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.

The one thing I never miss when I go to Goa is to stroll around the tinto at Calangute just to see the honeymoon couples shopping. Because nothing is more hilarious than seeing the guy being (or trying to be) all nice to the woman he's just married when you know that in his mind the only thing he's saying is something on the lines of -- buy whatever the hell you want quickly so we can go back to the room and have bludy sex!

But he will wait patiently while she checks out pair after pair of printed rubber chappals, some stupid over-priced top (and telling her you get those on Linking Road does nothing to stop her, so don't even bother), or worse - shell jewellery or some shit like that. I mean here's a guy who's looking forward to every minute of lovemaking possible, and you make him go shopping! That's plain cruel.

***

Yes I'm back. And I gotta tell you it's almost miraculous what three days of sun, sea and sand can do for you. I feel rejuvenated, the aches and pains have all disappeared, and yep I'm ready once again to kick the world wherever it needs kicking.

The weather gods were with us the first three days and Palolem was wonderful with it's fine golden sand and pretty firang wimmen (surprising they even come at this time). On day four though it started to pour ruining our plan to go to Agonda, so we packed it up and headed back North before leaving to come home. But it's something I've decided to do every few months going forward - a trip to Goa. I thoroughly recommend it ... works wonders for me anyway.

Pics up on my Facebook for those who wanna see. BFN.

Planning a trip they say is fun. But not when you're watching Rakhi ka Swayamvar at the same time. Then all the fun comes from watching Rakhi and no planning gets done.

Which is what happened Sunday afternoon when me and the chaps met up. Blame it on Rakhi because as things stand now nobody has any idea where we're gonna go, what we're gonna do, and more importantly where we're gonna stay. Some very surprised looks were shot back at me when I mentioned the word reservation. They were like - OMG, he's lost it! Dude we can pitch our tent on the side of the road if there's nowhere to sleep! What are you, a girl??

Anyway the plan, if you can call it that, is to go South. Problem is we're all Northerners, and the North is all we know. So if any of you know South Goa well please suggest some good places. The guys all seem to be members of the 'we'll see when we get there' club, but not me. I need to know where I'm going.

***

As for Rakhi and her Swayamvar, how much do you reckon madam is getting paid to do this shit? If the ratings are anything to go by, I'd say her years of stuggle will soon come to an end.

ROFL moment of the day was when that moron from Nagpur kept asking her all those questions about her past 'n stuff (who she's screwed to be exact). At which our man Ally goes: Dude only thing left now is for him to check her hymen!

Goin' country with the Bellamy Brothers. This one called Old Hippie, which is what I think I'm slowly turning into.

The one problem I always had making things with my Lego was that whenever I built something really big and grand it would use up all my bricks. I'd keep admiring it proudly for some days and then I'd tear it down, so that I could build something new. I'd tell myself that one day I'd create my masterpiece, after which I'd never have to build anything ever again. That day never came.

I think it's the same with people and lives. Some of us constantly need to be building something new. Otherwise we get bored. Others are quite content with what they have, never feeling the need to do anything different. People in the first category often end up hurting the ones they love, but that doesn't necessarily make them bad people. That's just how they are.

But people in the second category, those who love that sense of permanence, do not understand how those in the first can be so destructive. To them it seems crazy that someone would want to destroy everything that took so long to build. It does not make sense.

Like it does not make sense when a husband decides to go off with another woman, or when a wife decides to have an affair. Who is wrong and who is right and who decides where the boundary between the two lies. Something I have spent much time thinking over. Was she wrong to leave me for someone else? Or did I decide it was wrong.

***

Johnny Van Zant and Lynyrd Skynyrd. For our Michelle on her birthday tomorrow. And for all y'all folks out there who like her have been too long away from home.

Giving my sadness a name. Matt Butcher sounds so much like Al Stewart. And the girl - oh I love her - a cross between Bonnie Raitt and Emmylou Harris. And that tattoo she's got, now that's what I call body-art, not some butterfly hidden away in your underwear!

Watch the video on YouTube or take a listen on Grooveshark (Thanks once more ~N, can't tell you how much I love that site) or right here on the Blues (the only mp3 I could find).

***

My friend and blogger, the wonderful Clem "Bandra Bugger" Desylva needs all the votes he can get to see him behind the wheel of a brand new Mitsubishi Cedia (wish I could have said said Land Rover, but still) on The Great Driving Challenge. Voting closes today, so hurry! And you can be sure he'll have plenty of stories to tell us in his very own inimitable style. Go Clem!

The boys and I (with one girl) head off to Goa next weekend. I haven't been to Goa in the rains since I was a kid, but what the hell - with the right company it don't matter a helluva lot, yeah?

Cheers then and do vote for Clem.

Matt Butcher and Olivia Wynne ... Giving my sadness a name.

The 4th of July. Big weekend in America. Wonder if my brother'll be driving down to Bristol to see the parade.

And it was a big week for freedom - gay freedom rather - here in India.

At my cousins place the other evening when all of this was breaking news her 9 year old daughter looked away from the TV and went- Mummy what's a gay?

Errrm... gays are people who are - different!

Different in what way?

Different meaning they like different things (in a tone that said- Now shut up about it!)

So it's not bad to be a gay

(somewhat hesitantly) ...Errrm no, not at all.

But how do you know if you're a gay. What if I'm gay?

(at which my cousin nearly freaked. I could see it on her face!)

No-No you are not gay.

But I like... **

Have you finished learning that Marathi poem? Go now and do it.

** it's a pity she couldn't finish that sentence.

***

But now that gay sex/love/rocknroll is not a crime anymore I reckon many other parents gonna be faced with such uncomfortable questions. Till such time as it's making the news anyway.

And what about all those unfortunate homosexuals who were forced to get married to people of the opposite gender? There's one such chap in my office, got married just a couple months ago ... on Fridays you see him in pink shirts and red belts with white socks and funny looking pants. What about them? Will they be ditching their spouses to go after the first homo they can get their hands on? I wonder.

***

All beast women's final at Wimbledon today. Very uninteresting for most male viewers I'd imagine. Yeah, we like it when the pretty girls play.

Edie Brickell with an old Bob Dylan original. From the soundtrack to the movie Born on the Fourth of July where Tommy Cruise put in his best performance ever I think, and in which Edie actually sang this song in one scene - A hard rain's a-gonna fall. Which is what the forecast for this weekend is. Y'know, some people like the rains ... I like those dry spells in-between. What does that say about me?

There was a stud called Shiney
who quite fancied his housemaids hiney
When the moment was right he grabbed her tight
and gave her more than just a fright

But somehow I feel there's more to it than has come to light. Though he's confessed (you'd be singing like a canary too if faced with the prospect of Sub Inspector Gandmare aka "The Can Opener" shoving his lathi, the one made of wood, up your arse) the pieces don't quite fit. Why would a guy force himself on some maid (and they're all big bludy crooks let me tell you) when there are plenty wimmen out there who wouldn't mind forcing themselves on him! It may take a while but I suspect the truth will come out, as his stalwart wife kept saying repeatedly on IBN last night.

***

We're sorry, but we're down on form, says MS Dhoni
all these matches one after another ain't funny
Please understand - we do it all for you, dear fan
and in a small part for the munny

Too much cricket, you say? That's what we thought as well Moolah Singh! Don't the players have any say at all? Otherwise just ask for a rest like Sachin wisely has. But don't go out there and play like shit and expect us to feel sorry for you. Because we don't.

***

Go not to the US of A
if healthy, a little less wealthy, and fine is how you wanna stay
For though that may be the land of milk and honey
if you catch the flu things won't be sunny

A travel advisory was issued this week by the Govt of India (which is a first I think) for countries severely affected by the swine flu, in particular the United States. What I'd be very interested to know is how many Indians actually cancel their travel plans to the US in light of this advisory. We are quite fearless like that.

And what about those Indians coming from the States on holiday and such? Why not urge them to stay put? They're the ones who started this in the first place.

***

Too many cooks who hadn't read their books
is what screwed things up on 26/11
But what use is knowing the facts
if nobody gets off their ass and acts

As far as we can tell it's case closed. We'll just have to see when the next terror attack comes, God forbid, if our people in power are better prepared. I seriously doubt it.

***

Bonnie Tyler. For those of you who like me were born in the 70's (or thereabouts), grew up in the 80's, and miss those rocking years - It's a heartache. Don't you just love that voice!

Caption this :)

***

From his Greatest Hits album Actual Miles here's Don Henley with a Leonard Cohen original - Everybody Knows. Love the lyrics on this one. Nice weekend.