Given the rapid pace of renovation and beautification taking place in the nation's capital these days, we can be fairly certain that Nepal can make a successful bid to host the 2050 Football World Cup.

One of the most important criteria that FIFA attaches to cities applying to organise the games is whether or not the host metropolis is self-sufficient in crazy hats. And as the world's major supplier of lunatic hats for the last three World Cups, the city has assured FIFA's Site Selection Committee that there is no danger of Kathmandu running out of headgear in the run-up to the 2050 games. There is, however, one small problem: Nepal may cease to exist by then. But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

So that just leaves us with the knotty question of ensuring that the multi-billion rupee Tinkune Intersection Reconstruction Project will see completion by January 2050. The Transportation Sub-Committee of the World Cup Organising Central Committee (Unfed Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist) is optimistic that this should be possible, given the breakneck speed at which the Metropolitan Authorities are turning the intersection into a lake during this current monsoon season. It should be able to accumulate enough water by 2050, it is hoped.

Similarly, Rani Pokhari, Ratna Park and the Khula Munch are being unified into a single park-cum-parking lot to accommodate World Cup fans. Since pedestrians have refused to use both the overhead walkway and the underground passageway at Asan intersection, Kathmandu Metropolitan City will put up a booby-trapped barbed wire fence so no pedestrian from Bag Bajar can cross the road to Asan and vice versa. The work is expected to be completed in the next 44 years.

According to a timetable made available to mediapersons this week, potholes of diameter 1m and more along Sat Dobato, Balkhu, Lajimpat, Jorpati and Bhaisepati are scheduled for repairs by 2010. All zebra crossings will be repainted by 2025, field trials and simulation exercises to untangle gridlocks at major bottlenecks are expected to be completed in late 2032 and the traffic light synchronisation will go into effect by 2049 in time for the big event.

Asked if Nepal had enough stadiums for the qualifying and knockout rounds of the 2050 games the Organising Committee said: "Ummm, hadn't thought of that. But we'll have plenty of pubs and they'll be allowed to remain open after 10PM."

Kathmandu and Patan have traditionally had healthy competition ever since the Malla period when the two kingdoms fought vicious wars over which one had tastier buff momos. Today, this competition is manifested in the way in which the Patan Sub-Municipality has made sure that not a single halogen street lamp installed during the 2000 SAARC Summit is in working condition. And once Kathmandu Metropolitan City found out that Patan streets were dark, it decided to be one up by switching off all street lights between Babar Mahal and Min Bhaban until further notice.

This sense of camaraderie and healthy competition will be carried into the World Cup when Patan co-hosts the 2050 games by which time, the mayor's office has assured us, tree stumps along Pulchok will be finally removed and replaced with hoarding boards. Going by the speed of past reconstruction, we have no reason to doubt that the work will be completed in time.

#98