Dave Ki Kasam, Auto Dave works

Recently a friend of mine read this blog and quickly mailed me a great compliment. "You are a cheat. You are trying to ape Dave Barry."

I haven't seen Dave but I would do anything to meet him. How can I ape him? Now if you my friend meant that I try writing like him, I would try a bit harder. For Dave is great. Even Dave would agree to that. Dave is here. Ask him.

But I am not the only one who thinks so. There's a site where you can write your own Dave Barry column. All you need to do is fill a form. I tried Auto Dave. And look what I got!


Recently in New Delhi (motto: "Your bum is chumming""), residents reported an outbreak of 420s. Perhaps you think there are no 420s in New Delhi. Perhaps you are an idiot.

As the French say, au contraire (literally: "nincompoop!"). I have here in my hands a copy of an Associated Press article sent in by alert reader Markiv , whose name can be rearranged to spell "M AVRIK", although that is not my main point. "Markiv ", by the way, only has the letters "Maki" in in common with "Monica Lewinsky", so there is no other reason to mention Monica Lewinsky in this column.

According to a quote which I am not making up, from New Delhi Mayor Madan Lal Khurana (formally "Mayor Madan Lal Khurana" and informally "Muddu"), 420s ranks as a major crisis just behind Dahi, papad and Ghee (insert your "achar" joke here), as evidenced by the following conversation between New Delhi government employees:

FIRST NEW DELHI EMPLOYEE: "I am fired!"

SECOND NEW DELHI EMPLOYEE: "Go ahead! Go really ahead!"

FIRST NEW DELHI EMPLOYEE: "You came this far!"

Fortunately I have a suggestion for Mayor Muddu, and that is: kick George Steinbrenner's ass.

No, seriously, my suggestion does not involve George Steinbrenner's ass, although it might involve making a murga of Tobacco Institute scientists. My suggestion is more along the lines of a coup de grace, from the French coup, meaning "watching", and de grace, meaning "TV". The procedure (you may want to write this down):

1. Unleash the cows
2. hosepipe them

But instead the New Delhi city council (motto: "We'll misrule when you pry the hand out of our cold, dead fingers") thinks that they (the 420s) will 420 soon, sending this message to the public, and to the world: "I went, I came & I how!".
Speaking of which, "The New Delhi 20s Outbreak" would be a great name for a rock band.