[Books] April, 2015

1. Mark of Athena, House of Hades, Blood of Olympus (#3, #4 and #5 of Heroes of Olympus) by Rick Riordan
I'm finally done with Percy Jackson! As elated as being finally freed from Circe's magic island! Or like getting a sock from my master! ("Dobby is free!"). Just reaffirms that I'm neither young anymore nor an adult if it even comes to that. I'm going to treasure the information from the books though, just like I usually do with Dan Brown's (Lost Symbol still sucks). I could see Leo Valdez ending up with Calypso from a mile away, meh. 4/5 for Mark of Athena, 3.5/5 for House of Hades and 3/5 for Blood of Olympus. Overall Heroes of Olympus series rating: 6/10. Overall Percy Jackson series rating: somewhere between 6 and 7, closer to 6 rather than 7. After watching bits and pieces of Sea of Monsters, it's safe to say I'd be staying away from any future adaptations of this series.


2. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
This was a painful read for the first few pages (around 60-70) and if the cover didn't have Douglas Adams' name, I wouldn't have believed that he wrote it. Once Dirk Gently (Svlad Cjelli?) enters though (somewhere near halfway point), this was such a breeze. I absolutely loved the "holistic" explanation of fundamental interconnectedness of things. And of course Electric Monk was great as well (only interesting aspect in the first 50 pages for me). The book was supposed to be based on Doctor Who series and it might have been a bad idea to pick it up without having any knowledge on Doctor Who or its concept. Funny in parts, but don't compare it with H2G2 as it would only lead to disappointment. 3.5/5


3. Sita: An Illustrated Retelling of the Ramayana by Devdutt Pattanaik
For a book that is titled Sita, I'm disappointed how little we see of her (compared to my own lofty expectations). I heard great things about Pattanaik and raving reviews of his books (especially Business Sutra and Shikhandi) but this felt a little underwhelming. Might be because of all the things I hoped to find. I was hoping to see a lot of character exploration compared to traditional Ramayana tales (the book did come with "retelling" on the cover) and a different take on certain incidents than what we traditionally hear (same incidents but different point of view, if you know what I mean). But this turned out to be just an amalgam of several different versions found from India to East Asia. I already knew around 90% of the tales in the book and I'm thankful to Pattanaik for the remaining 10% :). I have similarly lofty expectations on Chitra Divakaruni's Palace of Illusions (known story from Mahabharata but with a different take) but now I'm afraid if it wouldn't reach to my expectations. 3/5


4. A Damsel in Distress by PG Wodehouse
I wanted to take a break from Jeeves & Wooster as well as Blandings series but that ended up as a no-Wodehouse-March. So I promptly went ahead and bought a standalone book Damsel in Distress in Apr. There's nothing much to talk about the story as we all know how Wodehouse stories are (at least those who're familiar with the author) but the humor is great in parts. A little underwhelming again (boy, how many times did I use it already?) as one of the characters resembled Bertie Wooster, one of them resembled Lord Emsworth (including the sister!), one of them's like Efficient Baxter - so it was like reading a hodgepodge of J & W, Blandings. But it may also serve as an excellent introduction into the Wodehouse world for those who never read his books. I can never bring myself to rate any Wodehouse anything less 4/5 but this is somewhere around 3.5.

5. The Big Four by Agatha Christie
Christie is back after an absence in March! And it was underwhelming again! (at this point you are perfectly entitled to shout at me - your head is underwhelming!) Certain important parts resemble Conan Doyle's Holmes so much that if both the authors were born in 1980s, there would have been law suits accusing plagiarism. Instead of (usually) the one villain, we get four different villains in this one and considering that goodreads tells me this is #7 in Poirot series, I'm gonna assume that Christie wrote this fairly early in her career; and she couldn't handle four villains concept adequately. Guess it wasn't really a bad idea to stay away from Christie for a month. 3/5


Apart from the full length books, I also read a lot of short stories recently -

These are all 4/5 unless specified otherwise -

Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl - My first Dahl. The ending was a bit predictable but Dahl is a master story teller. Kept me hooked throughout.

The Interlopers, Open Window by Saki (H. H. Munro) - Two more with unpredictable endings.

The Verger by Somerset Maugham

Bullet in the Brain by Tobias Wolff

After Twenty Years, The Cop and the Anthem, The Ransom of the Red Chief, The Princess and the Puma by O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) - Is there a better writer than O. Henry when it comes to stories with unpredictable endings?

The Country of the Blind by H.G. Wells - Spooky! And creepy! In the County of the Blind, One-Eyed man is the king. Well, don't be so sure about that.

The Call of the Cthulhu by HP Lovecraft - My first Lovecraft! And it was amazing. And extremely creepy. This is the first book where Lovecraft introduces Cthulhu and it actually comes only in dreams (mostly) but it's such a scary thing! Imagine something that is huge and resembles a human, an octopus and a dragon. And it has the ability to come into your dreams and screw your mind up. Sometimes it may also feel like meeting you in person and inviting to its home so that it can wreck you. After reading this, Neil Gaiman's A Study in Emerald made more sense btw.

Hunters in the Snow by Tobias Wolff - I'm not gonna shower much love on Wolff's Bullet in the Brain but man oh man, this one's so brimmingly excellent.

Shatranj ke Khiladi by Munshi Premchand (hindi) - Whoaa, great read!

The Last Question, The Last Answer by Isaac Asimov - Asimov with a bit of philosophy and also sci-fi. Great reads!

Uncle Fred Flits By by PG Wodehouse - Re-read this three more times after initially reading it in Feb (I guess). Continues to be funny and none of the characters (err, mainly Uncle Fred and Pongo Twistleton) resemble any famous ones from J & W or Blandings. I'm planning to read more Uncle Fred till I get sick of him and throw Wodehouse away for a month again.

A Haunted House by Virginia Woolf - It didn't make any sense to me. Somebody help?

A Telephone Call by Dorothy Parker - What is this, a monologue? Or a rant? Was expecting some funny stuff from Parker (who reviewed Twilight several decades before it came out - This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly, it should be thrown away with great force!) but this went on and on and on and on. I pictured the protagonist as the woman from Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder. So if any of you read the Parker story and watched Hitchcock's movie and see any sense of resemblance, I'd be glad. I already feel like I'm losing my sanity and have become El Loco.


Abandoned projects - On Writing by Stephen King (29 pages), Atonement by Ian McEwan (7 pages). (adding them here so that I'd at least be ashamed and motivated enough to read them next month)

[Books] March, 2015

1. The Battle of the Labyrinth & The Last Olympian (#4 and #5 of Percy Jackson and the Olympians) -
The series gets constantly boring for me, though I know it's mostly my fault for not being a teenager. Sorry guv, I grew up even though I really didn't want to. The end is predictable like with most Young Adult series but the journey is kinda fun if you focus constantly on the mythology stuff and pretend not to read the teenager-y conversations between the characters. Oh I loved Mrs. O'Leary ("woof!"). And Hermes. And George+Martha on his caduceus. And Grover when he's nervous. And Blackjack's lingo. For all its adventure, Percy Jackson series could have used a bit of fun, as the target audience is YA. I felt that was a glaring miss from Rick Riordan. Not enough female characters on whom I managed to get a crush on - Annabeth, Zoe, Thalia, Rachel, Silena were all meh. Rating: 3/5


2. The Lost Hero and The Son of Neptune (#1 and #2 of Heroes of Olympus series) -
When the Last Olympian ended with yet another prophecy, this time concerning seven demi-gods, I knew we were in for another series. So here goes another 5 books of which the first two deal exclusively with the Roman mythology as much as the earlier series dealt with Greek. I knew about Remus, Romulus and Lupa before I read this series (thanks to AS Roma). Huzzah! Lost Hero was tolerable only for Leo Valdez and Festus. Son of Neptune is where I lost my patience as it gets waaayyyy too emotional teenager-y. My sis lamented last night "I should have picked up LOTR 11 yrs earlier but I thought it would be too dark and it would be too long but now that I've finally read it, it's bestest fantasy series eva!". Of course even if I'd read Percy Jackson series when I was 14, I doubt I'd have it ranked among the best fantasy series - as impressionable as I was at that time. But it's an alright series, not bad considering all the mythology stuff. There are occasions when I mutter "shut up you stupid girl" but Piper, Hazel, Reyna, Annabeth and all would grow up one day. Leo was fun in the first book but his fun quotient keeps going down. At least we still have Coach Hedge who probably fits the meme "all your base are belong to us" better than anyone. Rating: 3/5 (mostly for great mythology stories).


3. Ganapathi by Chilakamarthi Lakshmi Narasimham -
Re-read my review of Gurajada Apparao's Kanyasulkam, reduce the rating by 1, add the parts - "what's the point of this?", "nope, this is too low even for me", "c'mon, this is stupid", "it's not even funny anymore!". Rating: 3/5


4. The Runaway Jury by John Grisham -
The only other Grisham I read was the real life account The Innocent Man, which was very touching and also had its moments of thrill. This book concerns a jury for one of the stand out cases in the modern US history (fictional) which deals with the anti-smoking laws, the smoking companies lobbying, how a jury can be swayed, etc. From around 100th page onwards, it meandered to a predictable ending and though I was impressed with all the statistics, surveys, arguments, counter-arguments, opinions et al both in favor and against smoking companies and their advertising, it felt a little flat in the story telling department. But I kinda liked it though. Rating: 3/5


5. Padava Munaka by Kamalasanudu, a translation of Rabindranath Tagore's Nouka dubi -
I was involved in a discussion recently about books that are translated - whether they help in bringing newer and unfamiliar audience to stories (of course they do) and whether they can keep the beauty of the original intact (some do, some don't). This book concerns with a Law graduate who is in love with one girl (sister of his close friend) but has to marry another girl to respect his father's wishes. The story picks up when the procession carrying the couple over the river on the way back from the wedding to Kolkata capsizes. It is a beautifully written story with a very endearing language and even though I know Tagore's original work is definitely greater, but I can still say that I'd loved the Telugu version too. There were a couple of occasions when it felt like the Bengali phrase was poorly/literally translated and this can be observed even by someone like moi whose Bengali is limited to ami tumi bhalobashi. But of course these mistakes don't take away the effort put in bringing the rest of the story closer to Telugu audience. I heard there's an English translation called The Wreck though I don't know if Gurudev himself wrote it. Rating: 4/5


6. Dreamcatcher by Stephen King -
While reading this book, I constantly thought of King's Hemingway Defense. Was King drunk when he wrote this? Was he high? Was he dreaming? The story is about four childhood friends and their special buddy who "can see the line". I keep turning page after page of King's books and I wonder how he manages to write sooo much! On a typical sunday afternoon, I struggle to write anything coherent and ingenius for more than 2 pages. So yeah, kudos for that special ability. I can't help but wonder if his books can be reduced by nearly 200 pages without losing any major incident in his story. Of course, The Shining doesn't come under this - every page is awe-freakin-some. But Dreamcatcher - I don't know, it felt unnecessarily too long. It has aliens and stuff, so maybe King got drunk while watching ET and then found himself a lot of free time. It has a few gross scenes too. Do not read certain parts after heavy lunch and obviously stay away from this book after dinner. Rating: 3/5

[Books] Feb, 2015

1. What, Ho! By PG Wodehouse
A collection of short stories from various Wodehouse works – Jeeves & Wooster, Blandings, Uncle Fred, Mulliner, Ukridge, etc. It also includes a few letters from Wodehouse which journal his life in US and also his thoughts on several contemporary writers. As a bonus, there’s a couple of really brilliant poems to boot.

Jeeves, Wooster and Lord Emsworth always make me laugh but it’s nice to get acquainted with other characters in Wodehouse world, though Mulliner turned out to be my least favorite as his stories are always about him narrating someone else’s experiences. But of course, only Wodehouse can make me read stories about golf (*yawns*) and actually enjoy them. As this review says, this book is intended for Wodehouse enthusiasts and not beginners. I always recommend Leave it to Psmith or Inimitable Jeeves to start PG W. 3.5/5

2. Feynman’s Lost Lecture: The Motion of Planets Around the Sun – by David L Goodstein
This is strictly for people who do not mind a little bit of math, especially geometry. If you're one of those who hated science then better ignore this one. I was previously recommended another excellent book on Feynman’s life – Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman? – but before I go there eventually, I am happy to get a chance to read this book. The book deals with Richard Feynman's impromptu lecture to his grad students and his explanation of why planets move around the sun in only elliptical orbits. The actual material is probably 40 pages long but the author, who was a good friend of Feynman, gives a lot of introduction about Aristotelian world, the successive theories about our star system from Copernicus, Tycho (Brahe), Galileo, Newton before presenting us Feynman’s analysis. Newton actually proved Copernicus’ law about elliptical motion of the planets by using his own famous three laws in his Principia Mathematica, but he used a lot of properties of conic sections and stuff. Instead, Feynman uses simple geometry (congruent triangles, tangents to circle, foci, radius, parallelogram, etc) to prove the elliptical motion. I liked this book very much. The nerd side in me is a happy chappy. 4/5

3. And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer
Eoin Colfer is the famous author from Artemis Fowl series but he did a grave mistake of expanding on Douglas Adams' amazing H2G2 series. I blame Hollywood for inspiring Colfer into taking something really awesome and making terrible continuation of the same. If I hadn't come across this name in one of the book club discussions, I'd have been happy with my ignorance that H2G2 is only a trilogy in five parts. But now I read this and my life's a little wretched. This doesn't have my favorite Marvin the paranoid android. This has barely any lines for Arthur Dent. Ford Prefect is always drunk and doesn't make any sense. Random Dent is more a highly annoying teenager rather than cute little teen. I don’t even want to talk about Trillian's role in this. This book was saved solely by Zaphod Beeblebrox, who continues to be his stupid self and Thor the thunder god. The bits about Asgard and all were kinda ok. Don't recommend this to anyone unless you want to spoil your H2G2 experience. 2.5/5

4. Dork by Sidin Vadukut
I haven't read a single page of this when I was sober. That's some achievement, surely? This book only reiterated my dislike for upcoming Indian writers aka CB's evil spawn (thankfully this book doesn't have much romance & s). This book was supposed to be funny but I can't remember laughing more than a handful of times and we are talking about my drunk self who's known to giggle too much. Parts of it were boring, parts of it were unnecessary, parts of it were superfluous, parts of it made me want to throttle someone around, parts of it made me kick my neighbour's cat 9 stories high. If you think it's a decent book, I won't disagree with you. You may get a call from my drunk self for some in depth analytical discussions though. 2.5/5

5. The Silver Spike by Glen Cook
This is a continuation of the Black Company trilogy which I reviewed last month. This book deals with the aftermath of The White Rose and is mostly written with Case as protagonist. It does miss my favorite characters like Lady & Croaker completely. It's a spin off and a decent book but the series at this point is getting a bit too tedious with the evil stuff. It’s like the evil just won’t die and that is because Cook wants to write a zillion more books. I hope the next ones (think there are 7 more) get better. 3.5/5

6. The Murder on the Blue Train by Agatha Christie
I don't know if I've overgrown Christie and I don't know if it is ridiculous to expect the mystery authors to put a bit more focus on narration and liberal scattering of clues and I don't know if I'm the only one who thinks a mystery book which ends with the main detective pulling something out of the hat saying "voila" is completely stupid and only underestimates the reader's intelligence. After a thoroughly excellent book Murder on the Links in Jan, this was such a downer. I'm mixing a lot of Christie and I make sure to read at least one every month but a good book is hard to come by. 2.5/5

7. Thank You, Jeeves by Wodehouse
Unlike the previous 3-4 Wodehouse books I read, this one's a complete story where…hold your breaths…Jeeves leaves Wooster's service. This severely reduces the number of interactions between Jeeves and Wooster – and any Wodehouse fan would tell you that the charm in J & W series is the conversations between them, Jeeves is bland without W and Wooster’s got nothing without J. This is still a decent book and it deals with the American Stoker family as well as Wooster's pal Chuffy and there's also the loony doctor Sir Roderick Glossop who provide fun. I watched this episode already and I enjoyed the book more than it was worth purely by imagining Fry and Laurie as J & W. 3.5/5

8. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Titan’s Curse
After getting embarrassed in a Mythology Quiz (I think my score was 3/150), this series provided me an excellent chance of reading through Greek mythology. I don't know about others who studied in fancy schools and read fancy mythology stuff, but I didn't do it a decade and a half ago. There are so many references to Greek mythology that I end up spending most of my time on Wiki entries, so the book series is not progressing as fast as I would've liked. Still, I only have 2 more books to finish in this series before taking his other one – The Heroes of Olympus. I'd recommend the books for 12-14 yr kids as the stuff feels very childish and there are too many adventures which I suppose to have come very well on screen (I hear Titan’s Curse is in pipeline now). But the books are getting a bit predictable and I was very angry with Percy's entry into Polyphemus' cave – I knew only a little bit about Cyclopes and they had to repeat Ulysses' exact plan. Damn you, man! 3/5 (I wish I were 12)

[Books] Jan, 2015

A review of books I read in Jan, 2015

1.Tales of Dunk n Egg by George RR Martin (The Hedge Knight, The Sworn Sword, The Mystery Knight) –
Got the books several months ago but had the time to read only last month. Thanks to the unplanned vacations eh. The books deal with a hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall aka Dunk and a mysterious lad Egg. But the real story is about the Targaryen dynasty and the Blackfyre rebellion. These novellas are pretty good fillers for ASOIAF. Lord knows George RR Martin isn't going to release his 6th book any time soon. 4/5

2. The Importance of Being Earnest – Oscar Wilde is excellent at wit! There must be around 100 quotable quotes in this little 80 page book. 4/5

3. American Gods by Neil Gaiman –
This book has so many Gods that I had trouble identifying at least half of them. But this link here was an excellent companion while reading Gaiman's book. American Gods is about a character Shadow and his travels across America after meeting a mysterious stranger Mr. Wednesday (know how the day got its name?). During his travels he comes across a lot of Gods who were initially brought to America by several migrants but who are forgotten now, in place of New Gods. A fascinating read, albeit a bit lengthy. For those who're interested, here’s an ebook for Myths of the Norsemen: From the Eddas and Sagas. 3.5/5

4. The Black Company trilogy aka Books of the North by Glen Cook –
(The Black Company, Shadows Linger, The White Rose)
The start of the series is freaking confusing so let me post a brief synopsis for those who are interested to take this up. The Black Company is a group of mercenaries and they’re the last free company from Khatovar. The story starts with the Company situated at Beryl in the service of the Syndic. They get an offer to work for a mysterious stranger but the Captain of the Black Company refuses to break their current contract. After a mysterious attack one night by forvalaka (leopard sorts), the Syndic dies which frees the Company from their contract. They switch over to provide their services to the stranger, who turns out to be someone called Soulcatcher. A few hundred years ago, the Empire was ruled by an evil Dominator and his wife Lady. They took 10 of the most evil into their service and these are called Ten Who Were Taken. But the evil was ended when The White Rose defeated Dominator and his clan but her powers were not enough to kill them all. With the help of powerful sorcerers, The White Rose buried Lady, Dominator and the Ten with enough spells which prevented their escape for several decades. But the evil never stops trying eh. A sorcerer named Bomanz wanted to make contact with this bunch but a mistake in his spells released the Lady, who released the Ten but kept her husband Dominator buried.

And this Soulcatcher is one of the Ten Who Were Taken. Others include Limper, Stormbringer, Nightcrawler, Shapeshifter, The Hanged Man, etc etc. The Black Company don’t break their contracts come what may. So they start to serve the Lady in her fight against The Rebel. The entire series is narrated by Croaker who is part physician and part Annalist. Goblin, Silent and One-Eye are the sorcerers while the Captain is in command of the company with a Lieutenant under him. Raven is from the clergy at Opal who lost most of his lands and titles thanks to Limper. After he joins the Black Company he plays a major part in the series. The first book has a lot of fights, battles and wars going on between the Lady and Rebel. Just like in every other fantasy series, there is a prophecy that The White Rose will come and save the world from evil. The second book deals with Dominator trying to escape his spells and come out to cause chaos. While the first book is pretty fast paced reading, the second one is a bit flat for the initial half as there’s not a single fight. Makes up for it with a biiig fight in the end between Dominator and others though. And as the title says, the third part of the book is about the savior White Rose.

Major problem with the series is that there is no map provided with the books. But this map here should be enough. The series has 7 more books :o

Series rating: 4/5. The second book was on course for 3/5 but the final chapters were pretty good.

5. Er Ist Wieder Da aka Look Who’s Back by Timur Vermes –
I heard that there were a lot of protests in Germany regarding the popularity of this satirical novel on Adolf Hitler. I think we are living in dangerous times if the speech is sanctioned and the artistic spirit is curtailed. This book does not promote Nazism. This book does not incite violence or hatred. This book does not make you fall in love with Hitler. This book mocks Hitler and his policies incessantly. For Timur Vermes, Hitler is not just a hate figure but someone to be ridiculed and mocked for his ideas and views. He achieves this by bringing Hitler back to life in Berlin and making him a TV show personality where Hitler freely airs his (real life) views bringing laughter to everyone. If there is still any doubt about his intentions, one has to only read Hitler’s acceptance speech after he wins the prestigious tv award. The following passage is in the initial pages (after Hitler wakes up in a Berlin park he notices a few kids playing football)

I expect my needs did not appear sufficiently pressing to the Hitler Youths, who looked as if they wanted to resume their game of association football. The tallest of the lads now turned to his friends, allowing me to read his name, which his mother had sewn onto a brightly coloured jersey.

“Hitler Youth Ronaldo, which way to the street?”

And then it continued to make me laugh. 4/5


6. Good Omens: Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman –
I never read any Terry Pratchett before so I didn't have high expectations. Thought the book was pretty good though the sarcasm levels came down alarmingly low in the middle pages. The conversations between Aziraphale and Crowley along with the guest appearance of Mary Loquacious make up for it though. Description for the Dog: Satanical hellhound and cat-worrier. This still makes me fall off my chair. 4/5

7. The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie – a good murder mystery or two after a long time. Loved it. 4/5

8. Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie – half of the stories are crap, what with Poirot getting secret inside information fooling the readers. At least the other half's pretty good. 3/5

9. Very Good, Jeeves! by PG Wodehouse – Very good, Wodehouse. Excellent collection of short stories. 4.5/5

Thoughts on football, cricket, sanity of self

#CampaignAgainstChelsea
Congratulations are on the way to Chelsea fans with due credits to Mourinho. Only you could have made a hashtag campaign more ridiculous than #wontgiveitback

#WontGiveItBack
I don't know when Star replaced Sahara as Indian cricket team's sponsors, but they don't learn do they? It started with England's tour of India and Aane do. Of course the expectation is that we'd take revenge for our thrashing in England by thrashing them in India. Well they came, they thrashed us and they left. Let's not even talk about the ads for the home series vs WI and SL. More recently it was supposed to be Thunder Down Under. Which turned out to be more like Whimper Down Under in the end.

What's with the ridiculous campaign for Ind vs Pak world cup game with all those Karachi 1992 to 2011 ads? Trust a football fan on this - Star have jinxed India. If Pak manages to beat us, you know whom to write your angry letters to. (while I'll just pretend that the record was always less about Pak losing to India and more about Sachin beating them every single time. This cannot be disproved).

I don't even know what made them think of #WontGiveItBack ad. Cringe worthy.

Characteristics that Jack Wilshere shares with me
- midget cunt
- Acts like a tough guy but is really a wimp
- Smokes regularly but denies publicly. Wait, did I initially want to write it as 'smokes publicly but denies regularly'? Works either way
- Picks up fights with guys twice his size every Saturday night
- Invokes the spirit of Scrappy Doo on Sunday nights. Lemme at him! Lemme!

Of course he earns 900 times more than I do every week but can he write an entire C++ program in Notepad editor without any syntax errors, I ask you?

God is great
Now that the cricket world cup is about to start, I better practice my curses
- For Sachin's sake!
- Oh. My. Sachin.
- Sach im Himmel!

Wonko the sane
Lately I've observed that my views regarding football don't really match with a lot of other people's opinions. Either the entire world is wrong and I'm stuck here like Wonko the Sane or I'm insane and need to be sanctioned. Scary, either way.

Television - RK Narayan

An extract from RK Narayan’s My Dateless Diary, a summary of his experiences during his first visit to US.


At first you may naively think what a wonder Television is. But alas, it is only a sales-medium. Every programme serves only as an excuse for sandwiching messages about haircream, cigarette, soap, and automobile; health, wealth, wisdom, and happiness, according to the character on the Television screen are to be attained only by inhaling the smoke of such and such cigarette which has the distinction of having fifty thousand filters (whatever it may mean, but it prevents lung cancer about which the medical profession has chosen to make so much fuss) – all adjectives are used in support of it, all music is subservient to it, and all acting, personality, dramaturgy, is a message-bearer.

In times of War all talent is pressed for propaganda. In peace all talent (the television could make the highest bid) is pressed for sales-service.

I feel a violent jolt when a narrator who earns our respect otherwise suddenly interrupts his performance to step aside to say,
‘I want to tell you about the cigarette which I most enjoy smoking. It is … remember …’ and then he spells and repeats it. Or the tragedienne of classic dimensions suddenly goes off to say, ‘You may wonder why I care for … soap …’ and then goes on to spell the name of this profound soap. Perpetration of such a violence to the sacredness of artistic illusions makes one furious – out of that fury the following scene is written:

One Continuous Mood

SCENE: (Dark night. A lonely cottage. Wind whistling outside. An old woman is warming her soup over the fireplace. Knock on the door).

O.W. (Old Woman): Who is it? At this unearthly hour.
Voice: Sh! Sh! Open the door, matter of life and death!
O.W.: I won’t open the door.
Voice: Please, save my life. Don’t delay. (Distant baying of hounds). There they are. Open the door. (The old woman shakes her head and tries to go on with her soup).
Voice: By the way, I can hear you drinking your soup. Remember one thing. XYZ soup is reinforced with vitamin B14. It is the only soup with vitamin B14. Remember it. B14 will knock the years out of your age.
Voice: (As the baying of dogs approaches) Good woman, do you like to see my body mangled at your very doorstep?
O.W.: No, go, go away, do not disturb me. (Suddenly the dogs are right at her door. Several voices are heard. She listens intently to the various sounds. She pushes away her soup bowl, wringing her hands.) Perhaps he really needs help … Oh, God save that poor man! (She tiptoes to the door, and with her hand on the latch pauses for a moment and says:) My hands are soft because I use only Gopi Flakes for laundering my linen. Gopi also can wash your silks, your sink, your utensils, your walls, your furniture, floor, carpet, shoes or automobile. In fact, Gopi is right for any cleaning job. Gopi cleans twenty-five times faster than any other detergent and costs five times less. Remember Gopi is the only one which has Blimol in it.

(At this moment the man outside hurls himself against the door and crashes in. The old woman is thrown off, but luckily supports herself by putting her hands out and catching the wall)

O.W.: What do you mean by this?
Visitor: (Who has a cloak around his head) I am sorry, terribly sorry. I will repair your door for you.
O.W.: (Surveying the man) Who are you? Are you a thief or a renegade? You look fierce enough with that beard of yours.
Visitor: (Stroking his beard thoughtfully and finally taking it off) You see it is false. My enemies are after me.
O.W.: You may rest in that corner.

(Darkness falls on the house; the man sits hunched up at the door waiting for his friends. He falls asleep and wakes up at dawn. The old woman enters.)

O.W.: Oh, you still here! (The visitor wakes up and yawns.)
Visitor: One reason why I prefer Watterrwet Towels is that they are soft, soft like the petals of a rose. They are in several pastel shades – one for each day of the week, packed in -. (He flourishes a glittering package.)
O.W.: I have to go out for a while. (The old woman picks up her mop and bucket.) Watch that kettle. Take it down when the water boils.
Visitor: I will. (At this moment, clatter of horses’ hoofs is heard. The old woman has just opened the door.)
Someone outside: Who is inside?
O.W.: (Trying to shut the door) No one.
Horseman: He must be here. Do you know who he is?
Horsemen: The rebels are busy pillaging the place. They have announced a price – on Your Majesty’s head. Let us rush away. (The old woman is aghast on hearing the word ‘Majesty’, and kneels down)
Visitor: (Giving her a ring) You have been good to me. Keep it. Goodbye, I must go now. (The men march out and get the horses ready. H.M. rushes out, but pauses at the door to say:) There are three reasons why I prefer Stonebreak Soap. First, it is the cleanest soap in the market. Two, it is the only soap which can make your worn-out skin glow again, and three, it never slips through your wet fingers.

(More horsemen arrive.)

King’s friends: (Cry in unison) We are lost, they have found us. But we will fight. (Swords are drawn. It is difficult to see who is who in this melee. You hear the clash of swords, and groans of the wounded as they fall to the ground.)
O.W.: Ah, bloody sight! In my poor cottage! (She edges her way to where the King is fighting with his back to the wall. She carries the kettle of boiling water and pours it down the neck of the man who has cornered the King; the man leaps up. The King knocks him down, kneels over his chest, ready to run his sword through him.)
King: If you are thinking of a nice birthday present for your daughter, give her a Sissy Tractor, which is the only one with a built-in Dish Washer. Run it on your field; it’ll plow the earth. Set it up in the kitchen; it’ll wash your dishes. No down payment, no up-payment. In fact, no payment at all. Take the tractor, use it, when it’s worn out, bring it back and we will give you another. Remember, for your child’s birthday, a Sissy Tractor!
Fallen man: Take away your sword. I’ll tell you.
King: Yes, speak.
Fallen man: About your children.
King: (With sword at his heart) Oh, what about them? Tell me, tell me soon.
O.W.: (To the audience) Bad breath is instantly abolished if you use Breatho pulls; the cost works out to ¼ cent each hour. It’s the most scientific anitiodour pill ever made.
King: Oh, tell me about my children. Are they safe?
Man: They were intercepted, and they are now in our custody. If you do not surrender before mid-day they will be …
King: Oh stop; don’t say the word.
Man: I know where they are. I’ll take you there.
King: And also collect your reward; you will get your reward and I shall lose my head, h’m?
Man: (Embarrassed) I suppose so, Your Majesty. For that headache that never stops, take Pancita 606. Pancita 606 gives 32 times faster relief than others.

(The old woman bursts into tears. All the King’s followers go out mutely. The man leads the King out gleefully.)

King: All our yesterdays have lighted fools their dusty way to death. One word more. Porcupine underwear keeps you cool in summer and warm in winter. Look for Porcupine underwear wherever you go.

***

[Books] 2014 - The year that was - Part IV

Continued from here.

The Shining – Stephen King
Ever since I first heard about The Shining, I stayed away from all the discussions/mentions of the book/movie so that it doesn’t spoil my reading experience. I’m kinda paranoid like that – I refuse to even read the back cover before starting a book. All I can say is that it is worth the wait. It gave me heebie-jeebies and it gets scary from page 20 or so. That’s 600+ pages worth of scary reading. Absolutely amazing! I’ll just leave this one quote from the book as it reminds me of my college life where we had to come up with creative abuses on our internal IM chats so as to escape the filters – (and also because we are were staunch believers of creativity instead of the everyday rote)

The workman cut to the left, still laying on his horn, and roared around the drunkenly weaving limousine. He invited the driver of the limo to perform an illegal sex act on himself. To engage in oral congress with various rodents and birds. He articulated his own proposal that all persons of Negro blood return to their native continent. He expressed his sincere belief in the position the limo-driver's soul would occupy in the afterlife. He finished by saying that he believed he had met the limo-driver's mother in a New Orleans house of prostitution.

Rating – 4/5

Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
I first heard about this book nearly couple of yrs ago I mentioned somewhere that I liked Ken Follet’s The Key to Rebecca and a friend mentioned that Rebecca is a pretty good book too. It has one of the most famous first lines – “Last night I dreamt that I went to Manderley again”. The first 100 pages made me feel that the book should be titled Manderley instead. Also, aren't Manderlys a loyal Stark banner men in ASOIAF? Sorry, I digress. The prose is beautiful, the descriptions of the Manderley were great and the narrative from the unnamed, err, narrator, is free flowing. The book gets a bit dull in the middle section – I mean, one can take only so much about extensive descriptions about a place. I also felt the narrator to be a bit weak of character, though I may have to take her young age into consideration and excuse it. The final 100 pages are thrilling through. I didn’t watch the movie and I had no idea what the book was about, so I liked the ending. Not sure the same can be said of others. Even if you know the story, give the book a read though. The language is simply beautiful and is rare to see among current authors. 4/5

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that can’t stop Talking – Susan Cain
The title of the book came across a bit too strong but the content is pretty mild. It's not self-help at all. Target audience is US where people are mostly extroverted (the society as a whole) compared to the eastern part of the world which comes across a bit introverted. Though that is quite generalizing a bit too much. The initial chapters were vexing as there were too bludy many examples of extrovertism and introvertism. Author advises the reader to take Carl Jung test for personality traits though I'm not really up to date how relevant these tests are these days (read a little bit the other day about conflicts between Jung and Freud). As the book goes on, the content becomes more readable. The author confesses to growing up as an introvert and with the American way of life leaning more towards extrovertism (presentation more important than content, colleges want students to be outgoing, weekends are filled with camping or partying yada yada), this book comes as her analysis on introverts and how their skills can be utilized better. Seriously I can't be the only one who hates group work (especially when team work is more like this) and runs away from all "fun events" at workplace? Anyway, that makes it 4 women authors for my 2014 (along with Patricia Highsmith and Mme Christie). 3 stars for the book and an extra star for the research. 4/5

Appointment with Death – Agatha Christie
What the fricking hell was that? I hate, I absolutely hate it when the clues are deliberately kept away from the reader and the mystery is solved magically when the detective (Poirot here) comes up with completely new information in the end. I'm as pissed off as Jack Black was in School of Rock and I really want to stick it to the man. 2/5

Eye of the Needle – Ken Follet
Another book which pissed me off no end. This was supposed to be one of the most acclaimed works of Follet but the ending was such a big letdown. If I wanted to read super heroes I'd read Stan Lee's Marvels comics instead. I can't even abuse the characters without giving away the plot so I'll just stick to making angry grunts at my desk instead. Follet, there was such a big scope but in the end, u iz a big disappoint. 3/5

Slaughterhouse-5 – Kurt Vonnegut
The book started with a beginning and it finished with an end. In between all this there was the middle. So it goes. Billy Pilgrim was at Dresden during its bombing in World War II. Or maybe he wasn't. So it goes. Billy Pilgrim was abducted by aliens. Or, [breaks the statement and stares at everyone with a pointed finger like Ross Geller], maybe he wasn't. So it goes. I heard a lot about the book. I read the book completely in a few hrs. I am yet to come to any conclusion as to whether I like it or not. But hey, so it goes. It has underlying sarcasm but it is not continuous like Catch-22. I didn't feel like it was a full-on satire on war. It is a short book at less than 200 pages so give it a read and form your own opinion. I think I definitely need a re-read though. So it goes. 3/5

The Curious Case of Dog in the Night Time – Mark Haddon
I liked the puzzles. I liked the narration. I liked how the author used a kid with Asperger's syndrome as protagonist and showed the world in his eyes. This makes even the scenes with unemotional narration come out as pretty emotional for the readers. There are not many references to actual Holmes stories though – maybe a couple at the max. I found the book short and endearing. *sniff* 4/5

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
I heard a lot about PKD and how he's considered part of Sci-Fi trinity along with Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke. The book has been on my to-read shelf for more than a year and once I completed Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World, GR kept suggesting this one to me every time I logged in. I found the title interesting – it seems to refer to a world where human intelligence reaches the peaks of developing human-like robots (humanoids?) and once we reach that stage, what are the moral values of these humanoids? Are they bound by same moral laws as humans? (now that we come to this part, what moral values are we bound by?) Pretty fascinating read for me, though there is not much world building from PKD. The first half of the book was more like the adventures of a bounty hunter but once it reaches the end, the moral questions of the book’s title come forth. 3.5/5

[Books] 2014 - The year that was - Part III

Continued from here.

Parnasala - Y Veerendranath. Have to admit that I never really warmed up to this author. He’s pretty highly rated but I have scarred memories from high school when I went through one of his self-improvement books (looking at you too, Shiv Khera). He is criticized for lifting a lot of parts from foreign books and his writing style is not smooth. He’s too melodramatic. He uses archaic Telugu in some places and full English words at other places unnecessarily. Of course several of his novels were made into successful movies but give me Malladi Krishnamurthy (only read two of his – Chantabbay, Rendu Rellu Aaru) any day over him. I’m gonna give him one final chance though – will pick up the highly rated Tulasi Dalam some time this year and if that disappoints, then I’m gonna stay away from all his books. 2/5

A Brave New World - Aldous Huxley. Grim, morose, disturbing, dark, scary, depressing, horrific, distressing. Huxley’s dystopian novel deals with the future where women are no longer viviparous (first encountered the word here), human birth is all done through surrogates (I suppose the equivalent of ‘alcohol in his blood surrogate’ is our very own ‘were you dropped on your head?’), people undergo hypnopaedic lessons as children, adults get soma-induced holidays and a host of other things (“play” school – dayyum!). First chapter has too many technical details about the Hatcheries and Conditioning Centre. But once you cross that, the story is interesting at least till the halfway stage. It is of course unavoidable to compare and contrast this with George Orwell’s 1984. Bernard Marx initially gave me the impression of Winston Smith (someone who feels like an outsider in the society) and there was so much potential to make Lenina Crowne as Julia but it’s a pity they didn’t turn out like that. Around half of the book after the halfway stage felt a bit weak – though I’m not sure if that’s an emotion or an analysis. Or if it’s an analysis by subconscious mind which the conscious can only recognize as a ‘feeling’ – maybe that’s what rational emotion means? The book picks up strongly in the final chapters though but Huxley took Mr. Savage a bit too far into the opposite extreme. And surprisingly the World Controller Mustapha Mond didn’t really sound like O’Brien in 1984. I suppose true test of insanity depends on how much one agrees with Mond’s views in the end. Oh also, coccyx – another word I first read here. The 2nd part of the book has several pages dedicated to Shakespeare (and the title is obviously taken from a verse in Tempest). Special recommendation for poetry enthusiasts! 4/5

Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson – Final Empire, Well of Ascension, Hero of Ages
I can see why Brandon Sanderson took over WoT series. His writing is pretty good, the story moves fast and there is a lot of magic. I liked the connection between magic and metals – allomancy. The first book can be read as standalone as there is no cliffhanger in the end. The climax may be fairly predictable but the real story starts in the 2nd book. I was bored till halfway of Well of Ascension as there was less magic and more narration (and the budding romance between Vin and Elend - bleurgh). The final book is where everything unravels. I can understand the criticism that the final part is a bit repetitive but it’s a problem only if you've finished the series in a week. For those who religiously followed the books over 3 yrs, there was probably a necessity to retell some parts from previous books to refresh their memory. I heard there’s a 4th one – Alloy of Law – which is set 300 yrs later. That trilogy includes 2 more books to be finished in 2016. And Sanderson is writing 36 novels all set in Cosmere, under which Mistborn is a little part. Oh great, who needs social life anyway? 4/5

Bartimaeus series by Jonathan Stroud – Amulet of Samarkand, Golem’s Eye, Ptolemy’s Gate, Ring of Solomon
Adventures of smart arse djinni and its master. Bartimaeus parts are hilarious and if the series had only those chapters, I’d have given it a 8/5 rating. But I had to endure Kitty and Nathaniel (most of those were boring in Golem’s Eye), uff. Nathaniel transforms from smart yet innocent kid in Amulet of Samarkand to cocky and proud minister in Ptolemy’s Gate and irritated the heck out of me. But Barty, oh my, what a wisecracking djinni! The first three books were good and the final one was something like a prequel but it’s not necessary to read it to follow the story line of actual trilogy. But Ring of Solomon has Bartimaeus extensively so it was a fun read too. All the Twilight brigade should give those up and pick up Bartimaeus instead under Young Adult category. Whenever he says "I’m Bartimaeus of Uruk, Sakhr-Al Djinni, Serpent of the Silver Plumes!" I roared. I hope Jonathan Stroud writes more standalone books including the adventures of Bartimaeus. 4/5

Airframe - Michael Crichton. Breathtaking. Unputdownable. After a couple of dull Crichton books (Prey, Sphere, Andromeda Strain – not bad, but a bit average), I'm glad to come across this one by luck. I gifted this to my sister for Rakhi and she lent me the same recently as I ran out of books. Btw, it made me hate media even more (if that is even possible) – not everyone, just the ones who are after TRPs and try to make everything sound sensational. Those who focus less on the actual content and more on manipulating it – umm alright, that makes it almost everyone. 4.5/5

Dilbert Principle - Scott Adams. The Bible. Was written nearly two decades ago but I was nodding profusely for every single line. I read a review which said that the book comes across as condescending but I think Adams got the tone just right. He starts the book by saying everyone’s an idiot and give an example of his own stupidity. On initial thoughts it seems tailor made for IT employees, but it is applicable in all places where there is – vision, business statement, mission statement, quality teams, cubicles, disgruntled employees, stupid managers, emails, trackers, employee engagement activities, human resources, reward programs, downsizing, diversity, offshore, etc. I take back my words from previous para where I said Dilbert Principle is a serious book – it isn't. It’s a hilarious read for those who like self-deprecating humor. 5/5

Guns of Navarone - Alistair MacLean. If you can plod through the first 100 pages, it’s a brilliant book. I usually struggle at the start of MacLean novels before I understand the context of the err, expedition. But after that, it’s a very pacy read. I heard there’s a brilliant movie too – but that has to wait while I swim in the genius of MacLean. The 2nd half is some extremely impressive story telling. I screamed huzzah!when it ended. 4.5/5

Lord of the Flies William Golding – I know Animal Farm is one of the best allegorical novels ever written but this has to rank up there among the best surely. A bunch of schoolboys are plane wrecked on an uninhabited island and the book traces the deterioration of their society. My reaction flow through the book – meh kids --> what stupid kids --> are you insane? --> OMG, NOT HIM TOO! --> you fucking savages* --> damn you all to hell. The final page of the book has “wept for the end of innocence” – what beautiful and poignant line! I was able to relate each character to what they were supposed to represent, except maybe the conch. Had to refer to Wiki for that. I miscalculated my reading speed and went out of town on a weekend with only this book in hand – got the chance to read it twice within two days. All’s well. 4.5/5

* not related to Savage from A Brave New World

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[Books] 2014 - The year that was - Part II

Continued from here.

Where Eagles Dare - Alistair MacLean. How have I not read MacLean before? The man is a genius. I think I started this after a couple of Forsyth novels so I was continuing the British vs Germany spy stuff. The story is pretty pacy, the narration style makes it thrilling and I imagined the protagonist (Major Smith?) as Rowan Atkinson in Blackadder goes Forth, which further enhanced my reading pleasure. There are once again, double crosses, double-double crosses, double agents, triple agents, confusing agents, etc. Such a pleasure to read spy stuff with barely any romantic content (Ian Fleming, take note wherever you are) and still exhilarating enough to keep the reader engrossed in the book. Lovely debut for MacLean (I mean not his first novel but the first I read by him) after my troubling experiences with other popular authors. 4.5/5

Ice Station Zebra - MacLean. Britain’s Artic ice station seems to be in trouble and there is barely any response to radio communication. There’s an advanced submarine being sent to rescue them but a man who calls himself a specialist doctor on human behavior in extreme weather conditions wants to be on onboard. What happened to the ice station? Is this doctor who he claims to be? Who are the moles and what’s their motivation? Can it all be resolved in time? The scientific stuff about submarine went over my head as usual but the story is thrilling like always. Don’t think there’s any female character. 3.5/5

HMS Ulysses - MacLean. If the submarine stuff in Ice Station Zebra was confusing, imagine my plight when reading HMS Ulysses. Of course, there’s no one to blame except me – whenever I pick a book from an author I never read before, I tend to go on a marathon of his/her books. My initial search of HMS Ulysses at regular spots actually gave me James Joyce’s Ulysses, which I realized only after reading a couple of pages. Then fortunately I found the one I wanted. I struggled a lot to understand the technical stuff but the story - I did get that! Book is pretty realistic and there’s absolutely no feel good factor in this. Gives you the stark narration of sailors lives aboard a war ship. Felt sorry for a few characters in the end. I can’t believe this is MacLean’s debut novel – pretty crisp writing. 3.5/5

Bapu Cartoons I & II – I was in two minds whether to include this in this list coz the books are a collection of several cartoons from Bapu. To the uninitiated, Bapu is like our version of RK Narayan – multi talented creative genius. The news of his death saddened me and I had to buy his books to go through his genius once more. Though he’s drawn several thousand cartoons, the collection can accommodate only a few of those. The cartoons contain wit, sarcasm, lighthearted humour, satire on politics, caricatures of people and of course a few from Budugu series (written by MV Ramana, his friend for 60 yrs – our version of Calvin or as his detractors refer to it: copy of Dennis the Menace). I miss the Bapu-Ramana duo :(. 4.5/5

The Prestige - Christopher Priest. I have a fascination with the books which got adapted to successful movies. I watched Nolan’s movie starring Bale, Jackman and Johansson (*drools*) several yrs ago and apart from them both being magicians I don’t remember a thing – which is good, btw. There’s very less narration from an outsider pov and the book is mostly a collection of entries from diaries of Angier and Borden, as read by their great grand kids. Ever since I read Cecilia Ahern’s Where Rainbows End (don’t judge me, I was forced into it), I have a unhealthy scare of books written completely as collection of letters or diary entries. Thankfully, it isn't that bad. But the climax was a bit iffy, details of magic work better on screen compared to narration, some parts get kinda boring and I have a feeling that the movie worked out better than the book in the end. 3/5

Foundation heptalogy - Isaac Asimov. Posted separately here. Series rating - 4.5/5.

Kothi Kommachi - MV Ramana. This is the first part of MV Ramana’s autobiography which came out as serialized in Telugu magazine Swathi a few yrs prior to his passing. I love the language he uses! It details his childhood, his struggles in Madras, his life as a journalist, his interviews with Bhanumathi R and NTR, Radio Annayya/Akkayya, his first story (during school), eminent personalities he’s met working as a journalist, his entry to movies, etc. Luckily for him, he’s worked through the golden cultural period and reading this made me want to buy all the books I’ve been wanting to read since school. And of course Bapu shadows him everywhere (they met when they were 14 and the friendship continued till Ramana passed away at 82 couple of yrs ago). Will take up the 2nd and 3rd parts some time this year. 4/5

God’s Debris - Scott Adams. I thought Dilbert Principle was the most serious of all Scott Adams’ works (I only skimmed through a few pages in a book shop). I was wrong – he’s written something on philosophy called God’s Debris. Of course I can’t say that this is completely about philosophy – I think Adams himself says that this is somewhere between fiction and non fiction. Recommended by a fellow bibliophile, I finished this book in a few hours (only 140 pages) – though it’s supposed to be read slowly allowing the reader to take in the essence. There are some fascinating points mentioned in the book, especially about free will, socializing (err, talk about people rather than ideas) and intelligence vs awareness. I have a trouble with the concept of God’s debris though. But next time someone mentions Alchemist, I’m gonna propose God’s Debris. Trying to find its sequel now – Religion War. Friendly advice: 4/5 (when sober). 5/5 (when drunk)

My Dateless Diary - RK Narayan. I was rummaging through my dad’s shelf coz my mom’s been nagging me to arrange the books neatly (“you two guys are absolutely hopeless in keeping the house clean”) and found this gem of a book gifted by my grampa to my dad during his college. Nostalgic! (of course I wasn’t there then). The back cover said it’s part travelogue, part diary and part collection of Narayan’s thoughts on his first visit to the US. It immediately reminded me of The Inscrutable Americans and Barrister Parvatheesam (“an Indian’s first visit to US and his experiences”) but of course it’s nothing like those two. Narayan’s not called a genius for nothing. The very first page itself where he details his breakfast experiences got me interested in the book and the story simply flowed after that. There’s an absolutely amazing view point on television, which I completely concur with nearly 5 decades later (TV’s a waste of space). Extras: RK Narayan meets Aldous Huxley and Greta Garbo. He also wrote the much acclaimed The Guide during this stay in US. Confession: this is the first complete book by RK Narayan that I’ve read. 4/5

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[Books] 2014 - The year that was - Part I

85 books in total. Full list of books I read here.

Writing reviews for all 85 is taking too long. Wrote for nearly one-third for now. Hoping to finish everything by mid-Jan.

I am Zlatan - Poor translation but a very entertaining read. Don't really prefer reading biographies of players who haven't retired but Zlatan's is an exception. It details his life in Rosengard and how his career progressed from Malmo FF to AC Milano through Ajax Amsterdam, Juventus, Inter Milano and Barcelona. It's a pity the book ends before his move to PSG. Good read for football fans. 4/5

I Think, Therefore I Play - biography of Italian footballer Andrea Pirlo. I already broke my vow with Zlatan's and then another friend shared Pirlo's biography saying it's a must read. The book is short with content covering hardly 70-80 pages but what a book it was! Right from the first page, I was in tears. Probably the funniest biography I've ever read. The book doesn't include too many details about his childhood or even his playing days. It's more like sitting with Pirlo having a Scotch and cigar on a winter evening talking about random stuff that he went through. I wish he writes a book every year.c4/5

The Green Mile - Stephen King. Don't bother, watch the movie starring Tom Hanks instead. I have the terrible luck of starting a popular and acclaimed author's works with probably their most underwhelming novel. It happened with Agatha Christie (Sparkling Cyanide), Sidney Sheldon (Stranger in the Mirror), Stephen King (this), Michael Crichton (Timeline), Jeffrey Archer (Paths of Glory). Green Mile is a serialized novel with 6 parts with each one covering 70-75 pages each. I dunno how people read it back then when you had to wait for the each successive part to release after a while but when I read all 6 together, I found the story to be extremely slow paced. First part tells about a brutal crime and the criminal John Coffey getting sent to a state penitentiary. And then, not much happens in next parts. I expected it to be a racy thriller with lots of action, mystery, horror (Stephen King, after all), etc but not much stuff happens. Don't really recommend reading it. 3/5

Strangers on a Train - Patricia Highsmith. Recommended by the book club I'm part of, I took this up during a weekend but it took me nearly two days to finish it. Expected it to be an unputdownable-burn-the-midnight-oil-till-it's-dawn kinda book but I took a lot of breaks in between just to get away from the characters. Two strangers Guy Haines and Charles Bruno meet on a train and there's a plan to kill for each other so that suspicion won't fall on the respective guys (police won't be able to find a motive). Charles was constantly drunk and Guy spends more time in his head than Raskolnikov (I had to wiki his name) in Crime and Punishment. Extremely vexing read and when the book finally ended, I screamed "Hallelujah, glory be to the Old Gods, the Seven, R'hllor and the God of Many Faces!" 2/5

The Great Indian Novel - Shashi Tharoor. During the (g)olden days when I regularly read The Hindu (lost the habit now), Ramachandra Guha and Shashi Tharoor were my favorite writers. I first heard of this book during one of the Literary quizzes. Based on recommendations there, I immediately bought the book. It's a brilliant book, written in 1989, intertwining Mahabharata with the Indian freedom struggle and later national politics. So we read the Indian history from late 19th century through early 1980s like the story of Mahabharata. Constantly through the book I was reminded of Mrs. Miggins' giggle and her words in Blackadder - III: Oh you've a way with words, Mr. Shelley. Tharoor is a brilliant writer and he's so good with words that I even read the poems that occasionally come in between. Must read. 4.5/5

Govinda - Krishna Udayasankar. Like Amish fictionalized the Shiva trilogy, Krishna decided to fictionalize the Mahabharata. This is the first of the Aryavarta Chronicles and I guess the series is supposed to be a trilogy. The book deals with the start of Mahabharata (Satyavrata, Ved Vyas, Bhishm etc) till the crowning of Yudhishtir. Author tried to write too similarly to Amish and hence the book ends up with Panchali/Draupadi sounding a lot like Sati in Shiva trilogy. There are a lot of things I don't like but listing them would be spoilers for others so I'll refrain. Just one rant though, as I have to get it off my chest: I've read my first Mahabharata when I was 7 and since then, I've read several versions but in no version did I read Panchali and Krishna (neither the author nor me) being lovers. All through the book, this point was constantly nagging in my mind which didn't let me enjoy the book as much as it deserved. I only picked up as I found it lying in my room (all my roomies vehemently denied having ever owned it or even seen it) and since I ran out of books, I picked it up. Now I'll have to finish the series :|. Noticed the 2nd part Kaurava being available in flipkart for only 200 bucks but I just can't find myself to spend any money on it :/. On the positive side: the story flows smoothly. It doesn't get boring any where. 3/5

The Great Train Robbery - Michael Crichton. Book describes in detail the audacious train robbery of 1855. There's also a movie starring Sean Connery & Sutherland based on the same book. This is everything the Green Mile is not - a pulsating page turner. There's not a single chapter where I felt like skimming the lines. I could hardly relate to the story as it was set in Victorian times but Crichton doesn't bore with too many unnecessary details. He keeps the narrative strong, builds each character and leaves a little something after every chapter which makes you look forward to the next. It was so good I finished it in just two nights. When I started reading, I was slightly put off with the Victorian details but the story kept flowing and I couldn't simply put the book down. 4/5


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Series Review: Foundation by Isaac Asimov

My first tryst with Asimov’s work was back in school and the only thing I remember from that story was “consider all the view points before taking a decision” and that stuck to me ever since. Years later a benevolent friend lent me the first part of the original trilogy – Foundation. Back then I knew neither it was a trilogy nor it won the one-time Hugo best all time series awards ahead of JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Though the book was good, I had trouble imagining the world and I felt that the book lacked a proper context. Who’s the old man Hari Seldon? What’s all this about council? Why does his apparition visit after 50 yrs? What exactly is this psycho thingy? (editor note: psychohistory). Questions for which I didn't really get satisfactory answers – which made the experience not as pleasant as it deserved.

Asimov started the original trilogy when he was 21 and finished it around 8 yrs later. It was initially published as a series of short stories in one of the science magazines in the '50s and the books were released only a bit later. The original trilogy was supposed to deal with 1000 yrs of psychohistory that Hari Seldon developed but the books encompassed only 300 yrs of that. As the series seemed to lack a finish, (and after strong persuasion from several readers), Asimov wrote a sequel in 1983, which won another Hugo award to no one's surprise. He "finished" the series with a 5th book in late 80s and that seemed to be, err, that. But for Epsilon-Minus Semi-Morons (readers of Brave New World will get the reference) like me, the first book still lacked context as it talks nothing about development of psychohistory by Seldon. So he wrote two more prequels for the intellectually challenged (yours truly) and that made it a heptalogy.

*minor spoilers ahead*

1. Prelude to the Foundation: (prequel #1)
This book actually deals with Hari Seldon's early life (err, if 30+ is early) and how he became a psychohistorian. It’s several thousand years since the First Galactic Empire was in place with the imperial seat at Trantor. During the reign of Cleon I, a 32-yr old mathematician named Hari Seldon from a distant world Helicon visits Trantor to attend Decennial Mathematics Convention. His theory that the future behavior of a sufficiently large number of people can be predicted using mathematical formulae attracts the attention of the Emperor and his (supposedly evil) First Minister Eto Demerzel. Hoping to take advantage of this theory, Cleon meets Hari Seldon and asks him to tell the people that his psychohistory predicts a peaceful reign under Cleon. Hari refuses saying that his is still a theory and the mathematical formulae weren't really designed yet. Hari meets someone called Chetter Hummin, who warns Hari about Eto Demerzel and takes him away to Streeling University because the Imperial Forces (who can coerce Seldon) do not enter educational institutions. There he meets a historian called Dors Venabili, who becomes his guardian.

Though Hari Seldon is skeptic about developing psychohistory – it takes more than one’s lifetime to come up with all the equations – he works towards the initial development of the said science. He has to find the customs of early history and apply his budding formulae and see if they predict the current situation. (The present is known and if the past can be retrieved, the formulae can be verified by checking if they predict the present from the past – sound logic there). During this course, he meets his future adopted son Raych as well as his future project assistant Yugo Amaryl at Dahl sector and later visits Mycogen, where people hold dearly to their old traditions. Mycogen presents a fascinating argument regarding women’s place in society and the class divide between religious leaders and others. Class divide is evident even in Dahl sector between "normal public" and Billibotton-ers (thugs) and workers of heat sinks.

2. Forward the Foundation: (prequel #2)
So Hari Seldon is hopping from sector to sector on Trantor trying to find historical information, gets into dangerous situations where he's saved by Dors Venabili – who seems to have inhuman power – and manages to somehow survive Mycogen's Sunmaster 14 thanks to Chetter Hummin. Eto Demerzel resigns as First Minister (disappears?) and Seldon is chosen as the next one by the Emperor Cleon. This book has only 4 chapters I believe, each dealing with a specific character and the slow progress of psychohistory – Cleon I, Dors Venabili, Rayach, Wanda Seldon (daughter of Rayach). Yugo Amaryl works himself to death (let that be a lesson to all the workaholics). Hari Seldon gets old and sets up two Foundations – both on the opposite sides of the galaxy – to continue the work.

Though they’re not part of the original trilogy, these two prequels setup the context for what psychohistory is all about and why two Foundations were setup.

*minor spoilers end *

3, 4, 5 – Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation (the trilogy) –
So a Foundation is setup on the distant planet of Terminus which has all the super genius physicists. Hari Seldon (his image) visits them during the times of crises – the dude predicted the crisis situations using his formulae, remember – and tells the people that with careful planning, only one solution exists to prevent each crisis and that is the path they must take. If there's one flaw in psychohistory, it is that a single individual can create chaos to the theory by going against the prediction. That is why he had to ensure that only one solution exists to each problem and that solution is what was included in psychohistorical analysis to predict the further events.

So what happens when a single individual goes against the norm? What if he's all too powerful for the super genius physicists of the Foundation? Can a Foundation be *holds breath* defeated? These form the basis of Foundation and Empire. And what of this Second Foundation anyways? It was supposed to be setup along with Foundation at the opposite end of the galaxy. Though everyone’s heard of Foundation, nobody – including Foundation members – have any clue what this Second Foundation is and where it is setup. Once they find out about Second Foundation, what are they gonna do about it?

6, 7 – Foundation’s Edge, Foundation and Earth (sequels) –
6th book is where the Asimov’s genius ends. The final one is a tad boring, tedious and a big part of it is really unnecessary. But we get some very interesting conversations between Janov Pelorat (historian) and Golan Trevize (Foundation councilman, space pilot). They provide a very interesting argument throughout the books about individualism vs collectivism. And we visit some weird worlds during the hunt for the red* earth (ha!).


Overall, a very satisfying read. Intelligent people can read the trilogy and be content. Those who really want the context of the trilogy’s start can read the prequels (they are very well written) too. Those who are adamant to finish all 7 or who want to read a bit more on the individual vs collective (collectief – as us Dutch say) can read the sequels. Asimov’s a genius, I’m planning to pick up his Robot series sometime before I die.


* - original Earth was supposed to be destroyed due to too much radio activity.

Le Carré vs Fleming

I read the following books by the two authors, frequently called the masters of spy novels.

John Le Carré:
A Murder of Quality, The Looking Glass War, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, A Small Town in Germany

Ian Fleming:
Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, Moonraker and another book, the name of which I didn't even bother to remember.


Le Carré:-
Murder of Quality is a bit like Agatha Christie. There's no spying stuff involved, though it has George Smiley as the detective. Quiet village town, someone gets violently killed, Smiley is there by chance and he has to investigate the murder. Includes both Hercule "little grey cells" Poirot and Miss "family and stuff, emotions, little village people" Marple type case solving. A decent read for a debut novel.

The Looking Glass War is about two different government agencies against each other and it has so many details about training a spy to go beyond enemy lines. You feel sorry for the one chosen to be the spy, hate the cunning plots of higher ops, despair at how selfish some can be and pray that somehow everything is okay in the end.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold may possibly be the best spy novel ever. The way the plot twists and turns is incredible. It mixes good writing with great bit of drama. The final few chapters are worth reading several times (and that’s not because you didn’t understand them first).

I watched the movie Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy a few years ago but thankfully I forgot what happens in the end. It is possibly one of the most complex spy novels. It involves a lot of threads, there are moles, double agents, a possibly fake triple agent who may not be fake and one person (with help from a couple of trustworthy colleagues) to identify the mystery mole who brought down Control, the head of Circus. I'd usually recommend this for others but this needs very very slow reading as the plot gets confusing quite a number of times. Better to read the book mentioned above and fall in love with Carré's style first, before taking up the huge project of reading Tinker Tailor..

Fleming:-
So what happens in Fleming novels is,
Some Communist power (East Germany, Russia, Cuba, etc) is hatching a plot that can cause severe damage to Britain/US (or there's an independent agency/agent who developed the world's most destructive device). Bond is paged and he goes to the respective location. There's a bludy beautiful blonde ready to fall into his arms, who may either be villain's subordinate or villain's prisoner or even Bond's fellow agent. The villain doesn't like his presence, comes close to killing him and our Bond is left with nothing but socks on him. He somehow escapes the villain, plots revenge, makes elaborate plans, gets super cool gadget stuff from M/Q and beats the villain to a pulp in the end.

Throw in a few romantic scenes, terrible writing, long descriptions of bland stuff, few possibly supernatural stuff, few unrealistic gadgets, lady-how-can-you-fall-so-easily-for-anyone incidents and a bit of racist/chauvinist/misogynist stuff.

For a long while, I compared Fleming's Bond to Christie's Poirot before trying to form a concrete negative opinion – I mean, they are a bit similar if you look at it in a way. Bond wins in the end, Poirot solves every case. I can appreciate the way Poirot solves a case so I must be able to appreciate the way Bond works to achieve something though we all know how the two sets of novels are going to end. But I just can't take any Bond stuff. It rarely is about spying and is too much of super hero stuff. You're not cool, man. Only Sean Connery made you cool. (but then only one cooler than Sean Connery is Morgan Freeman, who we all know is God)

Novels of Carré are about spying, which instantly makes him a better spy novel author compared to Fleming. Coz Fleming’s novels are mostly about super cool hero who can never die in the end and wins easily whatever may happen through the course. Sorry Fleming, you can't hold a candle to Le Carré. Not my cup of tea, no sir. Shaken, not stirred – fuck me sideways.


This is possibly the greatest rant of the year. After reading it, I was mumbling to myself: Carmen, let us marry and be angry together.

Adios US: Man Utd 3-1 Liverpool

United XI: De Gea; Jones, Smalling, Evans; Valencia, Herrera, Fletcher, Young; Mata; Rooney, Hernandez.

Van Gaal said before the game that a lot of players would get 90 mins as it's the final match of the tour. Welbeck's unfortunate injury vs Madrid on Saturday meant he didn't start as a precaution. I was eagerly anticipating Sterling vs Valencia as they had a bit of fracas the last time they met (Eng vs Ecu). Liverpool kicked off and they passed amongst themselves for first 2 mins with Utd forwards not pressing them. This was the first shock of the match for me – we have pressed every team so far high up the pitch which led to several chances for us in the previous games. But in this game, especially against Skrtl and Sakho, who are known to panic under pressure, we have not pressed them at all. Only reason I can think of is that we didn't want to get caught high up the pitch when a long ball from them can see Liverpool going on counter through Sterling. Bale caused problems a couple of times like that in the prev game. First chance of the match was through Young on the left wing when he beat Kelly and crossed into the box only for Hernandez to hit the ball away from goal from 5 yards (bonkers, I know!). Sakho (or Skrtl?) cleared the ball before it reached Rooney 3 yards from goal. Valencia felt something in his leg and left the pitch before 10th min. Young moved to right and Shaw came on the left. (Van Gaal said later that he advised his players before the game to come off the pitch if they think they're injured as he didn't want the players to carry on playing with injuries especially after playing only 2 days ago in a high pressure game vs Madrid).

After that, the match was mostly played between the two boxes as both sides rarely caused any trouble inside the penalty area. But one Sterling's run into the Utd box saw Jones lunge wildly and foul him. Gerrard took the penalty, De Gea dived to the wrong side and Liverpool were up 1-0 after 14 mins. It was interesting to see Utd's response as we led in almost every game and were untroubled for most of the tour. And what did we do? We panicked. Fletcher forgot how to pass. Evans, the most reliable passer of our defence, was struggling with passes. There was one moment when Evans was under no pressure initially after receiving the pass from De Gea but he dawdled on the ball for far too long, a Liverpool forward ran to press him and Evans misplaced a 3 yard pass to Smalling who was standing right next to him. Reminded me of Rio in his final years. We defended well on the wings but when players kept running through the middle, we lost our shape and composure easily. Shaw barely broke a sweat while I felt Young could have helped Jones more on the right side. The thing with 3-5-2 is, when Sterling-Lambert-Coutinho (drifting wide) are pressing high up the pitch, then all 3 CBs are occupied and if any one attacker can beat his marker, he'll have a free run towards goal. It happened a few times with Sterling-Jones in this game and Bale-M.Keane in the Madrid game. So we’ll have to tell our wing backs when to attack and when to fall back in defense. Of course the system is new for everyone and Young never even played in defense before so I'm willing to excuse this for now.

Van Gaal replaced Fletcher with Cleverley and Evans with Blackett at HT. So your team is kinda struggling in defense and what do you do? Replace the sole DM with a CM and replace the most experienced CB with the youngest CB on the tour. But hey, it's Van Gaal – he doesn't care for reputation or experience. There were a couple of iffy moments for our defense when Sterling's shot deflected off Smalling (good block though) and missed the net while a Coutinho's shot was well saved by De Gea to his low left. And a weak pass from Herrera saw Gerrard win the ball in our half and pass it to Lambert who shot very weakly straight to De Gea. Our keeper could have gone out for roasted peanuts and still come back on to the pitch to save that shot. We slowly started coming back into the match. In the 55th min, Herrera escaped 3 markers in midfield and passed the ball to Hernandez to the right edge of the box. Hernandez drifted to his right and crossed the ball to Rooney who was running away from the goal to escape Skrtl and still put the ball into the net using his left foot. A brilliant goal that was! Within couple of mins, Cleverley played a cross field ball to Shaw (who was awesome) and his pass found Mata on the edge of the box. Mata's shot took a deflection off Sakho and wrong footed Mignolet before hitting the net. Within couple of mins we went from 1-0 down to 2-1 up. Except for the penalty, our chances were kinda similar – Sterling shot deflected out, Mata shot deflected in; Rooney shot into the goal, Coutinho shot saved by De Gea.

Rodgers replaced the assistant referee Gerrard (dafuq is wrong with this guy? We went on a counter attack once in the first half with Mata chasing the ball, Gerrard was in front of him and without any contact just fell to the floor and grabbed the ball. Ref gave us free kick for handling the ball. Bizarre player this Stevie Me) with Lucas. Emre Can and Ibe also came on. And we got a bizarre goal when Ashley Young beat Glen Johnson on that wing and gave a high cross which hit the bar and came back into play for Rooney to slot into the goal in 65th min. Ref initially awarded us the goal but after consulting the linesman, he called for a goal kick. Right call that was, as the ball hit the stanchion outside the pitch and then came back in. Would have been lovely to see the Scouse tears :D. During all this good phase for us, there's one thing common – our forwards were pressing high so Liverpool defenders panicked and kept hitting the ball outside the pitch (throw ins for us) or hitting the ball in random directions only for Utd players to receive those passes. So anyway, we kinda controlled the game since then and then we replaced Herrera with Lingard. This diminutive player was good for us in last preseason playing as winger and striker. He was good vs Madrid as right wingback and now he was coming on to play in a two-man midfield partnering Cleverley. I was scared at that, we were only 2-1 up! But we never looked out of control and Liverpool barely threatened us since our first goal. It's like all their energy was spent in high pressing during the first hour and they could barely walk after that. Lot of subs also didn't help them. We replaced Mata with Kagawa and Hernandez with Nani.

Special praise to Shaw, who never looked in trouble throughout the game even though his senior partner Evans looked piss scared in possession during the first half. And once Blackett came on, Liverpool barely got anything from that side as Blackett was very composed in possession, harried the Liverpool players in his range and connected well with Smalling (CB next to him), De Gea and Shaw on that side. There was one run from Ibe starting from that side of the pitch and our defenders calmly blocked his passage and ushered him into crowded center where Smalling, Jones and Herrera were present to deal with any danger. Oh also there was another run from Ibe (I think) into the box when Blackett did the very opposite of Jones and calmly blocked the player forcing Ibe to take a Valencia-style shot to the defender’s shin from close range. The ball harmlessly went out for our goal kick. So Liverpool were barely getting anything in attack, our defense looked good and my nerves were settled. In the final mins of normal time, Young went on a run on his right wing, easily beat his marker Glen Johnson (who was unsurprisingly crap) and crossed into the box right to the feet of Kagawa whose iffy touch let the ball run behind him but at that exact position was Lingard making his run from midfield (can you imagine a Utd midfielder making runs into the box to finish off the chances? :o) and his thunderous (hehe) shot went low to Mignolet's left and hit the net. 16th goal of the preseason from Utd in 5 games. We easily saw out the remaining time and won the ICC trophy. Nice to see Luke Shaw winning his first trophy beating his former club Southampton :p

Some last min additions as I can't bother to put them in those paragraphs:
- Sterling and Coutinho were good for Liverpool. Lambert was barely involved.
- Only advantage Hernandez has is that he's extremely clinical. So it's frustrating to see him missing simple chances (2 vs Madrid, 1 vs Liverpool). We can't afford that in competitive games when creating chances would be at a premium.
- Sterling dived more in one game than Young did in entire tour. Makes me laugh so hard!
- Shaw improved a lot after his first two games and did well vs Inter, Madrid and Liverpool. The special fitness program helped him to play well in both defense and attack throughout the game.
- Nani – Heaven know how much I love this guy. But he barely looked interested throughout the tour. Even Zaha performed more than Nani. Van Gaal wants his players to give their all but Nani was half arsed throughout. I fear he'll be sent away from Utd and I cannot even say that it's unfair.
- Rooney won the player of the tournament and Van Gaal said Rooney was the best player as he provided lots of goals and assists. Van Gaal also said that our defenders also did well throughout the tour and that any of them could also have won player of the tournament.
- 5 games, 16 scored, 4 conceded (3 penalties, 1 from 65 yards). Barely any similarities with the clusterfuck of last season’s tour where we ended with 2 wins out of 6 and then proceeded to lose to Sevilla at Old Trafford.

Thus endeth the US tour.

LA Galaxy 0-7 Manchester United: The Chosen Van cometh

As a follower of Ajax and Netherlands, I'm familiar with Louis Van Gaal and how well he's done in his career. He was a breath of fresh air after the disastrous end to Bert van Marwijk era, with Netherlands losing all three group games in Euro 2012 for the first time in their history, Van Gaal came in, gave a clean slate to everyone, brought a lot of young players into the side, focused a lot on possession play amid pressure and got Netherlands playing good football again.

Despite getting drawn into a difficult group for the World Cup, Van Gaal took Netherlands to a surprise 3rd place with memorable victories like 5-1 over Spain and 3-0 over Brazil. So I was looking forward to how he'd do at Manchester United, where he became the first foreign manager (well there's Frank O'Farrell from Ireland) in their history. So how was the first game under him?

Match summary is split into two parts as Utd played two different teams pre and post HT (Fletcher changed position and only Herrera played for 90 mins in a single position)

First half:
Utd started in a 3-4-1-2 formation, similar to how Dutch played in the World Cup. Starting XI: De Gea; Smalling, Jones, Evans; Valencia, Herrera, Fletcher, Shaw; Mata; Rooney, Welbeck.

Last time I remember Utd playing a 3-man defence, we got murdered 3-0 at Cottage. Our famous back three from that game: Ritchie De Laet, Michael Carrick, Darren Fletcher. Thankfully, today’s back three actually had 3 CBs. From the first 10 mins, it was evident that the players are new to the formation/system and as Van Gaal commented post game, 10 players used today weren't even training with the club last week. Mata and Herrera started brightly and Fletcher was trying to keep up with the speed of their play. Shaw did not know what to do when there's no one in front of him to overlap with. Valencia is Valencia (no left foot, miscontrolled an easy pass once). Herrera had a shot from outside the box tipped over by the LA keeper. Welbeck shot straight to the keeper a few mins later after good build up play. LvG advised Welbeck in the pre-match training to go for the corners of the goal and Welbeck must have recollected the advice a short while later when Mata's pass found him 25 yards in front of the goal. Hit a powerful shot towards the corner of the goal which went in off the post right of the keeper. Fletcher slowly started growing into the game, Jones played as a sweeper and did a fine last man tackle on Robbie Keane and Shaw kept the left side tight (very rare for Utd).

Rooney stayed strictly up top instead of running around and defending at left back (which he does around 3 times a game). Welbeck was the one who sometimes ventured deep into the Utd half to tackle/intercept and put pressure on the LA players. 2nd goal came from a penalty after Valencia’s cross hit someone's arm. Pretty good penalty from Rooney, into the left corner of the keeper. And the 3rd one was simply terrible defending. Welbeck's cross (on the ground) into the LA box was missed by their sole defender who magically found an invisible bar of soap (it couldn't be seen on tv) and though Rooney's lob was initially saved by the keeper, Rooney was there to slot in the rebound. Good half of football – comfortable in possession, quick passing, lot of inter play, limited chances to opposition.

Second half:
Same formation, different players. Playing XI: Lindegaard; M. Keane, Fletcher, Blackett; Rafael, Cleverley, Kagawa, Reece James (hence to be referred to as Ricardo Hamez); Herrera; Nani, Young.

Nice of Van Gaal to switch to false Nani formation (credit to someone else on the internet) to further confuse the poor LA defenders. He probably forgot to tell Rafael it's a friendly. Rafael went into blood-and-thunder challenges every 2 mins. Him and Jones – they find every possible way in every single game – regardless of the competition, regardless of the opposition – to get injured. It wouldn't be a Utd game if there weren't many players playing out of their natural positions. More than tinkering, I think Van Gaal wanted to see how players adapt to certain positions he thinks are more suitable (the famous examples of converting Schweinsteiger from winger to midfielder, Alaba from midfielder to left back). So Kagawa played deeper than Herrera – I wonder what the @evilkagawa made of that. 20-yr old Hamez (:p) can play as CB and LB – he was deployed as LWB. Blackett who I remember from his youth days as a left back – played as CB, Fletcher moved from midfield to defence, taking on the role of a sweeper. What was interesting to see is that the team mostly moved as a whole. So there was hardly too much vacant space between defence and midfield as well as midfield and attack. Herrera did a box-to-box role with him tackling the opposition in front of Utd's box and then popping up at the edge of Nani's crosses in LA's box.

Fletcher is too weak to aerially challenge players but he did well. Had plenty of help from Michael Keane who's a very good defender. Hamez took to his new role well but Blackett struggled as 3rd CB. Cleverley and Kagawa are good ball players but they're not really favorites to win personal duels. So LA had decent openings in their midfield and the match was mostly even between the sides till 70th min. Hamez got his first goal during this period and if I remember right, the sequence was like this – Keane shrugged off 3 LA players and passed it forward to Herrera who was near halfway line, Herrera carried the ball and released a pass to Young on the right, whose cross across the box (on the ground) found Hamez making a run into the area from LWB position and Hamez sidefoot-ed the ball into the net for the 4th goal. Herrera went rogue for final 10 mins when he kept playing through balls like on play station. Must have played more through balls in one game than our entire midfield did for the whole of last season. His through ball in the 84th min found Young and whose shot was saved by the onrushing LA keeper but Hamez was there to put the rebound into the net (looked like a beautiful shot tbf). Another through ball released Young again and when keeper went into Neuer mode rushing outside his box, Young somehow kept the ball and shot into the empty net ahead of two defenders running back to cover the goal. Another through ball from Herrera saw Young beat the LA keeper (who stayed in the box this time) again with a powerful shot. In between all this, there was a swift counter attack by Utd where Nani avoided 4 LA defenders trying to stop him and released Kagawa on the left but Kagawa's shot from the left of the box didn't have enough curl to go into the goal.

After starting the last season with a loss to Singha All Stars XI (I hope that was the name of our first opponents), it feels nice to start with a 7-0 win this time. Not reading too much into the performance but the playing style, tactics and the way players adapted is very good to see. Didn't conceded too many chances to the opposition, controlled the midfield and created loads of chances – can't ask for much.

Most of the players ranged between okay and very well. Cleverley-Kagawa axis needs more time and especially a lot of help from up front (if it's Herrera, it's good; if it's Mata, then not so much helpful). Not pining for world class players to join the club because to be honest, Van Gaal made Ron Vlaar look world class out there. So it'd be nice to see players + tactics instead of relying too much on world class players to pull us out of trouble frequently (of course it's nice to have awesome players to save your arse when the tactics don't work but I'd be happy if there's not too much reliance)

PS
Smalling is a very good defender when he actually plays as a CB. Strictly decent passing skills but he can tackle well and has tremendous pace to handle a lot of strikers. When he plays on the right, he can't seem to trap a bag of cement but when he plays in center he does okay. Only problem is his propensity to get rid of the ball quickly by hoofing it up field but he didn't really do that today. Underrated defender, a bit like, ermm, Cahill? (and Smalling is more injury prone. You can't play in Utd defense if you're not injury prone. Except the humanmachinoid Evra of course)

Bundesliga Match Day 25: 2013-14

The Borussia derby
'gladbach haven't won in Dortmund since 1998. They were on course for challenging for 4th CL spot till a few weeks ago when Schalke suddenly decided to consistently win instead of throwing away their challenge. The first half was similar to the previous game where Freiburg prevented Dortmund from mounting any serious attacks. Though Lewandowski returned to the side, Mikhi, Kuba and Reus are still unavailable. Hofmann played in the hole with Aubameyang and Großkreutz on wings. In addition to stopping the Dortmund attacks, what 'gladbach did better than Freiburg was to go on counter attacks. The combination between Kruse, Raffael and Herrmann was really good. Raffael ran with the ball in the first half and was slightly lucky that the ball bounced back into his running path after a couple of tackles, gave it to Herrmann and moved into the box to get the return. Herrmann's cross found Raffael 6 yards from goal but Raffael's first touch was so bad that the ball went into the goal when he only wanted to take an extra touch before taking the shot. 1-0 to 'gladbach. Hummels went on one amazing run after intercepting the ball at halfway line and could have scored if not for a last ditch tackle. After another attack, Aubameyang hit the bar with a powerful angled drive. But the next goal was scored by 'gladbach when Max Kruse dummied twice to beat Piszczek and Weidenfeller to score the 2nd. Gif here: http://giant.gfycat.com/ImperturbableDependableBarasinga.gif

2nd half was fairly unadventurous till around 68' or so when Nordveit got sent off for 2 yellows within a minute. His first was when he kicked the ball away after ref's whistle. It wasn't even that bad and it happens routinely in almost every game but I haven't seen ref give yellow for such things in a while [may you spend a night in room full of black adders if you reference RvP's sending off at Camp Nou]. His 2nd was for a 50-50 foul and after being down to 10 men, it was mostly 'gladbach defence vs Dortmund attack. Jojic, the man with the golden leg, reduced the deficit when his shot took a critical deflection off 'gladbach player and wrong footed ter Stegen. Jojic scored another around 88th min but ref called a foul on Lewandowski for hitting ter Stegen in the face with his arm (right call too). Klopp got sent off when ref whistled for 'gladbach throw in when he felt it should have been Dortmund's (looked like 'gladbach throw in to me). 'gladbach held on for a famous victory in Signal Iduna Park.

The revenge of the München
Bayern München were on 49 game unbeaten streak in Bundesliga. After Dortmund's loss, they had a chance to increase the lead to 23 pts over 2nd placed side. Last time they lost was against Bayer Leverkusen. Last time they scored less than 2 goals in a game was at Bay Arena this season (before Arsenal managed the same at Allianz last week). So München had every right to consider the game as important and go for a win. What they did though, was put players like Thiago, Lahm, Ribery, Alaba, Martinez on bench. It was Rafinha-Van Buyten-Boateng-Contento back line with Schweini-Kroos double pivot. Götze-Müller-Robben played behind lone striker Mandzukic. As expected München had a majority of the possession but they had no meaningful chances. Except for Kießling, Bayer defended with 10 men and München found it difficult to play from either through the center or deliver from wing. Kroos almost always stays outside the box. Schweini didn't have enough space to make runs. Götze and Robben are too short to cause havoc in the box. So it was mostly Müller and Mandzukic in the box whenever the crosses came in. Easily dealt by the Bayer defence.

Bayer could have easily taken the lead when Heung-Min Son inexplicable missed the target from 8 yards after a great counter attack. Kießling could have scored when he was one-on-one with Neuer with no defender in sight when linesman wrongly flagged him for offside. In both the cases it was Boateng playing the wrong line. But with their first meaningful shot on target, Mandzukic rose above everyone to head past Leno from a Schweini cross. After half time, München quickly increased their lead after a glorious free kick from Schweinsteiger. As the inverted wingers plan was not working out, Pep switched Robben and Götze at HT and I think the free kick came on left wing after Robben got fouled. Rolfes almost scored a golazo when his 40-yard shot was brilliantly saved by Neuer. Ribery came on for Robben, Kroos got replaced by Thiago and Shaqiri came on for Mandzukic so that Götze moved central finally and Shaqiri went to wing. Shaqiri had a good chance to score but missed in the end. There were some nice saves from Leno as well and Kießling inevitably scored in injury time but that was not enough to stop München going 50 not out, overtaking both Arsenal and Juventus in the process.

Pep has been trying the 4-2-3-1 formation ever since the winter break and I think the change came about after they were beaten 3-0 by Salzburg when the home side took full advantage of Pep's single pivot 4-1-4-1 formation. It looks like only Lahm is suited to play the single pivot and everyone else (Thiago, Kroos, Schweini, Martinez) need someone along side them to excel. The double pivot formation with two very wide players (Robbery) creates very less chances though. Götze is also suffering as a result as he's forced to play too wide while he usually thrives in center. He was amazing for Dortmund when he was exchanging places constantly with Reus. Götze can do well as a wide player if he can go on counter attacks, thereby taking advantage of his pace. But if you ask him to play wide in a game you enjoy 75%+ possession, he is going to struggle.

If both München and Dortmund win next week, then the gap would still be 23 pts with 8 games left. If Dortmund drop points, München can win the title with 2 months to spare. They currently have 71 pts and have scored 74 goals in 25 games. Already into DFB Pokal semis and CL quarters. Been great so far.


PS
Hoffenheim took 2-0 lead and then Mainz stormed back to win 4-2 with 3 goals in 7 mins and move up to 5th place now. Favre with 'gladbach and Tuchel with Mainz have done amazing job so far. Hunter is back for the crucial period and his goal helped Schalke win on Friday night at Augsburg.

Some top saves last weekend from ter Stegen, Neuer, De Gea and Cillesen