Even maths now!

'Everyone's opinions should be respected' may just have gone too far. It seems that even mathematics will gradually stop having rules now, because everything will be ruled by opinion. Such as these below:

How much more of this before the Dark Ages descend?

Thanks for the inputs, Swarnava.

Honest politician!

Boris Johnson has said he can no longer afford his accustomed lifestyle on a prime minister’s salary, claimed that he used to earn much more as a newspaper columnist, and declared that he is going to resign after cleaning up the Brexit mess.

I had known since the days of Yes Prime Minister that the British pay their high political officials in a miserly way (as compared to France or the USA or Singapore, and even India, where though the salaries are laughable, the expense accounts are virtually limitless), but there are two things that I find noteworthy here: I did know that famous TV anchors earned huge pay packets, but not that even newspaper columnists earned on a lavish scale, and secondly, that Johnson used to be one of those high fliers before he came into politics. What on earth possessed him to make the shift?

Also, would any politico in India ever dare to be halfway as brazenly candid?

Birthday wishes nowadays

What a weird world we live in that the largest number of 'Happy birthday' messages come from insurance- and investment companies!

(P)oops!

Hey hey, I'll burst unless I tell you this one right now... I paused in the middle of episode 2 of a new series called 'Connected' on Netflix, just to let you know that, believe it or not, in a world that has become chock-full of every type of 'expert' you can imagine, there are now also - hold your breath - even experts on very ancient poop.

Cross my heart. I kid you not.  

Journalists in the time of pandemic

Haven't found much to laugh over these last few months, but this one made me guffaw.

One more, while I am at it:

How much damage this virus will do depends on two things

1. How dense the population is,

2. How dense the population is.

Get it?

Cleansing ritual

Twice now within the last fortnight I have seen shopkeepers taking currency notes and dipping them in Dettol solution, supposedly to get rid of any coronavirus that might be sticking to them. One was a mangshowallah, the other a mishtiwallah...

My mother reminded me of my great grandparents on my father's side. My great grandpa pursued a legal career in a district court, and apparently earned a pretty penny. Great grandma was a devout Hindu housewife, with many and very fixed ideas about things that were clean and unclean. So though she had no objection to her husband bringing home pots of money every evening, there was a rigid protocol about how the money and the moneymaker must be cleansed before being allowed to enter her house. While the husband was sent off to take a bath in gangajal and change into a fresh set of clothes which were never worn outdoors, the lady sat on the porch, painstakingly cleaning every guinea (they paid lawyers in coins a hundred years ago) in sacred gobarjal with her own hands before they were in her judgment fit for her use. If she were to come back today, wouldn't she say

নতুনটা আর কী দেখালি ?

Excuses change, but people's weirdness apparently does not. At least coins were less subject to damage through manhandling than notes are!

Laughter in the time of the coronavirus

I haven't been feeling humorous for some time now, but the coronavirus-induced panic worldwide has brought new occasions for (black-) humour. Two cartoons are reproduced below.

Thanks, Pupu and Swarnava.

And here's something that would have been uproarious if it hadn't been so horribly tragic: lots of people have gone blind or even died in Iran after drinking industrial alcohol (methanol) in the false hope spread by rumours that it can kill the virus. As the doctor says in the report, '(people) are even less aware of the fact that there are other dangers around.' Stupidity combined with panic, to name the deadliest one.