If you are planning to travel to germany in the near future, make sure you know these 'Bizarre' german laws !
=> no washing cars or mowing lawns on Sundays
=> no playing at playgrounds between the hours of 1300 and 1500
=> no shopping on Sundays;
=> It is against the law to mention the date 1966 in any football ground.
=> no barking dogs especially after 2100 or between 1300 and 1500 or before 0900 !! (most funniest)
=> A pillow can be considered a "passive" weapon
There are lot more of 'em actually.. These might sound funny but if you happen to violate them, then your fate could be the same as Turks in germany !
Post second world war period, Germany, which was recovering slowly from the war chaos, started following the european staes for welfare. In order to shed off its 'Racist' & 'Religious bias' labels and to counter the lack of skilled labours, it started looking upon UK for achieving the so called 'multicult' tag..As a result they stared allowing mass immigration of turks into theirr country,to address the issues and achieve the desired multicultural' & 'multiethnic' tags. Now the Turkish, akin to the asians, work hard and for longer hours. As a result Turkish shops and businesses started opening in the wee hours at center of Berlin and stayed open until late evenings.This really pissed off the 'LAW ABIDING' germans so much that they started hating the turks and their very existence in the german soil was perceived as anti-german !. This went to such an extreme that, German Chancellor Angela Morkel declared multiculturalism has indeed failed in germany.
The video of that is here ::
Friday, January 28, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
WWW.DDTV.IN/DESI-PLAYER !!
Received a letter yesterday to renew my TV license from BBC. Was thinking hard, whether to go for it, since it will cost me a good 145£ per year - Which is quite a lot of money ! I could have actually decided not to go for it straightaway, but the very thought of missing my favourite shows and documentaries in 'beeb' (that's BBC's 'medium form') made me think again and am still pondering. Something inside me tells that i will get it - The nation's first public & national broadcaster is luring me with its endless charm !!
Having decided that, a thought about our own 'Doordarshan' a.k.a DD (NO - Not 'flashbacking' and nostalgia on 'Giant Robots' & 'Oliyum Oliyum') flashed across my mind.. How quickly it's fame spread and how much swifter was the recess. A quick googling on DD and its viewership share brought a 'latest' hindu article dated '2002' and apparently in that year the viewership of DD national was a mammoth 2.38 %.
A majority of the decline can be attributed to intense competition and DD's inability to stay in the fray. True that there are a plethora of channels hogging the TRP limelight with their enormously benefitable programs - 'VIP samayals' & 'Deala no deala' and the ever famous 'cry-baby-six-to-eleven-serials'. Of course there are a few channels, which despite being a part of the entertainment war, provide us some quality viewership now & then. Add to this political influence, and every party having their own channel,one can quite understand the stiff competition.
Point is,all the aforementioned things happened to Beeb as well. Its monopoly in broadcasting was (& is) challenged by numerous private players like sky, Virgin, Channel 4, ITV, which started mushrooming every day. Did Beeb give out so easily - Nope. It went back to the drawing board and clinched on to its mantra - INNOVATION. One great result of such innovations was the 'iplayer' which revolutionized internet viewing of documentaries and tv shows (with Digital rights management). It was such a big success that the internet service providers started complaining about the sudden rush of traffic to their site and demanded that the network bandwidths be improved. Verdict was out in a few days - Iplayer was an astounding success !! Try visting www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer once and i gurantee that you will be startled by its appeal ! The quality of videos there is mind boggling - so much that you can see people play videos from that to test the display quality of new Laptops !
BBC is funded by 'public licensing'- It's operation is funded by people. Question is Can't DD come up with a similar idea - Take money from the mass and start looking at improvements ? Might sound a silly idea but who knows, it could work out. After all DD itself started as a part of the All India Radio program in some makeshift studios! When people can pay 100-150 Rs for Cable television, am sure they would not mind shelling out a few bucks for their once-upon-a-time-beloved-DD. Of course this isnt going to be simple idea because 'DD' as a brand has already been dubbed as 'old' and 'uninteresting' by our population. So convincing people that they can be back with a bang and provide quality viewership is going to take some effort !! Everything lies in the hands of Prasar bharathi !!
Neverthless, i still keep dreaming about seeing my favourite programs in WWW.DDTV.IN/DESI-PLAYER, one day in the near future !!!!
Having decided that, a thought about our own 'Doordarshan' a.k.a DD (NO - Not 'flashbacking' and nostalgia on 'Giant Robots' & 'Oliyum Oliyum') flashed across my mind.. How quickly it's fame spread and how much swifter was the recess. A quick googling on DD and its viewership share brought a 'latest' hindu article dated '2002' and apparently in that year the viewership of DD national was a mammoth 2.38 %.
A majority of the decline can be attributed to intense competition and DD's inability to stay in the fray. True that there are a plethora of channels hogging the TRP limelight with their enormously benefitable programs - 'VIP samayals' & 'Deala no deala' and the ever famous 'cry-baby-six-to-eleven-serials'. Of course there are a few channels, which despite being a part of the entertainment war, provide us some quality viewership now & then. Add to this political influence, and every party having their own channel,one can quite understand the stiff competition.
Point is,all the aforementioned things happened to Beeb as well. Its monopoly in broadcasting was (& is) challenged by numerous private players like sky, Virgin, Channel 4, ITV, which started mushrooming every day. Did Beeb give out so easily - Nope. It went back to the drawing board and clinched on to its mantra - INNOVATION. One great result of such innovations was the 'iplayer' which revolutionized internet viewing of documentaries and tv shows (with Digital rights management). It was such a big success that the internet service providers started complaining about the sudden rush of traffic to their site and demanded that the network bandwidths be improved. Verdict was out in a few days - Iplayer was an astounding success !! Try visting www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer once and i gurantee that you will be startled by its appeal ! The quality of videos there is mind boggling - so much that you can see people play videos from that to test the display quality of new Laptops !
BBC is funded by 'public licensing'- It's operation is funded by people. Question is Can't DD come up with a similar idea - Take money from the mass and start looking at improvements ? Might sound a silly idea but who knows, it could work out. After all DD itself started as a part of the All India Radio program in some makeshift studios! When people can pay 100-150 Rs for Cable television, am sure they would not mind shelling out a few bucks for their once-upon-a-time-beloved-DD. Of course this isnt going to be simple idea because 'DD' as a brand has already been dubbed as 'old' and 'uninteresting' by our population. So convincing people that they can be back with a bang and provide quality viewership is going to take some effort !! Everything lies in the hands of Prasar bharathi !!
Neverthless, i still keep dreaming about seeing my favourite programs in WWW.DDTV.IN/DESI-PLAYER, one day in the near future !!!!
Sunday, December 20, 2009
DEAD TIRED ?
I've read about a lot of activities which people and organisations generally initiate & coordinate to raise funds for charities, which help a lota homeless/needy/orphaned kids. Common ones that we generally come across are - Marathons, Motoring tours around the world, star studded events, rallies and other promotions through web, print media, Television so on so forth. However this particular act, which was recently done by people in Essex, UK for raising funds for the homeless sounded a bit scary !!! The brave hair-raising act was - Sleeping in the graveyard !!! Check out for yourselves
DEAD TIRED? You would be if you had to sleep in a graveyard every night.
WHEN? The night of 27-28 November.
WHERE? St John's Church in Moulsham Street, Chelmsford.
And finally the picture - The deadliest i've ever seen for a charity event like this. Have a look !@#$%
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
'Kutram - Nadandhadhu Enna'
Venue 1: A small Town's center market place.
Time: Broad Daylight
Four mates (all desis) were walking inside the mall at town center. They were returning after their shopping spree at one of the big supermarkets nearby. On approaching the exit, a native roughian deliberately walks in the their way and collides with one amonsgt them. Now our guy who was the victim of the deliberate push, lost his cool and chided the culprit. Upon hearing that, the 'well mannered' localite came rushing in and punches our desi on the face. Our desi hero stood there frozen. All these happening with so much crowd moving along and acting in a manner which can best be described as - 'Inga oru ratha kalariye nadakkudhu , neenga enna da na onnume aagadha maari poite irukeengale da'. The best part is yet to come. One of the local cop standing nearby and enjoying this incident,comes after things are settled and advises - 'Be careful fellas. Take care of yourselves. Take him to a hospital and get him treated. Don indulge in violent activities !!!!!!'
Venue 2: A dimly lit road. Supposed to be a main road through which buses traverse
Time: 5.15 pm and its already dark and overcast
Two people (desis again, who else can tolerate all this) are walking back home from work. After crossing a bus stop, they sight a gang of small kids, around 4-5 maybe and a teenage girl. After they walk past a few hundred metres away from them, one of them is hit by a small stone on the head. Thank god he was wearing a monkey cap and the stone size turning out to be fairly smaller as well. Upon turning he could witness one amongst those 'upcoming rogues' holding a catapult in hand, The girl in the gang giggles as if she had just witnessed a slapstick !
Venue 3: A Famous park in the town
Time : Some time in the afternoon.
Three heroes, deciding to save some quids, start walking to a shopping mall, which is 3-4 miles away. On the way, near a park, a car passes by and a few 'samaritans' hurl abuses at them - 'You M****** F****** A** H****' and it goes on. Heroes have a blank look on their faces, muse about it for sometime and continue their walk.
Naan mela sonna anaithum meyyandri veru ondrum illai ! Idhu sathiyam.
Time: Broad Daylight
Four mates (all desis) were walking inside the mall at town center. They were returning after their shopping spree at one of the big supermarkets nearby. On approaching the exit, a native roughian deliberately walks in the their way and collides with one amonsgt them. Now our guy who was the victim of the deliberate push, lost his cool and chided the culprit. Upon hearing that, the 'well mannered' localite came rushing in and punches our desi on the face. Our desi hero stood there frozen. All these happening with so much crowd moving along and acting in a manner which can best be described as - 'Inga oru ratha kalariye nadakkudhu , neenga enna da na onnume aagadha maari poite irukeengale da'. The best part is yet to come. One of the local cop standing nearby and enjoying this incident,comes after things are settled and advises - 'Be careful fellas. Take care of yourselves. Take him to a hospital and get him treated. Don indulge in violent activities !!!!!!'
Venue 2: A dimly lit road. Supposed to be a main road through which buses traverse
Time: 5.15 pm and its already dark and overcast
Two people (desis again, who else can tolerate all this) are walking back home from work. After crossing a bus stop, they sight a gang of small kids, around 4-5 maybe and a teenage girl. After they walk past a few hundred metres away from them, one of them is hit by a small stone on the head. Thank god he was wearing a monkey cap and the stone size turning out to be fairly smaller as well. Upon turning he could witness one amongst those 'upcoming rogues' holding a catapult in hand, The girl in the gang giggles as if she had just witnessed a slapstick !
Venue 3: A Famous park in the town
Time : Some time in the afternoon.
Three heroes, deciding to save some quids, start walking to a shopping mall, which is 3-4 miles away. On the way, near a park, a car passes by and a few 'samaritans' hurl abuses at them - 'You M****** F****** A** H****' and it goes on. Heroes have a blank look on their faces, muse about it for sometime and continue their walk.
Naan mela sonna anaithum meyyandri veru ondrum illai ! Idhu sathiyam.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Ilaiyudhir Kalam
Was walking with my friend to the ASDA yesterday morning. Since i hadn carried my digi cam on the past few walks , this time around i made sure i took it with me so that i can time freeze some natural scenes en route. After a few hundred metres of our journey, i stopped at a place, exactly where i took a pic of the yellow leaves on the trees and the ones scattered below, a month back. Took a picture of this spot again now and went back home to compare the two. Stark contrast is the word that came to my mind immedly. Click on the pic below for a better look !
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Epdi Irundha Naan ipdi Ayiten !
Was seeing google maps to find out some routes from my current place of stay. Was surprised to see that my current home was a portion of a football ground a few years back :-).. See for yourself.
Before :
Now :
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Colonization - An amazing Pic !
Just finished watching the movie blood diamond. Got intrigued by the term 'conflict diamonds' and went on to look it up on my most favourite information source- The wikipedia. Found a lota related links in the blood diamond wiki and while reading some of them , i came across this term 'post colonoization' which got me hooked on to the underlying basic word - colonization. Guess this would be old news to a lot of the netizens, but then this 'GIF' image attracted me a lot. It gave me wonderful historical information in a matter of few seconds.
Here you go. Click on the link to see the changing eras and nations that involved in colonization.
(Source: Wikipedia)
Starting with USSR, France and turkey, its amazing to see even small countries like belgium joining the colonization bandwagon. No prices for guessing who were the sole proprietors of India (almost in its entirety) - The brits. The major difference i guess is between 1822 and 1855 (appealed more prominent to to the naked eye). A plethora of colours in African region (1914 & 1938) - clearly indicates the fact that almost every country was keen on cashing in on africa's natural wealth and resources. Even in 2008, the colours continued to exist. Wonder how it would be 50 years from now !
A truly wonderful pic. Hats of to the creator !
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