Nepali Times
ASS
Backside
Stop sending us all that booze

ASS


Most members of the Kathmandu media knocked themselves unconscious this season drinking all the free booze they were gifted by Kathmandu-based embassies. Going by the number of bottles in festive wrappings that the Ass noticed arriving every day at the boss' secretary's desk, there seems to be an impression among Nepal-based diplomatic missions that in this country all editors are alcoholics and if they're not they should be immediately turned into one.

Enough. Hic! No more whiskey. Can we have a moratorium on bottles? At least until new year's?

The Chinese have the right idea, instead of sending alcohol to the journalists they sent journalists to the alcohol. Two troops of hacks departed just before Tihar to Beijing and Shanghai with delegations accompanying the Education Minister and the Information Minister and they all got right down to brasstacks as soon as they took off. So, it's not just the hacks who are going to return with massive mao tai hangovers, the ministers should be pretty much incapacitated themselves.

.....

Us journalists have this reputation among the public of being predators, and the image is reinforced when there are news channels called "Fox". Or tv presenters with names like \'Wolf\' Blitzer.

So far, no Nepali journalists has named himself after a member of the jackal family as far as we know, although they often behave like them on camera when they chew out studio guests and don't let them get a word in edgewise. Some of our prima donna talk show hosts have now interviewed just about everyone there is to interview in this country. The only thing left for them to do is to start interviewing each other.

But there is one person they haven't got yet, and the Ass has learnt from palace sources that rival newscasters have put in applications in writing for an interview with King Gyanendra. But the way his erstwhile majesty snubbed the Rayamajhi Commission by refusing to even answer the one question sent to him, they shouldn't set their hopes too high.

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There are many things that happen in Nepal that should get us into the Guinness Book and don't. One of them was last week's nationwide shutdown called by FNCCI. In other countries it is the workers who go on strike, here it is the businessmen who do it instead. Kantipur, which had the audacity to poke fun at the strike call in an editorial, was punished by having its van vandalised on New Road by FNCCI's hired goons. The businessmen's credo seems to be: if you can't fight 'em, j&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'&#'216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216;216&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&'216; 'em. Ever since we spied FNCCI honchos sharing the podium with the baddies last month we knew something was afoot. The strike had more to do with warning the government to lay off prominent willful defaulters than anything else. There, we said it.

.....

So Nepal ranks #8 on the Indian Ministry of External Affairs priority list. Many in Nepal were dismayed when they read this: they had always been under the impression that Nepal was so important that officials in New Delhi had sleepless nights about us. It now looks like we are way behind the United States, China, Europe and the rest of southeast Asia in India's scheme of things.

The Ass's take on this is: thank god we don't have oil. Thank god we're not geo-strategically important. Just as well we are so ungovernable that the Chinese, British India and the Tibetans took one look at us in the 19th century and gave up trying to conquer us because they realised we were ungovernable.

It is better for Nepal if we aren't so high on Delhi's priority list. In fact, we would be more comfortable if our ranking dropped down to #15 or something and we were left alone.

ass@neplaitimes.com



LATEST ISSUE
638
(11 JAN 2013 - 17 JAN 2013)


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