Friday, June 29, 2007

Don’t you think the joker laughs at you?

And the award for the most magnificently pointless opening paragraph in any of today’s newspaper stories goes to this gem, from the ToI food queen’s review of a restaurant called Konomi:
It’s got to be the best-looking hotel we have in the city – okay, not technically in the city but hey, Gurgaon is Delhi and Delhi is Gurgaon…and we are all together! Remember the “I am the Walrus” act by The Beatles? I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together…elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna…Well, I’m not so sure about the penguin bit but, nonetheless, it all emerges, converges and submerges here.
Typically, the rest of the pun-filled review has nothing to do with the song. Somewhere in the great beyond, the ghosts of Lewis Carroll and John Lennon are cussing mightily. Somewhere in the Antarctica a lonesome penguin is singing “She’s So Heavy…”

By the way, here’s the closing sentence:
It’s expensive, by all standards, but then you, me, he, we are all together here…it’s got the yen for Zen!
Maybe she was just trying for a little nonsense verse of her own?

11 comments:

  1. Somewhere in the Antarctica a lonesome penguin is singing “She’s So Heavy…”

    Actually, if any penguin had the misfortune to read this review before it made itself extinct, it would be tempted to sing 'Happiness (Is A Warm Gun)'

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  2. The entire paper reads like that - even the editorial pages at times! Remember when they were all about 'every page in colour' - they were highlighting (in clolour) random words in the editorials!

    Thankfully you, me, he, and she, we all realised there were other papers!

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  3. Come on! She is being creative. She even quotes The Beatles. She is making a ditty.Sing along, people. Make a happy summer. He-she, Hare-Krishna, hotel in the city...di da di dum.

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  4. Mostly inconsequential stuff intended for ToI-let reading.

    Cuckoo Ga joob.

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  5. I read the review and it got me thinking - Man, what is she trying to do here? And inspite of having worked with Times Internet Ltd., I must admit they are spending their endless money on useless things. Sigh.
    I m in Gurgaon these days and had a chance to visit Konomi once. The review aside, I liked the place.

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  6. Has this woman ever met a pun she didn't love?

    I actually saw her on a cooking show in India during my recent visit. She was cooking garlic pepper crab and used what looked like two cups of chopped garlic for one crab - I kid you not!

    I thought I was the world's worst garlic abuser with garlic in everything, but this woman's out to kill all the undead of Transylvania.

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  7. This is like their chatpata phillum reviews. Do they even realize how absurd DJspeak loks on newsprint?

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  8. you are talking about masala writing, which flashes in HT City, DT, response editorial supplements. it is all about how badly you can write.
    Sample this - one of the stories on Mich Jagger had a point which read 'Mick Jagger was knighted to sir in xxxx year. He is now called Sir Mick Jagger.'
    really?!? :-D

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  9. And she gets paid for this. Enough to make you want to nip off and shoot yourself, really.

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  10. Haha, it's amazing how the best of the best end up at the TOI. :)

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  11. TOI is the best muse for a satirist. The rag smells worse than it reads.
    @ anita
    You have guts, chief. It takes courage to reach the edit page. I wrap TOI after City pages, take a long look at Delhi Times, and move over to IE.

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