Robbed

Ahh, what can you say about a game like that. We played well, but as so often happens with Australian football, failed to make the most of the opportunities and score a goal when we really needed it. None of which makes the loss any less heartbreaking, especially in light of the truly abysmal decision which resulted in the penalty.

That said, the Socceroos did us proud. They played some of the best teams in the world, including the world champions, and held their own, which is as much as anyone can ask and more than many expected. I'll admit that I held hopes of a quarter final appearance, achieving improbable dreams is part of the World Cup after all, but my disappointment is main with the way we left the Cup, not with the way we played.

I'm looking forward to the next season of the A-League with anticipation of crowds of newly converted football fans screaming from the stands.



On a complete separate tack, I had an interesting (to me at least) little introduction into the history of one of places in Cochin recently. While driving (okay, being driven) to one of the sub-contractors workshops, I asked the driver for the name of the road in case I needed to direct someone else there during the job. After some stumbling about between his accent and mine, I teased the name "Compression Mukh" out of him. Okay, so 'mukh' must be 'street', or 'road' or something, right? And 'compression'? Well, the roads are always full of cars (and everything else), maybe its a bit of translation drift from 'congestion'. A road designed to reduce congestion, sounds right.

So very pleased with myself for having nutted out what was going on, I decided to ask one of my Indian colleagues, Anand, what the name of the street was as far as he knew.

"I'm not sure," he said, "White Road or something, I think."
"What about 'Compression Mukh' ?" I asked.
"That's Malayalam, I can't speak that, let me just ask someone here."

So he calls one of the other guys in the office on the phone and has a quick conversation with him in his native tongue, Kannada. After a few minutes, Anand starts to grin, then laughs, both surprised and amused by whatever he's being told.

"So, what did he say?" I asked impatiently.
"No, actually, David, the word 'mukh' is Malayalam for junction. It's Compression Junction."
"Okay," I said, not really any more enlightened, "So..."
"It comes from a time in the old days of the town. That was an area where lots of girls used to be and the guys would go and get compressed."

So now I'm imagining a massage parlour. Not so far from the truth. Anand still had a little smile on his face; in answer to my slightly baffled look he said, "Compressed." The penny dropped.

"This used to be a red light district?"
"Yes."

The area has been an industrial and residential area for decades now, but the name of the original attraction of the region has stuck.

Look up in the sky...it's Krrish!

I finally got to do something I've wanted to do since I got here, see a Bollywood movie at a local cinema. While the TV is saturated with local movies all hours of the day and night, it's not the same as going to see it with a crowd on the big screen. So for the princely sum of 40 rupees, I went to the Padma Theatre in Cochin to see the premier of Krrish!

The place was absolutely packed, two tiers, probably four or five hundred in all and the cinema really wasn't that different to one you might find back home. A little more run down maybe, but if you can imagine a cinema that you might see in country Australia, the kind that had been built in the 50's and not quite looked after the way it might have been, you get the idea. Except packed full of rowdy and enthusiastic Indians patrons.

Krrish is the story of Krishna, a boy born of Indian parents in Canada (although probably shot in northern India) who has suddenly developed an amazing artistic talent and apparently other mental and physical abilities as well. As he grows up it becomes clear that he is some kind of superman and after accidentally saving paraglider while swimming through the trees (no, not swinging, swimming; think Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) he falls in love, goes to Singapore and becomes the masked superhero, Krrish.

In fine Bollywood (and superhero) tradition, it's all a bit ridiculous, with the usual Bollywood mix of action, romance, melodrama and dancing, but it was really entertaining, even if it was a bit uneven. The major villain gets about three minutes of screen time in the first half of the movie and you forget that he was even a threat until his sudden reappearance in the last act.

And, no, I didn't understand a word of the dialogue, which means the comedy relief character was a complete loss to me, but it says something about the skill of the storytelling that I still had a very good idea of what was happening. Of course it didn't hurt a bit that the heroine was an absolute stunner even by Bollywood starlet standards, which is saying something. For the girls, the star, Hrithik Roshan, is built like an Indian Schwarzenegger and has a chin you could carve stone with.

The crowd added hugely to my enjoyment of the movie, Krishna's first appearance on screen, racing a horse home for dinner, was greeted with a deafening roar. They cheered the hero at every turn, especially when he was chasing the girl and jeered the villain, played with enough ham to make Gary Oldman blush by Naseeruddin Shah, who I was surprised to recognise - but eventually pinned him down to Monsoon Wedding (and apparently The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but unrecognisable under Captain Nemo's beard).

As a side note, the movie cost a record 800 million rupees (say A$23 million), which will almost certain never be recouped, even if the movie does as well as expected. I'm told that the Mumbai Mafia uses some Bollywood movies to launder money, so the loss is preferred. Certainly the director, and father of the male lead, was shot by mob-linked assailants a few years back, supposedly for resisting their attempts to gain distribution rights to his films. But it does mean that the production values are very high, it wouldn't look out of place in Hollywood. At least, it wouldn't if the star didn't break into a song and dance routine every ten minutes. All very Indian. Think Cole Porter meets MC Hammer.

I'm looking forward to comparing the sub-continental superman with his American counter-part when Superman Returns gets to local cinemas.

Round of 16, Baby!

Now's that was a nail-biter. But it's nice to have your faith vindicated. Neill was excellent and Craig Moore; is there anything that man can't do. We're still missing a natural striker up front, Viduka looked lumbering when we needed someone agile, but the addition of Bresciano and Aloisi in the second half had the required impact of tipping the momentum back in our favour. Overall a much better performance than against Brazil and not just because of the scoreline. I'm looking forward to what will be our toughest game yet against Italy on Monday.

Never a dull moment

I've tried to describe to some of my friends the sheer unadulterated horror adventure that is driving in India. It’s so harrowing to someone from a country where they not only have road rules, but actually follow them (mostly), that one of my colleagues suggested, only somewhat jokingly, that they should fit the rear seats of an Ambassador backwards, so you can see what you’ve just survived, rather than what is about to befall you. And that’s just when you’re a passenger.

So one of the guys and I decided that we were fed up with life and split the cost of a pushbike. It, like so much of the home grown manufacturing base, looks like it was designed in the 50s; single cog drive, sprung seat, handle bars too close to your knees (although that might be because John and I are taller than your average Indian).

It does, however, have some standard features that would be nice to have in more modern (and more expensive) bike back home. A build-in lock that puts a half-inch bolt around the rear wheel, so the thief has to either cut the bolt or tear out all the spokes as the wheel rotates. Full coverage chain guard, allowing for use with long pants (while you wouldn’t do that in Oz, Indians are more modest, and I’m not wearing lycra). Direct steel shaft linkage for brakes. No cables to stretch and break, just a solid bit of chrome plated 6mm steel bar. Okay, the brakes don’t work as well as you’d like, in a place where pedestrians are born without the Road Traffic Self-Preservation Gene, but at least you know that they’ll work poorly in a consistent manner for the life of the bike.

I think that the last few months of exposure to Indian traffic has helped because I didn’t get in any strife, but the gearing is so low (so that you can get started), that you find you can’t get any speed without making your legs into a thigh-straining blur. Which means the bike is ideally geared to speeds compatible with Indian attitudes to time keeping, commonly know as Indian Flexible Time.

One thing I have yet to master is the out-of-sight-out-of-mind approach to vehicles behind you. Indians don’t worry about what’s coming up from behind, they concentrate of what’s before them, which is a commendable attitude to life in general, but not too good on the road. They don’t use rearview or side mirrors, which they have, perversely, decided to fit to their cars anyway to confuse the foreigners. Instead they use another standard feature in place of the mirror. The horn.

The Indian driver’s skill with a horn is beyond question, they can express a variety of sentiments, questions, outbursts and opinions of the other driver’s parentage with a nuanced flick of wrist and the single tone available. The basic idea is like this:

1. Ignore the rear, it’s not a problem, it’s not worth worrying about, hell, it's not even there, until...

2.Someone sounds the horn, signally that they are approaching from behind, and you’d better move, and right now, or so-help-them-Shiva there will be hell to pay.

Which works fine because everyone knows that this is the way the game is played. Trucks even have helpful little signs on the rear bumper reading ‘Sound Horn’ to remind you of your right, no, your duty, as a Indian driver to make that horn earn its keep. We had our primary vehicle off the road recently for a day because the horn was worn out and needed to be repaired. Only in India could you wear out a car horn and be too afraid to drive it without one.

So rather than try to describe the joys of Indian roads (okay, so I just wasted five minutes of your life trying, so sue me), I’ve started recording video as a passenger with the slightly foolish goal of making a short compilation of highlights. I’m thinking music video maybe. Song suggestions welcome (and Highway to Hell is out; good song, too cliché).

Randomness from watching the World Cup

I've just realised why Tim Roth hasn't made more movies; he's also holding down a career as a outstanding European footballer.

The likeness is pretty uncanny and apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so.

How many Indians does it take to change a lightbulb?

Well, first you have to have a six week discussion about the merits of various lightbulbs, and whether to buy domestic or import a lightbulb from overseas. Once you've decided on the best product, you find out you can't get it anymore due to chances in import regulations, so you decide to buy domestic, but you can only get an appropriate alternative from a Kashmiri company that hand-blows the bulbs which are then blessed by an in-house Nepalese Bhuddist monk.

Then you place an order for the lightbulb and get told it will take another six weeks to deliver, provided that there isn't a nationwide strike, in which case it might be ten weeks. Next you need to hire a lightbulb installer to do the work, but the only guy available in the area isn't in the Light Globe Installers, Bulb Fitters, Electrical Light Fixers and Allied Trades Union, so you need to hire two guys who don't actually know how to fit light bulbs to stand around and watch the skilled labour do the job.

After waiting ten weeks you ring the bulb vendor and find out that the order had been misplaced and the monk has larangitis which turns his blessing chants into a curse on the bulb and the purchaser's family, so it'll be another six weeks, but we're willing to ship it for free if you choose overland shipping, which will take another two weeks.

So you give up and buy a local cut-price bulb that looks like it was made by a blind glassblower with chronic hiccups, but you can buy three and a half thousand of them for two Rupees plus service tax. You finally get the bulb to the house with the empty socket, but you can't get the bulb fitted today, since its Sunday and the bulb fitter can't work Sunday, because working on Sunday makes God angry and that's the reason that he sent to Boxing Day tsunami, to punish those working on the Sabbath.*

So you wait another day, but the following day the union goes on strike over the fact that someone from the opposite end of the political spectrum chopped the arm off one of their members and they're not going to take that, so here's a strike you bastards.**

So the next day you bring the bulb to the house, but you can't bring it inside unless you pay a special 'house-entry' fee directly to the union secretary and by this stage you've been sitting in the dark each night for seven months and you just can't take it anymore and besides you got the bulbs cheap, so what a few extra Rupees and fer-god-sake-its-just-a-lightbulb. So you pay the 'fee' and walk the bulb to the bulb installer and he spends the next fortnight trying to put the bulb into the wall outlet.

So you direct him to the bulb socket, only the socket is a screw-in one, not a bayonet one like the bulb is, but you have anticipated this and purchased one of every possible variety of bulb even known to man, for a pitance, and he fits the bulb.

And he descends the ladder.
And he walks over and calmly flicks the switch.
And the bulb lights.

And the one next to it blows.



And I'm not exaggerating nearly as much as I would prefer.

* Actually uttered today by one of our sub-contractors as the reason that they refuse to work on Sundays.

** Also has actually occurred.

A breathtaking finish...from Tim Cahill

To all those people who asked me if Australia had a chance of beating Japan, I'll borrow from Australian football visionary Johnny Warren: I told you so.

Didn't actually see the game myself, was unfortunately in mid-air at the time (no I can't levitate, I was on a return flight to Cochin), but I'm glad to have played my part in our victory by not watching it. Anyone who's ever missed a wicket at a test match while buying beer or answering the call of nature will know what I mean. I look forward to being able to watch the match in full at some point, I'm sure it'll come out on DVD or something, but from all reports it was our persistance that was the difference and Australian football players (and fans) know all about persistance. It significantly improves our chances of a second round berth, but the Brazil-Croatia match highlighted how difficult both teams are going to be. But then we always knew it wasn't going to be easy.

Overall the World Cup football has been pretty good, with patches of amazing. The opener was a ripper and showed a real change in the face of German football, from a tradition of solid defense and counterattacking to a team with great striking ability, but a rather fragile back line. Which will make for much more entertaining games. There seem to be fewer upsets likely this year, but with the World Cup, you never really know what is going to happen.

The Indians seem to have taken the Australian teams into their hearts, all of our crew here have been met with huge enthusiasm from the locals for the performance of the Socceroos. It was a bit of a surprise, I wasn't expecting that much interest given that India isn't competing and the level of adulation for cricket didn't leave much room for anything else. It's nice to be wrong. But then of all the states of India, Kerala has the largest interest in football, so I'm told, and the number of signs up around the town annoucing the Cup seems to support that.

So I look forward to the rest of the Socceroos games (however many that might turn out to be) and the rest of the Cup, and the hope that Australians might adopt another of the great traditions of football, the supporter's chant involving with more than two words. Until then: "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi!"

We now return you...

..to your irregularly scheduled blog.

So I'm back in Oz for a week, part furlough (thank you Jeff), part check-in-at-the-office and part home maintenance.

Things that have happened since my last post:

• Paid off my car loan
• Bought a new camera
• Found my lost photos
• Discovered my step-dad was in hospital
• Discovered one of my friends back home was in hospital
• Re-lived part of my childhood with my oldest mate

Paying off the car was a nice surprise, hadn't really been keeping track of the balance, so now I am a few thousand dollars worth of HECS from debt-free status.

The camera is a sexy little stainless steel Canon number. Fast, small and takes great photos, what more could you ask for.

I had thought that some photos I took at an Indian festival in April had evaporated along with all the other data when one of our site laptops died, but in a fit of amazing (for me) foresight coupled with absent-mindedness, I managed to copy the photos to CD-ROM and then completely forget that I had done so. I advise you not to try such feats at home, its a job for a trained professional such as myself and takes years of alcohol abuse and repeated distractions with shiny baubles to achieve this zen state of random studidity. But it all all worked out well in the end. Said photos can be found here.

As for the hospitalisations, Lance has managed to baffle his doctors to the point of their admitting that they don't know what's wrong, a stunt he's been pulling off and on for years now, with the unfortunate effect that his health is never really what it should be. I'm not going to discuss my friend's illness, other than to wish her a speedy recovery.

Now to the childishness. Some of you have no doubt discovered YouTube, the video equivalent of public notice board. For those of you who haven't, go see it before copyright infringment and commercialisation ruin it. It's the perfect place to uncover things you thought you'd never see again; in the case of me and my mate Daniel, we found a trove of TV snippets from programs we watched as kids. A claymation gem called The Red & The Blue, that European animation with the guy who walks along a line and is constantly scolding the animator in complete jibberish, and, of course, our favourite segments from Sesame Street. Hands up those who remember the Pinball Countdown? Super Grover? Kermit's New Flash? Or Martians who wander around going "Yip, yip, yip, yip!" and could hide behind there bottom lip. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then I suggest you move along, there's nothing to see here. For the rest, go to YouTube and type 'Sesame Street' into the search box and re-live part of your childhood.