daveydave

Yes folks, the IPL is upon us. The official Twenty20 cricket league in India kicks off on Friday with Bangalore Royal Challengers vs. Kolkata Knight Riders . Of course the tricky thing is who to support. Kolkata were an obvious first choice because one of their owners is Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan and let's face it, everyone loved Knight Rider , in spite of David Hasselhoff's hair. They have some great players, including captain Sourav Ganguly. The bookies favourites are Chennai Super Kings , so they would have been a fair choice too. But no, I've gone for the underdogs: Rajasthan Royals because they're the outside bet, Shane Warne is captain and Dmitri Mascarenhas, the only Englishman in the league, is playing for them. All matches are available (in the UK) on Setanta which means you're not tied into an annual contract. The only problem being the time difference, so the games are on during the day - perfect weekend viewing, however. Pick your team!

It's true, I've turned into a cantankerous old git and it must stop. I think the problem is that I try to follow politics and current affairs too much and, in general: 1. how the British Government operates annoys the hell out of me (bloody spin, useless, target-led management, policies geared towards sound bites and column inches rather than actually fixing things, the you disagree with me therefore you're wrong attitude of ministers, etc.), and 2. the way the press reports the news does the same (dangerous sensationalism, the fake patriotism of the gutter press, 24hour news with pointless and endless speculation, sticking the boot in when people are having trouble instead of showing support). 3. stuff like Tibet and the mess in Zimbabwe I could continue, but we'll all end up in another of my endless rants and that is not the purpose of this post. It all stops now. This blog is for interesting and witty posts on a range of subjects and there is to be no more whinin...

Here's a question: just how far up his own arse has Thabo Mbeki shoved his head? According to the South African president, there is no post-election crisis in Zimbabwe. This guy is a moron if he thinks the current situation in Zimbabwe is not a crisis. Of course, I shouldn't really be surprised, the members of the African Union have been a collective joke with regards to Mugabe's rule over the past few years. He may have been a hero in southern Africa 30 years ago, but now he's just a thug who has managed to bring what should be a successful country to its knees while making sure he and his cronies do very well out of it. If you're interested in what's going on in that country at present, then point your browser at the This is Zimbabwe blog. Yes, it is depressing to read what the people who live under Mugabe have to deal with, but their incredible resilience is so uplifting. It also shows stark contrast with the political apathy of a large chunk of the UK's...

OK, so this isn't my perfect plan to fix the bad bits of life in the UK - and if you believe all you read in the tabloids (which I hope you don't) there are a lot of them. No, I've just read this story on the BBC news website. It's about a group of people who turned their estate from a place where people were to afraid to go out at night, into a proper community where people like to live. I love stories like this, it shows that there are great people out there and that you don't have to live with graffiti, drugs and violence. It also shows that if you talk to the relevant authorities, it is possible to get things done. That's what we pay them for after all. Absolutely spot on.