Mousetrap - 31

Really!
i used to believe
Did you once think that plastic surgery involved the use of plastic? That hypotenuse and hyperbole were animals, rather like the hippopotamus? Or even that the bogeyman would come and get you, or that if you frowned, your face would stay that way forever? You will be relieved to know that you are not alone. Go over to this site, and you can check out what other adults believed when they were children. Perhaps you’d care to contribute some of your own? The world (that’s the big round globe you saw in school) waits.

Sound minds
Inspired Indian Film Songs
Our film industry thinks nothing of lifting, without giving credit, tunes from other sources (heck, they lift entire films), usually western pop, but also picking on sources closer to home, like films from other regions. I once heard a friend play an album in which every song technically owed some other composer royalties. itwofs lists ’em in sequence of submission or discovery, and sorted by composer and language, and includes a small section on ad jingles that lift music. Most citations feature Real Media streams to help you compare copy with original. Nitpick: the site’s author credits singers rather than songwriters when referring to western pop. But, hey, music to the ears allasame.

Line Of Comedy
The Hot Spot Online
The story starts, according to the site, with an ice cream shop in Islamabad which has a cult following. The founders then brought out what they describe as an underground magazine, The Scream. Which grew in size and complexity until they decided to take the entire shebang online. Today, you have sections on Holly, Bolly and Lollywood, music, sound clips, underground flicks and, best of all, for ye of the free broadband connection in the office, a set of B- film extracts (look for Mini Flicks in the menu) which will yield much entertainment. We should sack the embassies, send our armies home, and let sites like these build our bridges. [Thank you, Vikram Joshi, Samit Basu]

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Blog of the week

Cut-paste
Awful Plastic Surgery
Speaking of plastic surgery, this site is devoted to that uplifting industry’s bloopers. The nose jobs gone awry. The collagen injections overdone. The breast implants that have taken on a shape of their own. The focus is on celebrities, natch, mainly from the US and UK film, music and fashion worlds, and the site seems to have quite a following, with readers sending in before & after pictures with their notes. Neatly archived using a blog’s reverse chronological style, the side menu also has selected articles highlighted, to help you find out exactly how much your favourite celeb’s, um, charms, owe to science. Oddly enough, there doesn’t seem to be a special section devoted to M Jackson, Esquire.


Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.

Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 11th December, 2005.

Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap