Castle of Indolence

"Football is not a matter of life and death, it's much more important than that" - Bill Shankly.

Now that Woolmer's demise has disproved that famous statement (sort of), you'd think the media and the experts would be a little wary of casual allusions to death. But the two phrases most bandied about in the Indian media have been 'Do or Die' (prior to the SL game) and 'Perform or Perish' (as in 'Will Greg Chappell become a victim of his "perform or perish" mantra?'). Next up, Imran Khan pushed the insensitivity limits with his "I'm dying to know the reults of the Woolmer investigation" quote to BBC.

But, considering that Woolmer's death was caused by strangulation, the award for 'Most inappropriate figure of speech' has to go to John Wright. During the Bangladesh-Bermuda match, Bermuda were batting with a few down for next to nothing when John offers " Bangladesh really need to be ruthless here. They must not take their foots of the Bermudan throats".

Marc Ostrofsky has been an idol of mine ever since he managed to convince someone to pay him $ 7.5 million in exchange for the 'business.com' domain name. While my hunt for a similar smartalec-y way to avoid the rat race has been fruitless, the closest thing to him I've seen in India is this chap who was renting out snow boots in Shimla.
It costs 50 bucks to hire a pair of boots from him for about a couple of hours. The bus I was travelling in had about 20 passengers in it and assuming a couple more tourist buses patronised him, he would have pocketed a cool three grand in a single day. Tax-free, minimal investment, virtually no work, high returns - is this a dream job or what? Of course, business wouldn't exactly be flourishing in the summer (perhaps he uses the summer to catch up on his reading).

Having said that, I better get me a job in the very, very immediate future as the parents have started very unsubtly asking me read articles titled 'How to be your own life coach' and suchlike.

One of the main reasons I haven't quit smoking yet (besides an absolute lack of willpower) is the Rolling Stones. If Keith Richards (impossible to think of him without a ciggy dangling from his lips) is capable of undertaking gruelling concert tours in his mid-sixties, I figure I shouldn't be worrying myself silly about lung cancer. Besides, despite being a decade older than my teetotalling, diet watching ,prefer-stairs-to-the-elevator dad, the Glimmer Twins are clearly in a far better shape than him.

I also think the Stones should stop churning out rubbish albums which no one listens to and reinvent themselves as legal aides to Big Tobbaco companies.In the normal course of events, when a nincompoop sues Big Tobacco because he (or she) didnt realise smoking two packs a day for thirty years would adversely affect his (or her) health, they get embroiled in a protacted legal wrangle and subsequently pay out millions to the nincompoop. Instead, at the next trial, they should present the Stones as (the hallowed) 'Exhibit 1A' and provide a brief history of the Stones' long dalliance with nicotine,alcohol and substance abuse and also show a video of their recent concert performances (to prove their robust state of health).I'm fairly certain that besides handing out a favourable verdict for Big Tobacco , the judge will also admonish the nincompoop for wasting the court's time with this frivolous case.

P.S: Check out Keith Richards at the Death Calculator.