Double mirrors - McLaren

The McLaren car this season had two sets of mirrors on each sides, this was an interesting aspect in terms of giving the drivers all round visibility. Check it out.

Books - mid March 2007

I have ready the following books till now this year.

* Beware falling coconuts - Adam Clapham
* The Goenka Letters - TJ George
* Lee Iacocca - An Autobiography - Lee Iacocca

Beware falling coconuts is ex BBC producer Adam Clapham's version of life in India. It's humorous, satirical and at times historically interesting. There's a full chapter devoted to Sir Mark Tully.

The Goenka Letters is a compilation of letters written by Ramnath Goenka to various people during his time and vice versa. This book describes the history of the Indian express and Ramnath Goenka's friendships - political, business and personal. A lengthy letter written to the Shah Commission about the emergency is worth a read.

Lee Iacocca, An Autobiography is a very positive book which traces the business life of Lee Iacocca who worked his way up to become the President of Ford Motors only to be sacked. He then took up a challenging assignment to resurrect Chrysler which was going through a bad time and reached the top of this organization too. An uplifting book which certainly is interesting to read.

An update on March

It's been a hectic Feb and March. Feb was throwing health problems in the family and March appears to be ready to win the award for the most hectic month already. Despite having a couple of tracks ready for the 'After The End' section and some other articles, I am simply not able to pull myself together to sit down and write stuff for this blog. I am not on a sabbatical, I am just running too fast. There have been two very interesting trips to God's own country, my birthday and some other reasonably good things to post on a blog which I hope to do soon. The Formula 1 race yesterday was a good start to the 2007 Formula 1 calendar. Sepang on Easter Sunday should be a good one given the heat and high track temperatures in Malaysia. Don't give up on me as yet.

Oscar awards - 2007

The OSCAR results are out and Martin Scorsese has finally been awarded an oscar. I stuck my neck out by speculating the winners for the 'Sound mixing' and 'Visual effects' category and appear to have got it right though the 'Best animated feature' award went to 'Happy Feet' while I thought 'Cars' was a good effort. The whole world and some aliens too predicted an oscar to Martin Scorsese which has ended in a double whammy - Best Direction and Best Picture, so no big deal on telling about that one.

Cross posted on our group blog

Missing in action ....

For all of you who have been wondering what the devil I am upto recently I have to say that I've been having a really tough time juggling work and home especially in the recent ups and down that the family has been going through. A fried motherboard at home adds to the woes which is in the process of being fixed. I stick to my earlier promise though.

Mohammad Kaif missing in the 15 member World Cup squad

It's disheartening to see Mohammad Kaif's name missing in the 15 member squad for World Cup 2007 in the West Indies. This man has the highest batting average in the last series in the Carribean in ODI's and was the second highest run scorer in Test matches behind Rahul Dravid.

ODI's - 5 Matches, 5 Innings, 205 Runs at an average of 51.25

Test's - 4 Matches, 6 Innings, 226 Runs at an average of 56.50 [Ofcourse the only excellent Test match score is the 148 not out in this series]

Surely his ODI performance in terms of batting (in West Indies) is decent and his fielding is the best amongst the players today. Having thought of Robin Uthappa and Dinesh Karthik, our selectors should have given Mohammad Kaif a chance especially more when you see that Yuvaraj has been selected.

What are the odds? 13 to 1

After the thoroughly enjoyable Oceans 11 and Oceans 12 comes the final part of the trilogy from Steven Soderbergh aptly titled Oceans 13. If Oceans 11 was better that the old version, Oceans 12 took if further and was an entertaining movie. The premise of Oceans 13 appears to be interesting and that makes it a movie to look forward to not for it's oscar value but for simple entertainment.

When one member of the team get's cheated in a business deal all others join together to take revenge soliciting the help of Terry (Andy Garcia). The idea is to bankrupt a casino run by Al Pacino (who cheats Reuben) on it's opening night. This time it's not for the money but for revenge. The absence of Catherine Zeta Jones and Julia Roberts is going to be a minue, but Al Pacino's entry should raise the bar a few notches higher. Andy Garcia and Al Pacino will be seen in the same movie after "The Godfather III".

Disclaimer - Story snippets is based on leaks on the internet, this may or maynot be the actual story in the final version of the film expected to release in June 2007.

Ratan Tata, F16, F18 ......

This week saw Ratan Tata fly the F16 and F18. That's surely an achievement considering the man's age. The Bangalore air show made Pakistan turn pussy and blame India for once again starting an arms race. Defence AK Antony promptly returned the message that India's defence budget was the lowest in the region. But with the Sukhoi's already orders and with Lockheed Martin waiting for it's order from the Ministry of Defence, India is surely planning to spend every paisa in it's Defence budget.

Police mobile helpline - Coimbatore

Coimbatore City Police can be reached on 9843100100. The following is a notification to this effect.

Members of the public could make use of this facility to report law and order problems, crime, criminal movement, drunken brawls and even traffic snarls on any of the roads when they saw them while travelling.
For people with speech disability or those who were in distress and not able to make voice calls could send messages over Short Message Service (SMS).

Kerala CM v/s Tamilnadu, where are we heading towards?

Something is surely amiss between Chief Minister VS Achuthanandhan and Karunanidhi. Kerala and Tamilnadu have enjoyed cordial relations for decades which appears to be on the verge of a roadblock now. Currently we have the following issues simmering between the states and most of them have been publicised by the Kerala CM.

• Mullaperiyar water dispute
• Parambikulam Aliyar water dispute - Kerala alleges now that it didn't get it's share of the water from Tamilnadu which Tamilnadu says it has.
• Bifurcation of the Palakkad division of Southern Railways - The bone of contention here is to in making Coimbatore Jn a part of the new Salem division which means huge loss of revenue to Palakkad division. Coimbatore Jn is the second highest revenue generating railway station in Southern Railways after Chennai Central.

Coimbatore City Police Helpline

Police Commissioner CK Gandhirajan after taking charge as COP of Coimbatore has put up a number of way where the common man can reach the Police in a free and fast manner. First was the setting up of an email ID to write to the Commissioner of Police (COP).The latest is a police helpline number which can be used to report any law and order problem in the city. 9994310000 is the number to be called. The first instance of immediate police action is the arrest of a bus conductor of a private bus with route number 1C on charges of eve-teasing. This city surely need an upright and effective police force to keep up with the growth it's going through recently. Incidentally Coimbatore has seen some of the best officers in the country despite being a low profile destination. MS Jaffer Sait IPS who is currently the Inspector General of Police (Central Zone) worked as an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) in this city.

During my polytechnic days I've seen the amount of respect DSP Muthuswamy commanded in the city. I can remember names like Radhakrishnan, Lalawm Sangma, Karan Singha, Sanjay Arora, all COP's at some point of time. The last person was known for his no nonsense approach when it came to police matters. The current COP of Coimbatore has also been an officer who wants police to be friends of the people. This is a welcome move and will help both the police and citizens. Traffic is one of the bigger challenges in this city. With racing almost in every one's blood, every rider/drive in Coimbatore is a one man driving team. The Police are certainly doing a neat job of enforcement in terms of traffic violations and general road safety.

Coimbatore is also one of the safer cities to live in South India and most certainly safer than Chennai or Cochin. There are excellent avenues for primary and higher education and recently the job market has been also showing promise for the IT and Engineering sector. As this city grows, it needs good infrastructure to keep up with the demands of the population, good citizens and above all excellent law enforcement professionals. Men and Women of honour and integrity whom the citizens can look up to. In the way progress is being made by the Police force, we are on the right track. It's now simply going to be a matter of time. Many congrats to the COP for all the positive changes in the department in such a short span of time.

P.S - "Organized Crime" is a book authored by CK.Gandhirajan IPS, it's a good book that deals with what the titles refers to. Get the book, it's worth a read.

Facts and stats - Vodaphone McLaren Mercedes Team

• began development of MP4-22 in March 2006
• began initial wind tunnel work on MP4-22 in May 2006
• sends between 95 (fly-away races) and 135 (European races) personnel to each Grand Prix
• has a race team which comprises: race team manager, senior race engineer, chief mechanic, software engineer, race strategist, two driver engineers, two assistant engineers, two system engineers, two data analysts, 10 mechanics, two gearbox mechanics two fabricator/carbon repairmen, engine dress, chief truckie, two tyre men, electrician, two support crew, security, senior fuel technician, fuel technician, spares co-ordinator, team co-ordinator
• used a total of seven chassis throughout the 2006 season
• transports approximately 30 tonnes of freight, including three complete race cars at approximately 600kg to each grands prix
• takes three spare gearboxes to each race, two built with rear suspension and one loose unit
• takes eight engines to each race, one in each of the three cars, two additional for Friday practice sessions and three spares for the rest of the weekend
• completed 53,750 kilometres when testing during 2006
• completed 16,349 kilometres when racing in 2006, including Practice, Qualifying and Races
• generated 100 gigabytes of data during all race meetings and 300 gigabytes of data at all tests in the 2006 season
• was supplied with 236,000 litres of Mobil Unleaded fuel for all track and dyno work during the 2006 season
• competes with a car that typically handles 3,000 gear changes during a race. This figure varies from circuit to circuit with the highest number occurring at the Monaco Grand Prix where the gears can be changed up to 4,000 times during the race and the lowest in Indianapolis where the driver changes gear approximately 2,000 times
• competes with a car that is typically capable of the following performance:
  0-60mph / 0 - 96kph 2.3 seconds
  0-100mph / 0 - 160kph 3.6 seconds
  0-100-0mph / 0 -160 - 0kph 6.6 seconds
  and can decelerate from 185mph to a standstill in 3.5 seconds
• was supplied 3,024 tyres in total for the 18 Grand Prix weekends in 2006. (2,016 dry-weather tyres and 1,008 wet-weather tyres)
• take 160 Enkei wheel rims to each race
• generate 4,600 drawings to create the 11,000 components that make up each car drivers are subjected to forces of up to 5G under braking
• conducted 1,263 practice pit-stops throughout the course of the 2006 season takes approximately seven seconds for a pit stop, with 29 crew working on each car, to refuel and to change four wheels and tyres, and the cars can be refuelled at a rate of 12 litres per second
  [Images - McLaren MP4-22]
  [Source - www.mclaren.com]

McLaren - 2007 F1 season

Wooooha, McLaren is ready with the car and drivers for the 2007 season and by far the MP4-22 is the best looking car in this year's lineup. Interestingly it looks like a departure from the grey-black attire that drivers don in this team, this year the drivers are sporting a white overall with logo imprinted all over it. This looks like an improvised version of dressing McLaren had till 1994 until Mercedes stepped in as the engine supplier.

Music - Pachaikili Muthicharam

All fans of music, rush to the nearest music store and grab a copy of this movie's soundtrack. It's worth the money, time and effort. Simple melodies by Harris Jeyaraj and songs written by Thamarai for a movie directed by Gowtham, now that's certainly one winning combination.

Roberto Benigni's next

After the super good 'Life is Beautiful' and 'Pinnochio', Roberto Benigni is back with 'The Tiger and the snow'. This movie appears to be another romance set in the times of the Iraq war. Trust Roberto to treat the story sensitively and in an incredibly humorous manner. I can't wait to see this movie, but I doubt if it would be ever released in my country. That reminds me of something, time to visit Burma Bazaar.

In the larger interest .....

Last night in a program on Times NOW Mahesh Bhatt narrated the following story. He met a boatman in a village and this man was charging Rs.1 per passenger to cross a river. Bhatt asked him if he knew that a bridge was being constructed across the river the boatman answered in the affirmative. Bhatt then asked him if he wasn't worried about loosing his livelihood to which the boatman replied, "Whatever happens to me, the bridge will certainly be good for the people".

A similar incident happened an year ago about which my brother recollected. This happened during one of his trips to Thattekad near Kothamangalam in Kerala. There was this boatman who was ferrying tourists across the river and my brother asked him if he knew about a bridge that was coming a little upstream. To my brother's surprise the boatman said that he was happy about the bridge because people who are sick and bitten by snakes in the forest can be driven to the town hospital much faster.

I salute these Indians!

An update on 'After The End'

This series is yet to go online because I thought of putting up the sound clips in addition to writing about them. Currently I am trying to capture the sound and put them up as MP3's on this blog for readers to listen to the score too. This series will go online in not later than a week from now.

Adrian Newey on McLaren

It's interesting when Adrian Newey, McLaren's erstwhile Technical Director, comments on McLaren and in a tone thats positive and raises hope :

"They're a tough team and in (double champion) Fernando (Alonso) they have perhaps the most proven driver at the moment given Michael (Schumacher)'s retirement.Probably some of the things that hindered them last year, the direction that tyre development took and possibly the way that the engine rules were, have now fallen into their hands.So I would imagine that they will be very competitive this year."

Adrian Newey was the brain behind the MP4/13 which took Mika Hakkinen to his first championship and won McLaren the constructors crown in 1998. This man used to be the force that saw Mclaren's car have that wee bit of aerodynamic advantage and when he left McLaren for Red bull in 2005 some of us would have wondered if McLaren would be able to get a person who could fit the big space that was vacant.
Adrian Newey also is quite a modest man which is evident when one see the interviews he gives to the media. My favourite Adrian quote is also the answer he gave when questioned about the secret of his success.

"I don't think there is a single knack, I mean it's what I always wanted to do. I guess I am reasonably artistic, got a reasonable maths brain as well, and managed to combine the two into what I do. But what the trick is, I don't know."

[The first picture and second pictutes are off Mika Hakkinen & Adrian Newey. The third picture is off Ron Dennis and Adrian Newey]

Geo's Talkies - Salaam-e-Ishq

Nikhil Advani's second movie after the super duper 'Kal Ho Na Ho' [I am certainly not a fan of the movie but loved the music] promised an interesting premise. Six couples and their lives with love as the underlining aspect. After viewing the movie, I am not only utterly dissapointed at the half baked story but also wonder how the screenplay was conjured up.

The story is about love in people of different age groups and sensibilities. John Abraham / Vidya Balan are couple who are married for 2 yrs. Anil Kapoor / Juhi Chawla are married for 15 yrs with two kids. Arbaaz Khan / Isha Kopikkar are newly wedded. Akshaye Khanna / Ayesha Takia are to be wedded soon. Govinda is a taxi driver who gets into love, how? Priyanka Chopra is an aspiring starlet who will also fall in love, how?

The premise is certainly interesting but the story is a hogwash. Music is the highlight of this movie. I couldn't stand the individual climax each couple had on screen, surely Nikhil Advani needs a ruthless editor who can butcher meaningless and worthless length of film which otherwise plays on in the name of character exposition but does anything but that. I salute Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy for sitting through the story session and coming up with decent tunes.

All actors except Govinda, Anil Kapoor and Juhi Chawla are horrible actors. Vidya and Priyanka are the least bad ones. John's emotions are surprisingly less wooden. Salaam-E-Ishq is a good idea gone all horribly wrong due to the lack of a coherent screenplay and a strong story. Salman Khan is wasted in a meaningless role and Arbaaz Khan / Isha Koppikar are in miniscule roles where they attempt to consummate their marriage on screen.

If you want to see how multiple stories can be stitched into a decent movie, watch 'Crash'. And for heavens sake movies like this should avoid insulting viewers intelligence by showing 'somewhere in London', 'somewhere near Delhi' etc, yikes, the audience is hardly confused all along the movie. The filmmakers certainly are.

I wouldn't be least surprised if this movie turned into a box office hit.

79th Academy Award Nominations

The nominations for the 79th Academy Awards (OSCAR) are out and this is one of those years when John Williams' score hasn't made it to the list because he didn't have any releases in 2006. Movies nominated for original score are :

“Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage) Gustavo Santaolalla
“The Good German” (Warner Bros.) Thomas Newman
“Notes on a Scandal” (Fox Searchlight) Philip Glass
“Pan’s Labyrinth” (Picturehouse) Javier Navarrete
“The Queen” (Miramax, Pathé and Granada) Alexandre Desplat

Sadly AR Rahman's songs too failed to figure in the original song for a motion picture list. The following are the one's nominated :

“I Need to Wake Up” from “An Inconvenient Truth”, Music and Lyric by Melissa Etheridge
“Listen” from “Dreamgirls”, Music by Henry Krieger and Scott CutlerLyric by Anne Preven
“Love You I Do” from “Dreamgirls”, Music by Henry KriegerLyric by Siedah Garrett
“Our Town” from “Cars”, Music and Lyric by Randy Newman [My favourite]
“Patience” from “Dreamgirls”, Music by Henry KriegerLyric by Willie Reale

"Apocalypto" figures in both the sound editing and sound mixing nominations and it should win the Oscars despite the presence of heavy weight competition from "Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest" and "Blood Diamond". I wouldn't be surprised if the sound mixing award went to 'Dreamgirls' though. The visual effects award would most certainly go to the minds that worked on "Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest", "Superman" and "Poseidon" are the others nominated in this category.

The best animated feature film of the year award should go to "Cars". "Happy Feat" is a strong contender and so is "Monster House". "Water" directed by Deepa Mehta makes it to the final list in the best foreign film category, I don't know the odds of this movie winning the oscar, but I hear it's got a good chance. Interestingly it was Canada's official entry in this category. "Rang De Basanti" apparently didn't make it to the final list. Go through the full list of nominations and take your pick, let's hope the academy finally breaks the oscar jinx and gives Martin Scorsese the oscar for best director.