Celebrity DIY instruction sheet. Step #1: Open mouth. Step #2: Shove foot in. Step #3: Go blab, blab, blab.

The foot-in-the-mouth disease spares no one. Its most famous victim was India’s (most probably) No.1 ‘icon’ when tied himself into knots on being asked if he would continue to work for a cola that’s at the toxic hub of the pesticide scandal. First he said Yes. Then he said ask the company because he didn’t understand ‘these things’. All he needed to say was, he was only the hired help, he did what he was told to do. (Remember the factoid that Alfred Hitchcock reportedly called actors cattle?) In the same newspaper another ‘icon’ made an ass of himself in a special ‘interview’ – obviously a part of the publicity blitz for his new release – by telling his equally clueless interviewer that Hollywood started making spectacularly mounted sci-fi flicks only twenty years back. (Huh? Duh!) Obviously, he wasn’t aware of, say, George Pal’s The War of The Worlds with its Oscar-winning special effects made as early as 1953. He also proudly said that he had persuaded his dad to make India’s first (?) sci-fi movie to clear the way for others to follow. If they didn’t do it, that genre would be lost forever to Bollywood. (Huh? Duh!) What about Kidar Sharma’s Armaan made as early as 1942, the Quit India year? I stopped reading the gibberish at that point vowing never to read another word uttered by him – a promise to myself I’m sure I shall break. Serves me right for my ‘scratch an icon to find an intellectual’ frame of mind, what? P.S.: All the critics were hailing the ‘ten-year-IQ-in-an-eighteen-year-old’ act put on by the latter ‘icon’ in the new sci-fi-set-to-music flick. Maybe, it’s not an act, after all. To read a bunch of ‘foot-in-the-mouth’ jokes concerning ordinary mortals, head for http://footinmymouth.com/ http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8034 http://www.jn10.co.uk/stories/index.php?cat=7.

Professional hazards.

Actors are such hoaxes, don’t you agree? Not their fault. It comes with the job. They’re ‘role acting’ on stage, when the cameras are rolling, even in real (not only reel) life when they talk to the gossip rags, to give just a few examples. It happens to all of us, come to think of it. See the stuff ordinary folks like you and me do on camera. Think of the way they dress when they go to watch cricket matches. Think of the way they raise their hands and sway to music in the television tamashas and call attention to themselves in the idiot-box debates. At times, one wonders if the theme line of actors from all walks of life should not be “Watch my lips”? (Excerpted from an old BBC Radio 4 program: BUSH: “Watch my nose: no new taxes.” / QUAYLE: “Er ... Mr President ... That's meant to be ‘Watch my lips’.” / BUSH: “No, Dan. If they watch my lips, they'll see that I'm lying through my teeth. Watch my nose, no new taxes.” / QUAYLE: “Er ... Mr President ... Your nose ... It's getting longer!” http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/90q3/bushl2.html.)