Tom Sawyer - needed once every four years

I recently had the fortune of meeting the founder and CEO of an economic and business consulting company based in the UK. The CEO lives in Regent(')s Park in an area that is under the crown estate (and stone throw away from Lords!!!, can you believe it).

Apparently, the crown estate asks all residents to paint their houses every four years. This is to ensure that it looks new and fresh. Not just that, the paint itself is a special one made on order for the crown estate once every four years by Dulux. It costs 40 GBP per unit (I think the unit was a litre) whereas any standard paint costs 5-6 GBP. And to add further inanity (if there is no word like that am sure you get the meaning) to the chat the residents don't get a choice of colour it is decided by the crown and Dulux makes it.

Hmmm...so how about bright red for this time?

Of liliputs and dinosaurus

I was recently on a week long trip to India. A day before leaving for India I watched an animated movie on Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels and on the flight I watched King Kong. In one movie we were the giants in the other we were the liliputs.

However, what was interesting was that while on the flight I was reading "Coolie" a novel by Mulk Raj Anand. In the novel they have this incident when the kid, who has just started to work as a servant, is scolded by his employer, the lady in whose house he works. While reading this, I had this strange picturisation of the scene of the novel. It felt like the lady was a giant and the kid a liliput. I felt sorry for the kid.

That proves, too much cinema is bad. Everything in the world relates to what you have seen in a movie.