Don't hold your breath

4

We're not safe anymore. Noone, nowhere. Bad guys worldwide have had the last laugh. When professors will think twice before going for academic conferences, far from the so-far clearly demarcated conflict zones...when women are pulled out of cars and raped and killed on the side of the road...when anonymous letters warn of a threat to security, of the dreaded two words, "terrorist attack"... So do you feel safer when your city ramps up security another notch? When like New York, you're practically on perpetual orange alert? (or is that red alert? Red, as in panic, but not as a one-off thing, as a state of being) Do you find yourself living in a state of fear... Not to digress, but on several different levels, once you're in the urban jungle, you have to watch out - you're not safe from criminals, you have to worry about assault, rape, murder. And....

On the reindeer trail

2

NORAD might have tracked Santa this Christmas, but I'm not so sure about his living in Reykjavik. I know for a fact that he set up home in Rovaniemi, bang on the Arctic Circle, in Finland. It's such a beautiful country, (with Reindeer Crossing signs and everything!) and hundreds of thousands of tourists go to Santa's town just to meet him and shake his hand or sit on his lap (whatever works for you!)... But while you can't help but be struck by the commercialism of the whole endeavour, it's still got its own appeal. They have letters coming in from all over the world, which is so cute...there are kids writing in to Santa every year?! Does it work? Is this something I should think about too?! (But I bet the little elves up there are regretting missing out on the Reuters letter this year, which the Iceland-wala Santa....

Breaking out the bubbly

3

So another year's drawing to a close, and normally that would panic me no end, Bridget Jones-style. A quarter of a century next year and I'm definitely freezing the sands of time at that. Enough said! But this year has just had way too much excitement for me to crib...A new job, a new channel, the LAUNCH!! Being on air. Meeting all sorts of characters, making new friends, having old friends visit from all corners of the globe...Could things get any more hectic and exciting? Well, apparently so...I'm thinking this IS the definitive thing about our generation, that we're constantly trying to challenge ourselves instead of sticking to the straight and narrow. We'll just have to see where it takes us... And I'm thinking it's time to take the next step and write that definitive Great Indian Novel..Yes, yes, it's been done before, but not well enough. And nothing like....