Nov 3rd updates
Quotable quotes of the week
Terrorism is the child of poverty and its cure for prosperity -- Asif Ali Zardari Pakistan President
It is important human beings realise that whatever happens in life , good or bad, is the will of God. We should respect the bad things in life because eventually all would be good - Flaguni Pathak Singer
I have no idea about his debut, but if he takes commentary as seriously as cricket, I have no doubt he will be excellent -- Harsha Bhogle --Cricket Commentator on Sourav Ganguly's future as a commentator
Lalu Prasad Yadav , Nitish Kumar and Ram Vilas Paswan were all railway ministers- Had they worked efficiently, the people of Bihar won't have left the state in search of jobs-- Uddhav Thackeray Shiv Sena Executive President
Formula one -- the final race and the Championship
The final race at the Interlagos circuit in Brazil held a lot of excitement -- Couple of reasons for this -- The championship was alive till this last race -- it was the home Grandprix for Felipe Massa who was one of the contenders to the title --and the rains !! -- All this lead to the great excitement -- Hamilton needed to finish the race not above fifth to clinch the title -- In the Saturday qualifying , Massa did everything right -- He was on pole -- Hamilton managed to qualify fourth on the grid - and on Sunday it rained before the race was to start -- the start was delayed by ten minutes but the number of laps was not reduced-- Most of the teams thought the track will dry out and started out on Intermediate tyres rather than Slick wet weather tyres -- The choice of tyres in relation to the condition of the track is a very important factor -- and you will realise later as to how Hamilton won the world title on this count alone-- So after the start most of the teams had to get to their pits to change in to wet weather tyres and this allowed Massa to consolidate the front position ( he had to win ) and Hamilton slipped in to the sixth place on the completion of the change of tyres -- The pit stop was also necessitated due to the safety car that was brought in as David Coulthard in his last GP of his career spun off and crashed in the opening lap itself-- It was not a great end to his racing career that spanned 14 years - he started racing for Williams in 1994 as replacement for Ayrton Senna - With six laps to go ,then the rains came again -- While there was change in tyres by every team , Toyota allowed their driver Timo Glock to be on intermediate tyres and that helped Hamilton as well - First Vettel overtook Timo to get to fourth place that Timo was holding on to -- Meanwhile Massa took the chequered flag and he and his team were celebrating as Hamilton was in sixth place and that meant he would finish behind Massa on points -- not to be -- Hamilton overtook Timo on the last corner and finished fifth which give him the world title -- Whew what a race ! When the track conditions do not suit the tyre you are a sitting duck for overtaking and that is what happened to Timo -- The final difference was just one point between the first and the second-- Ferrari however took the Constructors trophy and had to be content with that-- They could have done better-- they lost steam at China , Singapore and their home race at Monza and left too much to cover at Brazil-- Curtain on the 2008 season-- And a youngest champion - Hamilton is just 23 and will go a long way
There may be good news for Indians -- Karun Chandok is highly tipped to be a race driver for next season -- In fact he was a co commentator at the Interlagos and I was impressed with his analysis and knowledge of the circuit and conditions -- Let us hope that one of the teams sign this young man up --
Cricket
The humiliation for me was complete -- The stylish Hyderabadi made a whacking double ton and a unbeaten half century in the second innings to ensure that whatever I wrote on these Foursome retiring was a joke-- Kumble helped out -- According to me he has quit at the right time -- Makes sense when you are not getting wickets ( he bowled 80+ over's in this series before he got a wicket ) and you get injured often-- Smart move to call it quits than being forced in to -- The Aussies are coming good and the Nagpur test may see a good battle by them to square the series - Hopefully Mr Wall ( Dravid ) will score a ton ( it is wife's place and he should score well as the Mappillai !! )
Radhakrishnan in Brazil with Venkat-- Customer service
During our (self & Venkat) visit to Brazil, the Acctg director made arrangements for our airport pickup. We were greeted by a cheerful guy when we landed on Saturday evening who managed to speak a decent English. His name was Reginaldo.
We decided to retain him for our daily hotel pickup and drop over the next week.
Over the next 1 week, we saw some great customer service. He was always 15 minutes ahead of time and waits for us. There were days when our meetings over-ran and he had to put an embarassing face after making him wait for more than half hour but he always greeted us with a great smile.
There were also days when he was tied up with other commitments but he ensured that he made alternate arrangements to get us picked or dropped through his friends. On one of those first days, we were little bit scared after we got into the cab not sure if we are on the right vehilcle and safe. Even before we could think of asking the driver, his mobile starts ringing and our friend was there to greet us over phone and with a formal apology for arranging an alternate cab. Customer service was taken to a different level.
He had famous quote -- ' IN SAU PAULO, MY BUSINESS CARD IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANY CREDIT CARD'
The Sau Paulo airport is far away from the city. He dropped us at airport around 11:00 PM on the following Friday and it was an hour travel back home. He said he will go back for a short nap since he had an early morning pickup at 5:00 AM. Just few hours sleep and back on the road for another day of grind, but fully committed and cheerful.
It was a great experience travelling on his car during the entire week
Terrorism is the child of poverty and its cure for prosperity -- Asif Ali Zardari Pakistan President
It is important human beings realise that whatever happens in life , good or bad, is the will of God. We should respect the bad things in life because eventually all would be good - Flaguni Pathak Singer
I have no idea about his debut, but if he takes commentary as seriously as cricket, I have no doubt he will be excellent -- Harsha Bhogle --Cricket Commentator on Sourav Ganguly's future as a commentator
Lalu Prasad Yadav , Nitish Kumar and Ram Vilas Paswan were all railway ministers- Had they worked efficiently, the people of Bihar won't have left the state in search of jobs-- Uddhav Thackeray Shiv Sena Executive President
Formula one -- the final race and the Championship
The final race at the Interlagos circuit in Brazil held a lot of excitement -- Couple of reasons for this -- The championship was alive till this last race -- it was the home Grandprix for Felipe Massa who was one of the contenders to the title --and the rains !! -- All this lead to the great excitement -- Hamilton needed to finish the race not above fifth to clinch the title -- In the Saturday qualifying , Massa did everything right -- He was on pole -- Hamilton managed to qualify fourth on the grid - and on Sunday it rained before the race was to start -- the start was delayed by ten minutes but the number of laps was not reduced-- Most of the teams thought the track will dry out and started out on Intermediate tyres rather than Slick wet weather tyres -- The choice of tyres in relation to the condition of the track is a very important factor -- and you will realise later as to how Hamilton won the world title on this count alone-- So after the start most of the teams had to get to their pits to change in to wet weather tyres and this allowed Massa to consolidate the front position ( he had to win ) and Hamilton slipped in to the sixth place on the completion of the change of tyres -- The pit stop was also necessitated due to the safety car that was brought in as David Coulthard in his last GP of his career spun off and crashed in the opening lap itself-- It was not a great end to his racing career that spanned 14 years - he started racing for Williams in 1994 as replacement for Ayrton Senna - With six laps to go ,then the rains came again -- While there was change in tyres by every team , Toyota allowed their driver Timo Glock to be on intermediate tyres and that helped Hamilton as well - First Vettel overtook Timo to get to fourth place that Timo was holding on to -- Meanwhile Massa took the chequered flag and he and his team were celebrating as Hamilton was in sixth place and that meant he would finish behind Massa on points -- not to be -- Hamilton overtook Timo on the last corner and finished fifth which give him the world title -- Whew what a race ! When the track conditions do not suit the tyre you are a sitting duck for overtaking and that is what happened to Timo -- The final difference was just one point between the first and the second-- Ferrari however took the Constructors trophy and had to be content with that-- They could have done better-- they lost steam at China , Singapore and their home race at Monza and left too much to cover at Brazil-- Curtain on the 2008 season-- And a youngest champion - Hamilton is just 23 and will go a long way
There may be good news for Indians -- Karun Chandok is highly tipped to be a race driver for next season -- In fact he was a co commentator at the Interlagos and I was impressed with his analysis and knowledge of the circuit and conditions -- Let us hope that one of the teams sign this young man up --
Cricket
The humiliation for me was complete -- The stylish Hyderabadi made a whacking double ton and a unbeaten half century in the second innings to ensure that whatever I wrote on these Foursome retiring was a joke-- Kumble helped out -- According to me he has quit at the right time -- Makes sense when you are not getting wickets ( he bowled 80+ over's in this series before he got a wicket ) and you get injured often-- Smart move to call it quits than being forced in to -- The Aussies are coming good and the Nagpur test may see a good battle by them to square the series - Hopefully Mr Wall ( Dravid ) will score a ton ( it is wife's place and he should score well as the Mappillai !! )
Radhakrishnan in Brazil with Venkat-- Customer service
During our (self & Venkat) visit to Brazil, the Acctg director made arrangements for our airport pickup. We were greeted by a cheerful guy when we landed on Saturday evening who managed to speak a decent English. His name was Reginaldo.
We decided to retain him for our daily hotel pickup and drop over the next week.
Over the next 1 week, we saw some great customer service. He was always 15 minutes ahead of time and waits for us. There were days when our meetings over-ran and he had to put an embarassing face after making him wait for more than half hour but he always greeted us with a great smile.
There were also days when he was tied up with other commitments but he ensured that he made alternate arrangements to get us picked or dropped through his friends. On one of those first days, we were little bit scared after we got into the cab not sure if we are on the right vehilcle and safe. Even before we could think of asking the driver, his mobile starts ringing and our friend was there to greet us over phone and with a formal apology for arranging an alternate cab. Customer service was taken to a different level.
He had famous quote -- ' IN SAU PAULO, MY BUSINESS CARD IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANY CREDIT CARD'
The Sau Paulo airport is far away from the city. He dropped us at airport around 11:00 PM on the following Friday and it was an hour travel back home. He said he will go back for a short nap since he had an early morning pickup at 5:00 AM. Just few hours sleep and back on the road for another day of grind, but fully committed and cheerful.
It was a great experience travelling on his car during the entire week
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