Blog Posts by Bijoy Venugopal

Bobby Whitlock with CoCo CarmelMusic aficionados who trace Eric Clapton's career before he shone as a solo star argue that there has never been a better Clapton than the maverick of Derek and the Dominos. Those are the very loyalists who will raise a glass of whatever they are swilling at the mention of Bobby Whitlock. Yet, despite his monumental contribution to the making of "Layla", the singular hit that looped the lives of Clapton and that late great Beatle George Harrison around common love interest Pattie Boyd, Whitlock himself did not become much of a household name. On the turntables of the faithful, however, he played on. He continued to anchor Clapton, assisting with writing memorable songs such as "Tell the Truth", "Keep on Growing", " I Looked Away", "Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad" and "Roll It Over".

Whitlock joined Clapton after parting ways with Delaney and Bonnie and Friends. Their profuse talents coalesced in Derek and the Dominos, a band where Eric was Derek and everyone else answered to nutty

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The Essential Billy Joel - CD coverBilly Joel once spat, "Have you listened to the radio lately? Have you heard the canned, frozen and processed product being dished up to the world as American popular music today?"

Today he might as well clench his fists and ask, "Have you listened to Justin Bieber?"

When he was Bieber's age, William Martin Joel boxed welterweight and broke his nose in a bout. Though he started taking piano lessons at five, Joel pursued a full-time career in music only after watching The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. The next year, aged 16, he began recording.

With the Long Island band The Hassles, the boy from the Bronx cut two commercially doomed albums. In 1970 he formed Attila, an organ-and-drums rock outfit with Hassles drummer Jon Small and, through a creatively trying time where he carried on with Small's wife Elizabeth Weber (whom he later married), recorded an album that sank on impact.

There was only so much battering even a young pugilist from a broken home could take. Joel bailed

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Much fuss has been made of a male goat in Lucknow that has started producing milk (watch the video). Now here's a primer for those who can't tell a male goat (for that matter, most four-legged mammals) from its biological mate: Look between the hind legs. This can be tricky, for the udders of female goats — or nannies — have two teats (unlike cows, which have four). In males, called billies, the corresponding appendage to be found there is the scrotum. Never expect milk from there — because that is NOT milk.

But hello, Sheru in Lucknow actually produced milk. Proof is in the white liquid squirting from his barely visible udders.

Is this some divine milkman at work? Sorry to burst your milky bubble, but no.

The last time I wrote about goats, people ganged up to get mine. So I'll keep this one short and pointed — the horns of the dilemma, I mean.

First off, Sheru isn't the first or the only billy-goat in the world to be the cynosure of

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David Beckham, Robert De Niro, Jude Law... there's no dearth of celebrity husbands who have flirted with disaster for the misdemeanors of their kids' nannies. I've not been that unlucky -- or lucky, depends on how you look at it -- but my experiences have been enlightening on the run and entertaining in retrospect. Here's my story:

Babysitting can be a nightmare, especially when taken literallyThe Greater Painted Snipe is one of the intriguing one-offs of the Animal Kingdom, and literally the closest living thing to a sitting duck. He is a drab, dull homebody whose singular goal is to keep his house in order and his brood well-fed. His sometime wife — the painted one — wears the proverbial pants and is an aggressive and promiscuous go-getter. She fights off other females for the attention of this dreary chump. Once he is suitably smitten, she conducts her business in a lustful frenzy. After she has accepted his seed, she potters around impatiently feigning interest in hubby and home. One stormy night, she lays her eggs and leaves. The next thing

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Just after midnight the stork flapped into the Philippines bearing Danica May Camacho, officially declared by the United Nations as the 7 billionth earthling. After the delirious jollity accompanying the newborn's arrival wore off, church bells that had started clanging to celebrate the announcement continued to peal. Could one detect a streak of despair in those strains?

Bluntly put, little Danica had set off the alarm.

On this overcrowded ark, that day-old Filipina is one more claimant to our meager resources. One more carbon footprint, albeit infant-sized, to hasten the juggernaut of climate change. One more mouth and belly to stake claim to precious — and increasingly scarce — stores of food and water. To chip away at diminishing fossil fuel reserves. To demand the denuding of another square kilometer of forest cover to sustain her burgeoning urban terrarium, the biodiversity of which is rapidly diminishing.

One more person to press home the alarming reality that one earth

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The former Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, now reported to be dead (see video) gave news editors a lifetime of nightmares with the stubbornly variable spellings of his last name. Variously spelled Qaddafi, Ghadafi, Gadafy and Kadafi, the confusion has not been cleared by the fact that his official website (link broken) spells it "Al Gathafi".

But don't let such trifles stop you from being a Gaddafi expert. Here are ten cool facts about the late dictator. Flaunt them at will and power your way through a water-cooler conversation.

Too bad we can't promise you a free return ticket to Tripoli — they aren't exactly in the mood to receive guests there right now.

1. The dictator took his last name from Qadhadhfa, the name

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Don't be thrown when Julian Barnes pops into cafeteria conversation. This handy guide will instantly upgrade your Barnes quotient and show off your newly acquired wisdom. Just remember to thank us when you shine. And maybe read a Barnes novel or three when you find the time.

1. Julian Barnes is an English writer. He is 65 years of age.

2. He won the Man Booker Prize for 2011 for his novel The Sense of an Ending, which The Guardian described as a "highly wrought meditation on ageing, memory and regret."

3. He has been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize three times previously for Flaubert's Parrot (1984), England, England (1998) and Arthur and George (2005).

4. On finally winning the Booker, Barnes remarked, "I didn't want to go to my grave and get a Beryl," he said. He was referring to Beryl Bainbridge, the English novelist who was shortlisted five times for the Booker but never won. She received a posthumous Best of Beryl Booker prize. Ironically, Bainbridge had been named among the "50Read More »

Two weeks ago, Bangalore Police Commissioner B G Jyothiprakash Mirji ruffled familiar feathers by bringing back into the limelight a ban on dancing in entertainment venues where live music is played. September 11, while the world was obsessing over the tenth anniversary of the iconic terrorist attacks that hit New York City, police raided a well-known watering hole in Bangalore and closed down a party in which international DJs were performing. The pub, police said, violated regulations that are required to be followed by venues that maintain dance floors.

This seemingly stray incident reignited the debate over "moral policing" and the clampdown on dancing and live music in Bangalore's watering holes. Though this subject has repeatedly made headlines, it has always been unclear as to why the issue is contentious in the first place.

Rewind to August 2008. Bangalore police enforced a ban on live music in venues that served liquor citing the Licensing and Controlling of Places of Public

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