A Mail to the Editor - Manchester United - We are still the club to beat

To,

The Editor of Football365.com,

This is with respect to the immense criticism which my club has faced through the transfer window for not spending money especially with respect to two areas - a striker and a midfielder or two. 

What I would like to draw your attention to is the no club has two great strikers. Each club has one good striker and the rest play around him. Chelsea has Drogba, Liverpool has Torres, Inter had Diego Milito (for the last season) and so on..So all this talk of not having two 'great' strikers is as shite as shite can get. Despite all this bull (elephant) shite for that matter of the paucity of talent in terms of strikers we still have Rooney, Berbatov, Hernandez and Owen. This is a strike force any club in Europe, i mean ANY CLUB IN EUROPE, would give their right arm to have them in their squad. Add to them Macheda and Wellbeck, two of England's most highly rated youngsters who are slowly being blooded in the Premiership.

Moving on to the so called midfield problem. this is what we have in terms of the midfield 'problem':

Nani, Anderson, Giggs, Park, Carrick, Scholes, Fletcher, Valencia - We have 8 midfielders of whom 1 (Carrick) has underperformed the last 2 months of the previous season. We still have potentially one of the most dangerous midfields in the premiership. Sir Alex can play a  midfield full of hard work and a midfield full of flair as well. Add to this the possible return of Owen Hargreaves. Gibson, is again one for the future. He is already said to be very highly rated and is set for great things.

To sum up, those who say Manchester United Football Club cannot spend money because they dont have it I have only this to say. Maybe we are short of money, I cant agree or disagree with certainity, but nevertheless WE DO NOT NEED TO BUY. To underline the fact, I would simply like to draw attention to our performance for the past two years in Europe and the Premiership. People seem to presume that it is fashionable to buy and to succeed one must buy big. I will still like to see how the same people react if the so called dud deal of Bebe works.

A simple Manchester United fan who believes WE ARE STILL THE CLUB TO BEAT!

Regards,

Ajit Viswanath

Mumbai

India

Randomly Inconsistent Thoughts....

As I just start to make another apology of an attempt at a blog....my thoughts are cluttered by the opening game of the Asia Cup between Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Shoaib Akhtar makes yet another comeback at the age of 35 and what bewilders me is that he still bowls at 140 + kms per hour. I wonder how he manages to do this. To put this in perspective, the fastest ball of another famous pathan from India is slower that Shoaib's slower ball!!

Another disconcerting fact is the commentary.....Rameez Raja.........the expert commentator from the neighbouring country which we all love so much can be used for Aman ki Asha ads by TOI. After all, if we can put up with his commentary, they surely can put up with our requests of peace in return!! Sample this:

"All Pakistani batsmen are boom boom today. Hope this does not 'boom'erang on them.' - No.before you get all wrong thoughts in your mind, he was talking of the sticker which the bats of Afridi and Razzaq were carrying.

And one thing which is keeping with Pakistani cricket tradition, is the captain (30 year old Afridi - some say that this is 3 years more than his actual age because he wanted to get into school when he was in mothers womb!!) batting as if his whole life rests on this. And the levels of trust which he has on his teammates is amply put in perspective, by the fact that he simply refuses to have a runner when he is extreme pain!! driven by the fear of a conspiracy which might have been planned on the flight from Pakistan to remove him from captaincy!!!

Would love to be a fly in the wall on 19th of June in the Malik household in Dubai to find out who Ms. Mirza is supporting in the India Pakistan game!!!

Now, coming to the original idea for this blog - to glorify Mika....yes our very own Mika whose claim to fame  used to be (and i suspect for  some is still is) his kissing incident with Raakhee Sawant and the album thereafter with the 'Meet' brothers on the same.....Setting aside his personal life...which is not very personal at times....I think he is simply put one of the most awesome singers of recent times.....given the variety of songs he has sung..(Afridi is out by the way....he is DISTRAUGHT...the only time i have seen him so sad is when somebody questioned him about his age in an interview!!)....Case in point...the song "Saajna" from the latest movie on Kashmir (with Sunjay Dutt yet again part of it)....."Lamha"...It is awesome.......It is a slow track with     a inevitability about it...inevitability of separation and I dont think anybody could have sung it better.....and the last song which he sang was "Apni to jaise taise" from Housefull. The energy which he brought to the song was completely another level.....I think he has one of the most prolific success rates in terms of movie songs he has sung...You should listen to this song from Lamha....

Goodbye for now......

An attempt at demystification of 3G Auctions

Coming across this 3G Auction daily public report got me kind of uneasy........One of the biggest events in Telecom  History.......that too once in a lifetime.....and here i am staring blankly at the report trying to make sense of it all...and failing miserably............(that too after man united was big time back in the title hunt!! violates theory of positivity you see....anyways that can be the subject another apology of a blog!!)......So here is what i figured of the 3G auction based on my limited understanding of the the documents which the google search threw up (comments/corrections are obviously welcome). The basic understanding is based on a quick read of the "Notice Inviting Applications for Auction of 3G and BWA Spectrum". A lot of it might be obvious facts for a lot of people but were not for me to be honest:

1. What is exactly being auctioned ?

Spectrums for 3G and BWA are on the line. 3G as common knowledge goes is the third generation of telephony services. BWA stands for Broadband Wireless Access Services which is necessary for rolling out Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (commonly referred to as Wimax) that helpes handheld devices and laptops to access the Internet.

    2.   Are 3G spectrums being auctioned across the country?

Spectrums are being auctioned in blocks for each circle. The number of blocks for each circle is generally 3 blocks except in the cases of Punjab, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar and Jammu & Kashmir where the number of blocks up for auction are 4. In case of BWA, each circle or service area (as it is referred to in the invitation for bidding) has 2 blocks up for bidding. Not more than one block of 3G spectrum and one block of BWA spectrum shall be allocated to any single bidder in a service area.

     3.   What is the actual number of blocks being auctioned ?

The notice inviting applications for bid indicate that one block of 3G spectrum and BWA spectrum is reserved for the BSNL/MTNL in each service area. Accordingly, they would not be participating in the auction, but shall be required to match the Winning Price achieved in the respective service area in the 3G Auction as payment for the spectrum allotted to them. The frequencies of spectrum to be allotted to BSNL/MTNL have also been determined.

     4.   Can all entities bid for 3G Licenses?

Entities who either hold Unified Access Services Licenses or Cellular Mobile Telephone Services Licenses or entities who have experience in providing 3G services and have given an undertaking to obtain the UAS/CMTS licenses are eligible to bid.

     5.   When will the services actually begin?

The 3G and BWA services are to be rolled out within  5 years from the effective date (which is later of the date award of the spectrum or date of grant of the UAS license) with more emphasis on metros (90% coverage required while other areas require 50% coverage). One small detail - the right to use the spectrum is valid for 20 years.

    6.    Where are the auctions conducted?

The use of term auction brings to mind the movie scenes which are typically associated with auctions with the person in charge using the hammer to good effect. Well this one is over the web using an Electronic Auction System!!!

    7.    How are the winners determined?

The auction is a two stage process. A clock stage will estsablish the bidders to be awarded a block in each of the service areas (bidding will be for a generic block i.e. not linked to any specific frequency). The clock stage will consist of a number of rounds. The number of round will stop when the number of bidders at the price set in the previous clock stage is less than or equal to the number of blocks available for that particular service area. So prima facie it seems the auctions will stop when purchasers (without any competition) are identified for all the blocks. The second stage, more of a formality, is the Frequency Identification Stage which would involve identification of the specific frequency for the identified successful bidders.

Notwithstanding the limited understanding of English Language, it seems that at the beginning of each round a price known as Clock Round price shall be determined and it shall continue to be revised for the next round (if required) based on the excess demand for that service area. This process shall continue till the excess demand has been eliminated. The first clock round price shall be reserve price. The excess demand shall be the difference between the total number of bids which are at a price equal to the Clock Round Price set for the previous round and the number of blocks available.

The price increment based on excess demand is based on a formula which requires a 1% increase in the CRP if there is "0"/"1" excess demand (excess determined as per the formula discussed above), 5% increase for excess demand of "2" and a 10% increase for an excess demand of "3". There are absolute limits on price increase based on category of circle as well which range from  Rs. 7.50 crores to Rs. 40 crores (it is different for different categories of circles).

One more condition for the clock stage to end is Activity Requirement of 100%. Each block belonging to a specific category of service area has eligibility points associated with it. So for example blocks within a metro have 5 points associated with it, Category A and B has 4 points associated with it and Category C has 2 points associated with it. The initial eligibilty based on earnest money deposit made by the bidder is 11 (one block for each category) and activity requirement for the first round is 80%. In case bidder bids for circles more than 9 points, bidders eligibility shall continue to be 11. In case he bids for less than 80% of 11 say 4,  the eligibility for next round for that bidder shall be 5(4 divided by 80%). The Activity Requirement shall be increased from 80% to 100% in a two step process.


So at the end of it all the report which is available at the beginning of first paragraph, indicates that 40 clock rounds have passed till now and there is excess demand in some circles which would mean the prices are to increase further for such circles. The activity requirments at this stage does not seem to be available in public domain. However given that it has gone into 40 rounds, it should be getting to a stage where it is 100%.

Inputs to this attempt at demystification are welcome.

Love Thy Neighbour...!!!!

The "Aman Ki Asha" initiative by Times of India and the Jang Group of Pakistan (one wonders whether the literal convenience of the use of the phrase "of India" in the former's name was the driver behind selection of TOI!!) is an interesting attempt at Track II diplomacy..........Evoked very interesting responses across all age groups and across all mediums.....For starters the soundtrack is amazing.....and the 2 min ad which runs on television is very touching and innovative.....feel good types.....But the problem possibly has never been with the common man of India and Pakistan.....Its the political setup of both the countries which essentially need to determine the way forward. All the niceties of the ad campaigns and other Track II initiatives end with the common man feeling good for a split second after the ad....the political top brass would obviously not and should obviously not be deviated from securing their political objective.....Of course the campaign managers of the AKA campaign would claim that the latest ad goof up of including the ex-Pakistan Air Force Chief in an Indian Ad Campaign for the Girl Child was completely a result of their ad campaign (http://bit.ly/5C9ICW)!!! In fact the PMO instead of apologising could have given this devious logic and gotten away with it maybe....Anyways, coming back to the point i was trying to make....The fact that this country which we are trying to love keeps sending messengers of love makes our task that much more difficult...I am sure we all agree that there is no need for us to love Pakistanis more than the Chinese or the Americans or the Portugese for that matter....As in, we as Indians or Pakistanis need not take a symbolic and potentially farcical stand of loving the neighbours concerned a bit more to enable resolution of the Kashmir issue......Let representatives we have chosen through the most expensive electoral process in the world decide what is right for the country and do the needful....If that involves bombing terrorist camps in Pakistan...so be it...or even if it means making bus journeys to Lahore and praising Jinnah so be it as well....And finally one wonders whether the people behind the AKA campaign would be cringing in their seats when they saw the IPL teams giving Pakistani players the royal ignore!!!! Maybe the franchise owners did it in Aman ki Asha !!

For the Record !!!

"'3 Idiots' grosses Rs 315 cr in 19 days" (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/media/entertainment-/entertainment/3-Idiots-grosses-Rs-315-cr-in-19-days/articleshow/5437995.cms) spooked me. How could there be so many idiots across the world!!!! The movie freak in me who loves Akshay Kumar movies and who is an ardent admirer of the package that is Shahrukh Khan (people who know me well enough would obviously call it an understatement) just could not accept this piece of news at face value. Got me thinking it did. Does the collections of a movie truly reflect the success of the movie? Do the collections figures widely quoted across the various forms of media get entirely to the producers? Well....a bit of research and possibly this is how the various players in the movie industry rake in the moolah :

Producer - The producer charges a minimum guarantee fee before the movie in return for film rights in a territory within the country. Producers can recover up to 30 per cent of the cost of the film, pre-selling it to distributors. If the movie does well and the distributor recovers his money, any additional inflows get divided between the two. We are talking exclusively of ticket sales and do not include satellite rights, music rights and so on.

Distributor - They offer an MG fee to the producer to book a territory. And spend on print and publicity on which they take a 20 per cent commission. Any overflow of revenue after recovery of the MG fee and commission is divided between them and the producer.

Exhibitor - The old system in which distributors paid a rental to the theatre irrespective of whether the movie ran or not is rapidly becoming history. Under a new system revenue gets shared between theatre owners and distributors. Generally, in the first week of a release, the split is evenly 50:50, in the second week the producer gets 40 per cent and the exhibitors the rest, in the third week the producer makes 30 per cent and if the movie continues into the fourth week, he gets 25 per cent of the collections.

Coming back to original agenda of pushing 3 Idiots off the pedestal, lets get to the list of highest grossing bollywood movies ever.....and much to my dismay...i find 3 Idiots perched right at the top with gross collections of Rs. 157 crores followed by Ghajini with collections of Rs. 115 crores. The top 30 grossing movies features 7 SRK movies, 6 Aamir Khan movies and 4 Akshay Kumar movies. Amongst the producers, there is no doubt as to who leads the pack. Yash Raj Films with 5 out of the top 30...not bad eh!! No other producer has managed more than 2....

But guess what all the above figures were not adjusted for inflation....the highest grossing movie ever after adjusting for inflation ....hold your breath....is Sholay with an adjusted net gross collection of Rs. 162 crores....followed by Mughal-e-Azam and Mother India.....One very interesting statistic which strikes me is while the unadjusted highest grossers included 4 movies from the 1990's and 26 from the next decade which has apparently come to an end (am still confused about how a decade could be over in 2009!!)....Once you adjust collections for inflation, you have 4 movies from the 1990's and 7 movies from 2000 onwards which means 19 movies released before 1990's would have been topping the charts in terms of collections had they released today.....!!! Also vindicating my point...no Aamir Khan in the top 10 of this list...SRK with DDLJ and Salmaan Khan with Hum Aapke Hain Kaun are there though....

This just confirms what one suspected all the while. The resetting of records has to be taken with a pinch of salt....a lot of it has to do with the scale of production as well....the number of prints which are released is possibly a very important determinant. 3 Idiots released with a record 1892 prints across the world...To say that Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham released with a paltry 635 prints..

Possibly we need to change the way we judge the success our movies achieve....Having said all that, one must give credit to Aamir Khan who takes so much pain for each of his movie.....Come this February...i expect ET to carry this "My Name is Khan grosses all time highest collections"!!!!

Something about terrorism...

The news that the football team of Togo had been attacked while they were on their way to Angola for the Africans' Cup of Nations came across as something very weird. Perceptions are built with time. One of the perceptions which i had developed over a period of time was terrorism and terrorists could not afford to antagonise the common man. For e.g. a terrorism in Kashmir would probably come to an end if Lashkar - e - Toiba operators plotted an attack on Sachin Tendulkar. Lets face it - the common citizen is probably more attached to his/her sporting or movie icons than a fellow citizen who was killed by the last terrorist attack. Terrorists who dont give a damn as to whether they are killing the sporting icon of a country or a common citizen are most dangerous and unpredictable. Lets hope we never have such terrorists - for that matter lets hope we dont have any sort of terrorists.

For terrorism to thrive, it needs tacit support of atleast one section (howsoever small they may be) of the population who empathise with the cause. For e.g. forcing shopkeepers to shut down their shops purely on account of the fact that the leader of a political party feels prices are too high (no doubt as to whether these guys are terrorists or not!!!) cannot be sustained unless a portion of the population wants to take a day off and shit at home. Precisely what ails Bengal.

Another form of terrorising people potentially is writing one's blog and push it to your face by linking it to Facebook!!!! Anyways hoping for a terror free world....yours terrorisingly....AV

Artists i discovered/rediscovered in 2009

My childhood friend called on the night of 31st December 2009. While i was speaking to him over the phone, i realised we were the same guys who used to rush down to the local music shop to be the first to buy the cassette of the latest movie. From cassettes costing between 25 and 50 rupees, we have come a long way to storing music on our mobiles and ipods. What was striking as well was the fact that the ease of sharing music has facilitated the spread of music. While going through the 500 odd songs which i have on my mobile, i realise that most of it has come from going through somebody else's mobile/ipod and transferring it via bluetooth or data chord!!! Well....for starters...the list of songs/artists i am putting up are not in any particular order...:

Coldplay/Speed of Sound - The year began with rediscovering "speed of sound" - the song which i remember since probably for the past 6-7 years. Till the beginning of the year i adored the song for the lyrics and instruments used in the song apart from the song as a whole of course...Only after delving further into the songs of coldplay did i realise that this was typical coldplay....amazing lyrics...amazing use of instruments...piano, guitar, drums....To name a few of my coldplay favourites ....yellow, clocks, fix you, swallowed in the sea, talk.

Maroon 5 - When you start of listening to Maroon 5, the song "She will be loved", what strikes you is the unconventional voice of the lead singer. Lyrics need to make sense for a song to be good, whatever be the subject. These guys are pretty good at what they do. Have a couple of other songs as well which are very very ear friendly.

Pritam - Call him names for lifting the odd song from indonesia or honolulu for that matter, but you cant deny credit to this man for dishing out song after song after song through the year which sound music to the ears (pun intended!!). Be it the tracks of love aaj kal or ajab prem ki ghazab kahani or tum mile or new york....the sheer consistency in belting out chartbusters never ceases to amaze me....Although he does the rotten movies too, he does save the best for the best. He has probably taken HR's place as the music director for the masses (till HR returns of course!!).....

Strings - I have always been a Strings fan ever since i watched and heard "Duur" and "Anjane" on Channel V in 1999 or 2000. And have kept track of most of their songs thereafter. But this year got their songs on to my mobile..........Duur, Anjane, Na Jaane Kyun, Zinda, Aakhri Alvida to name a few. They are sensational to say the least and some of the lyrics which they have got on their song is one of the best ever probably.........especially zinda....cant have enough of them!!!

Udit Narayan - Pritam brought with him the trend of using unconventional singers....guys who used to sing only for their albums....mohit chauhan, neeraj sreedhar, atif aslam etc...and not demeaning all of them (they are great too)...the music directors somehow seem to have forgotten Udit Narayan. The fact that i missed his singing became clear when i heard "Sau Janam" from Whats Your Rashee. The freshness of the voice (along with the image of him singing with open arms and a wide smile) was divine. Pity we dont hear of him too much these days.

Rahul Sharma - I heard Rahul Sharma for the first time two, three or four years back while surfing channels. The memory of the santoor still remained somewhere in the corner of the mind. And when i sat down to download songs on a cold January (2009) morning, it came rushing back from the corners...My limited knowledge of music notwithstanding, I never imagined somebody could do so much with a santoor and possibly come up with a tune where santoor plays with drums in the background...Listen to the pieces of music in your earphones and they are gems.....

Phil Collins - For people who are struggling to recall who is phil collins i can make two attempts :

• The scene in hangover where mike tyson asks the protagonists to shut up since his favourite part of the song was about to play - "In the Air tonight" was the song and is something differently good,
• Another day in Paradise is a song which i think lots of us have come across somewhere.

Phil Collins has a very unconventional voice with a great feel...try him out...apart from the two mentioned above, try "One more night" and "Cant stop loving you".

Suresh Wadkar - The three or four lines which he sang in "Raat ke Dhai Baje" in Kaminey were as good as the two or three lines Alka Yagnik sang in "So gaya ye jahan" in Tezaab. He sounded refreshingly soothing to the ears (am using such adjectives for want of better adjectives).

And a special mention to the album that was Kaminey. "Raat ke Dhai Baje", "Kaminey" (title track), "Phatak", "Dhan te Nan", "Pehli Baar Mohabbat" were all masterpieces in themselves in all aspects..... the rendition by the singers, music, lyrics (by Gulzar).........

I am sure i am missing out on quite a few of my favourites, but i guess one never can cover all songs.....the quest for music continues