Saturday, April 18, 2009

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Inertia

Much to my own surprise I have not felt the compulsion to spew my thoughts out in the blog, given that I am lazing around at home. As the astute reader may have wagered, the reason for that is simply that I have had no "blogworthy" thoughts. I have fallen into a comfortable rut. Just like Newton is said to have got the idea of gravity by seeing an apple fall, I suspect he would have got the inspiration for the First Law looking at how slothful he became when he came home for the vacations. A body in rest, indeed continues to be in rest unless acted upon by an external agent! Three cheers to that! Will someone get the beer for me?

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A Paradigm Shift?

Of course, a large amount of my time is spent in front of the TV. And in all that time I have made some observations. One of them has to do with anchors on various news channels. Interestingly, the girls of CNBC-TV 18 - a Finance News channel - are way, way prettier than the girls on Channel V! First of all, I see only one female VJ on Channel V and even the girls on V's reality shows can't hold a candle to the CNBC TV 18 girls. There is of course, Shereen Bhan, who to put it politely, is a real looker. Mitali Mukherjee is almost perfect, except she does not have a photogenic smile. There are a couple of other cuties - more like trainees for Mitali's and Shereen's roles. I never get their name. Of course, even Mitali and Shereen come second when compared to Erin Burnett and Maria Bartiromo. A note here. All these anchors really know their stuff. Yes, there is the occasional faux pas and Erin Burnett is known for a couple of them, but they are very very good, no arguments. From a news perspective, I like the Indian team. They are balanced and do not over-reach. There are times when Erin and Maria seem to give their spin on the news, instead of giving the news first and then talking about it. But over-reaching or not, Erin and Maria are clearly the top guns.

So, here are the issues. Has the designer label wearing, fin. sophisticate babe become the flavor of the season? Will they stay? Has the punk'd out rebellious rocker chick gone out of fashion?

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And Then On the Other Hand We Have...

Sun Music. Seriously, where do they get these anchors? There used to be talk that one of the reasons for Actor Dhanush's popularity was that he looked like the Average Arumugham on the road. His was not the perfect-jaw-boned, chiseled-body image that Bollywood actors projected, hence he connected with the masses, film reviewers argued. Well... the producers of Sun Music seem to have taken that to heart and appear to have a policy of picking people who do not look smart at all. One moment. When I say smart, I do not refer to physical looks. I mean, smart - well groomed, well turned out, people who wear dresses that suit them. Add to that, all the male anchors want to do the "Boy Next Door/kalaichifying" image played by Vijay in Ghilli.

But what really irritates me is the tremendously unrefined manner in which all of them speak. This is supposed to be cool. Please! Of course, if you ask the studio executives they would say, this is what the masses want. Probably, if you go and ask the "masses" they would express a yearning to listen to good Tamil!

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13 comments:

Ankit said...

Looks like post MBA makes people jobless.. :P

Arun A said...

A body in rest, indeed continues to be in rest unless acted upon by an external agent! ... How True !!!

nakul said...

shereen bhan is the best! :D

btw, how r u?

Ashi said...

To control free minds bring the media on.

themiddler said...

@pico

Let's say it is a case of making hay while sun shines. I hope I DON'T get a holiday like this for a few years!

themiddler said...

@Arun

Haha... you also victim eh :)

themiddler said...

@Nakul

Heartily Agree! Life going on... the usual.

themiddler said...

@Ashi

Hi... Hmm... More than mind control by media, I think mind control by pretty women is inevitable :P

Ashi said...

@ author: I quite agree with that, the growing popularity of Nigella vouchsafes for it too.

But I would say they are falling standards of prettiness if anything.

Aswin said...

Sorry da Middle, but there is no way you can call CNBC anchors flavour of the season. Maria Bartiromo was probably the most watched television anchor in the US in the mid 90's. If anything, it has fallen out of fashion now.

themiddler said...

@Ashi

Hmmm... I didn't know who that Nigella was until today. Yes, those shallow son-of-a-guns. This younger generation :P

themiddler said...

@Buswi

True... I came across CNBC only recently. Didn't know earlier it has been around for a long time.

Czar said...

It is good to have seniors/friends like you who tell me what to watch as I have decided to start watching NEWS.

Either way, quite an entertaining post you have got there.

Still at home?