noes!

So, we lost 3-1 to Hamdard University.

Yes. All of them pathans, though thankfully none of them was overwhelmingly huge and they surprisingly didn’t play a ridiculously physical game.

We though had a VERY talented team. It was 6v6, and all our players were very good with the ball. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any defenders and the keeper himself was a kid who usually played right-wing. That ought to give you some clue as to the goals we conceded.

No? They were all mistakes. Two first half goals conceded because the defender (who was really an attack minded player) went in to the get the ball and their striker just rolled him easy. That was how we conceded two goals. The third goal was because the keeper let the ball through his hands. Poor, but we expected to concede…it would’ve been a miracle to keep a clean sheet.

They played shit football though. They were barely talented enough, but their football, ultimately, was tactically superior to ours. The ground just wasn’t smooth enough for a passing game, which is what we were aiming at, and they played Liverpool/Chelsea-esque route 1 football. They thumped every ball up to their striker who was standing two feet infront of our goalie (no offside).

We still created nearly half a dozen chances, 4 of which should easily have been converted if weren’t for this guy called Rizwan who kept fucking up. 4 very easy chances that he contrived to miss before he was substituted.  2 of them were at the start, within the first couple of minutes.

Anyway, substitutions were rolling and at half-time our ’sports co-ordinator’ (who was a student) wanted us to play Rizwan again, because according to ‘them’ he was playing well. This is what happens when people who know jackshit about football try to influence a game. They thought he was playing well because he kept getting chances; he kept getting chances because he was always the furthest forward and whenever we passed to him he’d completely fuck up!

Anyway, this left our captain with no choice but to listen to those cunts because they were seniors. Cue Rizwan missing 2 more chances, one of them a one-on-one in which he took a good 5 seconds to try and control the ball, by the end of which the keeper had come rushing out (after he’d had a sip or two of water) and cleared the ball.

Anyway, we were by far the better team and had far more talent…they were just tactically spot on though it was made easy for the them by the lack of a proper keeper and defense.

Oh, and each half was 20 minutes long. That was worthless too imo. 20 minutes is way to little time. Way too little.

Also, since this was held at Iqra University as part of their ’sports gala’, later we found out that initially the footie matches were knockout games, and that after that it was a league scenario :S In what absurd planet do knockout games come BEFORE league games?! (UEFA/CL qualifying games do not count, we had 6 teams total…surely ‘qualification’ was unnecessary?)

I just wanted to play a couple of games of football

heh

So, we got allotted another house.

The Secretary of the Ministry of Industries, upon hearing my dad talk about his tussle with the Govt about procuring a house, offered to allot the house offered to him to my father; because he was a Sindhi and was transferred back to Sindh.

Plus, he was an affable chap. I suppose.

So, the allotment was transferred. It’s a single storey, four bedroom house in F7/4, a ‘prime’ location. Currently it’s being occupied by a retired officer. The Govt offers upto 6 months to a retired officer to get his things in order and ‘move’.  This guy’s 6 months were over a long time ago.

On February 20th, the Minister allotted the house in my father’s name. However, a few days ago the retired bureaucrat who was living in that house managed to attain ANOTHER extension (6 months).

On Friday, it was ‘revealed’ that on the 8th of February the Minister had signed an agreement with that officer to rent that Government house for 10k a month.

Couple of things here…

1. 10k a month, in F7/4 is the rent you’d pay for a cardboard box. It is absurd in the very literal sense of the word.

2. It’s illegal. The Minister cannot make any such ‘agreements’. However, he seems to have enough faith in his ‘powers’ (illegitimate ones) that he nonchalantly allotted the house to us proper while knowing we’d never get it.

3. It’s been nearly 4 years now, and we are still living a privately rented place.

4. It’s illegal. The Minister CANNOT do that.

5. The retired officer has his whole family in the US. Either, he should fuck off there, or he should die. I really, really, really hope he dies. I really do.

This is Pakistan then. Politicians and Bureaucrats = scum. And they will ALWAYS remain so.

ho ho ho and a bottle of rum

listening to: Surrounded – The Nautilus Years

Here we go, again.

Former vice-presidential candidate and Hillary Clinton fundraiser Geraldine Ferraro sparked the latest storm in the Democratic presidential race today when she raised questions about Barack Obama’s race, saying he has only been successful because he is a black man.

Obama’s senior strategist David Axelrod called on the Clinton organisation to sack Ferraro from her position, saying Clinton should better “police the tone of this campaign”.

“Leadership in campaigns comes from the very top,” he said. “The signals that have been sent from the Clinton campaign have been really unfortunate.”

Ferraro, who ran for vice-president on Walter Mondale’s ill-fated 1984 ticket, told a California newspaper, “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position”. She continued, “And if he was a woman … he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept”. Ferraro implied that a woman of any racial background would face similar problems as Clinton has.

More here.

I suppose there’s a lot to be said there, if not a lot to be read between the lines. So far one part of the political spectrum in the US is at ease with a black candidate making it to the White House, but aside from the astonishment exposited at that by skeptics, it seems a more jarring reality is that politicians themselves don’t seem to be ready for one.

Attributing race to one’s success – not in the same vein as the Nazis though, thankfully – is rather lazy, and perhaps speaks volumes of the Clinton campaign’s inability to focus their arguments and dispatch them in a concise manner. So far Obama’s done well not perhaps on the basis of what are ostensibly sound policy plans, but because of his ability to “inspire”. A lot of talk of late is whether in the wake of increasingly negative campaigning from the Clintons (yes. Clinton-s) Obama will himself stoop to their level.

Pelosi came out and seemingly slammed the door on a Clinton-Obama (or vice versa) ticket, despite what seemed to be ‘hints’ from Clinton that she would not be averse to having Obama has a running mate, even if only to make sure McCain didn’t get into the White House.

Question is though, Clinton offers more in terms of ‘experience’ (she’s got an ex-President who’ll be helping her, come on! Forget her worthless pet show visits in other countries – though she does have a few interesting trips to her name), but Obama offers a break from these old ‘families’. He offers new ideas, different ideas definitely, but new ideas. Ideas that aren’t instantly refutable. But these are superficial arguments.

My point, I suppose, was would you want an old haggard lady at the helm; one who though may be bereft of wholesale new ideas would still be well versed in realpolitik, and would know how to wield the stabbing knife.

Or would you settle for someone younger, someone with ideas afresh and one who will inevitably make mistakes (probably minor ones at that. Come on, he won’t nuke any small CAR country now will he?). Someone who seems to stray from negative politics – though that should not be taken to mean he is incapable of getting his hands dirty – and who possesses that old ability to get you moving, to get you to stand up and take part in the process itself.

Superficial, eh?

serially?

Jal get signed by Gibson guitars.

Seriously?

robbed!

we wuz robbed!

13th straight Premiership opposition by the way.

Goddamn Pompey. Fair play though, they defended like monoliths (well except for the fact that monoliths aren’t really mobile while their defense was). We had our chances, and at times in all honesty it was just astonishing how we contrived to miss.

Should’ve had a penalty early on after Ronaldo was barged off the ball in the box. The ref had just given the exact same foul earlier around the half-way line :S Inconsistencies, eh?

The Kusczak tackle was a penalty, I don’t really doubt that even though Baros was looking for it. Was it a red? No. Anderson and Rooney were back, and by no means whatsoever was Kuszcak the last man. Either way, I don’t think we played particularly poorly…we were really rather unlucky and Pompey just defended extremely well.

So that’s the ‘treble’ dream out of the way. Hopefully over the weekend Wigan can do us a favour.

song for rhea

i watched the ancient evening sky pan out,
set against the glistening minarets with songs
ringing out clear in the rancorous background.

but we’ll see.

i lost myself in the city and its divinity.
i lost myself in the narrow streets with trees
singed by the sun, and rain pounding the ground
as mud creeps into a thousand crevices.

yet out of the thundering sky i hear you cry,
“come full circle! we’ll devour the lamb and
we will dine! We will dance and sing, and make
do with angels and scepters tonight!”

but I am vexed.

my words are no longer yours to keep. my legs
shall walk of their own accord, and i shall
paint the town of my own volition. no longer
in cotton threads of dusk shall I lie, no
longer in blackened sheets of age shall you
decry
that, which paints
itself on holy
nights

stung, I stumble along heartless; the putrid
stench of your degeneration shall
attach itself to windowsills, which clumsy
birds shall occupy in false vanity

but i shall find it! be it in the ghastly night
or the wispy fog of dawn. i shall embrace
myself, within these baked streets of a world
tethered to the sanguine demise of my own
existence.

and come morning I shall perish, in magnified
silence brought about by the lonely lives of
a thousand few.