Time-barred jokes anyone? (Their use-before date is long past.)

You'll have to go when your time comes, common sense tells you. That's wisdom learned from experience and observation. Even jokes are not exempt from this fate, it suddenly dawned on me when I read the following jokes from an old dog-eared joke book this evening.

A veteran bank robber much hassled by his wife's demand for cash tries to placate her: "Just wait till the bank closes, dear, you shall have all the cash you need."

Then, there is the much harassed lawyer who keeps calling home and finds the line busy. So, he summons his secretary, tells her to take down a telegram for his daughter. "Send it by express wire," he tells the secretary. "Get off the line this instant, Sue," his telegrams reads.

With the advent of ATM, the first joke works no more. The second one was funny in the Jurassic era much before email, cellular phones, SMS. No such luck now, though.

R.I.P.

Easy way out.

The second instance of my quitting a pursuit after a brief flirtation - the account of the first one is here http://digbig.com/4xyxq - was when I was an enthusiastic philatelist for maybe a couple of years of school. How I started collecting postage stamps escapes me. My best guess is that I must have seen someone's stamp album and jumped to the conclusion that it was the thing to do. My parents used to indulge me probably because I was a boy. I remember I had a hard bound dark green 12" x 9" stamp album about ¾" thick. Each page in it had the name of a country printed on top with a couple of pictures of the more popular stamps issued by it on both sides of it. The portion below was divided into several spaces for stamps indicated by dotted squares. I remember buying the album, along with a shiny pair of tweezers, from one of the philately supply dealers on Hornby Road (now Dadabhai Nowroji Road) http://digbig.com/4xyxs. The shop is probably still there. I also used to buy from the same shop a packet of pre-gummed hinges made of butter paper. One had to simply fold the hinge halfway with the pre-gummed surface outside; lick it; stick one half to the back of the stamp and the other half to the surface of the page where the stamp was supposed to be stuck; and, lo and behold, one of your precious collection was where it belonged. I remember having a lot many India Postage stamps, even old ones retrived from the envelopes of old correspondence. We veteran stamp collectors also used to obtain stamps by barter. I don't quite recall who I used to exchange stamps with. There was a philatelist friend of mine staying in the third of the three identical Arab Houses. http://digbig.com/4xyxy. (I stayed at 233 Khetwadi Main Road in the first Arab House, you see.) He was probably the one through whom I had managed to find some bartering contacts. Also, some of my school friends may also have chipped in with bartering aid. We used to also buy stamps from the shop on Hornby Road I mentioned earlier as well as a shop on Lamington Road which also doubled as a comic book lending library. http://digbig.com/4xyxs. What one had to watch out for was in the stamps you bought to add to your collection was postal cancellation marks on them. That was supposed to prove that they were authentic postal issues - not imitations printed to fool new entrants in the august portals of philately. After wasting a bit of my father's hard-earned money for two or three years, I suddently lost interest in and zest for "the whole bally thing" (to use one of Wooster's eloquent phrases) and quit it as was my wont. [Afterthought: Now that email is the rule rather than the exception, I wonder if stamp collecting is a dying hobby.]

Curl up in bed with a good book.

This morning, Ujwal was desperately looking for old issues of The Reader's Digest. I asked her why. The reason startled me. A Grade 8 student of hers attending an ICSE school had been asked to write a book review. The condition was the book should not be a "classic". Ujwal was trying to help her find a "book digest" that was appropriate to her level and that she could manage to read over the weekend and write a review of. This is unconscionable sadism on the English teacher's part if you ask me. An 8th grader who probably reads only school books, that too under extreme duress as likely as not, and spends her leisure avidly watching the Idiot Box and gossiping about Hritik Roshan and Salman Khan should not be asked to write a book review. To be a book reviewer, you have first to be a book lover and a book reader. When she was here this summer, I listened to Avantika blithely complaining about having to read Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro and the review she had been asked to write in school. When I ribbed her about Ernest being the greatest American writer and a Nobel Prize winner no less, she didn't seem overly impressed. If you must teach a contemporary 8th grader writing skills, please teach her how to write a better SMS, text message and email. If you must make her write reviews, please ask her to review the latest soaps and movies. I could go on and on foaming at my mouth on the subject. Instead, I will direct you to my earlier pearls of wisdom cast here: http://tinyurl.com/4votxp.

P.S.: By the way, for people like me who actually curl up in bed with a good book (my latest is Girja Kumar's BRAHMACHARYA Gandhi & His Women Associates), there is actually such a thing as a book specially printed sideways to make it easily readable in bed. http://www.bedbooks.net/. The only catch is, they have at present in print only "classics", maybe of the lapsed copyright kind.

The King and I. (Well, almost.)

I could not believe my eyes. The Honourable Finance Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (the authentic one as I found out by checking at http://tinyurl.com/5zthre) had taken the time and the trouble to write personally to me citing belief in the rule of law and transparency of the President of the Republic (also the genuine one as I found out by checking at http://tinyurl.com/2mcalf) and apologising for the damage caused by the previous government to me and my company vendours (sic) and asking me to verify the authenticity of the Power of Attorney, et cetera, et cetera and so forth. http://tinyurl.com/5vxwwa. Here's the truth, the whole truth and nothing but brought to you verbatim:

PAYMENT NOTIFICATION: PLEASE RESPOND URGENTLY

Wednesday, August 20, 2008 9:28 PM

From: Dr. Shamsuddeen Usman" shamusfmf2@live.com

To: undisclosed-recipients

Dr Shamsudeen Usman
The Honorable Minister ofFinance,
Federal Republic of Nigeria
http://www.fmf.gov.ng/

Hello,

Be informed that the report on your payment file this morning stated that so many people were interested on your payment and that was what brought about the confusion and all the attempts to divert your fund. Now, every thing regarding the tenure of our corrupt ex President Olusegun Obasanjo have been cancelled.

The new president Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar'adua is a man that believes so much on the rule of law and transparency. We sincerely apologize to you and your company over all the damage caused by the government of Obasanjo to you and your company vendours. This is to inform you that MR. KHALED SAMIR and his Nigeria partner, MR. SADIQ ABDUL came to my office with a "POWER OF ATTORNEY" signed by you and a new bank account as stated below.

JINNING BRANCH BANK
CHINA INNER MOGOLIA JINNY
7 NUMBER 5, ROAD
ACCOUNT # 1-277-0084
BANK ROUTING#:102000021A.

The "POWER OF ATTORNEY" requested for a change in the receiving bank account particulars and the federal ministry of finance is surprised because you did not inform us officially of the sudden change of the new beneficiary. Interestingly, they brought the "POWER OF ATTORNEY" and the charges for the change of bank account totaling US$550.00 (five hundred and fifty United States Dollars) only. But we rejected the money pending our clarification. On this note, we acted professionally and in accordance to the laid down rules and regulations of this ministry, I interviewed them but unfortunately I was not satisfied with the answers they gave which was not in line with the rules and regulations of this ministry as regard to change of account or beneficiary. I want to state here that the conduct of the two men became suspicious due to the unsatisfactory information they provided concerning this transfer, and as a result, I decided to give them (14 working days) appointment ahead to enable me make necessary verification from you and the appropriate authorities in the release of your fund. We have resolved to do that to avoid making wrong transfer. Please, kindly advise us appropriately whether the two men are acting on your permission and instructions or not. I am anxiously looking forward to receive your urgent response.Thanks for your anticipated co-operation.

Dr Shamsudeen Usman
The Honorable Minister of
Finance, Federal Republic of Nigeria

NOTE: Please make sure you include your contact number in your response.

Need I say more? By the way, I found no mention of the above quoted email received by me in my Yahoo mailbox as scam here: http://tinyurl.com/6hqktc.

My life as a DI.

I became a Digital Immigrant http://tinyurl.com/43fygl about 10 years ago when I began using a PC regularly circa mid-1998, learning to surf the Internet and to use email later the same year. I continued for a while the use of my portable typewriter but after a bit I abandoned it for my PC. (I graduated to a laptop used as a desktop only a couple of years ago.) Unlike many DIs, I did not get into the habit of printing emails I received or, worse still, getting someone else to print them for me. Even now, from time to time, I go into the "Did you get my email?" panic (landline or wired) phone call mode. But that's more because of the unreliability of the MTNL DSL connection than a lack of trust in the Internet. I have always been editing on the screen instead of on a printed copy. I don't drag people to my PC to show them an interesting website I've found. I mail them the url, instead. I'm not at all comfortable, though, with fast-moving video games. Twitch-speed is not within my ambit. Having been digitally undexterous all my life, I play slow stuff like solitaire. Slow downloads rarely upset me overmuch. I haven't learned to multi-task and parellel-process as yet, except maybe as far as listening to music while working at the PC. When it comes to a choice between television and books (the tree-cutting kind, not online), I go for the latter anytime. I don't care for a cellular phone, don't carry one. No faxing for me. Email has been as far as I go in online messaging. I haven't graduated to instant messaging. The spellings that go with it make me uncomfortable. In fact, the phenomenon of aliteracy (the inability to spell, punctuate and construct a sentence) bothers me. http://tinyurl.com/3kjgyh. On a different note, I don't insist on bottled water like the Digital Natives do. I haven't taken in a big way to social networking although blog I do fairly regularly. For me, Google is both a noun and a verb (with a lower-case 'g'). Last August, I got a USB thumbdrive as a birthday gift. I use it rarely and sparingly. Recently, I got a basic iPod Shuffle also as a gift from Ujwal. I listen to Beethoven, Brahams, Tschaikowsky, Bach, Wagner and other classical masters as well as Glen Miller, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Noorjehan, Geeta Dutt, Mohamed Rafi and similar oldies on it. I'm beginning to accept that digital information is ephemeral (44% of websites vanish within a year) and democractic, not authoritative (Wikipedia, not Britannica). P.S.: There are, I reckon, only two born Digital Natives among the Mankars: Anika and Armaan. From recent personal observation, I would add that Aditi and Avantika too have, by their own efforts and interest, attained the DN nibbana by now. Bully for them.

WWW = World Wide Waste?

In the dustbin of history, one often stumbles upon all sorts of gems, well almost. In my cache of old stuff in the D: drive, saved in July 2005, I found this scintillating bit of wisdom from Bill Coleman, senior vice president, Salary.com gleaned from a survey of 10,000 US workers conducted in May and June 2005. “Our results show that workers on average are wasting a little more than twice what their employers expect", i.e., 2.09 hours spent online daily, checking e-mail and surfing Web sites, to be exact. The second biggest time waster, in the opinion of the volunteer respondents, was socializing with co-workers. This was before social networking became the next really, really big thing, mind you. [Social networking timeline: http://yasns.pbwiki.com/.] I wonder what the WWW figure stands at as of now. http://www.salary.com/careers/layoutscripts/crel_display.asp?tab=cre&cat=nocat&ser=Ser374&part=Par555.

Sound of silence.

“And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dare
Disturb the sound of silence."
http://www.lyrics007.com/Simon%20and%20Garfunkel%20Lyrics/The%20Sound%20of%20Silence%20Lyrics.html.

That’s the third stanza of Simon and Garfunkel’s The Sound of Silence, a hit release as single in 1966, made even more famous as a part of Mike Nicholas’s The Graduate soundtrack. I thought of it while reading a recent This Is London article. http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23367664-details/Email+replaces+conversation+in+the+office/article.do. “Britain's offices are falling silent as email replaces conversation, according to a new study,” it tells me. The Corporate Services Group PLC, staffing specialists, found it in a poll of 2,000 office workers. “Almost half of workers admitted they email the person sitting next to them to avoid making verbal contact. Yet a nosey one in five Brits uses email just to gossip to desk buddies about work colleagues.” As for mobile phones: “A cowardly one in five Brits confessed to dropping a text to their boss instead of calling in sick.” Moreover: “… the silent culture continues with one in five employees regularly plugging themselves into mp3 players at their desks. Men are twice more likely to work to music than women, both sexes agreed the most common need for tunes was to relieve boredom at work. Yet, an anti-social one in 20 Brits confessed they listen to music purely to stop colleagues speaking to them.” If you go to office to work, is it such a bad idea that you avoid chitchat and concentrate on the job in hand? I see a lot of commuters listening to music these days in Mumbai. Nothing wrong in that, I feel, considering the ambient decibel levels. I like the sound of silence.