Cavity emptor

The old’s wives’ tale about the two worst aches in the world being - a ear ache and a tooth ache – will every once in your life come to roost. Those days of torment will remind you of the above cliché, thrown around while having a casual cup of tea at the dining table. And you will become part of the cliché’s legacy. Home remedies will be your short-term saviour, until a trip to the dentist or the ENT specialist becomes necessary for you to continue living. I have a cavity that Osama bin Laden could hide in.

Action!

Everytime I see a great film, I am truly humbled by this art form, which despite all its pretentious pop-schmaltz, has this great power to play out real life, often our own, before our eyes with the brute force of reality.
And then there are action films, mafia movies and the gambling ones. My favourites. I recently saw the most chilling fight scene ever. It was so raw even a blood and gore veteran like me had goose bumps. The movie is Eastern Promises, starring Vigo Mortensen. You will think twice about messing with Russians after watching it.

More greed

To continue on the economy theme – what do you think is being done to cure world business of what is looking like the monetary version of Aids, all stemming from, as we saw in the previous post, greed? Well, more greed is being encouraged.
The Fed is looking to flood the markets with liquidity – cash flow – so that people start buying again, whether they can afford it or not, notwithstanding. All countries pegged to the dollar have no choice but to follow suit. To kill a greed disease with more greed. Now that’s capitalism for you.

Greedy

It’s all a bit apocalyptic at the moment with the world economy right now, with the US Federal Bank playing God, in trying to stem the rot.
I’m not one much for numbers, but if one were to take a non-economic and, I bite my lip as I say this, a moralistic view of the situation, it is quite clearly greed that is the cause of this economic downfall. It all began when people who had risky credit histories were actually encouraged to take loans at high rates of interest. They defaulted. Badly. Greed never did anyone any good.

Growing old

I have written about growing old as far as physical manifestations go. Well, it all seems very magnified at the moment. Like my body is going through great pains to remind me in great detail that I am growing old; fast. When you live life on the egde consistently for a decade, you slip off every now and then. Each slip takes years off you.
The latest of my growing old pangs is: hair on my ear lobes.
You know the kind you see on 70-year olds, huge strands hanging off their ears. Young shoots have sprouted on mine.

School failure

The average Gulf school, which caters to the average Gulf expatriate, is but a caricature of what a House of Education should be. It is all aimed at basically soothing the parents’ pangs of guilt, that their children are not being sacrificed at the altar of the dirham/riyal/dinar to rupee exchange rate. The schools have the subjects without the content, the teachers without the passion, the houses without the heritage, the games without the sports. It’s all the illusion that your child is being educated. Alas, it’s only a shadow of the real thing; pathetic to put up with.

Rock's Muse

In a month I’ve managed to see two of the greatest guitarists of all time, Santana and, now Slash. Slash was playing with his Velvet Revolver and while as a band they do rock, virgin tight and all that, the Slash of G’n’R was gun powdered into ensuring this Revolver was firing loud and clear. His signature riffs were just not there. However, on the same night he and Velvet Revolver were upstaged by a band called Muse. Three guys, the lead guitarist singing and playing piano, were perhaps the wickedest rock act I have ever laid ears on.

Sin bin

If you missed the Vatican’s latest list of seven ‘social’ sins, they are:
1. Bioethical violations such as birth control
2. Morally dubious experiments such as stem cell research
3. Drug abuse
4. Polluting the environment
5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
6. Excessive wealth
7. Creating poverty
I am not guilty of many on this list. However, personally, the last three weigh heavily on my conscience.
It’s one of the beautiful aspects of New Testatment - the way poverty is essential for the soul. To choose poverty is one of the great mysteries of spirituality.

Goan-kar

A D’souza, a Lobo, a café owner, a teen Brit and drugs. Normally you could order that cocktail anywhere on the North strip of Goa and get away with it. Alas, my beautiful Goa’s dirty underwear is now all over the world press.
Those who have walked the Goa wild side, and believe me, Anjuna is more seedy than wild, will know that to get carried away by the infectious Goa vibe is as easy as drowing with the tide in on Candolim… it’s really very easy. Will this change the Goa scene? Not a chance. Life goes on.

Film noir

I’m a bit of a noir chappie. If I taught at Hogwarts, it would probably be Defence against the Dark Arts, that and the Art of creating Magic Mushrooms. I watched three films that were at the Oscars. And they were as dark as they come. In fact, I found them so dark, I had to keep my emotional headlights to get through.
No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood and The Assassination of Jesse James by Robert Ford the Coward – don’t watch them if you’re depressed or suicidal. Needless to say though, all great movies.

Psycho babble

There is a type of personality who cannot exist in peace. She or he must always be under stress and handle it with aplomb, therefore, to the world appearing as this super-being who no matter what the circumstances, will triumph.
What the world rarely sees is that the circumstances have been created by the very being, only so that he has his/her reason to exist.
This individual has not learnt to enjoy the fruits of delayed gratification, and sacrifices are made in spurts and bursts, never in long term interests, but often for the greater good of the moment.

Dark writes

I am always in awe of authors who can write about the dark side of life with humor, candour and loads of pithy. So I was delighted to stumble on Hanif Kureshi. For those who need a pop cultural reference, which is become so much the norm these days, Kureshi wrote My Beautiful Laundrette, as a play, and it went on to win an Oscar for best screenplay.
Nevertheless, the two books I read, Love in a Blue Time and The Black Album are set in the London of the 80s, a very delicious time for darkness of life.