Ok, the festivities are over, I’m back to my old tricks again. A big thanks to all those who made it a special season, and an official notification to those who did not; you are now on The List.
This being the New Year according to some Gregorian chaps I’ve never met, it is necessary to make some resolutions. Hence, I resolve not to shoot any foxes, nor will I ever buy a 140-foot yacht. I hope I will find the strength in my inner beliefs and convictions to stick to these resolutions.

Remember those red plastic binocular thingies we used to have as kids, in which you inserted a round cardboard dial that had tiny film slides on it, and we used to see wonderful places around the world? What was it called, and more importantly, what has happened to it? (I don’t want silly answers like “The internet happened to it”, or “They never introduced slides with smutty pictures so it obviously died out”.)

On a happier note, after an hour-long televisual tour of churches brought on by the festive season and the birthday of Christmas, I am reminded of old Homer (the philosopher, not the Iliad bloke) who said -“I may not know much about Jebus, but I think we built him a pretty nice cage”

I saw King Kong. The best part was the Orange mobile network advert at the beginning where John Cleese is trying to sell a story to the Orange board.
They say “You English guys are soo funny” in a mock-British accent. And “Oh those Monty-Sneaky-Pythony guys” has to be an absolute beauty!!
You had to be there!

This is what Jonathon Ross of Film 2005 fame has to say about “The march of the penguins” (heavily paraphrased)

“They (Americans) haven’t been spoiled like we have by natural wildlife programs that are generally superior to this film”

As you know, I’m a big fan of the BBC and David Attenborough.

I heard this said of a car:- “It has more computing power than took man to the moon”. Which sounds great untill you realise what exactly the computing power that took man to the moon was. As I trawl google now, I see that nobody really has a clue either, but that’s not stopping them from using this phrase.

We had a nice dinner at Rusholme yesterday, Bingboula, Jessy, Shasha, Dmitri, Ioannis, Rayk and I. This Sanam sweet place was good enough, but I must say the food wasn’t upto Sangam standards. Ah, once you’ve had the best, it’s difficult to accept sub-standard fare. But we had a good laugh, and time just flew past us. Which led me to think of how I’ll miss some people when they’re not around. I managed to snap a few photos; I think a photo gallery might make its way onto this site soon (depending on how busy my I.T. Support team is).

Managed to get some shoes to replace my aging trainers yesterday with the help of my friends; that appears to be just about the extent of my Xmas shopping this year. Although I suspect I might slip in a cheeky little spree if anyone else is going round. Oh, and I got my first Xmas card yesterday as well, thank you!!

Going to play squash now; there’s three of us and we’ve booked two courts, so I guess there’ll be a lot of tomfoolery going on unless we find someone there to join in. Then we’ll cook a meal together and hit the cinemas. I fancy King Kong (the movie, not the bloke in the gorilla costume) /)

A heart-felt congratulations to everyone who graduated yesterday, it was wonderful seeing everybody proudly file up on stage, and it made me realise how many wonderful people I was privileged to meet over the course of this magical year at Manchester Business School.

I hope the poor guy who was knocked unconscious by the bus is ok. I really felt like I should stop and help in some way, but there was a free buffet at MBS, and I didn’t want to be late. I believe Johnny actually trampled over that guy’s prone body in his rush to get to the head of the table. Ah, but on the flipside the food wasn’t bad, and there was free beer to those who could get their mitts on it. Me. Every cloud, every cloud…

We did, however, feel more than slightly let down by the complete absence of any of our teachers, who presumably had more important things to do than watch their charges for a year step up and be honoured. It felt odd when some complete stranger shook my hand and congratulated me on my hard work, because anyone who knows me knows that I don’t even enter the building if hard work is knocking about in the vicinity. Hell, I try not to even say that too often, it simply tires me thinking about it. As J.K.J said, “I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.”

Another beef, of course was that Ioannis had to sit on his own, AND wasn’t awarded his certificate despite being our distinction student.

That’s a song by Chris Isaak, if you didn’t know. Tomorrow we will be wearing mortar bombs on our heads and long black gowns with double stripes, and.. what? Oh, it’s mortar boards, is it? Coz I was kinda wondering. I mean, I’m all for tradition and all that, you know, keep the torch burning and stuff, but not if it’s too painful, if you get me. Oh thank heavens for that.

And here’s another gem from the top comedy “Peep Show”. Adam (David Mitchell) on saying “I love you”:-

“Saying that is like shooting first in a duel; if you miss, you’re fucked!”

Been eating like a King recently. You know of the pizza of Thursday. Yesterday’s fare? Beef and spinach curry with cumin and onion rice, and a side dish of chickpeas and potatoes. Today, after a special dosa at Rusholme (an Indian pancake with spicy potato stuffing) I’m now at Ioannis’, waiting to eat a chicken curry we made.

I saw Narnia yesterday, after rushing to catch it from this great Italian restaurant which serves stonebaked pizzas just-a like-a Mamma used to make-a them-a. I was really bowled over, and although the service was slow, we had reason to believe it was because of the huge party they were preparing for at the adjacent tables. If you guys are good to me, I might let slip the name of this Findus Superbus. Heck, I might even take you there myself, so I can have another go.

Narnia, then. I really enjoyed it, because I had read the book so many moons ago that I was half-expecting to see a white rabbit with watch pop up. That kept the suspense factor alive for me, while the story was just predictable enough for me to pretend to remember stuff from the book (Och, the devious bugger!). It is very engrossing and believable, and top marks for acting go to the little girl who plays Lucy, although good child actors always worry me, as I might have mentioned earlier. Ok, I see I haven’t mentioned it earlier. To summarise; a good actor has to be a good phony, and it doesn’t seem right that a child should know how to switch a smile on and off at will. Or perhaps it’s the precocity of the little nippers that unsettles me.
The film is quite sanitized though; even with the obligatory CGI battle scene that all movie-going audiences demand today, there was nary a drop of blood to be seen.

First off, congratulations to Scotland…. the WORLD CHAMPIONS!!!
“Eh?”, I hear you ask. Scotland has claimed top spot in the World Elephant Polo championship in Nepal for the second time running.
The captain says “To win this is a mammoth task” 🙂

And boohoo for United fans, as the Mancunians failed to even secure a place in the UEFA tournament. Shame!!!