They flit around like butterflies,
Fortunately, they are as pretty as most too,
If they were not, God help them,
They would most likely be in the zoo.

If they mean yes, they say a no,
Sometimes they never let you go,
Most times give a high sometimes low,
Why, I wonder my head doesn't blow.

Round and round the mulberry bush,
Twinkle twinkle little star; I know,
I don't make any sense to you,
But try to remember, this is how they crow.

Their smiles, they light up the world,
Scowls, they fright down the world,
Words, they ignite the world,
Dear lord, this world, poor, poor world.

We all have seen, commented and made fun of the monstrous gaffs that Mumbai Mirror has made so often. Well, it simple cannot get any bigger than this one. There are currently two parallel test series going on. India is hosting the West Indies and South Africa is hosting Australia. 

Taking forward my earlier tirades/rants/memories of/from school, I am going to rant a little more. About pre-school to be precise.

Pre-school and primary school are usually considered to be the most important years of our education. This is where the building blocks are laid towards the formation of a lifetime of learning and character building. One would consider each and every word taught in these years to be thought out extremely carefully. Wouldn't you?

Read the below sentence:

Rock-a-bye baby, on the tree top. When the wind blows, the cradle will rock; when the bough breaks, the cradle will fall and down will come baby, cradle and all.

How factual. How practical. How real. I mean, this will be the exact sequence of events if the wind blows. We should teach our babies right at the outset that they should never tie a cradle to a tree top. Brilliant!

Let us observe another sentence:

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children, she didn’t know what to do. She gave them some broth, without any bread, whipped them all soundly, and sent them to bed.

Another practical statement to make to kids. Family planning. Or else, you as mom will have to whip your kids to bed! Less said the better about this.

These are such incorrect things to teach babies. Stupid sentences made up just so that they rhyme! I have not even reached the real violent ones:

London bridge is falling down, Falling down, falling down, London bridge is falling down, My fair lady.

OR

Jack and Jill went up the hill, to fetch a pail of water; Jack fell down and broke his crown, And Jill came tumbling after.

OR

Three blind mice, three blind mice, see how they run, see how they run! They all ran after the farmer's wife, who cut off their tails with a carving knife; did ever you see such a thing in your life, as three blind mice?

OR the ever popular

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall; all the king's horses and all the kings men, couldn't put Humpty together again.

I did mention in one of my earlier posts, that we are taught too many impractical stuff in school. I now stand corrected. I mean, if we really have to make our kids aware of the violent and hurtful world, what better way to do it other than making up cute rhymes and make them learn it when they are 3 year olds.

I leave you with the cutest of them all:

Georgie Porgie, puddin’ and pie, kissed the girls and made them cry. When the boys came out to play, Georgie Porgie ran away.

Now you know what to blame for all things that go wrong with humanity.

P.S. Do notice the cartoon at the top by my exclusive cartoonist. Do give feedback. :)

So today was a field day for anyone and everyone on Facebook! What with someone starting a meme about creating awareness for breast cancer.

When I was 14 years old, I had a pretty tough time dealing with academics. One of the subjects I was a little better at was Math and even in that I pretty much sucked at most of the chapters. So, I decided to practice like hell what I knew best and hope that most of the questions in the exam were from those chapters. This was when my teacher told me, don't put all your eggs in one basket!

I don't think the smart alecs at ESPN-Star Sports (ESS) had a teacher like that. 'Why?' you ask. Because they decided that if they have xxx million dollars, the best thing to do, is to put all of these xxx million in one stupid little wicker basket called cricket. Oh! I forgot they have one of their xxx eggs in the EPL!

The point is, in the fight against SET, Ten/Zee and Neo, they are trying their best to get the biggest television rights away from the others. So they bid a whopping $975 million for a ten year broadcast rights deal for the Airtle Champions League (ACL). What happened? It Bombed! Advertisers are asking their money back, agencies are saying they will not advertise in the ACL again and all of them want some compensation or the other! This is fine I guess in the short term for a giant like ESS. One might say that they have the next ten years to earn this money back. But what if it flops again? The IPL is with SET, cricket in India is with Neo and most of the other places locked up by Ten. ESS does have the ICC events till the next world cup but is that enough? Maybe they bit off more than they can chew.

The best thing they could have done in this case was move to other sports apart from cricket. Football comes to mind and one might say that they do have the costliest league - EPL. But again, is one event enough? They could have wrapped up the relatively cheaper La Liga as well, but they let it go off their hands. All they had to invest in was the broadcast rights and Sky gives them the rest (presenters, commentary and all). They have the sheer cheek to call them the home of football and start a campaign called 'I Love this Game'! They say all that with one league? Neo has more football on TV than ESS! Ten even shows Barca TV and ManU TV apart from the UEFA Champions League!

The problem is, none of the sports broadcasters in India are focussed on what THEY want to do. They think they have figured out the Indian consumer better than HUL and everything they dish out is what we want to see! Well, as if we have a choice!

I think the Indian audience is mature enough for a 'Complete' sports broadcasting channel. And the sorry part is, as of today, even if ALL of these channels are combined, we still don't have most of the quality sports from around the world.