Rain

It's been hot the past few days, and dusty. Today was also a hot day, and dusty. Tonight, right now, there is a cool breeze, a little, coy breeze, dithering about, and I have my window flung open to catch it. This means rain. This is the exquisite pleasure of Delhi weather -- anticipating change. It will rain, and be gray, cool and colours will come to life. The next day it will be hot again, and terribly muggy. Afa is what they call it in Italy.

It is hot; it will be hot again; it will stay hot for many days after. But in between, there will be one evening of rain. What more could one ask for?

Dust

Flee fly flow phlegm is the grumble in every corner of my office these days. Tissues are brought to noses like clockwork. Most women blow quietly and guiltily, most men... Well, with men things happen in the throat rather than the nose, it seems. Unfortunately there's no part of my respiratory tract which doesn't grigger and fritch, so I snort, croak and wheeze. Much worse when people smoke in our enclosed room. Bad also when Delhi has its dust days -- the air goes brown and the car is hard to pick out against all the construction rubble by the end of the day. I almost expect to see camels swirling down with the dust.

Is it a worthwhile business proposition to collect dust and use it for insulation material? After all, there is, improbably, a material called 'rock wool', and it's used for insulation. There's big money in it. Delhi gets millions of tons of dust from Rajasthan every year -- free, like the air transport. Can money be made off something that nobody wants?

Idle

I'm sorry, but I really enjoy watching American Idol. The music is execrable, the people by and large dull, but it's a reality show without the visceral awfulness. Unlike Fear Factor, which AXN shows at mealtimes. And even those travel shows -- um, the Great Race? -- where they put unsuspecting couples through the gruelling routine of a round-the-world race, stress race, and they end up exasperated with each other. Painful to watch.

Happily for my peace of mind, I don't have favourites in the Idol race. That Bo Bice is genuine cool. So's that blonde country-style singer girl Carrie. One of the women has a remarkably big hairstyle. One of the men comes on to his female fan base every second he's on the screen.

The best part of Idol, the only reason to watch the show at all, is the roadshow that starts each season, where the long-suffering 'judges' select from among a hundred thousand aspirants, and we get to see the 'most' ones (most ridiculous, most ugly, most deluded, most pathetic, most guaranteed tear-jerker, etc.) on TV for free. Yuck and yahoo.