Issue 42: The Answer to The Question “What If I Didn’t Read TTS All of 2017?”
Firstly, folks – Happy New Year from all of us here at The Third Slip. Secondly, we were too lazy to write something this week nothing really happened this week, so we decided to pull up our ‘greatest hits’ from the 41 issues that have gone by so far.
<emo> But first. A sincere thank you. When we started TTS in April ’17, few thought that, 8 short months later, we would grow to become one of the most influential newsletters in the country with lakhs of subscribers who call themselves ‘slippers’ and send in pictures of their footwear to us. Well, those few were clearly wrong – but we still do get your ‘slipperfies’ so keep sending ‘em in! (oh yeah and we <3 you guys) </emo>
PS: This ‘best of’ issue is substantially longer than most. Meaning we either think a lot of ourselves, or are poor editors. Or both. Anyway.
SOME FAVOURITE BITS - PART 1
UP and at ‘em
Where do we begin? The most populous state has a new CM whose political ideology puts the ‘right’ in ‘fright’. The UP Government’s going after meat - having ramifications ranging from the iconic Tunday Kebab shuttering, to lions who’re refusing to accept chicken as a substitute (hence proving, the regular Imbiss visitor and jungle cats aren’t all that dissimilar)
Water (some)body
Given that election mandate in the Hindi belt, it was just a matter of time as to which would come first - genocide or comedy.
We are against the Kota system
…. where the unnecessary media fascination combined with parental and peer pressure forces a student to become stunted (anagram ;))
A-mazeing Grace
In a bid to cut down on drunk driving, the supreme court issued an order banning sale of liquor within 500 metres of highways. But like any economist will tell you, the unintended consequences of this move will be far greater - loss of jobs and revenue to name but a few.
hyUK, hyUK, hyUK.
For a Bschooler, “Marketing is my passion” can quickly change when shown a finance consultancy’s offered CTC. Similarly, “Holding elections before 2020 will be an unnecessary distraction” can quickly change to “How quickly can we hold polls?” when faced with Brexit implementation.
Phew Revoir (on Macron’s win)
The result is reassuring for a number of reasons : Europe, like an overloaded speeding goods truck trying to take a U-turn on NH4, was swerving a little too dangerously to the right, and this victory will be accompanied by quite a few sighs of relief.
NEETly done
Let’s make this clear: “Take your bra off” is acceptable only in two situations: Consensual sex, and rebranding of the Boston Redevelopment Authority. Not in any other situation, including, er, while writing an exam. But then, the geniuses who run the CBSE think that women are likely to hide chits / devices in their underwear.
Awkwardness in Boratland!
Kazakhsthan! Greatest country in the world! All other countries are run by state heads who really don’t want to bump into each other after all that badmouthing.
How To Speak MBA: This week presented by Faraday Future
The electric car company is a little f***ed, to say the least. Of course, they chose to state that a little more eloquently: ““We at Faraday Future are significantly shifting our business strategy to position the company as the leader in user-ship personal mobility — a vehicle usage model that reimagines the way users access mobility. As a result of this shift in direction, we are in the final stages of confirming a new manufacturing facility that presents a faster path to start-of-production and aligns with future strategic options.”
Cow-ma-sutra
Later in the week, a man in Uttarakhand was held for, er, having sex with a cow. As a friend said: Oedipus Complex + Hindu extremism = Enough internet for the day.
It’s Always Sunny in Kerala
Their permanent hard-on came to a rapturous climax as sea men a large sea of men poured out on the streets of Kochi to catch a glimpse of Sunny Leone. We have no tissues issues with this.
Intolerance is back!
With fancy new buzzwords like ‘gau-rakshak’ and ‘demonetization’ dominating government strategy presentations, it’s nice to now hear the star of 2015, ‘intolerance’, back. What shall we intolerate today? A new Vijay movie which may have to make cuts because it has a reference to GST? Some posters criticizing Dear Leader? A Facebook post saying how ridiculous giving the Ganga ‘living entity status’ is?
Schrödinger’s climate change
The Trump administration, after telling us climate change is a hoax and we could all make merry burning coal, released a report by the National Climate Assessment saying humans were indeed responsible for our li’l blue orb turning into a cauldron.
Take me down to Paradise Papers (to be read in trailer voice-over)
From the stars of the 2016 international hit “Panama Papers” comes a new, bigger hit. Paradise Papers. Watch as the world’s biggest corporations get as creative as they can to avoid paying tax. Starring: “We swear we ain’t hearing your conversations” Facebook; “Give us all your money” Apple; “Just doing this so I’m relevant” Twitter; “Same as Twitter” Queen Elizabeth II, and more. For our fans in India, we have Apollo Tyres, The Essel Group, Hinduja Group, Videocon, and of course, the man who will advertise anything and say any slogan written by stoned copywriters, Amitabh Bachchan. Stay tuned and don’t forget to watch the after-credits, who knows what’s coming next year?
And you thought Manmohan Singh was silent? The main barb thrown by the quite locquacious BJP leaders in the buildup to the 2014 elections was the relative reticence of ex PM, Manmohan Singh. Well, after failing to say anything on gau-rakshak killings, the Rajasthan hate murder and other Hindutva-fuelled campaigns - let alone deaths due to demonetization and economic slowdowns thanks to GST - we’re wondering where all the loudspeakers are. Oh, that’s right - telling Rahul Gandhi off for watching Star Wars. So sorry.
Adarsh Scam: The scam which all fledgling scams envy and look up to for its beautiful name is back in the news this week as the Bombay High Court set aside the governor’s nod to prosecute former CM Ashok Chavan in the scam involving the Adarsh Housing Society, which tops the list of TTS’ year-end list ‘Most Unlikely South Bombay Heritage Monuments We Missed in 2017’.
Connect the dots above y’all! It’s a magical time of the year, and so let’s relive The Prestige: Every great magic trick consists of three parts - the first part is called The Pledge - The politician claims he will fight to uproot corruption, for instance. The second part is called The (u)Turn - Under the same politician, all scams that once were magically become non-scams. But wait, you won’t clap just yet. Because the best part is the one that follows: The Prestige - the same politicians will promise you the same thing in the next election cycle and we’ll all chant his name like transfixed sheep. Yay 2019!
INTERLUDE: SOME AADHAAR NEWS NOW
Having done a terrific job of giving a temporary fillip to the lamination industry in India, Aadhaar is still looks like it will dominate the upcoming B-School admissions Group Discussions topics.
The Aadhaar is giving India a leg-up in the global is-it-satire-or-not race - Babies now need an Aadhaar before being given a birth certificate. And sales of 1984 are unlikely to abate anytime soon after the government said that it owns your body (and not in a sexy John Mayer sort of way).
Aadhaar is back with a bang, baby! Critics had written off the identity card, saying it’s a spent force after the Supreme Court said there’s no need to link it to PAN. Well, they can now eat their words: you now need to link it to your bank account or risk it being shut down. What a story from an ID that’s less than a decade old!
BJP’s core competence is in rewriting history so now Ravi Shankar Prasad has claimed that the government was actually for Right To Privacy. This is kind of like Liverpool fans saying 'we actually wanted to lose this season, next season is always our season'.
SOME FAVOURITE BITS - PART 2
(on Air India hostess assaulter hon. MP Ranvindra Gaikwad) But, the airlines have actually given in to Mr. Gaikwad’s demand and assured him that he will never have to fly in the economy class ever again - because they banned him from flying.
(on one of the creators of the internet finally winning a Turing Award) Apparently one of the criteria for the award is that the contribution should be of “lasting importance” and the jurors finally decided that if they don’t award the internet creator now, it might be too late because the internet is definitely destroying the world in 2018.
(on the ingenious Kerala bar who created a 250m path via a maze to circumvent the highway ban) Rumours suggest that this is the Hotel Keralafornia that legends speak of - because once you checkout, you have to drunk-negotiate a bloody maze to leave.
(on that Pepsi ad which was finally withdrawn) One suspects that the brief was to create an ad with great recall value.
(on Abhay Deol trolling colleagues who’ve endorsed sidey products) He has essentially given his peers a thorough beating on this issue of light skin preference - a fairness cream (Sorry, I cringed too).
(when the wrong USB was sent) A porn clip was accidentally played on the big screen at Rajiv Chowk metro station. We’re quite sure this is not what they meant by stimulating digital platforms for exponential growth in India.
(on the political situation in France) No matter who wins there, Putin will be happy - and that’s a line that’s right up there on the Oh Shit! scale, along with ‘Bangkok is banning street food’ and ‘Ed Sherean released a new album’. Stay indoors.
The AAP’s been trying to draw public attention towards EVM tampering - which nobody really cares about apart from the nostalgia it evokes for the good ol’ days of ball tampering.
The legendary 19th century cricketer, WG Grace, was notorious for helping the umpire out. When dismissed and shown the (index) finger, he would tell the officials, “The crowd’s come to see me bat, not to see you umpire” and cheerfully carry on. Well, it seems that Yogi Adityanath has sent a similar message to the courts: “They’ve come to see me murder, not to see you legislate.”
Comically, BJP chose to reply to Kerala’s beef fests with… Milk fests, and (in the North-East) chose to celebrate 3 years of being in power with… A beef fest. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Prime Minister Theresa May basically did the political equivalent of an engineering college student submitting a paper for re-evaluation and getting lower marks than before. (on Theresa May’s disastrous ‘snap election’)
Whose Protest Is It Anyway? This week - Russia! Yes, it’s a relief to see a Russia headline without the words “hacked elections” for once.
If you’re pissed off with the history of India, don’t worry - the BJP is on hand to provide you a new, improved version!
Critics of the BJP say the ruling party has forgotten its development agenda. We disagree. The vigilantism industry is thriving, as is news censorship. Acche Din indeed!
It turns out you can’t spell “GST roll-out” without “Troll” in between.
As far as moving backward goes, the BJP sure puts the ‘Hind’ in ‘Jai Hind’.
One might expect the authors to be cynical about Ramnath Kovind’s elevation as BJP Puppet Indian president. It was definitely his being a Dalit career as a lawyer that got him the job. Surely the BJP’s intentions were only to quell the flames of gau rakshaks killing Dalits further the representation of a historically marginalized community. Why else would they propose someone who in 2010 said Islam and Christianity were alien to India was on IIM Calcutta’s board of directors? But cynical we authors shall not be.
Putin with Assad is the worst combination since auto-tune with ambitious parents, and Trump’s ‘support’ is the last thing Syria needs.
It appears that stories on Amit Shah’s assets growing 300% in five years have magically vanished from TOI, ET, and DNA websites. Nobody knows why. Really. Hehe. We personally think it’s the Indian media embracing 2017 as the year of “Stories” - that thing on social media platforms which makes pieces of content disappear 24 hours after it’s published. It’s a feature, not a bug.
When you feel shitty about life in general, you reach for that tub of chocolate ice cream in the freezer. Or, as India calls it a cricket series with Sri Lanka.
Nearby, Pakistan actually kicked out their Prime Minister who was implicated in the Panama case. This has obviously shocked Indian politicians, who have till now assumed that being involved in a corruption scandal was the only way to move to higher office.
The US Government will be imposing sanctions on Russia for interfering in the elections. Think of this as penalizing your best batsman for helping you win the World Cup.
One suspects he may have needed a no dues certificate from the Rajya Sabha library. (on Sachin Tendulkar attending the Rajya Sabha for once!)
While much of the auto world is looking to go electric, Mazda decides to zig a different zag by just making internal combustion engines more efficient, hence sending Carnot Cycle fans into raptures.
The demonetisation report card is out and 99% of banned notes have been returned, this has justifiably led to catcalls against a needless activity which has resulted in the economy saying “Miss miss I have to do Susu, I am going to toilet”.
Add nationalism to digital hypertargeting and you have a dystopia even Orwell couldn’t have predicted.
OUR FAVOURITE HEADLINES (And what they were about)·
PR hamen kis Modi pe le aaya (best of the year!)
Finance BillGates (On the finance bill controversy. Rich!)
Erdogains (on the Turkish PM’s self-given power-ups)
If you can’t say nice things about someone who can raid you, don’t say anything at all (on NDTV getting raided)
Is that a GDP in your pocket or... (never mind)
Lodha lag gaye (that whole BCCI thing)
Time will Tel Aviv (some Israel thing)
Aadhar Morghulis (All men must now have an Aadhaar card if they want to die)
How are you? Not very Wells Fargo
Can it be? (7, 9) (Ans: Cabinet Reshuffle. Again, genius, if we do say so ourselves)
Like a bullet to your train (you know)
Caught between an orange rock and that nuke-happy hard place (sigh)
You can’t spell social without CIA (on US Homeland Security collecting public social media posts)
Audit-i devo bhava AKA GST is God (runner up GST headlines: Be my GST, GST Another Tax In The Wall)
Moody Swings (when India’s ratings got upgraded)
No justice, just ice (on the judge in the Amit Shah mysteriously dying)
From UIDAIpur to Udaipur (when moving from Aadhaar to Rajasthan hate killing)
What do you get when you turn the BJP on? A tumescent election
Is(this the)rael Life? It's mostly just fantasy.
OUR LEAST FAVOURITE HEADLINES
Riyaadein Yaad Aati Hain (terrible, we know)
Chuckle Section: What tickled our toe-knees
THE BEST OF THE TANGERINE TURD
Yup, the largest emitter on the planet - a phrase that could be aptly used to describe both the country and its President.
The Trump cabinet’s increasingly starting to look like an engineering college class after attendance has been taken.
Ok here it, er, Comeys Trump’s love for FBI Director James Comey back in November (when the FBI was looking into Hillary’s email server) soon turned to anger when said Director turned his skills to, er, Trump’s own connection with Russia. So Comey was dismissed quicker than you could say Nixon.
If the golden shower scandal is anything to go by, we know Trump is not shy of trickle-down economics.
Moochie’s Gone: Misunderstanding the term ‘swearing in’
#MAGA will happen - but 2020 onwards.
The Tangerine Turd is doing to White House staff what Game of Thrones does to its characters and Mumbai local trains do to dignity - time by firing chief strategist and white supremacy/meth addiction poster boy Arnab Goswami Steve Bannon. Looks like Trump’s solution for employment is to make sure every US citizen interns at the White House by 2020.
Trump mentioned he would totally destroy ‘rocket man’ and North Korea. He didn’t mention climate change at all, but that’s okay - it doesn’t look like we’ll be having a planet after a few years anyway.
Donald Trump, who puts the dip low in diplomacy… (rest of this is irrelevant)
Something for you Whose Line fans: a depressing Irish Drinking Song (sing along!)
Dee dai di dai di dai di dai di dai di dai di dai * 2
Last week he fired the head of the FBI
Now a climate change skeptic’s his USDA guy.
Comey was ordered to end an investigation.
Oh hey - that reminds us of good ol’ Richard Nixon.
Dee dai di dai di dai di dai di dai di dai di dai * 2
Meanwhile, Trump is happy to be rid of that nutjob
Now he can proceed to give his ego a blowjob.
He might make this dickbag do what Comey used to do
But rest reassured, his lawyer’s a scumbag too.
Dee dai di dai di dai di dai di dai di dai di dai * 2
He knew Flynn’s boo-boos before taking him on,
That’s actually a crime, he could be put away for long.
Meanwhile, his allies are a fairly pissed-off flock
‘Cause (as WP said) he’s sucking Russia’s cock.
Dee dai di dai di dai di dai di dai di dai di dai * 2
While doing what his party had vehemently opposed
An Islamaphobe in Riyadh, is irony most.
There his leech-faced son-in-law made a weapons sale
Now check out this newspaper bromance tale.
Dee dai di dai di dai di dai di dai di dai di dai
Dee dai di dai di dai di dai di daaaai diiiii daaaaai diiiii daaaaaaai
And the tweet of the year:
WE CAN NEVER BE FUNNIER THAN OUR FELLOW INDIANS
In even more glorious WTFery, (please put your coffee away and sit down for this) some patriots thought Snapchat was the same as Snapdeal and started downvoting the latter’s app.
While Indian politicians have never been accused of bothering the admissions office at MENSA too much - this Tamil Nadu Minister took the cake by believing he could save water by just roofing a dam with 10 lakhs worth of thermocol. It’s probably a good thing Turkey and Syria are in deep shit right now, can you imagine what John Oliver would do if this happened on a slow news week?
The SC threw out a case because it couldn’t understand it, there was just too much jargon.
Summing up the year: Has anyone checked if we can return Ache Din to Amazon and exchange it for regular din where no one dies unnecessarily instead?
We need some levity, so take this: Pahlaj Nahlani did this. (it’s too funny, we can’t top that)
A BJP spokesperson ((noun): A paragon of Indian culture and the only true upholder of patriotism), was asked to sing Vande Mataram during a debate. He sang um something including “Pulkistan” that set people ROFLing. TTS warning: Please set down your coffee and be seated while watching this.
In Delhi (okay stop premature laughing, it gets better), a Ranji cricket match had to be stopped momentarily because a freaking car drove on to the pitch. In unrelated news, an Uber customer was unable to spot his cab even after the driver assured him “Haan sir me aapke location pe aa gaya hoon”. (TTS unnecessary fun fact 1: You cannot tell which of us wrote which part of TTS by looking for bad Hindi.)
Phew, that’s it – kudos if you made it this far. But before we leave… Don’t forget these!
The Slipperfie Challenge: TTS is as much about nonsense as it is about the news (notwithstanding the fact that they are synonyms in 2017). If you enjoy The Third Slip, send us a picture of your Slippers. If you are not at home and can’t be bothered to do this later, send us a picture of your current footwear. You might even win a prize.
TTS Word of The Week - Subscribe (noun): Derived from sub, meaning inferior to, and scribe, meaning journalist.
Have a good 2018, folks! (Oh and subscribe. Mail us. Tweet to us (Chuck, Tony). Tell us what you think of TTS. Tell us you exist and aren't bots).