Cricket and America!

Here is a Cricket 101 piece; take a look at this story, if you are wondering whether you want to read the piece or not:

Thousands of Americans have gone to Lord’s, cricket’s London headquarters, and retreated in bewilderment. The most eloquent was Groucho Marx, who reputedly watched for an hour, and said: “This is great. When does it start?”

Did you know?

Cricket—now played by millions of people in 92 countries ranging from the Caribbean to Europe to Africa to South Asia—was once the national game of, yes, these United States. And one of the first outdoor sports to be played on these shores. An 1844 cricket match between teams from the United States and Canada was the first international sporting event in the modern world, predating the revival of the Olympic Games by more than 50 years.

There also seems to be a CC Morris Cricket Library and United States Cricket Museum at Haverford College, Haverford, PA. Take a look at this article for more infromation!

An excerpt from Alex McCall Smith!

Here is an excerpt from the latest Sunday Philosophy Club: The right attitude to rain. Have fun!

Excerpts from a tea filterbag - II

Passion — Herbal infusion. A tantalising deep red tea made from hibiscus flowers, exotic herbs and natural tropical flowers.

True passion is intoxicating and invigorating, soothing and sensuous, mysterious and magical. We just thought you should know what you’re in for.

Books about spiritualism and pure maths!

These were books about those things that could not be seen or touched, but in that respect they were probably no different from books about pure mathematics.

– Alexander McCall Smith (Friends, Lovers, Chocolate)

A Gandhi special edition!

With Gandhi’s birthday celebrations just two days away, here are some Gandhi related stuff fromThe Hindu Magazine.

1. Shakti Maira on a profoundly disturbing exhibition on Gandhi.
2. A medical institute that continues to put Gandhi’s precepts into practise.
3. Ajit Duara feels that there is nothing Gandhian about Lage Raho.
4. An eye-witness account of Gandhi in Orissa.

I have an issue with Ajit Duara’s article, though: First he says,

First of all, information about the history of the Independence movement and about what M.K. Gandhi stood for is pretty well disseminated in our education system. Secondly, we do not have a “lost” generation without a sense of history.

In the very next paragraph, he says:

The kids themselves, the “lost generation”, are smart enough to come to the movie for a good time and not for “Gandhian values”. In fact they laugh at the characters in “Lage Raho Munnabhai” precisely because they know nothing about Gandhi.

This is confusing — or, does he mean, they laugh at the characters in “Lage Raho Munnabhai” precisely because they know a lot about Gandhi?

Have fun time!

Saturday evening lit links!

Pradeep Sebastian on End of Suffering.

Suchitra Behal reviews The inheritance of loss.

Meenakshi Mukherjee on the afterlife of Holmes, reviewing two books, namely, Holmes of the Raj and Messers. Dickens, Doyle & Wodehouse Pvt. Ltd.

HowTo how to!

Here is How to Write HowTo; lin via Digg.

Saturday afternoon lit links!

Rushdie on Updike:

He should stay in his parochial neighbourhood and write about wife-swapping, because it’s what he can do.

Good humour is visibly restored. “I’m allowed to say it, because he was really rude about me.”

Some unfairly neglected books — 19 of them !?

Julian Barnes on Madame Bovary.

All the links, via Literary saloon.

Nature of Music!

After the Annals of New York Academy of sciences, it is Cognition which has come out with an issue on Nature of Music; link via Sound and Mind.

On teaching tools!

Kerim at Savage minds has some tips to get your course material online with free web tools.