Triggers!

Have been reading the papers a bit more diligently nowadays. Does it mean I have more time to dawdle over reams of newsprint? Hmmm...maybe. I still have my job thankfully, just that Sunday and today has been more relaxing. I've taken some time off work today and I'm listening to some Y! Radio and blogging and reading and watching TV, and I feel good about it.

Just saw 'The Queen'. I loved the film. Watch Helen Mirren. When you do, you will understand what great acting is all about. She essayed the role of 'uneasy lies the head that wears the crown' to almost perfection, right down to the way the Queen walks. It's a very good film. It shows us a facet of the British monarchy that one rarely gives much thought to. It's about Princess Di's death, the time when Tony Blair was elected PM (great win for Labour) and how the entire media it seemed ganged up on the geriatric royalty and made her do things she wouldn't have normally. Especially for a renegade (if one can use the word for Princess Diana) daughter-in-law who was no longer HRH (I presume it means Her Royal Highness). The British Royals are probably a very functional yet dysfunctional family. They've been schooled to hide their emotions, they know the protocol, but as a family they're dysfunctional (and that thankfully restores the faith in them being human after all and not God's own charmed beings put out on Earth to mind us silly fogeys).

Anyway, there is something to be said about the 'stiff upper lip' accent. It's clear, precise and they still own the language. Check the dialogues, the vocabulary, the screenplay. Check it on this other very well made film called, 'Notes on a Scandal' based on a book by Zoe Heller (I think)with two powerhouse performances by Cate Blanchett who's absolutely ravishing in the film (if I was lesbian I'd find her delicious) and Dame Judi Dench. What an actress by Jove! How much they convey by their look, with their face, my God! She's amazing. The same 'M' from the 007 movies. She's a tough act to follow truly. At 73 going strong. Yes, 40 is now the new 20 surely and so I have nothing to worry about. :).

Where did the papers go? Oh yes, read this very nice article on oil prices and OPEC by Mr.Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar (I've always liked his articles). He has touched upon the heavy subsidies our government has been feeding us and now how it's become a vicious cycle difficult to get out of. A Catch-22 might I say. And I don't know economics - but that's the basic question that I asked of my fellow colleagues the other day at lunch - why can't we pay the prices we should be paying instead of paying subsidised prices? There will be low consumption and I think even the marginalised and BPL (below poverty line) brethren will manage because the government would've balanced it out with greater effort on non-conventional fuels. There're ways of doing things right, but not if one wants to give in to greed.

Read this on the food prices soaring and this was a very interesting article by Arun Firodia, Chairman, Kinetic Group. I understood some basics now and I think I'm going to turn vegetarian. As in not a part-time, convenient vegetarian, but an earnest vegetarian. That's the way to go, Kareena Kapoor's size zero figure notwithstanding (she apparently turned vegetarian).

Read this article here - I loved it and Mr.Arun Maira reflects on and writes about something close to my heart. I couldn't have written better. I urge you to read it. And think. About where we're heading.

My previous post said that we're on self-destruct. I still maintain it. The road to hell may be paved with good intentions my friend, but I will see you there. Heavens can indeed wait!