this Williams F1 car in a motor show in Canary Wharf sometime back. Would have been nice if it was moving, anyways, that will soon happen I guess, I mean, watching a race in action.

This bike was colossal, I don’t think I can ride this without putting on some more pounds!

A cute one, Thalai Ajit might like it..

Posted by Vasanth at 04:25 PM | Comments (3)

January 03, 2007

Serene

Some time back we had been to this beautiful place which is on the western ghats. Its kind of a jungle resort set on a hill top island all sides surrounded by water (how stupid, isn’t? island is always surrounded by water).

View from the resort overlooking the dam