The Lyon's peck

The last time I was in Lyon...

Did that go down smooth, creamed with nonchalance?

... I was very hungry.

I was at this workshop, and the food was mostly meat creamed with cheese. The French tend to think that vegetrianism is some unknown sub-tropical disease. They keep a safe distance. The waiters being french, spoke french, and nodded sagely when confirming that the duck is purely vegetarian. You can well imagine that I was fast losing weight. And food.

It is then that she rode up in shining armour and high heels. Speaking french with a belgian lilt she quickly got the garcon to deliver veggies (that were without feathers and exo-skeleton), got me non-alcoholic grape juice so that I could look the wine-drinkers in the eye (approximately, the wine, you know, gets the drinker cross-eyed pretty fast), and, wait for it, she even laughed at mine jokes.

Quite something, huh? I was on to a good thing, huh?

So, when on departure day, when one goes around gladhanding and promising to follow up research, I finally took leave from her, her saying that we must kiss, seemed to be the logical conclusion to a torrid affair. Right?

As torrid as a storm in a test-tube.

Of course, she meant that she wanted to indulge in that silly false-hope-raising French exercise of lightly brushing each other's cheeks. So near, and yet so far.

All for the best though, that cheek had hair to put my three-day beard to shame.

Classic formula: White skin + blonde hair = can't see the damn things until close contact.

I leave you with some of my favourite shots of Lyon, a question about King Louis (Walt Disney wasn't so far off, it seems), a vacant but tantalising lookin' viola gal, a crazy rockgal, a hot but tepid painter, an over-the-hill rocker. 'NJoy.

Journalese 7: All about cricket

A while ago in the sand-beached cricketing extravaganza in the West Indies, both the Indian and the Pakistani cricket teams were shipped back post haste. Two of the more entertaining comments I read somewhere.
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On Pakistan's defeat to Ireland, and subsequent chucking from the World Cup:

"We will ask for his [Ashraf's] resignation in the meeting which is due to take place before March 28," Senator Mohammad Enver Baig, a member of the senate standing committee on culture, sports, youth affairs and tourism told AFP. "You lost miserably to a country like Ireland. There is nothing to compensate and the chairman must resign and go back to the United States.

Which makes sense, because to the average Pakistani the USA is Evil Inc. (arnate/corporated). So what better punishment than to banish him to Jehannum*. The fact that the average Pakistani's application for VISA got turned down, should not in any way weaken his case about USA's evil character. He just wanted to open a corner shop making bombs on the side. It is not that he is into relegious cleansing full time, you know. Only when he is at a loose end. And, right now, the Pakistani cricket team is at the losing end. Spectators, beware.

On Sehwag's less than spectaular performance against Bangladesh:

...lets pray that sehwag dies of a hit from an asteroid...

Asteroids. Boy! The speaker is not leaving anything to chance. Including himself, and most of the human race. Well, at least, then not winning the World cup will be the least of our worries. The ones who survive that is.