Kanga Awards….We walk at the uni mate

I found this article at a recent Adelaide University Cricket club  meet…

Read more about it here

‘this information has been prepared for the AUCC presentation night in a context where the people understand the nature and intent of the night and it is no way meant create offence or embarrassment”

My favourite part was the last one part 5 …and the winner. All of them are a good read

 

Adelaide University Cricket Club
KangaAward
Season 2010/11

One of the institutions of the Club’s annual dinner and trophy presentation is
the Kanga Award.
Tonight the winner of this award will be required to wear the following
ensemble for the remainder of the night.
The history of this Award is that in 1977, the opening bowler from the Club’s
bottom side was a Ph.D student from India known as Joe Edison.
Joe had what might be described as a healthy self esteem about his cricketing
ability, and believed that he should have been playing in either the Club’s A or
B grade team , and let that view be known on a number of occasions.
That year, the Indian test team was touring Australia, and on the eve of the test
match, Joe Edison was seen bowling in the nets to the Indian team.
The next day, an article appeared in the Melbourne Age sports pages in highly
disparaging terms about the quality of Joe Edison’s bowling to the tourists and
described his delivery stride as being a “giant kangaroo hop”.
And so the legend of Kanga was born, and every year since then the Club has
awarded the Kanga trophy to the player who commits the dopiest act, or makes
a complete fool of himself (on or off the field) during the year.

Nominations
3. How many left ump ?

During an LOA game Ravs had finished his umpiring stint and handed over the fr
counter to Jack during the swap over. He warned Jack to be careful with the
counter because “it’s a funny sort of a thing”. A seemingly noticed the
bemused look over Jack’s face Ravs then proceeded to go into a highly
detailed description of the algorithms required to ascertain that 6 balls had been
completed and that it was time to announce “Over” and move to square leg.
“You have to move this top right one clockwise but when it gets to 6 you have
to skip through 7,8 and 9 to be ready to start again at 0 for the next over.
When you record the total number of overs bowled, you also have to remember
that the top left reel represents the first number and the bottom middle reel the
second number – e.g. a 2 showing on the top left and a 5 on the bottom middle”

Ravs being the generous bloke that he is offered to go over this all again as “it
really can get quite tricky”. And given his penchant for numbers and his
profession he considers himself quite an authority … now are you sure you have
this jack? do you want me to continue if it’s a bit tough? Etc etc in a manner
that only ravs can do ….
Jack thanked him for his kind offer, but suggested he might instead piss off and
operate the counter as it was designed by using the bottom reel (which only
went up to 6) to count the number of balls in the over, and the top 2 reels to
record the total number of overs bowled. Ie use it the right way up !

Final Three – winner to be announced at the end

4. Very very straight or at least I am not bent.
Whilst I love a cricket theory as much as the next bloke this one took a bit for
me to swallow.
On passing one of the club stalwarts in the street during the off -season we
stopped for a chat which obviously turned to the coming season.
N ow this bloke has theories from different salt (and seaweed) content in the
pitches creating different opportunities for ball movement and to this end the
‘muncher’ has been known to hook his fangs into the pitch to assess the
saltiness of the conditions … He has also offered to demonstrate his ball that
speeds up once released … basically defying the common understanding of the
laws of physics.
What followed in the conversation was fairly radical to say the least – his view
was that he never got catches caught behind or in the slips and therefore he was
considering backing his ability to bowl straight and do away with a fairly
standard and common fielding position of the wicketkeeper … this sent
reverberations through the committee given that some effort has been put into
attracting new players etc but to then expose them to ‘the new form of fielding
positions’ might have been a bit much …
TP 1m sure one of these theories will come to fruition but this last one was a bit
radical even for me …
5. Which way is up OR which is heads and which is tails OR what on
earth should I call ?

In wet seasons, games are often decided by %e toss of the coin. This bloke
only won one toss as D grade captain la season (which was eventually rained
out), and his poor form continued C grade skipper this year. In the 7 games
before xmas, he managed to in the toss only once. 5 of these games were
severely rain affected, a the C grade batsman stood little chance, being
dobbed in every time.
The first game after xmas, was a 39 degree day, and as he strolled to
middle for the toss, his team followed, giving him some moral support. He
again lost the toss and we were sent in to field for 80 long overs. Naturally, the
following week, when it was their time to bat, it w~,S’/20 degrees, overcast and
humid, perfect bowling condition for Sturt.
He finally won a toss against Port Adelaide where his team made a healthy
total of 257. Right on cue, the second week was washed! In his two seasons as
captain, he has won 3 tosses, two of those games abandoned due to bad
weather, leaving him with one single meaningful win.

Although his teammates have been very keen on giving him advice, not to
mention the humble D grade captain … the secret behind his failures were
exposed the other night while watching the Gold Coast Suns at Tom Warne’s
place. The umpire in that game clearly stated to Ablett and Judd, that a
commemorative coin was being used, and that it had a “H and T” on it. .. Luke
turned around to Warne and Smoker and asked … “what does the Hand T stand
for?.?. ”

Not some of his finest work … Lucky for him his individual performances and
involvement around the club makes up for this … and just saves him from
another award.
Next year we will include in the captains handbook what the coin is for and
how to use it … .just in case

6. We walk at Uni mate!

I have heard this many a time from the likes of Tojo, Jack, Ravs
” we walk at uni mate when there is any doubt about an appeal and batsman
stands his ground ” … usually preceded with a verbal onslaught, war cry and
directions to the hot tap in the showers ….
This one puts a new twist on the perennial ‘we walk at Uni … ‘
This bloke managed to be dismissed 3 times in one ball. And apparently had
no regard for this unwritten rule …
a. Massive shout for LBW, given not out;
b. ‘ the ball was caught at gully on the full;
c. the fielder then threw down the stumps
d. (batsman wasn;t watching, neither was the umpire), so given not out. ..
Then batter tried to take a run as the ball deviated off the stumps, as batter
reached the other end, Opposition ask why he wasn’t out LBW, the umpire
said he had hit it, so they then quickly told the umpire that the bloke at Gully
caught it on the full. After about 30 seconds from the original appeal, a run out,
and then single, the batter was finally given out.
He later admitted that he was out both caught and run out.
Tom this is really inappropriate, given that everyone walk’s at Uni, therefore
you are the winner … please come up and accept your prize ….

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Dentist blues

Not so long ago one of my wisdom teeth decided to arrive crooked. Now this is  particularly painful situation.

The dentist showed me a xray of my teeth coming out crooked, Sad, I some how knew this was about to happen. A dose of anaesthesia and many hours of uncomfortable silence later my wisdom teeth was out.

Here comes the twist. While my dentist is at removing my teeth he *discovers* three cavities in my teeth and advises me three root canals.

I am pretty sure I do not have a root canal. He takes an xray of me  teeth and points out at something and tells me

“Can you see”

“Not quite, What exactly am i supposed to be looking at ?”

“The cavity! can’t you see?”

“No, not quite……”

After many hours of me playing “see me if you can” with the xray I take the dentist word for it.

Let me remissness how this began, the dentist began my wisdom teeth extraction by asking what I did  for living

“I work for a oil company”

“Ahh I see, please open  your mouth and spit me out some  gold coins”

Now money is not really something I care for…I spent some 3 weeks with the dentist and all this time I was teeth less eating porridge or some thing of that nature and the pain I had to undergo…..Damn!

I am pretty sure that I had no cavities, I brush pretty regularly with mouth floss….What are all the advertisements about 5 out of 4 dentist recommending Colgate or some thing?

Now this has been the case with all my friends…they go in for a general check-up and  end up having a tooth removed or root canal.

So my advice to you is the next time you think your dentist is cheating…please go for a second opinion

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Banaras, The city of life, death and life again

The thing about Banaras that you have to remember is that this city is over 5000 years old and to add to that this was ransacked by 10 times by Muslim invaders, all the temples were broken by Aurangzeb and made into Mosques and what not.

The point I am trying to make is that do not expect Banaras to be a planned city,  expect nothing from it, Cleanliness, Hygiene….if anything else, expect the opposite, death, small streets a car a truck and a cow fighting for space to walk.

Not exactly on what I was getting at

This is city of temples and gullies, there is a temple in every gully…. there is a cow, a dog sleeping a few human beings trekking a path between them….Ah its fun.Its an Experience. You remember my Ladakh trip…..this one is exactly opposite to it

If you are like me and have zero expectations from the town then get ready to have some fun…

How you say? This town is one of the cheapest towns that I have seen in a while. People live here by paying a measerly amount of $50 a month. You read me right. If  you are living near the ghats you will not be paying more the $50 a month. You will see a lot of foreign tourists lazying around here …  That is for a reason…Where else on the planet can you live for $50 a month and with cheap Ganja? I am not too sure about the rates but I hear its cheap.

Things to do
Temples….In Banaras  there is a temple in every gully, take some time and visit them. Also visit the Kashi Vishwanath temple, the main attraction.

A broken and possible a abandoned temple

Ghats… Do them…all of them… adjoining every ghat is a gully, go through them, drink some tea, have a pan, walk around the place.

Dhobi ghat........

Boating……hire a man powered boat to show you around the place… the mighty ganges and how it flows

Paddle power boats

Buddhism…I am not too much into buddhism but  Sarnath is near by and there you will see something of grave importance to buddhism. I am not too sure as to what but it is.

Japnese buddha

Death…..its banaras…of course some one is either dead or dying. “Mama always said death is a part of dying” – Forrest Chump….I’d be damned if it wasn’t.  It is believed that if some one dies or is cremated in Banaras he will directly go to heaven. So you will find score of people  being cremated here. Think of the river ganga as the River Stix from the greek mythology.

The red coloured drape is the dead body

On the bright side if you die doing drugs here……… then woo hoo!! You are going from one heaven to another.

Banaras is truely a global village, the people here speak all the languages spoken in the world.
Chinese, Japnese, Thai, French, Russian,Korean, Spanish and Portuguese, as if that was not enough…..they speak Hindi, Telugu, Oriya, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil and Gujju.

Working globally, living in  a gully.

The best time to visit is in winters when the flow is people is a the lowest and the so is the water of ganga.

If you are thinking of living here that that is cheap too.. as i mentioned the rent a while ago …..the prices of vegetables here is cheap. Its seems that inflation forgot to hit this town. The reason is that the vegetables are grown locally and sold locally at local prices. That did not make much sense? Did it?

Veggy man

I only spent two days in banaras… I wish I could have spared some more time there but …some other time I think.

Before I conclude….Please remember that do not go into the city expecting any modern facilities.

Think of it as a place which survived thousands of years of systematic destruction but still keeping its head tall.

I will leave you with this picture that I clicked in one of the gullies. Looks like Jesus Christ was in banaras to see “whats up ?”

What's Up banaras.....?

“Go into the city expecting death and you will find life”

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Ending the conversation with Jet airways

This is the last time I will be travelling with Jet Airways and hence forth I decided to cut off all relations with them

and so the email

I quote.

Mr Tejaswy, Jet Airways is a customer centric airline and we are committed to deliver high service quality, across value chain that not only meets but exceed our guest expectations. Our efforts to plug gaps in the operational environment and improve on our systems and processes shall continue without complacency.

 

Unquote.

I have the following questions, please see the BOLDS in your response:

1. Every service/ goods provider, including a tea stall near a flithy railway station commits to deliver high service quality- a term which is purely subjective. What do you do, apart form sending an unnecessary-interminable-

apology email, when your commitment fails, which you had agreed in your below email? 

2. How do you redress the customer grievance (like mine) whose expectation were not even met, forget having it exceeded.

3. What efforts you intend to take to plug the gaps, apart from your usual stuff for response- training of crew members and maintaiing the logistics? I need to see something visible to me.

4. What improvements you intend to bring, again, apart from your usual stuffs for response. Consdiering, even if you do get some improvement, how it is going to address the agony which I had suffered?

Please answer very carefully, something which is meaningful. I know you are only copy pasting the response given to you by your seniors, rather than using your incompetent little brains. Discuss this with your seniors and respond.

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Jet Airways the worst Indian International airlines

Our Ref No: BOM/CCI/ND/250211/4626373

09 March 2011

Dear Mr Tejaswy,

I refer to your emails dated February 25th, 2011 and March 6th, 2011.

It is with regret we note your unpleasant inflight experience when you traveled on flight 9W 18 of February 23rd, 2011 from Delhi to Singapore.

For our Delhi-Singapore flight, we have two meal services , the first is Hot Breakfast service and then the ‘Bar Prior to Landing’ service. Having enquired with the crew members we understand that the breakfast service commenced and completed as per the required time.  The crew members commenced the beverage//bar service earlier than due to the demand for beverages on board.  As per the procedure only 01 round of bar is done but the drinks are dispensed as per request of the guests.

Mr Tejaswy, we regret if the overall meal and beverage service was not to your expectations.It is indeed disappointing to receive your feedback, more so because we place extensive emphasis with Cabin Crew during training and regular preflight briefings on the correct method in attending Guests requests and serving of food and beverages, as integral service aspects.

I have shared your views with the Head of our Cabin Crew Department for an immediate remedial correction with the crew members and a close monitoring of their work performance. These will be done. On behalf of the airline, I apologise to you for this less than satisfactory service experiences that you have come across.

Of much greater concern is your perception and assure you that our staff are dedicated professionals who put in their best efforts in their service areas. We are a professional organization and our services are beyond the boundaries of nationality. We do not believe in discriminating among our guests and offer them services only with pure intention of making their travel most comfortable and pleasant one.

With regard to flight 9W 17 of December 25th, 2011 from Singapore to Delhi, we understand that the flight was diverted to Kolkata due to adverse weather conditions at Delhi (poor visibility). The flight landed at Kolkata at 0155 hrs and the flight was initially re scheduled to depart at 0800 hrs in the event the visibility would improve.

While we make all efforts to operate our flights on schedule, at times, situations beyond our control such as unfavourable weather conditions hamper our efforts to operate flights on time.  This reason for the diversion was totally beyond the control of the airline and the airline is not liable for any flight disruptions or the consequential effects as a result.

Since the estimated departure was initially 0800 hrs and to minimize the inconvenience caused to guests, we understand that all guests were facilitated with the transit lounge access at the airport and were offered meals.  We have nevertheless shared your concerns with our Kolkata Team for better handling of such exigencies in the future.

Mr Tejaswy, Jet Airways is a customer centric airline and we are committed to deliver high service quality, across value chain that not only meets but exceed our guest expectations. Our efforts to plug gaps in the operational environment and improve on our systems and processes shall continue without complacency.

I thank you once again for communicating with us and allowing me to address your concerns. Your support is important to us and we look forward to your continued travel on board Jet Airways.

Yours Sincerely,

Nalini D’Penha
Officer-Guest Relations
Jet Airways (India) Limited  / JetLite (India) Ltd.

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