Spotted this really cool line on a friend’s MSN status message. Apparently, he had heard it from his son!

 

Never tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the moon!

 

Sweet!

 

A friend (who we shall call Angua*) of a friend (who we shall call Lara*) needed to close a bank account and wrote them a letter. Angua then sent Lara the letter for it to be proof-read. Lara almost suffered a coronary from laughing too much and did what any friend would do. Sent me the mail. I almost suffered a coronary reading it. Am putting it up here so that you all may suffer coronaries. Names and numbers are being changed in order to protect Angua’s true identity. I simply MUST find her before you lot, see……

Read on and if you’re eating and drinking at this moment - STOP NOW.

Ref Account Number: R1GG5-15-HOT
Dear Sir/Madam,

Please close this account with immediate effect. Any further charges that are liable for this account should be written off as I’ve already paid you more than enough of my hard earned cash for all the charges you consistently dream up to apply to an account that hasn’t been used for over a year.

As you can see from my address I live overseas so it’s no good posting me a letter advising me that you are charging me for some other erroneous service in the vain hope that it will reach me in anything less than a fortnight.

If there are any ‘problems’ with the simple matter of closing my account (which, knowing The Woolwich, they will be many and varied) please contact me on my mobile phone number xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Ha!)* rather than sending me another missive by post because I’ll then be able to avoid any extra charges you will no doubt summon up for the time and effort it has taken to open this letter only to realise that you *gasp* can’t help me until I send it in triplicate, signed in blood and delivered by hand by an A- List Hollywood star.

I’ve been informed numerous times that you ‘can’t’ converse with your customers via email at the Woolwich, (which must make you the only company on the planet for whom this is the case being as it’s 2007 and not 1927 – as an aside it’s good to see you championing the archaic ‘hard copy via postal service’, a much under-used form of communication here in the 21st Century – can’t think why everyone isn’t doing it, it’s so fast, non time consuming and convenient) but I’d like a confirmation, in writing, to one of my email addresses to confirm that the account mentioned above is, indeed, now closed.
I’ll solve the ‘lack of email access’ problem for you and suggest you get someone in a position of authority to pop along to a local internet café and drop me a quick line (and no, I won’t pay for the internet café’s charge. I’m sure The Woolwich can just about manage to shoulder this cost). My email addresses are angua@hotmail.co.uk and angua@laingorourke.com .Take your pick.

I’d like to point out at this juncture that I’ve spent over one hundred pounds sterling on the phone to your delightful Customer ‘Service’ staff over the last three months trying to get this account closed and the random, whimsical and ever increasing charges on my dormant account stopped once and for all. I wonder if you could assist me in claiming these costs back from The Woolwich? To this question I’m sure I can guess the answer because us mere mortals can no more plunder the money we are genuinely owed from the coffers of institutions such as The Woolwich than we can bounce to the Moon on a space-hopper made from cheese.

Kind Regards,

Angua.

* for more on Angua - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angua

* for more on Lara - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_croft

* that Ha! was me.

Right. More after I’m back from surgery. I’ve had to rewire my jaw from laughing too much.

 

Rigged/-

Something that I was sent on an sms forward. Cracked me up bigtime.

2002 - Terrorism

2003 - Floods

2004 - Tsunami

2005 - Earthquake

2006 - Rain

2007 - ‘Aap Ka Suroor’

Still has me chuckling!!!

I spent the last couple of hours this evening checking out Britain’s Got Talent on Youtube. After having watched Paul Potts a hundred or so times I decided to check out some of the other talent that Britain had.

They had singers, dancers, dance troupes, baton twirlers, cheerleaders, stand up comedians and even Jack, a 79 year old tap dancer. Great stuff, that country has no dearth of entertainers.

Then came the kids. Paul Potts was amazing yes, he was also my age and hence no spring chicken. Performances by Dominic, George, Jake and Connie not only made me feel very very old, they also made me wonder what the heck their parents fed them! I cannot imagine what any of these kids will be like when they’re 25. Dominic sings with a maturity and a talent way beyond his years, George is a thirteen year old street-dancer,Jake is a ten year old stand up comic and Connie is all of six. Yes, that is not a typo. 6 is what I said.

Have a look.

Dominic

 

George

 

Jake Pratt - (of whom said one presenter - ‘when I was told I was going to be sharing the stage with a little prat, I thought they were talking about someone else’….

 

and lastly - this one completely bowls me over…. little Connie who is so talented that everyone else fades in comparison.

 

Whew. I feel ancient. Could you sing at age six? Or tell jokes at age ten? Or dance like a champion at age thirteen? I couldn’t!

This guy’s name is Brian. He looks like a regular guy with a regular job. Turns out he does have a day job. He is a wrestling coach in a local high school. On a Friday evening at Inner Harbor, he shouted at passers by to stop and wait to see what he can show them. So they did.

Then he talked through his act like a Buddhist. A zen practitioner with attitude. And a sense of humor. When he made jokes that were not suitable for kids, he added a caveat that was even more inconvenient to his spectators. He said that if the kids understood what he was talking about, it was their parents’ fault. The he asked people if they wanted to see something terribly dangerous and when they hesitated, he laughed at them and asked them why they had stopped. He smirked, and said, “You think you would have stopped if you didn’t want to see me do something stupid?”

I couldn’t walk away. Before I knew it, I was watching him light his tongue on fire. Then he had this 14 year old light a couple of torches from that flame. Then he juggled lit torches. Then he lit a jumping rope on fire. Then he stood on a 2-foot ball and jumped rope. While he balanced himself on the ball. And the rope was still on fire.

In a bit, he had a couple of people lock him in 2 straight jackets. Then he stood on that ball. He had someone time him. And he got out of both straight jackets in 2 minutes and 20 seconds. He had claimed that he could do it in 2 minutes and 30 seconds. He was still on that bloody 2-foot ball.

Brian. At the Harbor. He was on fire.

Every once in awhile I come across things that simply blow me away. A colleague told me about the Potts phenomenon and I quickly got myself aquainted with it. Like American Idol there is a show in the UK called ‘Britains Got Talent’ which starred a certain gentleman called Paul Potts. Having watched him on Youtube and swallowed down many lumps that arose in my throat, I can understand now why England went Paul Potts potty!

His First Audtion

The Next Round

The Final Show - which he won!

Watching things like this makes me wonder. Why did a voice like that exist in a personality like that? He’s obviously had a sad life thus far, was it some test he had to pass, which he did with flying colors because life for him now, will have changed forever.

Amazing!

Riggs/-

Thursday, 28 June

GP: And, these are my fish. My roommate keeps trying to overfeed them because he thinks they’re starving.

Me: Do they have names?

GP: Yeah, the gold fish are called X-45 and 3PO.

Me: Ah.

GP: Do you know what the red one is?

Me: He’s one of those fighters that will eat up the gold fish, I imagine?!

GP: Yup. Betta fish. Isn’t he beautiful?

Me: Yes.. quite incredible.

GP: You know, I didnt buy him from a shop.

Me: Oh?

GP: My sister and I had driven down to the trash dump a few minutes from here. This was the day I was leaving for India last month.

Me: Okay?

GP: I had stepped out of the car to dump our trash and was walking back when my sister got out and said she had seen something move under one of the boxes. I figured it was a rat or something. But she insisted on checking it out.

So we walked towards the box and right next to it, we find this little plastic container filled with a thick reddish liquid. And there was something moving around in it. A near-dead Betta fish, swimming around desperately in water sullied by his own excreta. Looked like he hadn’t been fed in weeks and the water hadn’t been changed in years.

We brought the container home, cleaned up his water and voila - the fiery, valiant Betta, unfazed by his ordeals, just swimming around and looking at us curiously.

Me: Wow… that is some story!

GP: There’s more. You can’t feed a Betta regular fish food. It’s not enough. They’re used to eating other fish, so they need something a lot more nutritious.

Me: Okay?

GP: Nearly 6 months ago, I had stepped into a store to buy food for the gold fish. I was running late for class, so I picked up the first bottle I found and then when I came home, I realized that it was meant for Betta fish. So my roommate picked up a bottle of regular food. I had been meaning to return the Betta fish food for 6 months but it kept slipping my mind. So when we cleaned this guy’s water and realized he was a Betta fish, I knew exactly what I could feed him!

Me: I don’t know what to say. Makes you wonder, huh?

GP: Tell me about it.

Me: So what’s his name?

GP: I haven’t been able to think of one that’s fitting yet.

Me: I think it ought to be Wale.

GP: Hm, well sure, why not.

Wednesday, 27 June

Cabbie: ‘Morning Miss, how are you today?

Me: I’m good, thanks. How are you?

Cabbie: I’m good, I’m good.. where are we going today?

Me: West Nursery, 312

Cabbie: That’s just down the road from here!

Me: Yes, it is, but it’s too far to walk!

Cabbie: Ah, so you’re the Indian girl they told me about!

Me: Who?!

Cabbie: The other cab drivers. My friend Ray is a fan!

Me: Ray’s a sweet guy. Are you from Trinidad too?

Cabbie: No, no, I’m from Nigeria.

Me: Ah, ok. You visit often?

Cabbie: No, it’s been 6 years…

Me: Will you go back soon?

Cabbie: I hope so.. maybe go home for a bit in December this year… but I don’t know. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.

Me: Where are you from in Nigeria? Lagos?

Cabbie: You been?!

Me: No, my cousins lived in Lagos for a bit.

Cabbie: Wow! It’s a small world eh?

Me: It is, if you know my cousins!

Cabbie: You know, I have cousins in Lagos too!

Me: You don’t say! What’s your name?

Cabbie: Wa-lay.

Me: W-a-l-a-y?

Cabbie: No, W-a-l-e, Wa-lay.

Me: That’s a nice name, what does it mean?

Cabbie: Oh, you would not believe me!

Me: Why not? What does it mean?!

Cabbie: In the dialect I speak, Wale means “No matter where you go, remember to come back home.”

-Rigged /-

-Rigged /-

So said the song by Joni Mitchel. Here are some of the clouds I saw last week. Some of them are on a cloudy day here in Hyderabad and the others are from Kolkata.

 

Hyderabad, by the Waterfront

 

 

Kolkota, the other side

 

-Rigged /-