Shakespeare &Sainte

 Laughing at the face of coronavirus is getting contagious in that continent With much of Europe abd Britain getting back under lockdown covers with Covid relurking,  the cradle of dodgy pandemic jokes is having a renaissance. The chaps who brought the world the Teutonic Bubonic Plague Jokebook— the Black Death supposedly the prime reason for Germans losing their sense of humour — are already guffawing with fear. The strategy this time seems to be any dearth of mirth will be the birth of death. So, as cracks like the corona virus also keeping their versions of pub and restaurant timings —it's rule-abiding Europe for the critters too, you see— go viral, who knows, one may even have a new healthy obsession with Eros and Thanatos, rather than a prolonged taste for organic food and EU Rules of Origin Laws.  Remember, this is the continent of the original Coveni, Covidi, Covici( I came down with Covid , I saw Covid, I conqured Covid), not to mention the very name ' Coronavirus...

 The vote later this week in the European Parliament on an amendment to ensure words such as 'hamburger' or 'sausage' exclusively refer to non-vegetarian products on labels appears to be a shot across the bows for the 'eat shoots and leaves' lobby. This presupposes, of course, that meat- eating European customers are fundamentally incapable of discerning that items labelled 'veggie burger' or vegan sausage' contain no animal flesh and they are, therefore, prone to be hoodwinked into eating something that violates their dietary beliefs. They will only be adequately forewarned, it seems, if 'burger' is replaced by 'disc' and if non-meat sausages are called tubes. Describing the later even as 'fingers' could probably prove confounding for those ingenuous Europeans. It can be said with some degree of certainty, however, that Indian consumers are smarter than their European counterparts as no one in India will think an aloo tikki b...

 News TV showcased 'nothing happening' in its Rhea Chakraborty coverage There is something hypnotisingly television about the coverage of actor and something Rhea Chakraborty's release on bail on Wednesday evening. Facts and information such as the bail amount, and what her bail conditions are– never mind what she was in jail for— are as important as, if not less than, how she looked inside the white car that took her somewhere. Did she seem forlon enough? Was she looking Unsettled enough?  If not , why not? Rheality TV was made by television, and in this final episode of what looks like the end of the first season, it is being unmade by same gnostic forces.  Never since Amitabh Bachchan skipped q heartbeat has TV media given a blow-by-blow account of an event involving a car with a passenger. A critic once described Samuel Beckett's play, Waiting for Godot, as a production where'nothing happens twice'. Indian TV news tops this by showcasing 'nothing happeni...

 French and English terms in couture and prêt easily balance other anyway English language aficionados have long railed about the plethora of French words in the lexicon, from cliché and carte Blanche to déjà vu and avant-grade. They may be mollified to know that the French have been equally annoyed by the English words that have crept into their language. But the alternative lexic from the French culture ministry, Federation of Feminine Pret-à-Porter and Federal of Haute Couture and Fashion that attempts to exorcise words from across the Channel in that key segment, will prompt irritation and surprise among English votaries. That the French have never bothered to think up words in their own tongue for such fashion basics as T-shirts and jeans, lazily making do with by prefacing the English word with a gender -defining 'le' or 'La', is certainly a faux pas that should have been remedied long ago. Whether Yves Saint Laurent's famous 'le smoking' tuxedo suit w...

 Last month, we noted that Stan the Tyrannosaurus Rex was befittingly right up there with the most expensive works of art at preview for a Christie's sale of 20th century art. That he predated his fellow items on the catalogue be about 67 million years was irrelevant as the fact that he was a work of genius (albeit not human) was undeniable. However, now that the dinosaur skeleton has fetched almost four times its estimated price of $6-8 million at a gullet-choking $31,847,500 at the sale this week, it is evident the auction house had put Stan in the wrong list. He should have been there with those chunks of carbon and other fossilised remains that are cut, polished, set and sold, otherwise known as gemstones. More so as the T Rex roared in an auction that otherwise saw eight unsold and four works withdrawn out of a total of 59, fetching the second highest price of the sale. Stan has clearly established fossils as a valuable new genre of installation art. As the Royal Opera House i...

 The manifest proclivity of some individuals- not necessary part of the intelligentsia— for prolix explication as a favoured form of expression, notwithstanding the availability and advisability of more intelligible and conventionaly pertinent substitutes, precipitates exasperation only in some circles. Instead, in many cases, a cultivated predilection for logorrhoea elicits such veneration that practitioners increase their volume of periphrasis. Those lexicomanes will, no doubt, prefer to disregard the recent study that links the preference for long words and jagron with feelings of insecurity rather than intellectual prowess. That researchers have found an inverse correlation between the scholarly quality of 64,000 academic dissertations and their use of incomprehensible words and phrases certainly points to the use of jargon to compensate for lack of substance.  Since most quotidian interlocutions are commonplace conversations that do not entail a synchronous evaluation of ...

 Cricket in India took off to become the Godzilla it is today arguably not because of its growing success but because of its super success at making a connection with people. A very noisy, reactive, emotive people. The cucumber sandwiches and beer crowd gave way to a flag-waving, face- painted raucous lot. A prissy 'gentleman's game' beacme the people's sport', the spectator's spectator sport. So, keeping this vibrant, subcontinental sport of cricket-watching in mind, how 'turning on' will IPL 2020 be, being played bereft of any spectators at three empty stadia in the UAE? International football already test-drove the Covid-instigated 'no-supporters-at- the ground' car. Knowing that people can now follow matches on their screens (television or phones), canned 'crowd noise' has filled the vacuum of the eerie silence and echoes from match venues. Starting today, IPL will do the same. But what can't be republicated (read:fudged) are the ...