Sunday perambulations

I had quite a relaxed weekend. The wife had stamped her foot down earlier in the week and a wise man takes the hint. Sunday - I ended up going to work Saturday at the last minute - morning started off quite early in comparison to most Sunday mornings. I was quite undecided whether I wanted to watch the first-ever Chinese F1 GP or just go out and catch a movie and lunch.

I know I've married the right woman because she had been hinting all week that we could go to Sidewok for appetisers and then someplace downtown for lunch. Or I could improvise and come up with something better.

Since I couldn't find much fault with that logic - it got rid of the thinking and it was her plan after all - and so we left for Sidewok. I gambled on the fact that

• the World Championship had been won two weeks ago
• Michael Schumacher was starting P20
• it was too early in India for most people to wake up and crowd to a restaurant

I only made a mistake with the race timings and so by the time we walked into Sidewok, the race was already 5 laps down. The atmosphere was rather infectious and I had a great race. So did Rubens Barrichello and Scuderia Ferrari, who won the first-ever Chinese F1 GP. Perhaps the only one who didn't have any fun, I guess, was Michael Schumacher.

He started last, worked his way up the order and then down, spun around once more, suffered a puncture, a collision and was actually lapped by the drivers in the points. This is one weekend he - and I - won't forget in a hurry. For someone who has finished in the points in every race that he has finished in the last five years, I guess this brought together all the bad luck in store for him!

Michael Schumacher apart, the Shanghai circuit provided for a lot of overtaking opportunities and the Williams, BARs, Renaults and McLarens had many a kerfluffle at the chicanes. Since this was the first race ever, it took away any advantage that Michael Schumacher has at every other circuit. Jacques Villeneuve was back and racing for Renault in place of Jarno Trulli. Takuma Sato actully finished his race without blowing up his engine. Ralf Schumacher started well but then retired after a collision with David Coulthard.

The race over, I laboured to finish what the wife had ordered - and only nibbled at - then waddled as fast as I could to the car and drove to Sterling, to catch "The Terminal". The wife had been keen to see "The Village" but something told me we'd have a long wait between lunch and the five o'clock show, so I'd ended up buying tickets for "The Terminal" instead.

"The Terminal" turned out to be quite an amusing movie. Since it is inspired by the story of Merhan Karimi Nasseri, who has been stranded at Charles de Gaulle Airport since 1988, I expected it to be a tear-jerker, but I'm quite surprised by the treatment given by Steven Spielberg. Oh well, I guess that's what they call an artistic licence.

Midway through the movie, the wife and I agreed - on an impulse - to watch "The Village" so out I went and bought tickets for the following show - I got the same seats!! There we were, back again watching "The Village".

I'd rate this effort next to "The Sixth Sense" though there are a lot of tell-tale clues that give away the plot less than three-fourths into the movie. The twist wasn't entirely unexpected, though I had rejected the final outcome as being too farfetched. M. Night Shyamalan has done a decent job on this plot, making the movie watchable. Not quite as scintillating, not quite as unexpected as "The Sixth Sense", but close.

Injury time

OK, so Team India lost, once more. Choked at the death, as is becoming an annoyingly regular habit. Lost to the Pakis, to add to the slur.

But has anyone kept a track of the number of times that Pakistan have used a runner for their batsmen, when the going is not good? I find it very intriguing how Yousuf Youhana managed to walk - quite briskly, may I add - from the pitch after the match was over. It's also very intriguing how many times they've used the runner effectively to win a match against India. I wonder if Wisden or anyone else has those statistics?

The jury's out on this one....

In convenience

I had yet another experience with the famed Indian paradigm of technological progress. Deciding to make reservations for our journey to visit my in-laws for Diwali, I logged on to the IRCTC website which actually handles the online booking for the Indian Railways. This is something I've always wondered about - why on Earth does the catering and tourism department handle the online booking? Shouldn't the Railways be doing it themselves? Or are they simply proving the adage: Too many cooks spoil the broth?

Anyways, the familiar Indian-Government-Undertaking touch kicked in as soon as I logged on. The website was way too fast: Each page took only about 10 minutes loading. I only had to retry about 50 times - after each attempt, I got a higher wait-list number - to load the correct page. At most times, it returned the cryptic message that communication had failed. While I waited for the page to load, the system automatically berated me for sitting idle and logged me out. I could get my tickets done in four hours only, sitting in the convenience of my airconditioned office.

To while away some more time, I looked for a helpful tab that might have said Feedback but it wasn't there. Obviously, Lalu and his slaves aren't going to be able to read English and my browser doesn't do Hindi, so there was no use providing the option, right? It also ensures that the agency can say that they've been running without any complaints for the past three years. Increases their efficiency and perhaps helps them get close to that Six Sigma certification.

No comebacks

For any supporter of McLaren, Williams, Renault and BAR, the start of yesterday's race must have provided plenty of reasons to cheer. Michael Schumacher spun off on the second chicane - something that's been very rare all of this season - and Rubens Barrichello was quickly outpaced by the fifth lap, running on intermediate tyres. The podium looked well and truly out of Ferrari's grasp then, what with Michael Schumacher dropping back by almost half a minute and Rubens Barrichello struggling to get back into the lead after starting from pole.

It wasn’t until the 37th lap of the Italian Grand Prix that Ferrari truly got their claws into the race, which makes their one-two result all the more impressive. “Some people say that F1 is boring, but there was nothing boring about today’s race,” winner Rubens Barrichello declared. And he was right. It was one of those races, like Spa, that emanated interest right down the order.

All in all, the pit-stop politics of Ferrari's Ross Brawn paid off. Ultimately, Michael Schumacher came in second to Rubens Barrichello's well deserved win.

Who said there are no comebacks?

Sold on GMail

OK, so I got GMail. Too.

I got my invite from an excited aunt in Dubai, who asked me if I was interested in getting one because she had only two more invitations left to send out. And if I wasn't interested, she said, she could sell the invitation. That's apparently the newest racket in the Middle East. Get an invitation after paying someone and - most likely - you'll get a chance to invite more people. Sell those invitations and make a small bundle.

Wonder if the guys from of Google know of this?