Of captaincy and perverted nomenclature
Ho hum ho hum. 2004 it is. A new year with new hope, new expectations, new ambitions and most importantly the European Football Championships. A tournament better than the World Cup anyday. The World Cup is a joke really. I know I know. The game has to be globalised. But thats doesnt mean you let countries like Jamaica or New Zealand play in the World CUp. But then they let UAE play cricket. All you sports organizing people out there, the writing is on the wall. Everyone cant play EVERYTHING. What will we have to suffer next? Ethopians and Somalians doing body building???

Staying on playful issues, Steve Waugh is to retire after this most momentuous test. And ironically there are Australians who think he was a BAD captain. Oh yes there are. They say he inherited a great team, but only managed to turn them into ill-mannered brutes on the pitch. "He condoned sledging and bad behaviour". I'd like to meet these wonderful people. Are they the people who call Cricket "The Gentleman's Game"? Good Lord. A game where someone throws a chunk of leather and cork at you at 140 km per hour. And you have all of a bat as wide as my thigh to protect yourself.

They have made concessions of course. An inpenetrable wall of 1.5 millimetres of plastic to protect your genitalia. "Oh yes lad you may get hit midships, but you won't feel a thing... till the match is over". Yeah.. and then you won't feel a thing forever... You won't stay a gentleman for too long in this game. If cricket is the gentleman's game, Ice Hockey should be ... "The Psychopathic Chain-Killing Cannibal Cocaine-Snorting Sado-Masochistic Man's Weekend out with the Family". These whining chicken-livered morons obviously havent seen such sports like soccer and american football. You idiots!!! In these sports they ACTUALLY touch other... with their knees and elbows. My sister once asked me why they rub the ball all over their crotches and back sides. I told her its so that they can get the paint off. "Oh... then why do they paint it in the first place?" Currently she does not intend to pursue an MBA program.

My trip home had some pristine moments of unanticipated humour. On a trip to Thrissur, I came across a shop with a most intiguing name. So intriguing, I had to find out what the owner was thinking of when he named it. A little investigation brough out a thrilling story. The owner had a daughter called Anupama or Anushree or something. So he decides to name the shop after her. "Anumapa Textiles". When the name board he ordered came he finds to his consternation that the board is way too long for his quaint shop and wouldnt fit in the facade outside. So he shortens it to "Anu's Textiles". Then came a day of fierce wind and rain. And alas, the apostrophe fell off. So now he's left with a rather anatomically challenged establishment. He was not doing roaring business.

And thus the new year beckons. I do hope we win this test match. Winning a tour abroad is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Domain Maximus, rest assured, will be there to keep tabs on the latest in global and local happenings. Here's wishing everyone out there a cracking good 2004, with lots of foreign jobs, PPOs, illicit booze and romantic interludes.

Viva Wimwi!!!