Baksheesh?

Diwali season in India invariably means the doorbell ringing umpteen times, with each new arrival staking a claim in the Diwali baksheesh sweepstakes. Almost a trick-or-treat season, since we wouldn't to offend any of the visitors by giving them less than some other baksheesh-taker- after all, they controlled our connection to basic services- telephone line maintenance, postman, telepgram man, doodhwala, kachra-wala, maali, gas-wala, and so on.

Living here, I'd almost forgotten about the baksheesh culture, and was pleasantly surprised to see the reverse here.

Checking the mailbox today, I found a greeting card from the Royal /mail, promising good service inspite of the extra holiday burden! Here's the card....

Calculator

Never thought I'd need a manual to learn to use a calculator, but turns out that using a financial calculator can be as easy as 1-2-3, provided you know what buttons to push.

I've recently bought myself a Texas Instruments BA-II Plus Professional financial calculator.

I preferred this over the HP-12C, which uses reverse Polish notation, and I'd rather do things in English, even if the HP-12C is more popular. The HP-12C is only fir serious users and for show-offs. Anybody else who picks up a HP-12C is first going to try a basic 1+2= calculation, which does not work since 1+2= is normal English notation! And of course, nobody will be willing to admit they can't add 2 numbers on a calculator especially when the people around turn around to watch you scratching your head to figure out why the function didn't work. It's also a great calculator to take into an interview, ask an over-confident candidate to calculate NPV, and then give him the calculator and watch the confidence fizzle away.

Anyway, back to my TI BA-II Plus Professional financial calculator (quite a mouthful!)- I like it. I'm using the manual to figure out how to calculate NPV, IRR etc, and big formulae are immediately condensed into a few clicks of the calculator's keypad.

Banana chips

I decided to make yet another attempt to find a nice bag of banana chips last weekend, and bought a bag from Asda. Not as good as the freshly fried ones at Matunga, but a good enough substitute. But definitely better than the ones in the Indian stores here, where I had made my previous failed attempts.

And that made my day!

Asda, here I come again.... This store is turning out to be quite a good resource- I also bought lauki and arbi (called eddoes here), so I was 'very happy in my heart, dil dance maare re'.

License raj

Corporate law and economics textbooks in India invariably have a lengthy discussion on why licensing was required and why it was subsequently abolished except for a few very specific industries of national security importance. India of course, got the licensing idea from UK, and zealously intially applied it to as many products as it could. My grandparents and even parents can remember the days when television sets and radio sets were licensed to residential users. Now, the consumer is king in India, and there is really no question of licensing TV sets.

Therefore, in the UK, I was quite surprised to discover that the license raj continues even today, and that people continue to pay TV Licence fees without demur. License applies to any TV receiving equipment- including freeview boxes connected to the laptop, and TV cards on the PC, not just the actual TV set. The license fee involved is not a very large amount- £140 for a color TV license. But, it's the principle of the thing. Why should I pay for a license, about as much as what it would cost to buy a basic TV? If I buy a TV set worth £700, the license fees that I pay effectively double the price of the TV over the average useful life of the TV (not considering th time value of money, or the salvage value of the TV). Also, the license fees are directed to the BBC, which does not have any advertising revenue at all. However, the recent controversies that the BBC has been involved in highlighted the huge paychecks that some of their star presenters are getting- who is Jonathan Ross and why should he get so many millions? And how does Russell Brand deserve his paycheck? Why should my money go towards financing the lifestyles of bratty people who are famous just for being famous?

In any case, I have never been a huge fan of watching TV- even when faced with over a 100 channels to watch, I'd ending up exercising my fingers, going through the whole range of channels forwards and backwards for atleast an hour before giving up saying "There's nothing to watch on TV". Other people can't believe I can exist without a TV- I've seen some really shocked faces when they find out, but I've got enough things on my plate that I probably need a few more plates. So, at the moment, I don't miss a TV, but when I finally get around to feeling bored on a weekend, maybe, then I'll just have to forget 'the principle of the thing'!

But, I digress. What I was originally planning to write about, was that the TV licensing bureau actually implements its rules. So, when I moved into my current apartment, I got about three letters from the TV Licensing Board (addressed to the previous resident), asking for the license to be renewed. I naturally ignored the letters. Yesterday, I got a visit from the board, to check whether I indeed didn't have a TV. But, they've made their note on the records- "recently moved in, no TV"

Top 10 most irritating phrases in English

Today's Telegraph had an interesting article about the top 10 most irritating phrases used in English, as compiled by Oxford. It's an interesting question- why are the researchers at Oxford not using their time better, maybe looking for a solution to create world peace. But that's a question for another day.

My list of annoying phrases:

• At the end of the day, we need to deliver...
• We own this project
• It's a nightmare; it's scary
• 24/7
• What is the ETA?
• It's not rocket science
• youallrightthere? (said in a Brit accent)
• cheers
• heyhowzitgoin?
• does that make sense?
• to be honest
• bad spellings- 'loose' v 'lose'
• look at it this way
• let's take a step back and think about this
• leave that one with me
• we need to push back if we don't have the resources
• carbon footprint; going green
• let's take that one offline
• give me a heads-up when the report is ready to go
• LOL and other text speak without vowels (ok, that one's personal- just takes too much effort to figure out the text msg)
• re-inventing the wheel
• good to go

Translation, please

Now I know that even the Brits don't understand each other, and it really is multiple countries under the same flag.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5058853.ece

"Council workers in Swansea erected a road sign informing motorists in Welsh: “I am out of the office at the moment”.
Swansea council staff were designing a bilingual road sign barring heavy goods vehicles from a street in the city and had consulted an in-house translation service.

As the translator was not available, an automatatic e-mail response was triggered in Welsh which read: “I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated.”

Staff mistakenly thought that it was the correct translation and had it printed on the sign beneath the message in English, which read: “No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only”.

The council has taken down the sign at the junction of Clase Road and Pant-y-Blawd Road after Welsh speakers spotted the mistake."

And here I was thinking 'It happens only in India'!

Jolts of static

It's that time of the year again, when the weather starts to act up again. I don't mean the cold and wind- that, I can handle by bundling up in lots of layers and turning on the heating. What I can't handle is static electricity. I get quite a jolt when I touch absolutely anything. The phone when I try to turn off the morning alarm, the washbasin tap, the towel rod, the kitchen sink, the stove top, the saucepan to make my morning tea, the keyboard of my PC, and the list goes on and on. How do I get all these things to work for me without touching a thing?