The Third Slip Issue 118 - In the end, it doesn’t even water
Hello, Slippers! Welcome to The Third Slip - the weekly newsletter that is quickly running out of contrived analogies to make, just like Chennai running out of water. That’s right we made too many puns too fast without keeping an eye on the long run. Although that’s mostly because marathons are boring to watch.
This week Pakistani cricket fans won the internet with some stellar self-deprecatory humour before spectacularly milkshake ducking it with some appalling trolling and stalking of the players and their families. The internet never disappoints. But wait, the astute reader says, what about The Third Slip? When will it unravel and jump the shark? This is the issue 118, so our guess is pretty soon. Subscribe, and get your friends to join in to be here while it happens. For now, the news...
At Home
Shlok Sabha: Bizarre scenes ensued in the Lok Sabha this week as our beloved MPs started shouting “Jai Shri Ram”, apparently to heckle other MPs taking their oath which then disintegrated into “Mandir wahi banayenge” and a childish back and forth volley of all sorts of chants from across the spectrum. But hey, maybe this is a genius plan to improve the TRPs of Lok Sabha sessions and get citizens involved in the real mechanics of democracy?
Sentence construction: We swiftly move on from the legislature to that paragon of all virtue - our judiciary - and see... um... Sanjiv Bhatt being handed a life sentence for a 30-year-old case by a Gujarat court. Sanjiv Bhatt, you’ll remember, was a whistleblower but not a chowkidar so there’s a key difference. Plus also, just because he spoke out about Modi’s complicity in the 2002 riots doesn’t mean you liberals don’t know that correlation is not causation. Judiciary is best, okay?
Of lychees and leeches: In heartbreaking news, the encephalitis outbreak in Bihar has claimed the lives of over 100 children. The outbreak may have been caused by malnourishment coupled with consumption of unripe lychee fruits. It doesn’t help when the health minister asks for the cricket score at a meeting held to talk about the situation, but our brave media stepped up to the plate and went where no one has gone before - into the freaking ICU, thrusting mics and cameras and getting in the way of healthcare professionals.
Face the music: Happy world music day on a week when Hard Kaur got charged with sedition for lyrics critical of sedition and Bangalore bars were told to stop playing music because residents got annoyed.
We have reservations: Yay, one more quota that's being badly implemented. (Economically Weaker sections) - without checking with the colleges on things like infrastructure and staffing. Like when your boss says "ya ya the team will do that" to the client without checking with the team first? That but education, careers and lives. No biggie.
In other parts of the globe
Naming and faming: Remember when the Brits asked the internet to name a ship and we decided to call it Boaty McBoatface? Well, that submersible has just made significant discoveries about climate change in its maiden journey proving yet again that there is nothing in a name. To be fair, funnily named Malayalees have been surviving and thriving all over the world for a while now. Wait till Sachin Baby becomes captain of the Indian team. (Baby is actually his dad’s name. You know how they say the child is the father of the man)
If it ain’t woke why fix it?: Massive air pollution around Southern France - as all the advertising bigwigs in the world have assembled for the annual festival of producing gas - The Cannes advertising festival. This year's theme seems to be trying to pretend to be woke to sell stuff. Did you know being a TTS Patron is not about helping the authors buy beer, but helping the world become a better place? Go on, become a patron if you don’t want the world to die.
Last man grandstanding: The elections to determine the man who is willing to sit in the driver’s seat of a driverless car that has been preprogrammed to fall off the cliff at the border of Europe and take credit for said spectacular fall AKA the Tory leader who will become the next British PM has found its final two - Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt. Boris Johnson is the clear frontrunner in this reality show that should be titled Satan ka Swayamwar.
Putting the ठहर in Tehran: This week in "Making you feel happier about your nuclear bunker investment" news: Iran shot down a massive American surveillance drone that was flying over its airspace. As you can expect, Trump's not exactly super thrilled about the whole thing and ALMOST retaliated, but pulled out at the last minute thanks to saner heads. We know, that's a surprising term, but when Trump is involved, any other head - no matter how crazy - is saner in comparison. In the meantime keep those bunkers ready, pulling out at the last minute is not the surest form of protection.
The yemeny lies within: Finally, FINALLY, both parties in the US are coming together to try and stop America supplying arms to Saudi's brutal war in Yemen, which has led to the worst humanitarian crisis in history. And the FBI caught an ISIS guy who was attempting to blow up a church - by getting one of their agents to act as a fellow ISIS plotter. What a hero!
Variety is the spies of life: "China is not spying on its own Uighur Muslims" "China is not interfering in Pakistan despite having them by the balls financially" Ya you're probably right, so that explains why China is spying on Pakistan’s own Uighurs. Sweet.
Tech
Libra, the imbalance: See the thing with FB is, we really REALLY want to believe what it says, but with it having more controversies in the last year than Virat Kohli has centuries, it's kinda hard to. So when it says Libra is its foray into crypto to make payments for millions of unbanked people easier, we REALLY wish it would succeed, but you can't help but think that somewhere down the line, some Russians are licking their lips in anticipation. Heck, even the US government is sceptical!
There is no I in YouTube: Meanwhile, over at Google - YouTube has been pulled up for not doing enough to prevent harmful content and Sundar Pichai admitted that it’s too big to fix.
Gig bites: Fiverr, the gig economy work finder company, is going public but how does it look like when you hire freelancer’s off Fiverr to write about the IPO? Gig economy is actually short for GIGO economy which describes a Garbage In Garbage Out way of working where you get monkeys if you pay peanuts.
LinkedOut
This stunning read about what really (could have) happened to Malaysian Airlines 370.
Three facebook moderators broke their NDAs to tell you their stories and that of Facebook.
Environmental backlash is getting realer and realer with Chennai running out of water. Here’s an explainer of what’s happened and why.
That’s it for this week. If you’d like to get in touch with us, we’re on Twitter (Chuck | Tony). If you like reading The Third Slip share it with three friends and see how your life does not change at all because your friends won’t be as enthused as you are but that’s okay, you can come back and email us your angst. Until next week may you be a nice guy and finish last, but like Jimmy Neesham.