Shilpa Shetty’s wedding reception at Grand Hyatt was attended by many Bollywood stars including Aishwarya Rai, Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan and his wife Gauri Khan, Hrithik Roshan and his wife, Amisha Patel, Sunil Shetty, Javed Akthar, Shabana Azmi and many more.Here goes……

Nd now for the wedding girl herself..

Indian consumers spent about £2bn on luxury goods last year, and spending on luxury goods is expected to reach £15bn by 2015, according to consultancy AT Kearney. Meanwhile, the number of Indian billionaires has almost doubled since last year, growing from 27 in 2008 to 52 this year, according to Forbes Asia.

Aqui um report sobre os mercados do BRIC da AT Kearney.

Kawałek nieba jest w każdym uśmiechu,
w każdym życzliwym słowie,
i przyjaznym geście,
w każdym pomocnym czynie,
kawałek raju jest w każdym sercu,
które stanowi zbawienny port dla nieszczęśliwego,
w każdym domu z chlebem,winem i serdecznym ciepłem.
Bóg włożył swoją miłość w Twoje ręce,jak klucz do raju.

Czasami wydaje nam się, że mieszka w nas dwóch różnych ludzi. Jeden, który wszystko doskonale czyni i tego człowieka prezentujemy światu. Jest też i ten drugi, którego się wstydzimy, i tego ukrywamy. W każdym człowieku istnieje coś takiego jak wewnętrzny dysonans i niespójność. Każdy chciałby być dobry, a jedynie dokonuje czynów, których sam często nie rozumie.
Dlaczego tak jest? Dlatego, że człowiek nie jest Bogiem, nie jest też aniołem, ani jakąś nadistotą, a jedynie małym pielgrzymem w długiej, dalekiej drodze swojego życia. Własne słabości czynią go wyrozumiałym i łagodnym w stosunku do innych. Ktoś, kto jest bezkrytyczny wobec samego siebie, będzie twardy i niezdolny wczuć się w innych. Nie będzie umiał nikogo pocieszyć, dodać odwagi i wybaczyć. Szczęście i przyjaźń tkwią tam, gdzie ludzie są wrażliwi, łagodni i delikatni w słowach, i wzajemnie kontaktach.
— Phil Bosmans

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

‘Shameful Flight’ relates the history of the final years of the British Raj in India, including the partition of India into both Pakistan (West and East) and India, and the early hostility of the two new nations destined for perpetual warfare in such regions as the Kashmir.The history of this era of political instability on the subcontinent includes all the main players from Great Britain, India and Pakistan.These main players include Winston Churchill, Viceroy Louis Mountbatten, Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru and Quaid-i-Azam Jinnah. There is not a single figure in this history of India’s partition who comes out of it in a good light, though several seem to have had very well-intentioned aims and motivations. It is the true story of lost opportunity and the devastating consequences of human pride and selfishness that have reverberated down through the decades to the present day and remain visible in the continuing clashes between India and Pakistan, as well as in the extremism expressed in both the Islamic and Hindu communities throughout the sub-continent. It is a story of perpetual tragedy and human suffering with no end in sight.

This book is extremely easy to read, passes on a wealth of historical information and whets the appetite for further research on the India/Pakistan situation. It provides enlightenment, by bringing understanding to the current political instability in both India and Pakistan, by clearly revealing the root of the problem – the manner of the birth of both nations out of British imperialism and that nation’s final haphazard departure aptly described as a ‘Shameful Flight.’ This is a great book for understanding the sub-continent and the wounds it still carries to this day.

This book was provided to me for review by Oxford University Press – www.oup.com

Well, news just in…

An Indian in the Forbes list of World’s 10 Most Outrageous CEOs as The Mint newspaper reports here, and The Hindu reports here.

Good ol’ Ramalinga Raju. He surely has created a legacy….

apám lucskos fasza álna a valogadba .

the Big Bang Theory
“The Adhesive Duck”
(Season 03 Episode 08)

RAJ:
- If I could speak the language of rabbits, they would be amazed and I would be their king…

- I would be kind to my rabbit subjects… at first….

- One day, I hold a great ball for the President of France, but the rabbits don’t come. I’m embarrassed so I eat all the lettuce in the world.. and make the rabbits watch.

Saibal, Prabal’s brother, has been inviting people to the “engagement” reception.  For those who are close to the family they get an invitation personally.  The office staff, of course, is invited.  They really are characters…and have turned into a nice little family.  The only one missing is Mithu.  She gets back to work quickly after she eats.

Brajesh (bottom), Raj (middle) and Pramila

I forgot Pijush was hiding in the background.  He is the newest member of Athena eSolutions.  He takes care of all the errands of the office and home.  He can also EAT a HUMONGOUS amount of rice!  OMG! I don’t know where he puts it.  It’s like 3 times the amount any of the other guys eat!  Even THEY are amazed.   I’m going to have to get a photo of that soon!

“The Vengeance Formulation”

November 23rd, 2009

Last week, the show chose to split its story between something that works (Sheldon and Penny) and something that doesn’t (Leonard, Wolowitz and Raj on their own), resulting in an episode that was a mixed bag (although perhaps a bit better than I gave it credit for, as my distaste for the latter perhaps overshadowed the strength of the former).

This week, however, the show returns to more of an ensemble structure, and while nothing reaches the heights of adhesive ducks it’s a solid episode as a whole because it manages a reasonably emotional Wolowitz storyline with a cheap but not ineffective Sheldon storyline. There was every chance for these two elements to go off the rails (based on both the show’s tradition of misusing Wolowitz and the presence of Kripke), so the fact that they stayed moderately in orbit makes this a victory, if not exactly an overwhelming success.

When it comes to Wolowitz, I strongly believe that less is more, unless the show decides to do what they did here and turn Wolowitz from obnoxious to introspective. While interacting with a fantasy version of Katee Sackhoff isn’t genius or anything, it allows Wolowitz to stop acting like he runs the joint and actually come to terms with his delusions. The naked bathtub fantasy version of Katee Sackhoff spoke the truth, and while there were signs of the old Wolowitz (feeling more slighted by the fact that Sackhoff’s date was tall as opposed to handsome, since he actually believes he is handsome) for the most part he was honest with himself. Sure, he messes up his romantic overtures to Bernadette, but he was legitimately charming during his tone deaf wailing at episode’s end, and the fact that Howard was given any continuity at all in terms of a relationship is such a huge step forward that I think it’s commendable.

It also shows how even Howard, who to this point one couldn’t imagine in a relationship, is effectively getting the relationship stories that Leonard has been given in the past, except ones that are actually funny. While Sheldon in a relationship might be too ludicrous, and Raj in a relationship has been made impossible by the alcohol gimmick, Howard and Leonard are both effectively eligible, but the show has always resisted treating Howard seriously (by having his actual skills be so outmatched by his capability), sending him off to gothic night clubs and moving him away from legitimate couplings. However, while Leonard’s relationships tended to be neurotic and sort of dull, Howard’s relationship is (to use his own word) quirky in a way that adds a fun dynamic to the show. Sure, I’m not a huge fan of his relationship with his shrill mother, and I could have used less talk about what he was doing in the tub, but for once the show didn’t actually treat him like a horny 15-year old, and for this I was most grateful and certainly entertained.

As for the other half of the episode, it really comes down to how funny you find someone talking in a high-pitched voice and how you feel about Eric Kripke. Twitter user SnowDan mentioned that he likes Kripke because it’s ironic that the university bully has a lisp (which would, outside of that world, make him subject to bullying), but I’ve always felt like that joke has been long ago used up in favour of dialogue that calls attention to the lisp unnecessarily. The idea of Sheldon having a nemesis is funny on its own, which is why Leslie Winkle was more interesting to me (especially because the gender politics of it all wreaked havoc with Sheldon’s already problematic ability to respond in kind) than someone both more dully mean-spirited and less witty. Beyond the broad irony, that for me was not clever enough to sustain the character beyond a first appearance, the character is a normal guy who has a lisp, and most of the humour derived from the character has been through how he says it rather than what he says.

But I thought that this week’s story was less let down by Kripke (who on only a few occasions fell into traps like “Wiot”) and more by a single decision. I like the general principle of the storyline, with Sheldon’s big moment turning into an embarrassment and his attempt at vengeance going horribly, horribly wrong. There’s something very solid about that, and even when I know that we’re never going to get to see the aftermath (since everything will, conveniently for Sheldon, reset next week) the uncontrollable chaos of the final sequence was even communicated through webcam. However, where the storyline suffered was that the joke of Sheldon and his high-pitched voice didn’t appear to actually be Jim Parsons with helium, nor Jim Parsons faking such a voice. Unless I’m mistaken, the voice was looped in during post-production, which if true is a huge disappointment, and took me out of the scene regardless.

There were a number of things in this episode that bugged me a bit, like how the other guys so quickly joined in on laughing at Sheldon on the radio (as it was national radio, after all), or how Raj was too busy making fun of Sheldon to help Leonard try to get him out of bed, or how Penny’s self-awareness about her relationship with Leonard didn’t extend to her realizing that they have no actual chemistry and that sitting in close proximity to each other does not a relationship make. But none of these elements felt like they were the point of their respective storylines: Sheldon’s embarrassment was necessary to get to his vengeance gone awry, and Penny needed to be aware of her own relationship so she could objectively view Wolowitz’s and be able to ward off Bernadette.

And those two storylines worked, coming to solid conclusions that were either narratively satisfying or humorously destructive. They didn’t offer any particular comic highs, but they didn’t offend any of my sensibilities either, so I can’t really complain.

Cultural Observations

• Katee Sackhoff in the tub makes me realize that some part of me feels obligated to watch 24 this season with her being part of the cast.
• It says something about the show’s conditioning to not bother remembering things from previous episodes that it took me a while to figure out if Bernadette was actually the person on whom Wolowitz went on a double date a while back. However, I’ll give them this: her trait of not getting Wolowitz’s jokes was memorable enough that I was at least 75% sure.
• While some small moments bugged me, I thought Sheldon nailing the whoopie cushion gag on Leonard really did prove its comic validity.
• And just in case we weren’t sure, apparently Raj is delicious caramel.
• If Sepinwall writes a review, I think “as soon as I play Cylon and Colonist” seems like the obvious “after the jump” line. We’ll see if I’m right.

Ahh, how I miss Mondays – when I was at school, that is. Mondays used to be my best day: no maths, and home time at 12.30pm. But that’s not all; Monday evening is host to a number of amazing shows – The Big Bang Theory, The Vampire Diaries and FlashForward (though, unfortunately for me; TVD and FF are on at the same time but on different channels so I have to tape one or the other and then watch it after).

It’s conventional in society to hate Mondays – they typify the beginning of the working week and are the furthest away from the weekend. But for a whole year, Monday has been nothing but good to me. I think if people added something to their Mondays – something they liked – then Mondays wouldn’t be so dreadful.

1) Pick a hobby/favourite past time of yours

This may be something as typical as shopping or going to the movies. But, if you live in Australia – or in particular, Melbourne – you will find that shopping centres close at 5pm on weekdays (except for Thurs and Fri) and that while cinemas stay open until midnight (or at least until the last session ends), there may not be anything showing currently that tickles your fancy. Also – movie tickets seem to be rising in prices like crazy these days.

So, when you find yourself in such a pickle – you can always rent out movies. Monday night can be movie night! If there aren’t any new releases; you are bound to find something in the weeklies section that interests you.

If movies are not your thing; how about a girls night out? Or in? Monday is a week night, but that doesn’t mean you can’t hang out after work or go out in the evening. Unlike school, there’s no homework/exams to study for so it’s not like you need a solid 8 hours sleep before every night . There’s nothing like spending quality time with friends.

2. Start doing it every Monday

Once you’ve picked your favourite past time/hobby/whatever it is that interests you; make sure you allocate it to Monday nights specifically. Though this depends on how well you follow this step. If you save your favourite hobby for only one day of the week, not only will you find Monday nights more bearable, but you will also find yourself looking forward to Monday night in order to complete your favourite past time.

Seems simple enough, eh? If more people did this, Monday night would not be so prejudiced against! Let’s join together and beat this irrational discrimination against this day of the week which has in theory, never done anything but add another day to our lives

Until next time.

-Ania

Finally I have sumthing on which I agree to,  for an issue which Raj’s MNS is highlighting

He has touched upon the fact that the website of BSE shud also be in the local language Marathi , so that the local populace may also be familiar in dealing with the intricacies of the  bourses and the financial markt

This i think is a perfectly valid point and if practical shud be acted upon . A very nice idea ..

Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (DSPS)

When I was five, my mum and dad took me to a sleep clinic because my body clock was very wrong. I’d sleep in until about 3pm and not sleep until late at night. I think the doctor’s told them that I’d grow out of it and guess what? I never did.

Delayed sleep-phase syndrome (DSPS), also known as delayed sleep-phase disorder (DSPD) or delayed sleep-phase type (DSPT), is a circadian rhythm sleep disorder, a chronic disorder of the timing of sleep, peak period of alertness, core body temperature, hormonal and other daily rhythms relative to societal norms. People with DSPS tend to fall asleep some hours after midnight and have difficulty waking up in the morning.

I remember when I was little (this is probably how I used to watch The X-Files before I could read properly) and I used to get out of bed and Martin used to shout, “Charlotte’s out of bed!” and the thing was, it wasn’t my fault that I was awake late! My mum and dad obviously knew something wasn’t right because they took me to see someone about it. Even when I had a routine I was struggling with my sleep patterns. When I was at school and when I was at 6th form, I used come home from Chris’ at 10pm and sometimes if Martin was on the PC, I’d go straight to bed. It’d take me hours to fall asleep and I’d still have difficulty waking up in the morning. You could say that I’m awake all night because I sleep late – I’m up late because I’m awake all night. My body clock is messed up.

Often, people with the disorder report that they cannot sleep until early morning, but fall asleep at about the same time every “night”. Unless they have another sleep disorder such as sleep apnea in addition to DSPS, patients can sleep well and have a normal need for sleep. Therefore, they find it very difficult to wake up in time for a typical school or work day. If, however, they are allowed to follow their own schedules, e.g. sleeping from 4 a.m. to noon, they sleep soundly, awaken spontaneously, and do not experience excessive daytime sleepiness.
The syndrome usually develops in early childhood or adolescence,[1] and sometimes disappears in adolescence or early adulthood. Depending on the severity, it can be to a greater or lesser degree treatable. Prevalence among adults, equally distributed among women and men, is approximately 0.15% or three in 2000.

I think now that I don’t have a routine, it’s really prevalent. It says on the Wikipedia that it’s responisble for 7-10% of people’s chronic insomnia so yay me! ¬_¬ I can literally stay up all night even if I had to get up early. I do not have a regular sleep pattern. Funny thing is, when I go on holiday, I have a perfectly normal one! I can still go to bed late and wake up at a semi normal time!

The major feature of these disorders is a misalignment between the patient’s sleep pattern and the sleep pattern that is desired or regarded as the societal norm…. In most circadian rhythm sleep disorders, the underlying problem is that the patient cannot sleep when sleep is desired, needed or expected.

That last bit is true and so incredibly annoying! It’s usually when I have to get up early and just cannot sleep! The article is an interesting read and it tells you a bit more about me and my sleeping issues. There’s loads more I can quote – bits that I nodded at and it rang true with me. It’s good that I finally understand my issues! (Well, not all of them )

I would say, ’so onto other things’ but I have nothing else to say. Well, Raj and I are talking about Vincent Van Gogh and how I relate to him (I actually to, don’t mock me!!!). My mum even said that “Vincent” by Don McClean could be about me. No one appreciates me or my art! (by art, I mean my photography and writing. If you want to see my photograpy, there’s a link on the right ). Maybe people will understand me before I go mad and top myself. As the song says, no one understands me and no one is willing to. But that’s ok. I don’t need people’s approval. At least all the time.

It was pouring down earlier! I was gonna clean the bunnies out but it started and then it got dark

X-Factor time and Stacey is on. I love her, I think she’s great. I said last week that I want her or Joe to win, definitely! Her singing was good but the song was a bit dull.

Anyway, laters. Might update in a bit

x

Martes 17 de noviembre

WARNER CHANNEL a las 20:30 hrs, SKY 205, CABLEVISIÓN 210

THE BIG BANG THEORY Warner 2009

Raj necesita encontrar un trabajo rápido o de lo contrario tendrá que regresar a la India. Mientras tanto, Howard hace papel de mal tercio con Leonard y Penny.

Nerds getting high is comedic gold.  Last nights episode of The Big Bang Theory was a real return to what made this show so great.  We got away from the Penny/Leonard relationship and saw the guys geeking out and some classic Penny Sheldon interaction.

Leonard, Raj and Howard are camping so that they can witness a meteor shower away from the lights of the city.  Sheldon stays home for some reason, and while the guys are enjoying being away from him for a night, he is enjoying what he hopes will be a night away from human interaction.  Since there was no overlap in the two stories from last night I’ll handle each one separately.

At the camp site the guys are all set up with everything they need for a night of looking at meteor showers.  They have everything a nerd could want while camping including their laptops and their satellite TV.  Since they have about five hours to kill before the meteor shower begins so Howard goes to check out the other campsites, of course looking for girls.  He comes back to report that the pickings are slim, since most of the other campers are nerds like them, but he did come across two middle school teachers in their 50’s driving a VW bus and wearing tye-died Greatful Dead shirts who gave him some cookies.  He hands them out, and it turns out they were made with something other than flour, milk and eggs.

The guys aren’t worried about the meteor shower much longer and they spend the rest of the evening being stoned.  They are either starring up at the sky making realizations about their life or they are scavenging for more food after they eat all of theirs.  Luckly for them, Howard’s mom packed a emergency brisket  so they don’t have to go steal from the Cub Scouts.  While they are enjoying it they miss the meteor shower.

Back at the apartment, Sheldon is enjoying his alone time when he hears Penny faintly calling his name.  When he eventually gets to her he finds that she has fallen inthe shower and dislocated her shoulder.  He is the only one that can help her.  Since she can’t dress herself or drive he is forced to do both, neither of which he is all that comfortable doing.  He’s never dressed a woman before nor has he driven a real car.  They eventually get Penny dressed (Sheldon peaked and accidently grabbed her boob) and to the hospital.  Of course nothing is simple with Sheldon and it takes  a little while to fill out the paperwork.  When he finally gets her home ina  sling and quite drugged up he puts her into bed and they sing a little “Soft Kitty.”

Thoughts and Observations:

• I know I wasn’t the only one out there that thought that Penny was going to kiss Sheldon, right?  There as a little bit of sexual tension?  Not that Sheldon would have noticed or contributed to it at all.
• Howard lost his virginity to his cousin.  Classic, as was the song that Raj was singing about it.
• Leonard just realized that his name has the word NERD in it.  “I hate my name. It has ‘nerd’ in it. ‘Len. Nerd.’”
• Raj wants to be the King of the Rabbits.  “If I could speak the language of rabbits, they would be amazed, and I would be their king.  I would be kind to my rabbit subjects… at first.”
• Penny has a tattoo of what she thought was the Chinese character for courage on her right ass-cheek.  Sheldon points out that it’s actually the Chinese character for Soup.  I always wonder when I see a girl with a Chinese character tattoo on her if it really is what she thinks it is or if the tattoo artist was having fun at her expense.
• “You keep in mind that my sharply worded comments on yelp.com recently took down a muffin store.”- Sheldon when he isn’t allowed to make 1/2 and 1/4 orders of his regular dinner order.

“The Adhesive Duck Deficiency”

November 16th, 2009

I’ve not been remiss in noticing that the Sheldon/Penny shipping community has taken an interest in these reviews, and I want to make sure they know that I always appreciate the comments. And, because I’ve been following along with the group, alarm bells went off when this week’s episode of The Big Bang Theory separated Sheldon and Penny from the rest of the group. In some ways, the episode’s opening scenes actually played out like fan fiction, and we were reminded that, as usual, this sort of pairing is when the show is at its best (even if I feel as if the show will never, ever, take this relationship to anything beyond a tenuous mutual tolerance).

However, unfortunately for this episode, something about the storyline never quite lived up to its full potential, and more problematically the other half of the episode was the epitome of half-baked (yeah, I went there). While the Sheldon and Penny storyline was enjoyable in the way that Sheldon stories always are, and Jim Parsons is as hilarious as ever, it lacked (until the end) the heart of their more enjoyable plots. And since the show’s two most interesting characters in terms of creating different dynamics were on their own, this left the rest of the guys to fend for themselves.

And while Sheldon and Penny might be a good combination for the show’s comic potential, nothing can give me back the time spent on the other half of this episode.

By the time Sheldon and Penny got to the end of their storyline, the heart was there: “Soft Kitty” tends to bring out the best in these two to begin with, and playing into the legacy of their past interactions (like when Sheldon was sick and the “Soft Kitty” story was first originated) is a good way to tie everything together, and the scene was legitimately very funny. However, the storyline as a whole felt like a number of scenes that either went too broad (like Sheldon touching her in an inappropriate place while she was naked) or felt laboured (I don’t see why Sheldon wouldn’t have been able to call a taxi considering they had all of the time to wait for it while she was slowly getting dressed, making it just an excuse to put Sheldon behind the wheel). While there’s a lot of comic potential in this pairing, the show didn’t really stretch its boundaries at all when it came to their interactions. I thought the scene in the Hospital waiting room had some fun lines, but to be honest there was something disturbing about Sheldon being so quick to diagnose Penny with various disorders considering the eccentricity of his own behaviour.

There’s a point where Sheldon’s lack of social awareness is fun and clever, like when he writes the cause of the fall as “a lack of adhesive ducks.” There are other moments, though, where he’s legitimately offensive and mean to her, and while I understand that this is part of the character (judging Penny as overly emotional pretty much at all times) I don’t find it particularly humorous. I’m not suggesting that the two need to get along like gangbusters, but there’s something somewhat artificial about the fact that they can only tolerate one another when one of them is deathly ill or hopped up on painkillers. It’s like the running gag with Raj being unable to speak without alcohol: it was a funny gag once, but over time it becomes a hindrance to telling any new stories, as all interactions default to the same basic mode when certain characters are involved. If this was the first time we had seen a Penny/Sheldon story like this, I would have probably enjoyed it more, but it fell into a pattern that sort of took me out of it.

It was still leagues better than the subplot, however, which has is Leonard, Raj and Howard all getting high in the desert waiting for the Leonid Meteor Shower to start (it’s actually starting tonight, hence the storyline). The problem with this storyline is that these three characters together have no actual context of interaction: this was literally just Leonard, Raj and Howard getting stoned, with no underlying character theme or even some sort of hidden motivation. With other characters, these three can on occasion be quite funny, but individually and without anything to work with they’re pretty lifeless. I thought Raj’s bunny empire was moderately clever at points, but the incent storyline from Howard was downright bizarre, especially when they chose it as the main joke of the coda – I wasn’t aware that sleeping with your cousin was laugh out loud hilarious.

I thought that Galecki, Nayyar and Hedberg all did an admirable job with absolutely no material (all had some fun performance beats even if the lines were terrible), but the problem was that it never bothered to actually do anything with the fact that they were high. None of the characters had to interact with someone in a tense situation, no one had to operate some kind of machinery, and as a result there was no comic tension. It was literally like an improv skit about people being high in the desert, first beginning with some light hallucinations before extending into some deep thinking before eventually reverting to the munchies. While I complain about Sheldon and Penny’s storyline being rote in the sense that the show has tread on the same solid ground before, this was the show using the same gags that have been omnipresent in any depiction of being stoned on the face of the planet, and for the show to rely on them almost exclusively with characters who brought very little original to the table was a zero sum game.

It doesn’t help that I just watched “Chokin and Tokin’,” the episode of Freaks and Geeks which most directly deals with what marijuana can do to you. In that case, the character chooses to take marijuana, and is forced to babysit while under the influence and thus creating some sense of tension within her life. The fact that this was done with cookies makes it a terrible TV trope to begin with, but the fact that all of them got high, leaving no one to react to the fact that they were in fact tripping, made this a fundamental failure of a storyline.

I know that I usually argue that Sheldon and Penny should be paired more option, but this (like “The Vegas Renormalization” before it) suffers as an episode overall because of what’s left behind when those two characters separate from the pack.

Cultural Observations

• Jim Parsons again did get to knock one scene out of the park: his comforting of Penny was honestly terrifying to watch, to the point where I don’t know if I can even go watch it again with cringe-laughing myself to death. Just really creepy and wonderful, and I just wish he’d get an episode full of those moments to submit for the Emmys.
• I thought I was over the “Knock Knock Knock Penny” bit, but I will admit that Penny’s interruption of his attempt to perform the ritual at her bathroom door was quite fun.
• I usually complain about scenes where the rest of the group celebrates Sheldon being absent, so I was a little bit frustrated to see the writers have Sheldon justify such behaviour by admitting that he wants nothing to do with human companionship either. It simplifies their relationship to a dangerous point for me, but it was at least funny so that’s something at least.
• I think Sheldon’s lowest moment in this episode was his racist comments to the Sian Palace, and in fact the whole conversation was problematic: Sheldon’s smart enough to do his own math, and while asking for a quarter of an appetizer selection is anal asking for half of two orders of something is downright ignorant and totally inconsistent.
• I hope Penny’s reading of Wall-E was just the drugs talking, because Wall-E was about 500% more personable than Sheldon from the moment we met him in that movie.

Yep, updating again =P

I found two articles from the BBC from 1998 and 2000 about storms in Selsey. The one from 2000 mentions about the complex being damaged and I remember a news reporter being on the beach when the windows smashed! The second one is shocking, even if you know Selsey as well as I do. It’s UN-BE-LIEV-ABLE.

Article from 1998 and the article from 2000.
In regards to the second one, the bits I laughed at and thought, “yep, that sounds like Selsey” were:

“But most of the holidaymakers had left the park at the weekend, and there were no serious injuries.”

The storm happened, luckily, right at the end of the season! We could’ve been there, seeing as we’ve been going there nearly every year since 1994! I can’t remember when we started going there in October though. Shall have to ask my mum.

“John Bunn, managing director of the caravan park, said it had sustained about £500,000 of damage, mainly glass broken by flying debris and pebbles from the beach.”

The woman we bumped into when we went off to find our old caravans said that it’s the pebbles and shingle that does the most damage to the park! That’s why they put the nets up outside of the complex! The sea and wind just pick up the pebbles and throws them!

“”It was a freak weather occurrence. It could have been a lot worse. We had 7,000 people here on Saturday,” Mr Bunn said.”

That proves what I said about it being the biggest caravan park in Europe and the Embassy being packed to the rafters so don’t think he’s exaggerating! I’ve seen Selsey when it’s full, believe me =P

“We warned people who were still here last night that there were strong winds coming, giving them the chance to leave if they wanted to.”
Staff had spent Monday assessing the damage and making the park safe. The site had been closed a day early, and any remaining holidaymakers had left.

That’s what happened two years later when we were there. I can still remember it so clearly; where we were in the Embassy, what we were wearing, everything. I remember being very scared =P My mum made a joke about going back to the caravan and it’d be floating in the sea with a red setter standing on the roof! Little did we know that caravans can really be swept into the sea in Selsey…

This is very true! This is basically what I said in my “Save Our Selsey” article and which is why the campaign is SO important. It makes me so sad that it’s one of those things that we have to accept. I bet that when Mr. Bunn opened West Sands Caravan Park in 1959, he didn’t know that it would be the worst place to set up a caravan park.

Patrick Moore speaks the truth! I must find out where he lives and go and see his house! Selsey isn’t a big town so it can’t be far! I’m sure you could probably spot his observatory a mile off =P Next time I’m in Selsey, I must go and find it.

edit:

Raj just sent me this:

Dear Raj,
Here is your horoscope for
Saturday, November 14:
Your community focus is especially strong right now — so get out there and make the world a better place! Your great energy is perfect for volunteer work or starting up new movements.

He also said that it was time to go and save Selsey =P

It’s probably not the right term to use, and by “intersexual” I don’t mean the UrbanDictionary definition of  ”The now ‘appropriate’ word for a hermaphrodite (a person born with both a penis and a vagina)”. ‘Cuz really I have no needs to talk to such person, and this isn’t a coming out post either. Yikes.

What I really meant was, that I happen to not talk much to the other sex, i.e. boys. It really sums up to speaking 4 words to my dad [who I live with] and maybe 2 words to my brother, who comes home for 2 hours on fridays. Outside the family is where it gets really bad though. I never had male-friends and when my girl-friends’ friends were around, I never felt comfortable talking to them. I’m a shy person by nature and it’s bad enough for me to talk to girls. Talking to boys is a whole different anxiety-filled task. Everything feels like a flirt to me, and I don’t know what to do with it. And even though people tell me sometimes I talk like a guy, and I watch plenty of guy-talks on tv and film, I still don’t know how I should talk to them. When I talk to girls I’m sometimes [a lot of times] silly and making no sense, or saying wrong things, just trying to fill the silence somehow. With boys, I just feel pathetic doing that.

I guess I really feel sympathy for this guy.

Rajesh Koothrappali

Raj from The Big Bang Theory has the same problem. He can’t speak to girls. Unless he’s drunk. I haven’t tried that yet, and it doesn’t sound like a great idea to trust alcohol in becoming a normal person who can SPEAK. Poor Raj is a brilliant person who becomes a tiny tiny person when it comes to conversing with the opposite sex. Like him, the most simple comment or question I have to make to a male figure is usually an awkward situation to me. A while ago I nearly lost my somewhat-expensive sunglasses because I pondered whether or not I should ask the GUY at the gym’s reception’s desk if anyone found them. But I did [even though I couldn't hear my own voice] and he handed them to me.

Oh what can I do. Being in a guy-free environment for so long makes a girl more and more insecure. I had better times when at least online I’d speak to guys, but even that doesn’t really exist anymore. I should get this solved somehow. They ARE half of the world population. And they do tend to sit next to me in class and I should be able to say more than banal sentences [more like answers 'cuz really I never develop convo's] to them. And I know people usually say guys want a girl to be pretty and shut up, but is a half mute okay also?

Oh big bang writers, do something to help me and Raj! We’re good people overall!