haha nice stories from the Cricket

Excusez moi
Dog ate your homework? Surely you can do a little better than that
Nishi Narayanan
August 23, 2010
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Graeme Swann's cat-rescue story to get out of a drink-driving charge has inspired us to start a non-profit organisation that helps cricketers come up with excuses so outrageous, people have to believe them. These are some stories that the following players should have used to get out of trouble.

Michael Slater remonstrates with Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid after a catch he claimed was not awarded, India v Australia, first Test, Mumbai, 1 March, 2001
"You invented the crotch-yank? You? Don't make me laugh" © Getty Images
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News : Swann's cat alibi ridiculed by team-mates

Jesse Ryder: the bar window incident
My bud Peter McGlashan was developing a line of gloves, helmets and pads and wanted me to try his products and then endorse them. I thought if the glove could withstand broken glass, it would do fine against Dale Steyn's bouncers. You know what happened next. Petey didn't want bad publicity for his gloves, so I was forced to make up the booze-fest story. They splashed whisky and vodka on my clothes and my cheeks and told me to slur for the cameras. I didn't know how to since I rarely get drunk, so they told me to imagine Ricky Ponting talking with the rewind button pressed.

Suraj Randiv: the no-ball to Sehwag when he was on 99
Dilly told me we had gone back to the back-foot no-ball rule from that game.

Michael Slater: yelling at Dravid and Venkataraghavan
People in India have hated me since I apparently mouthed off at Rahul Dravid during the Mumbai Test in 2001. It was a misunderstanding. When I took the catch, I ran over to Rahul to tell him he could take a walk. But then I saw his face. It was pouring sweat like the Mekong delta. I told him, "Rahul, mate, what the f*** are you doing? I saw you order the mega-cheeseburger and choco milkshake last night. That'll f*** you mate, f*** you bad." The ump walked up to intervene and said the food had been for a party to commemorate eight years since his first correct decision in Test cricket. I told him: "Venks, I love you like my weird uncle from abroad who brings hotel shampoo for a gift but you're totally out of line here. I'd refer you to the third umpire if I could." Then I advised Rahul on a diet of fresh fruit and vegetables, with plenty of yoga. You'll have noticed how much his fitness has improved since I had that little talk with him.

Dale Steyn: the spitting incident
The problem with umpires and match referees is that they have never experienced life in the wild. When I got out, big Benn walked past me to celebrate. With my keen hunter's eye, I saw a leech position itself for a good suck on his leg, just above the sock. There wasn't enough time to warn him (and honestly, I thought he'd plug me in the eye if I grabbed his arm and tried to stop him). After my prank of heating a dressing-room chair, which led to Jacques being unable to sit for a few days, skipper had taken away my box of matches. So the only thing I could do was aim a wad of spit at Benn's foot. And you know what? It ricocheted off the aglet and hit the leech square between its eyes. By the time Benn turned around, the leech had fallen off and been squashed into the ground by his boot. And with it went proof of my innocence.

Andrew Symonds: going fishing
I don't know what the fuss was all about. Our visitors were from Bangladesh and I wanted to welcome them with a meal that reminded them of home, so I went to get some fresh fish.

Gautam Gambhir: the elbow affair
Watto and I had had a chat a few balls before, about this and that, you know. We realised we had so much in common and he invited me to a holiday in Australia and I told him I'd take him round to the Taj Mahal when he came down next. I know everyone goes on about me and Viru being best buds, but you know there's only so much of "ordinary" talk one can take. What does a man do when he wants to know how best to deep-moisturise his face before a night of partying? Or how to deal with an outbreak of rashes after a waxing session? As I went for a run, I looked up at the big screen and something caught my eye. I did what any bro would do. I nudged Watto in the ribs to look at the gorgeous woman on the screen, but before I could ask him to be my wingman, Ponting rushed over and got all nasty about how he was Watto's wingman. And then he complained to the umpire. I guess I was better off with Viru.

Matt Prior: the jelly beans saga
I had nothing to do with the jelly beans on the pitch near Zaheer, I'm just telling you how they got there. "Someone" told Cookie that these were dem magic beans. You know the ones Jack used to get up the beanstalk to the giant's house with? Well, Cookie was told these beans would take him to The X Factor studio, where, it seems, Simon Cowell was particularly looking for "men who are prettier than their girlfriends" talent. He thought if he landed the audition he would never have to deal with intolerable occupational hazards like grass stains and body odour ever again. You know the rest. Vaughan got so mad at Cookie's stupidity, he banned sweets and reality TV from the dressing room forever. In fact, even now Cookie can't help wincing when he sees Dannii Minogue on TV.

Nishi Narayanan is a staff writer at Cricinfo

रात को नींद नहीं आती क्या?

नई दिल्ली, [जागरण न्यूज नेटवर्क]। रात में नींद नहीं आती? आधी रात तक करवटें बदलते रहते हैं और फिर सुबह जल्दी आंख खुल जाती है? नींद पूरी नहीं होती तो सुबह उठने के बाद तरोताजा महसूस नहीं करते? आजकल की तनाव भरी जिंदगी में नींद नहीं आने की समस्या आम हो चुकी है। नींद न आने के कई कारण हो सकते हैं। लेकिन अपनी दिनचर्या और सोने वाले कमरे का वातावरण बदल कर काफी हद तक इस समस्या से निजात पाया जा सकता है।

दिनचर्या में बदलाव

-अच्छी नींद चाहिए तो दिनचर्या में बदलाव करें। व्यायाम न सिर्फ आपको स्वस्थ बनाता है, इससे नींद भी अच्छी आती है। तेज चलकर या साइकिलिंग भी लाभदायक होगा।

झपकी लेने से बचें

कुछ लोग दिन में थोड़ी सी झपकी लेने के बाद रात में भी अच्छी तरह सो लेते हैं। अगर आपको रात में ठीक से नींद नहीं आती तो दिन में झपकी लेने से बचें। यदि झपकी लेनी ही है तो 30 मिनट से ज्यादा मत सोएं।

एल्कोहल, धू्रमपान, कैफीन चुराते हैं नींद

एल्कोहल : एल्कोहल के सेवन से नींद की गुणवत्ता प्रभावित होती है। इसके कारण आदमी रातों में देर तक जागने लगता है। सोने से कुछ घंटे पहले एल्कोहल बिल्कुल मत लें।

कैफीन : आपको जानकर आश्चर्य होगा कि कैफीन लेने के दस से 12 घंटे बाद तक सोने में मुश्किल आती है। अगर आप पूरा दिन चाय, काफी या सोडे पर निर्भर रहते हैं तो इसे कम करें।

धू्रमपान : इसके कारण भी ठीक से नींद नहीं आती। इसमे निकोटिन पाया जाता है। यह सोने में बाधा डालता है।

सोने का वातावरण बनाएं

-बेडरूम में थोड़ा बदलाव करके बेहतर नींद पाई जा सकती है।

-बेड आपकी लंबाई के अनुरूप होना चाहिए।

-सोकर उठने के बाद पीठ या गर्दन में दर्द महसूस हो तो फौरन गद्दे और तकिए की जांच करें। गद्दा और तकिया नर्म ही इस्तेमाल करें। चादर साफ और सूती हो।

आपका कमरा

-अच्छी नींद के लिए कमरा हवादार और शांत होना चाहिए।

-कमरे में शोर नहीं होना चाहिए। टीवी, ट्रैफिक या म्यूजिक सिस्टम की आवाज से नींद में बाधा पड़ती है।

-सोते समय कमरे की लाइट बुझा दें।

-कमरे के तापमान ज्यादा गर्म या ठंडा होने से भी नींद में खलल पड़ती है। कमरे में हवा आने का उचित प्रबंध होना चाहिए।

सोने का वक्त तय हो

अपने सोने का वक्त तय करें। सप्ताहांत भी इसे न बदलें। नियमित समय पर सोने की आदत डाल लेने से नींद आने में आसानी होती है।

-रात में सोने से दो घंटे पहले खाना खा लें। तलाभुना और मसालेदार खाने से परहेज करें।

-सोने से पहले एक गिलास गर्म दूध लेने से नींद अच्छी आती है।

-रात में कोई किताब या मैगजीन पढ़ें। अपना मनपसंद संगीत सुनें। ध्यान लगाएं।

-सोने पहले उन चीजों के बारे में न सोचें जो आपको तनाव देती हैं।

-बेडरूम में टीवी और कंप्यूटर मत रखें।

Aah, PPT, be aware when make up your own

The problem with PowerPoint
25 years of PowerPoint

PowerPoint Slide 1

PowerPoint Slide 2

PowerPoint Slide 3

PowerPoint Slide 4

PowerPoint Slide 5

PowerPoint Slide 6

PowerPoint Slide 7

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PowerPoint Slide 9

BACK 1 of 9 NEXT


If you have worked in an office in the Western world in the past 25 years, you will probably have sat through a PowerPoint presentation. But there's a problem. They're often boring, writes presentation expert Max Atkinson.

In the past 25 years, I've asked hundreds of people how many PowerPoint presentations they've seen that came across as really inspiring and enthusiastic.

Most struggle to come up with a single example, and the most optimistic answer I've heard was "two".

So what are the main problems?

SCREENS ARE MAGNETS FOR EVERYONE'S EYES

Beware of anyone who says that they're "just going to talk to some slides" - because that's exactly what they'll do - without realising that they're spending most of their time with their backs to the audience.
Barack Obama
Even Barack Obama needs an autocue on occasion

Yet eye contact plays such a fundamental part in holding an audience's attention that even as brilliant a speaker as Barack Obama depends on an autocue to simulate it.

So remember that the more slides you have and the more there is on each slide, the more distracting it will it be for the audience - whereas the fewer and simpler the slides are, the easier it will be to keep them listening.

READING AND LISTENING DISTRACTS AUDIENCES

If there's nothing but text on the screen, people will try to read and listen at the same time - and won't succeed in doing either very well.

If the print is too small to read, they'll get irritated at being expected to do the impossible. Nor does it help when speakers say "as you can see", or the equally annoying "you probably won't be able to read this".

SLIDES SHOULDN'T JUST BE NOTES

Few speakers are willing to open their mouths until they have their first slide safely in place. But all too often the slides are verbal crutches for the speaker, not visual aids for the audience.
Conference delegates sleep sweetly
Some presentations prove somewhat less than gripping

Projecting one slide after another might make it look as though you've prepared the presentation. But if you haven't planned exactly what you're going to say, you'll have to ad lib and, if you start rambling, the audience will switch off.

To avoid this requires careful planning. Do this before thinking about slides and you won't need as many of them - and the ones that you do decide to use are more likely to help to clarify things for the audience, rather than just remind you of what to say next.

INFORMATION OVERLOAD

You think bullet points make information more digestible? Think again. A dozen slides with five bullet points on each assumes that people are mentally capable of taking in a list of 60 points. If it's a 30-minute presentation, that's a rate of two-per-minute.
Monty Python scene with Frenchmen demonstrating sheep aircraft
This looks a fairly interesting visual aid

This highlights the biggest problem with slide-based presentations, which is that speakers mistakenly think that they can get far more information across than is actually possible in a presentation. At the heart of this is a widespread failure to appreciate that speaking and listening are fundamentally different from writing and reading.

In fact, the invention of writing was arguably the most important landmark in the history of information technology. Before writing, the amount of information that could be passed on to others was severely limited by what could be communicated in purely oral form (ie not much). But the ability to write meant that vast amounts of knowledge could be communicated at previously unimagined levels of detail.

The trouble is that PowerPoint makes it so easy to put detailed written and numerical information on slides that it leads presenters into the mistaken belief that all the detail will be successfully transmitted through the air into the brains of the audience.

THE BULLET POINT PROBLEM

A Microsoft executive recently said that one of the best PowerPoint presentations he'd ever heard had no slides with bullet points on them. This didn't surprise me at all, because we've known for years that audiences don't much like wordy slides and don't find them as helpful as pictorial visual aids.

What does surprise me is that so many of the program's standard templates invite users to produce lists of bullet points, when the program's main benefits lie in the creation of images. If more presenters took advantage of that, inspiring PowerPoint presentations might become the norm, rather than the exception.

Max Atkinson is the author of Speech-making & Presentation Made Easy.

Craft your speech: Use contrast

Want to know how to handle all of these?

By Denise Winterman BBC News Magazine

A brilliant speech can go down in history. But most of us write words the world will never listen to. Can speech-writing teach us skills for dealing with tricky situations in everyday life?

Pants. Just one of the reasons the US Embassy in Britain is currently advertising for a speech-writer. It says knowledge of the nuances between the Queen's English and American English is vital, for obvious reasons.

However speech-writing is about much more than trying to avoid red faces. As far back as the ancient Greeks, the power of carefully crafted words has been fully understood and expertly exploited.

OBAMA'S TECHNIQUES Three-part lists Imagery Anecdotes Alliteration Obama's victory speech

But rather than being all about creative flair a good speech-writer uses a number of techniques to get a point across. And these verbal tools are not only useful at the lectern, anyone can use them in everyday situations, from handling a boisterous child to reasoning with a traffic warden.

This is because speech-writing is the language of persuasion. And the average day largely consists of trying to persuade people, says Dr Max Atkinson, a communications consultant and author of Speech-Making and Presentation Made Easy.

"The way words are put together makes all the difference," he says. "It's often thought that great speakers are blessed with a gift, but they all use the same techniques. What makes people stand out is how often they use them.

"These techniques are the building blocks of effective speech-writing and can be used in other areas of life. Some people use them without even knowing. They are usually the best speakers and the most persuasive people, but anyone can learn them."

Mantra

Study great speeches and you will soon see a formula, agrees Adrian Furnham, professor of psychology at University College London. While some are more complex, others are relatively simple.

What makes the techniques adaptable to everyday life is the fact that language is governed by rules - rules we all learn from the time we begin to speak.

Try a three-part list of excuses

"Even the smallest child is learning the rules of language, and language acquisition and so these techniques can be applied to them," says Dr Atkinson.

"Research has shown that you can get a different reaction from a child depending on how you speak to them. Like everyone else, they respond to the way something is said."

In a nutshell, a great speech is communication at its most effective, and we all want to communicate effectively in whatever situation we find ourselves in, says professional speech-writer Lawrence Bernstein.

"The rules and techniques of good communication work on all levels - if you're on a stage speaking to thousands of people, asking your boss for a pay rise, trying to buy a new house, or teaching a class of 10 year olds."

So what are the best techniques?

CONTRASTS

A tactic used by John F Kennedy and by Margaret Thatcher.

No turning for Thatcher

People are still quoting JFK's line: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." And Baroness Thatcher was at her most formidable when she famously told the 1980 Tory party conference: "You turn if you want to, the lady's not for turning."

"Using contrasts is a real winner," says Dr Atkinson. "Research shows 33% of the applause a good speech gets is when a contrast is used.

"This is because you are often using a negative and then a positive and that has impact. It makes your point bigger and better."

It's a technique that translates into everyday life, especially with children. While explaining they can't have one thing, it's good to point out what they can have instead. "No, you can't have a skateboard of your own, but you can have a go on your brother's."

THREE-PART LISTS

Three really is the magic number. "Education, education, education" - Tony Blair's 1997 election-winning mantra. Or it can be a list as simple as "here, there and everywhere".

It's a technique used by US President Barack Obama - he used 29 three-part lists in roughly 10 minutes during his victory speech on election night, says Dr Atkinson.

The theory behind the technique is that three is the first and earliest point at which a possible list of similar words can become unequivocal. No other word needs to be added to make it a list.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen Power of three in the Lord's Prayer

"It's about completeness. A third word can give confirmation and completes a point," says Dr Atkinson. "It applies in all walks of life. Church services and prayer books are full of three-part lists. Research has shown that people know a prayer is finished when it ends with them praying for three things. They know to say 'Amen' and don't have to be prompted."

Also, it is economical - a third word is the earliest point at which a possible connection, implied by the first two, is confirmed. If you carry on listing items, say speech-writing experts, you risk being criticised for "going on and on". It can be the same in life in general.

IMAGERY AND ANECDOTES

Be it "opening doors" or "breaking down barriers", paint a carefully constructed picture with your words.

He waxed lyrical about his dream

"It's about taking people on a journey and making it memorable," says Prof Furnham. "Imagery and anecdotes are some of the best ways to do this and they can personalise things."

Again, it's President Obama who experts say is a master of this technique.

"He knows how to use imagery both to increase impact and to make his points. He paints an image but also evokes associations with great communicators of the past like Lincoln and King," says Dr Atkinson.

This technique works whether addressing a nation, or guests at a wedding, say experts.

BREAK THE RULES

A good speech-writer knows the rules to follow, and also how to break these to maximum effect. There is always room for the unexpected in a great speech, and in life, says Phil Collins, former speech-writer for Tony Blair.

If done well it can grab people's attention - and he should know. Mr Collins penned Mr Blair's joke about there being no danger of his wife "running off with the bloke next door".

It was one of the former prime minister's most unexpected and memorable lines, delivered in his last speech to a Labour conference in 2006. It was deftly done and showed a real understanding of Blair and Gordon Brown's prickly relationship.

"No one was expecting it, which is what made it so good and so memorable," he says. "Pitched right and delivered well, something unexpected will make people sit up and listen."