If someone had stuck a finger up his arse then perhaps he'd have reason to be sore (awful pun intended!). But making such an issue over the minor matter of being detained at a US airport, something hundreds of people go through every day, is quite unnecessary I think. Because let's face it Mr. Khan: you may be a big-shot celebrity over here but in America you're just another Muslim with an expensive pair of shades.

***

I was kind of under the weather all week but large doses of alcohol over the weekend did the trick. I could even manage to look into my investments and what do you know - not in the red anymore! Though for how long that lasts remains to be seen. I've decided to try the SIP route now so let's see how that works out. Because when I think about it if my father had invested regularly since the 70's it might have been us living in a sea-facing 19th century villa at Bandstand instead of some chap called Khan.

***

Instrumental week here on the Blues. Kick it off with Mammagamma by the Alan Parsons Project. Tata Sky users will recognize this one. And I doubt they pay Alan anything for using his tune. It's like someone (AGG I think it was) once said about Kenny G -- If he got paid for every time one of his tunes was played in an elevator he'd be worth billions! Which gets me thinking: so much depends on where your audience is at. Seat them in an auditorium or a cinema hall and you become an entertainer. Put them in an elevator, and well - you're just a pleasant distraction.

For someone who talks so much his Ministry's website sure doesn't say a lot. It actually resembles the kind of stuff amateur web designers used to create on Geocities before blogs and personal domains became popular. At the very top you will find something called Step by Step Guidelines to Become Smoke Free. This when we are faced with a pandemic that threatens to take more lives than all the cigarettes that will be consumed this year. If only they came up with similar guidelines to stop people spitting!

So forget about finding anything even remotely useful there (that is if you find this useful!). If you want to know everything there is to know about the H1N1 virus go to the CDC's dedicated website here. Though there are probably a hundred more ways in which the virus could spread in our country given the fact that lack of hygiene is something of a genetic trait with us Indians.

There is even a section on face-masks. Apparently those 10 Rupee type things everyone seems to be buying are supposed to be used just once and thrown away.

***

I developed a cough last evening and I can't blame everyone at home for getting slightly panicky, though I think it was those chilled beers I had yesterday and the day before. But try telling them that ... given the chance they'd make me pop half a dozen Tamiflu just to be safe. No fever still so I think I'm ok for now.

Nice week. I hear there's a proposal to temporarily shut all malls, multiplexes, eating places and the like. So all we can do is sit home and watch TV, something the men will surely have no problem with!

Those of you who were expecting a grand finale with the backdrop of the Taj or some other symbol of undying love must surely have been disappointed at being made to watch such a dull, gaudy affair in a suburban Mumbai hotel. Especially after last weeks grand proceedings at some fancy palace in Udaipur.

Also very disappointed must be those who were expecting the wedding to take place right there and then. You didn't actualy think that would happen, did you? No - "they need time to get to know each other away from the cameras". C'mon, the whole thing was fixed! NDTV got the ratings, Rakhi got the moolah, and as for our boy Parathawala, well - he ain't getting Rakhi, that's for bludy sure. What do you reckon he's getting anyway?

***

Friendship Day I believe it was yesterday. Ironically the very same day in 1990 that Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, changing forever the lives of so many people, not the least his own. Because if the Yanks are to be believed he should be quite dead now. But you can never tell with the Yanks. There's this whole theory that Osama is living it up as the guest of the United States on some remote Pacific island with a hundred virgins and the latest Playstation for company.

Peace, love, and smaller bites of reality.