David vs Goliath

At least, that's what was at stake today - a trifling matter of family pride. Me, taking on Nic and my dad at badminton, for just under an hour at the Rainbow Centre in Epsom. I had even gone to David Haye sort of lengths to build up the match a bit, but neither of them seemed unduly worried.

We played a total of 6 games and I ran out the 5-1 winner - bearing in mind that I was also playing both of them simultaneously! It's good to know that there's one sport in the universe that I can beat my sister at, lol.

He's back! Better, stronger, faster, and even more invincible.

Hello Jamie, hello all. Yup, I'm back on the blogger! Can you believe its been more than 2 years since I last posted on this website. And that was when I was on holiday in India in an internet cafe, waiting countless days for my sister to choose a sari for her wedding. HA!

Anyway since then, not much has happened. My sister Janani got married to Arpan, back in August 2007. I left CCA, the call centre in 2008. Managed to close all my online betting accounts. I learnt that doing your bollocks on rigged sites is not the way to go.

At the beginning of 2009 I joined Srishti, a dance company, as a freelance musician. For 3 months we toured the UK. The show consisted of a contemporary Indian classical dance, backed by 4 musicians. Myself on flute, Eason(percussion), Karthik (violin) and Yadavan(vocals). It was the best job I've ever had. I'd get paid for going to rehearsals and obviously performances. Rehearsals would last for 3-4 hours, so not even a full working day. And they were only held 2-3 days a week! Fantastic!

In April I joined Sheraton Hotel, near Heathrow as a guest service agent. The first few weeks involved on-the-job training. It included working in switchboard, concierge and reception. Eventually I was working in reception, checking in/out guests. The job got a little monotonous so I left to pursue a greater dream.

Alas, there were no other convincing roles around, so I was back to square one, looking for temp jobs like customer service and telesales. After a few posts as a market researcher and a sales advisor for a make over company, I've been jobhunting for the last 2 months. Its been tough, but in between I have managed to play a few gigs with my old guitar teacher, Kangai. He's a full time teacher/musician and has his own group, Priya Rhythms, with whom I have been performing with. We mostly play classic Indian film music with a hint of 'Baila', which I think is a popular form of Sri Lankan folk music.

Anyway, here I am on a Saturday evening, pondering going to a Sri Lankan gig called 'Kalai Karangal', organised by one of the percussion teachers at my old Tamil school. I've already missed the 1st half, maybe I should attend the 2nd.....c ya later!

the Carradine enigma

Read this. Does anyone seriously believe that the 72 year old Kill Bill star, found in a Thai hotel room with a rope around his neck and another around his penis, died of natural causes? Even at present, the mystery of his final hours has not yet been pieced together. Suicide has been ruled out as a motive even though he admitted attempting it when he was just 5 years old. For a man notable for his reluctance to discuss his private life, it sure is one heck of an extrovert exit.

Muse? at Wembley?

There must be some greater power out there. Muse have just announced two more stadium dates in 2010. One is Manchester Cricket Pavilion and the other is none other than Wembley Stadium. Being a member of Muse's website, they sent me an email that entitled me to join the Wednesday morning pre-sale, which started at bang on 9am. Unfortunately I had work from 8am. I can't even join the general public pre-sale for tomorrow morning because I'm on a cacking all day shift. Sometimes there is just no justice. Why can't some of these ticket pre-sales be in the evening? On top of that, I think all the cheap general admission tickets have sold out, and only the more expensive Level 2 seats remain. At £71 a pop, it's not an inconsiderable amount to pay, especially just before Christmas. So far I've asked four friends if they want tickets and nobody does. Is the world mad?!

Hybrid badminton match 2/10: more uh-oh

I had the great fortune to be dropped for this badminton match, which was away to Wimbledon. Several players in our team thought would be at least as hard as the preceding Sutton Adults match. St Andrews recorded another 9-0 whitewash, which is pretty horrific, but the prevailing mood seems to be that we played better than in the first game, and at least gave them a run for their money, even if the result shows otherwise. It's a little hard to comment on the play, considering I wasn't selected for this match and did not watch it, but hopefully we can get our act together a bit better for the third match, which is on 3rd December at home to Howard.