Victoria memorial

The white palace on the edge of the park - where of course everyone plays cricket.

After yest got up late, watched F1 practise to avoid going out, then eventually headed for eden gardens to see about ticket. They sent me into a field and eventually I found some hutches with apertures as big as a fist, only enough to put the id card through and get backed the prebooked ticket. The game is sold out. Walked with some Angles who were stuck in Kolkata due to no return flights who got some tickets from a tout (since Kolkata can not qualify - they can get the points but their run rate is too low). Queued for ages and then had to kneel to get to see the guy behind the wood - who said "oh shit, you can't use that". I showed him the internet receipt and eventually he called a supervisor. They let me in - behind a fence, and the supervisor said "oh shit".

They stapled the three parts together and the supervisor told me to come early and ask for him and he'd get me in. I'm still not hopeful.

Went to the museum, but by this stage I was not appreciating it - too hot. Had to find cool, went to a Mall, old school - like Borneo - lots of little stalls - but cool. So I got in a taxi outside and said "Take me to a mall" the bloke attempted a discussion, named a mall, I said yes. After 30 mins I was worrying - this is a long way, saw one amazing temple from the car. Eventually got there and bought a pair of shoes. Didn't want the box, gave the assistant mhy old shoes, put the new ones on. Acceptable behaviour in the UK - I think so. Not sure abotu India. Had another cold!! Paper hankies do not work - they soak up the sweat in your pockets, had to buy some cloth hankies. Also some pants (they also get damp - as if you wanted to know).

And back to the floatel to watch M Utd v Cty.

And then to the cricket - bar code scanned so no probs - they just let me in, but confiscated my camera battery. Phones no prob, compact camera no way. Inside everyone was taking photos!! with phones i guess. Got my phone out - out of battery - thats cos Robbie keeps ringing me - damn.

So everytime the girls dance the guys take photos - even the policemen, then later they were chasing anyone taking photos. I could talk about corruption in this country but I've not seen anything much til this weekend. Lalit Modi is all over the news - you'll have seen the IPL scandal in the papers there by now. I am amazed that no one has sussed that there is a lot of money going out from the clubs (to players and to IPL), where is it coming in to the clubs (their advertising share must be limited - they do not sell tv, they must get a tv cut though, prize money). Anyway - that is being investigatyed with the implication that money is being laundered. But the amazing thing to me is that this guy was everybodies hero last week (although aligned with one political party) and suddenly the knives are out. No one has produced a shred of evidence publicly. OK, it seems bad patter to leak shareholders names - on twitter! but I still see no evidence, just pictures of taxmen raiding buildings - it will take them months to decide if anything fraudulent is going on, meanwhile the papers report Modi is going to be forced to leave. He doesn't seem unduly worried on the tv.

My DS Lite also got sweat damaged in my pocket but it seems to have dried. People don;t have DS lite here and the games are scarce - too expensive. Bought Assasin's creed early days and it is a little old school - platform game basically - I imagine the well respected PC version is far superior.

Also bought Half Life 2 (orange box of versions) for PC but not tried it yet.

I'm anticipating the next couple of months weekends being spent indoors -
'S BILIN MA.