The Online Home of Peter Claridge

August 19th, 2008

2 Comments

Being in a country where the national sport is Cricket which doesn’t feature at the Olympics, and other sports are so far off the radar you probably won’t even be able to read about them on Wikipedia, the Olympics have been relatively low key over here - with the exception of when Bindra won his gold medal the other day.

However, I couldn’t be more amazed at Team GB’s stunning performance, then best in over 100 years. Everyday I check the results and more good news is flowing out. It does make you sit back and go, “what the hell? We’re not supposed to be this good”. The fact that we are 3rd in the current medals table (err, 3rd, or maybe 5th, see below…) and ahead of the likes of Australia, Germany and Russia is, quite frankly unbelievable. Since I can remember, Team GB has been mediocre at best, poor at other times.

The other thing I’m hugely impressed with is how well the Olympics seem to have been run so far. Even the BBC, scathing in it’s attacks on China in the build up, has become more and more positive as the days go by. Ignoring the whole human rights stuff for a (brief) second, China has put on a show and organized the event to a standard that few other countries in the world could achieve. You might say America could do as well, but don’t forget that the 1996 Atlanta Olympics was lambasted for being something of a shambles. Australia did a fine job, but as well as China? It would be a close call.

True, China have had the luxury of a blank cheque in order to pull it off, and spent upwards of $40bn to make it all happen, would other countries be able to organize it as well if they had that kind of budget?

This brings me on to the 2012 Olympics, I’m yet to find one Brit who believes that we’ll put on a good show. I’m not sure if it’s our typical dour, downplaying, somewhat negative nature, but confidence is not high that Britain will make a good job of staging the Olympics. For starters, there’s the budget. We are still four years off, and the budget has tripled in cost since the original bid was placed.

Then there is the construction and organization. In a place like China where there is a single party to make all decisions, decisions suddenly become a lot easier to make when there’s no opposition. In the UK, there will be opposition to virtually everything that they try and do. There will be committies, think takes, sub-committies, all trying to make a decision, but ultimately delaying everything and costing us (well, you guys living in London) a whole lot more.

But, to end on a lighter note, at least we are not as vain as the Americans.

In a desperate attempt to show Team America as the greatest sporting team in history, the American sports sites have come up with a new way of presenting the medals table. For them, no longer is it the case of the team with the most gold medals is at the top. Nope, that’s no good because China have run away with that title. To save face, they have changed their medals table to order the countries by total number of medals, veering away from the tradition, normal way it’s always been done.

CNN Medals Table

CNN clearly shows America as ‘top’ of the medals table

ESPN Medals Table

Similarly, the other large American sports site shows Team America at the top of the tables.

BBC Medals Table

The BBC uses the traditional method of ranking countries, based on gold medals, then silvers, then bronze medals.

Bejing Olympics Table

The official site of the Olympics displays the countries in the traditional method too.

So, the question is, why do American sites feel compelled to change the way they rank the countries? Upset that they are no longer number one? Regardless, with the way China have been so rampant in winning medals, they might top both American and rest of the world tables by the end of the Olympics!

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Posted in Personal |

August 11th, 2008

No Comments

Well who would have Adam & Eve’d it (that means “believe it” to all my Indian readers)? India has gone and won itself a Gold medal at the Olympics, the first in 26 years and the first for any individual. The modesty in me says that this was in no small part thanks to me coming to India. But enough about that.

India is rejoicing. No longer is it the Great Britain of the Eurovision song contest (nil points). It’s made it’s position clear and has told the world…err, we might win another one at London 2012.

So what was this Gold medal in? The speed of Athletics? The energy of swimming? The grace of gymnastics? The thrill of rowing?

Umm, no, it was none of these. The gold medal came in the Mens Air Rifle competition. The Mens 10m Air Rifle competition to be more exact. You can nearly touch the target with your hand at that distance!

Still, it’s a Gold medal, and India is proud.

On another note, China are doing awesome! I wouldn’t be surprised if they topped the medals table this year. Added to that the whole event seems to be exceptionally well planned and executed. I wish I could say the same about the London 2012 Olympics, but who are we kidding? It’s going to be a farce, complete lack of planning run by incompetent fools who are doing it because they couldn’t get a job in the business world. I hope my opinion will prove to be misguided though.

Sidenote: Before my Indian friends chastise me and claim that sports in India don’t get the funding of countries like the UK, I would like to draw your attention to this BBC article. Zimbabwe, possibly one of the worlds worst run and mismanaged countries and easily with the worlds worst economy managed to win 3 medals in the last Olympics. If they can manage it with a shoestring economy, I’m sure India can manage it with a population of over 1bn people!

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Posted in India |

July 30th, 2008

No Comments

Warning: This is a totally nerdy blog post!

I’m getting more and more concerned that I’m turning in to a Windows fanboy!

A couple of months ago I got new laptop which had Vista pre-installed. Convinced I would hate it I tried to get the IT guy at the office to put XP on instead. Unfortunately it wasn’t possible so I had to get to grips with it.

To my increasing horror, I actually found that I was liking Vista more than XP. After a week I was converted and now I’ll never go back to XP.

I can’t understand why Vista got such a bad name - there is nothing wrong with it! It’s fantastic to use, more user friendly, easier to navigate and very fast!

Infact, Microsoft suspected it was the anti-Microsoft hype that was causing people to have a bad opinion of Vista (and to be fair, that’s what my opinion was based on), so they set up an experiment in San Fransico with 150 people who refused to use and upgrade to Vista because they thought it was so bad. Microsoft told them that they would be trialing their brand new operating system, the successor to Vista.

The result?

They all loved it.

The best part?

They were actually using an out of the box copy of Vista.

Conclusion?

People’s hate of Vista is based on media biased.

If that doesn’t make me sound like a Microsoft fanboy, I don’t know what will!

But it gets even worse.

Recently I lent my phone to my buddy in India. A Nokia N73. I really liked that phone. I had it for two years. I lent it to him for one day and he manages to lose it.

Sidenote: This is not the first phone he has lost, and it wasn’t the first phone I even lent him. He runs a multi-million dollar company, but since I’ve known him, he’s lost 3 phones.

Anyway, since he lost my phone, with all my contacts, all my photos (including the first match at Wembly!), all my notes, everything, he was only right and proper that he bought me a new one.

The phone I chose was a HTC with a touch screen, there’s no keypad, everything is done by touch. My buddy wanted to get my an iPhone, but there’s just something so wrong about it. Everyone seems to love it so much, and it’s considered cool to have one, but to me when everyone wants something, it loses it’s ‘cool’ appeal.

Anyway, back to the HTC phone. It runs Windows Mobile, which I was aprehensive about because everyone knows Nokia has the best usability and easiest navigation. However, once again, Windows exceeded my expectations! Windows Mobile 6 is great to use, the whole touch screen is really intuitive and even better, it makes me cooler than an iPhone user because not everyone has a HTC phone!

Me, a Windows fanboy? Never! Umm.

(sorry for the totally nerdy post guys!)

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Posted in Personal |

July 7th, 2008

2 Comments

OK, this is a completely non-relevant post, infact, you can ignore it because it’s a rant at the insane stupidity of the excuse for professional business, otherwise known as the Student Loans Company.

If anyone working abroad will testify, you have to let the SLC know that you are working abroad. This is all fine and dandy, they send you a form asking you how much you earn in your local currency and you send it back. All very civilized so far.

Where it get’s uncivilized, and where the Student Loans Company shows itself for the evil money grabbing company that it truly is, is when they come to calculate how much you need to repay them.

As any ex-student from the UK will tell you, you don’t need to repay any amount until you start earning £15,000 or more. You pay 9% on every £1 over that amount. That’s fair enough. £15,000 is a reasonable amount to live on, and it’s only 9p in a pound that you are being taxed on. If you earn £25,000 a year, you are talking just £900 a year, or £75 a month. It’s a pain, but not unduly unfair.

However, the way the thieving bastards are making the money is on us ex-students who are working abroad. Not only do they reduce the threshold to silly levels, they also swing the exchange rates in their favour - massively in their favour! I’m not even sure where these scumbags have pulled the exchange rate from, they are using a rate that no one else in the world is using!

Take my position, for example. I’m living in India.

According to XE.com the current exchange rate is:

1.00 GBP = 85.6317 INR

According to the cretins at SLC, they are using an exchange rate of:

1.00 = 61.50 INR

It’s over 25% less than the official exchange rate. This balloons my ‘equivalent’ GBP wage to the stratosphere, and it’s on this fantasy figure they are calculating how much I should repay.

In the UK, my wage here in India wouldn’t even meet the threshold, and yet, they are charging me as though I’m earning the equivalent of £27,500 per year. That’s insane! I’m being asked for more money that all my mates in the UK, despite being on a fraction of their wages - honestly, can anyone explain the logic?

I’m seriously considering asking for a pay cut so these money grabbing thieves don’t get a penny out of me. Bastards.

Update: It’s official, the Student Loans Company is trying to screw over overseas students. I recieved an email from them today where they finally stated the exchange rate they are using - after 4 attempts, they finally managed to answer my question. I can now see why they were unwilling to answer the question. Check out this extortionate exchange rate:

Official Student Loans Company Exchange Rate: 1 GBP = 60.75 INR

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Posted in Moans |

July 6th, 2008

2 Comments

One of the things you learn to live with in India is their love for noise. Any noise. As long as it’s loud. They are truly not content until whatever noise they are making is perforating ear drums within a 1km radius. In the cinema the walls, floors and seats vibrate with the sound. At temples, there are bells, drums and singers blaring out from 6am onwards.

Most of it you learn to deal with, for example I can almost sleep through the bells and drums coming from the temple opposite my apartment.

One of the other things you learn to live with is the frequent power cuts, which usually happen at the most inconvenient moments, like when you are taking a shower with water heated by the electric heater. Power cuts are a fact of life though, so you must put up with them.

This morning was different though. Not satisfied with musical instruments, they decided to rig up a PA system right outside my bedroom and start playing old tamil movie songs at full volume. If you are not aware of how tamil songs go, think about the noise a cat would make if you grabbed it’s front legs and tail and tried to pull it apart. Quite simply the women singers are screeching their lungs out, sometimes so high pitch you lose it for a few seconds as is goes out of human hearing before coming back again. To Tamil’s, this is beautiful music. To the rest of the world it’s torture.

So, this kind of ultra-sonic noise is blaring out at 9am on Sunday morning. Half of me was relieved I decided to have a quiet night in and didn’t have a hangover to nurse with this audible torture going on, the other half was praying to the Hindu  Gods (anyone that was listening would do) for a power cut to stop this painful music.

Well, not one for believing in miracles, not 5 minutes after I asked for a power cut, I was duly granted one and peace and harmony returned to the streets of Chennai. Peace and harmony that admittedly includes the constant sound of horns, drums, bells, children shouting, planes flying overhead, men shouting at one another, building works and goodness knows what else. But at least there weren’t any ladies singing.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Posted in India |